When Mr. Kikin felt himself capable of human speech, he announced, with no greetings, complaints, or other preliminaries: “We commenced from here.” And he deposited a pebble on a Surrey crossroads not far off the high road from London Bridge. “To the southeast we proceeded, on a good road-”

“You were able to perceive the compass in the dark, then?” Orney asked.

“The phosphorus paint compounded by Freiherr von Leibniz, and daubed upon its card by Mr. Hoxton, performed as expected. It was right in my face, as bright as a full moon. I say we were going southeast on a good road-almost certainly this one,” insisted Kikin, streaking his finger across the map. “I counted, er…” and here he consulted his notes. “Seventy-eight revolutions of the wheel.” For Newton had proposed, and Saturn had constructed, a little device that produced a click every time the wheel went round.

“One thousand and thirty feet, then,” said Newton, having worked out the product in his head. For all of them knew by heart the circumference of the wheel in question.

But here Orney had anticipated, and prepared: he produced a ribbon of paper, marked with regularly spaced pen-lines, each neatly indexed with a number: 50, 100, 200, and so on. It was a scale that he had drawn up, demarcated not in feet, furlongs, or miles, but in revolutions of the wheel of Mr. Marsh’s vault-wagon. By snaking it down the road drawn on the map (for the road was not perfectly straight) he was able to show that, at a place near the eighty mark, there was an intersection with a smaller road. “That must be it,” Kikin said, and reviewed a spate of Cyrillic notations. “Yes, west-southwest for fifty ticks-then an elbow in the road, bringing us round to almost due south-three hundred and thirty ticks later we went up and over a stone bridge.”

This led to some back-tracking and head-scratching, for it was not clear which of several possible roads the wagon might have taken; but presently Leibniz noticed a bridge whose position was found to be consistent with all of Kikin’s data, and so they went on reckoning from there.

All in all, Kikin had marked down a couple of dozen changes in direction, three bridges, diverse segments of noticeably good or bad road, and the odd hill, village, obstreperous canine, or swampy bit. It became obvious, as they plotted his trajectory as a line of pebbles on the map, that the route was circuitous by design. But eventually it had come to an end in some place described by Kikin as reeking of sal ammoniac. There the wagon had been emptied. A different winding and looping course had then been traced to bring Mr. Marsh (and his hidden stowaway) back to the starting-place. Getting the outbound and the inbound data to agree with each other, so that they started and ended in the same places, while not blatantly contradicting the map’s assertions as to the locations of bridges, hills, amp;c., took twice as long as had been required for the wagon to actually cover the ground, and devolved into a lengthy progress of disputes about applied Euclidean geometry and the nature of absolute space: arguments that Newton and Leibniz were perhaps a bit too eager to engage in, so that Daniel had to intervene from time to time and ban Metaphysics. The accuracy of Mr. Kikin’s observations was called into question; he defended himself with less and less vehemence as the morning wore on, and in early afternoon could be seen dozing on a piled cargo-net. Factions developed, fissures opened within factions, alliances were forged and betrayed, outrage was manifested against the turncoats, who professed dedication only to higher principles of Truth.

But at some point it all fell into place and they came up with an answer-Daniel’s gold ring, set down at a particular location on the map-that was obviously right, and made them wonder why they had not seen it right away. Mr. Kikin, who only minutes earlier had been characterized as an innumerate poltroon, under suspicion of having fallen asleep between observations, was now hailed as the best chap ever; toasted; and likened to Vasco da Gama.

It was Daniel who ruined the celebratory mood by asking the question: “Now what?”

“If the map is to be trusted,” said Newton, “Jack’s urine-boiling operation is situated on a large estate, high in the North Downs.”

“As it would have to be,” Orney put in, “or the neighbors would complain of the stink.”

“Taking into consideration the size of the estate, the openness of the countryside, and the notorious and vicious character of Jack’s gang, I say ’twere foolhardy to approach the place without a company or more of armed men.”

“Then it is fortunate that you are a member of the Clubb, Sir Isaac,” Saturn said, “for I have seen you summon up just such a force when you were in need.” He was referring to the raid on the boozing-ken in St. Bride’s.

“The men you saw-and escaped from-on that occasion were Queen’s Messengers,” Newton said, “though of course they are called King’s Messengers as of two weeks ago. They are under the command of Mr. Charles White, who is a loyal minion of Bolingbroke. He aided me then, only as part of leading me into a trap. I do not phant’sy Mr. White will be disposed to aid us now.”

“But the power of Bolingbroke is destroyed,” said Kikin, “or so people are saying.”

“Not destroyed, sir,” Newton corrected him, “as long as his man guards the Mint, and the Pyx.”

“Is the Queen’s-pardon me, the King’s Own Black Torrent Guard not garrisoned at the Tower, and charged with guarding the coinage?” Orney inquired.

“Yes, but they are also under the command of Charles White,” said Newton.

“After Jack compromised the Pyx in April,” Daniel explained in an aside to Leibniz, “Bolingbroke made hay of it in Parliament, and said that this shewed the Whigs could not be trusted with the Mint. Thus did he gain authority over such matters.”

“Which he then delegated to White?”

“Indeed. Now, he is bound to be stripped of that authority when the Hanovers come in and the Whigs take power; but for now he commands both the King’s Messengers and the Black Torrent Guards; and he controls the Mint, and the Pyx.”

All faces had turned their way. Daniel’s sidebar with Leibniz had become the center of attention. Newton, in particular, was gazing into Daniel’s eyes, and had an expectant look about him.

“Since the events of a fortnight ago,” Daniel volunteered, “tensions between Whig and Tory, Hanover and Jacobite, have ebbed, but not altogether vanished. The troops of the Whig Association are still bivouacked all round the capital, ready to be called out in the event Bolingbroke attempts to seize power. Perhaps a company of such troops could be detailed to assist us in this matter. I shall make inquiries among men who have a say in such matters.”

The meeting went on for some little while after that, but in truth Daniel’s utterance had been the end of it. Isaac soon thought up a pretext for leaving. Kikin was gone a few minutes after that, and he took Leibniz with him so that they could transact unspecified Tsar-business en route. Threader and Orney were left to bait each other, as was their practice; though neither of them would dream of admitting to it, they had developed a kind of friendship.

Daniel and Saturn shared a water-taxi. Long before it reached London, Saturn had cause to regret this, for Daniel-who had been so content at the beginning of the day, sitting on his bale and watching the river flow by-had now become gloomy and brooding even by Saturnine standards. “Isaac will bring this to a head,” Daniel predicted. “Not for him the dodge, the accommodation, the quiet understanding. The armistice we made with Jack in the Black Dogg is forgotten. He must slay the bete noire. Ha! I wonder what he has in mind for me.”

Saturn had been squinting at some inconsequential thing on the river’s bank, hoping that his fellow-passenger would shut up if ignored long enough. This last remark, however, caused him to turn his head and fix his gaze on Daniel. “Why should he have anything in mind for you?”