The System of the World

The Kit-Cat Clubb
AN HOUR LATER

“SPLENDID BAUBLE,” SAID MR. THREADER, elevating his nose so that he could peer through his half-glasses at Daniel’s hand. “I say, you’re not turning into a Fopp, are you?”

“If I’d known all the fuss it would create I would never have put it on. May I have my hand back, please?”

“Who’s the German?”

“Our newest member.”

“I must remind you, Dr. Waterhouse, that this Clubb is bound by rules. Admission of new members is governed by several pages of the Bylaws, which you would do well to familiarize yourself with before showing up with-”

“The Baron is a court philosopher of Hanover, very influential there-”

“Right. He’s in! What’s his name?”

“He is here incognito. Just pretend you know who he is.”

In an apt demonstration of the principle just expounded by Daniel, of systems encapsulated within systems, this claque of frustrated prosecutors had been swallowed up by the Kit-Cat Clubb. It was all because Newton had joined, and thereby endowed it with Mystery and Prestige. They met in a private room in the back, so that blokes like Saturn and MacDougall could take part. There was now a waiting list twenty names deep of men who wanted to join-none of whom had more than a vague idea of the Clubb’s purpose. The fact that a Baron from the court of Hanover had secretly jumped this queue, on the very same day that a different member had been named a Regent, was going to make them all frantic. The Clubb would have to begin meeting in the Temple of Mithras just to get some privacy.

“Being a Regent has changed you!” Leibniz remarked, eyeing the ring.

“This damned thing is a present from that Solomon Kohan,” Daniel confided.

“He does not strike me as the gift-giving type.”

“After our visit to Bridewell, I presented him with a small purse containing bits of gold punched out of the cards. A few days later this ring was delivered to me by a Jew who has a goldsmith’s shop along Lombard. With it was a note from Monsieur Kohan. He had the bits melted down and poured into a ring-mold. This is the result.”

“It seems very courteous of him,” Leibniz said.

“I agree.”

But before they could enter into speculation as to Monsieur Kohan’s real motives, that Silence fell over the room that heralded the arrival of Sir Isaac Newton. It was a different room, and a different meeting suddenly. Isaac made his way around shaking the hands of the Members and Guests: Mr. Kikin, Mr. Orney, Mr. Threader, Saturn, MacDougall, Leibniz, and finally Daniel. There was something markedly chilly in the way he looked at and spoke to Daniel. His greeting of Leibniz was warm by comparison. It was almost as if by some sorcery Isaac had listened in on the things Daniel had been saying about him earlier in the day.

“I must have a private word with my lord Regent,” Isaac announced to the Clubb.

Shortly he and Daniel were facing off across a small table in the main room of the Kit-Cat. The intensity with which Isaac stared at Daniel held at bay any glad-handing Kit-Catters who might have wanted to come over and congratulate the new Regent.

“It is but a week since we spoke to Jack the Coiner in the Black Dogg,” Isaac reminded him. “What are your intentions?”

“The Duke of Marlborough wants a Trial of the Pyx at the time of the Coronation,” Daniel said, and paused for a moment in case Isaac was going to have a stroke. Isaac flinched and colored but went on living. “In the absence of any communications from Mr. Shaftoe-have you heard from him?”

“No.”

“Neither have I. We must continue as before. If he wishes to resume negotiations, we may then deal from a position of greater strength.”

Isaac was not even looking at him.

“What is your position?” Daniel asked.

“I desire what I have always desired,” Isaac said. “Your machinations with Baron von Leibniz have made it harder to get-for much of it is now locked up in a tomb in Clerkenwell, and promised to the Tsar. But Jack might yet have some. Ergo, I must redouble my pursuit of Jack.”

“What if a situation were to arise, Isaac, in which you were presented with a choice: on the one hand, striking a deal with Jack that would end the peril he poses to the currency and to the King, but leave you wanting what you seek. On the other, pursuing Jack to the bitter end in the hopes of getting his gold, but at the risk of failing the Trial of the Pyx?

“You ask questions like a Regent,” Isaac said.

“Like it or not, I am one, and must ask such questions. And the question boils down to this: Do you respect the authority of the King, or of Regents appointed to act in his stead, and do you place the Mint and the Currency above other, more personal interests? Or does the Philosoper’s Stone come first?”

“I find it astonishing that the son of Drake would even be capable of forming such a question in his mind, let alone asking it. Did you learn nothing from him?”

“You mistake me. I do not care a fig for the King. In this I am one with Drake. But Drake also taught me the value of money. I may not love money as much as some, but I do respect it. Do you?”

“Do you, Daniel, really believe that I left the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, and came to the Mint, solely out of an interest in numismatics?”

“Well answered,” Daniel said. “Since we agree it is in our interests to continue the pursuit of Jack, let us rejoin the others in back.”

YET ANOTHER NEW GUEST HAD come in through the alley-door, and joined the group in the back room, while Daniel and Isaac had been talking. He was a humble humble man, so hunched, so cringing in his posture that one might think Fellows of the Royal Society had waylaid him in the alley and surgically removed his collar-bones. He was kneading his hat to keep his hands from trembling. He smelled bad, and unlike many who do, he well knew it. Yet Mr. Threader was clapping him on the shoulder as if he were a favorite nephew being sworn in to the Bar. “I present Mr. Marsh!” Threader proclaimed. “Mr. Marsh has been the subject of the Clubb’s deliberations before.”

“I have forgotten those deliberations,” Daniel confessed, “and some of us have never heard them in the first place.”

“Infernal Devices require phosphorus,” Threader said, “and we have already heard from Mr. MacDougall about the large order he has recently placed for same. It shall lead, in coming weeks, to the boiling-down of a stupendous volume of urine.”

“We covered this in our meeting two days ago,” Daniel reminded him, “but who is Mr. Marsh?”

“The last time the Clubb attempted to trace the flow of urine from Town to Country, we deputized Monsieur Arlanc, the now infamous, to canvass the Vault-men of Fleet Ditch. He directed our attention to the sad tale of a particular Vault-man who, for reasons unexplained, had driven his load out into Surrey. There he ran afoul of some young blades who were so offended by the fragrance of the vehicle that they drew their swords, and slew his horse, on the spot, depriving the poor owner of his livelihood. Henry Arlanc claimed he had made inquiries, up and down the lower Fleet, as to where the unfortunate fellow might be found, and had been assured that he had gone off to dwell with his family far away.”

“Now I remember it,” Daniel said. “We threw up our hands and no more pursued this thread of the investigation.”

“Arlanc lied,” Mr. Threader proclaimed. “After he was led away in chains, I asked myself, could we credit the representations he had made to us concerning the Vault-man? Since then I have made inquiries of my own. Very little effort was required to learn the truth: the Vault-man had not fled the city after losing his horse, but had gone to work for another chap in the same line of work, and could be found on the brink of the Fleet any night of the week. Last night, I found him. I present to you Mr. Marsh.”

This actually produced a light round of applause-from the looks of it, not a familiar sound to the ears of Mr. Marsh.

“Long have I looked forward to asking you one question, Mr. Marsh,” said Orney. “On the night your horse was slain, what on earth had induced you to drive your load into Surrey?”

“I was to be paid, guv’nor,” said Mr. Marsh.

“Paid by whom?”

“By certain blokes in those parts who pay money for piss from time to time.”

“Who are they, and where do they live?”

“No one knows, guv’nor.”

“But if you bring them urine, and they pay you money, how can you not know?”

“You takes your wagon to a certain crossroads at midnight, and you blindfolds yourself. When they see you’re blindfolded, they come out of hiding, and get into the driver’s seat beside you without saying a word. Round and round and up and down and to and fro they drive, for an hour or more, so you’ve no notion of where you are. Finally you comes to a place where the wagon is emptied. Then they drive you back by the same mazy way you came. Off comes the blindfold. You’re back where you started. A purse of money is on the seat beside you.”

There was a silence as Mr. Marsh’s singular narration was considered. Then Newton spoke: “Your horse is slain. But what became of your wagon?”

“It is still in Surrey, guv’nor.”

“Then let us go and fetch it, and bring it to the Court of Technologickal Arts-assuming that Dr. Waterhouse gives his consent-for some repairs, and some alterations,” Isaac said. “I have an idea.”