Newton Cipher—Excerpt #6
For the next week or so, at the request of the publisher, I'll be posting short excerpts from my new supernatural thriller, The Newton Cipher. Enjoy! And if they whet your appetite an you want to read the entire book, you can find it here: The Newton Cipher
EXCERPT #6
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ALFIE GILL
British Library
London
The guard buzzed them through the Staff Only door, and Trina followed Alfie Gill into the bowels of the British Library. They passed narrow rows of shelves stacked with books ten-feet high, ducked behind heavy, fireproof doors and down hallways, making their way into the bowels of one of the world’s largest libraries. Gill chattered the entire time.
“... Edelstein came highly recommended by Professor McFee. But then he recommended you just as highly. I cannot tell you how happy we are to have someone with your expertise to look at these pages.”
“Why me—or Edelstein?” she said. “Surely there must be a dozen British scholars who can authenticate a Newton manuscript?”
“True, true,” he said, leading her to a locked door. Fishing a key out of his pocket, he opened it and ushered her through with a gentlemanly sweep of his arm. Their labyrinthine journey had ended in a small room. Trina looked around. There was a table with a gray archival box and two sets of white cotton gloves; two simple chairs were nearby. Gill closed the door and offered her one of the chairs.
“British scholars will of course make the official announcement. But, as I’m sure you can understand, before we make a public statement we want to make sure what we’ve found is indeed authentic. Imagine: never-before discovered papers of Sir Isaac Newton! It will be the historical discovery of the decade. But should we announce such a thing too quickly and they turn out to be forgeries, we would look ridiculous. The concern of our director is that British scholars would not be impartial in this matter. They might ... jump the gun. So we turned to Edelstein, and now, to you.”
“But what about Professor McFee, at Cambridge? She must know about this. After all, you said she was the one who first recommended Edelstein.”
“I only told her that we needed some seventeenth-century documents authenticated and asked if she could recommend someone— someone outside Britain. And of course, I must insist you not take any photos of these documents during your investigation. I’m sure you understand. Shall we get started?”
“I understand. And yes, lets.”
He pulled on a pair of gloves and she did the same. Oils from their skin, or dirt from their hands, could damage the old, fragile documents.
“Are they all paper?” she asked. “Rag or some sort of flax pulp?”
“Partly,” Gill said, taking the lid off the box. “The bundle we found contained documents that seem to have been produced at different times. Two have been identified as standard paper pulp, beaten from combed flax.”
“Stamper?” she said, referring to the type of large wooden press used in the Middle Ages and Renaissance to help flatten wet pulp into sheets of paper.
“Yes. They bear the standard, pre-Hollander beater marks.”
Trina was thrilled to be talking shop with a fellow expert. “That certainly fits with the late-seventeenth, early eighteenth century time frame. Well within the parameters of Newton’s life.”
“Yes.”
“You mentioned that they were partly paper. Was there vellum as well?”
“Indeed,” Gill said. He dipped into the box and pulled out the first of the documents, a broad sheet that bore multiple fold marks. At the bottom was an attached ribbon, affixed with a wax seal. “This one is vellum parchment.”
“Thin sheepskin,” Trina said. “Far more expensive back then, but made to last a very long time. And reusable—you could just scrape the ink off and write over it today, if you wanted to.”
“I can’t tell you how many vellum parchments we have in our collection that look like they were just written a few decades ago, if not yesterday. Astounding stuff.”
“Is that a royal seal?” Trina reached forward and gently lifted the hard, coin-shaped blob of red wax that dangled at the bottom of the parchment’s ribbon. It looked like a polished stone—it was almost certainly hundreds of years old. Impressed into the wax on one side was an image of a seated ruler holding an orb and scepter—the standard symbology of a king. On the other was an image of a galloping horse and a rider holding a sword. Around the edges was an inscription in Latin.
“Regius Caroli II ... King Charles the Second. That also checks out.”
“This is a contract,” Gill said. “I’ve gone over it. My Latin is rusty, but it contains multiple provisions for some kind of work-for-hire. In addition to a lot of what we would call boilerplate, it specifies the delivery of two products. One is referred to as the ‘medicine,’ medicinae, and the other as the ‘cleanser,’ or purgo. You are welcome to review it at your convenience. But here ...” he pointed to the bottom of the contract “... is the signature.”
*Is. Newton, baccalaureus artium.
EXCERPT #6
-------
ALFIE GILL
British Library
London
The guard buzzed them through the Staff Only door, and Trina followed Alfie Gill into the bowels of the British Library. They passed narrow rows of shelves stacked with books ten-feet high, ducked behind heavy, fireproof doors and down hallways, making their way into the bowels of one of the world’s largest libraries. Gill chattered the entire time.
“... Edelstein came highly recommended by Professor McFee. But then he recommended you just as highly. I cannot tell you how happy we are to have someone with your expertise to look at these pages.”
“Why me—or Edelstein?” she said. “Surely there must be a dozen British scholars who can authenticate a Newton manuscript?”
“True, true,” he said, leading her to a locked door. Fishing a key out of his pocket, he opened it and ushered her through with a gentlemanly sweep of his arm. Their labyrinthine journey had ended in a small room. Trina looked around. There was a table with a gray archival box and two sets of white cotton gloves; two simple chairs were nearby. Gill closed the door and offered her one of the chairs.
“British scholars will of course make the official announcement. But, as I’m sure you can understand, before we make a public statement we want to make sure what we’ve found is indeed authentic. Imagine: never-before discovered papers of Sir Isaac Newton! It will be the historical discovery of the decade. But should we announce such a thing too quickly and they turn out to be forgeries, we would look ridiculous. The concern of our director is that British scholars would not be impartial in this matter. They might ... jump the gun. So we turned to Edelstein, and now, to you.”
“But what about Professor McFee, at Cambridge? She must know about this. After all, you said she was the one who first recommended Edelstein.”
“I only told her that we needed some seventeenth-century documents authenticated and asked if she could recommend someone— someone outside Britain. And of course, I must insist you not take any photos of these documents during your investigation. I’m sure you understand. Shall we get started?”
“I understand. And yes, lets.”
He pulled on a pair of gloves and she did the same. Oils from their skin, or dirt from their hands, could damage the old, fragile documents.
“Are they all paper?” she asked. “Rag or some sort of flax pulp?”
“Partly,” Gill said, taking the lid off the box. “The bundle we found contained documents that seem to have been produced at different times. Two have been identified as standard paper pulp, beaten from combed flax.”
“Stamper?” she said, referring to the type of large wooden press used in the Middle Ages and Renaissance to help flatten wet pulp into sheets of paper.
“Yes. They bear the standard, pre-Hollander beater marks.”
Trina was thrilled to be talking shop with a fellow expert. “That certainly fits with the late-seventeenth, early eighteenth century time frame. Well within the parameters of Newton’s life.”
“Yes.”
“You mentioned that they were partly paper. Was there vellum as well?”
“Indeed,” Gill said. He dipped into the box and pulled out the first of the documents, a broad sheet that bore multiple fold marks. At the bottom was an attached ribbon, affixed with a wax seal. “This one is vellum parchment.”
“Thin sheepskin,” Trina said. “Far more expensive back then, but made to last a very long time. And reusable—you could just scrape the ink off and write over it today, if you wanted to.”
“I can’t tell you how many vellum parchments we have in our collection that look like they were just written a few decades ago, if not yesterday. Astounding stuff.”
“Is that a royal seal?” Trina reached forward and gently lifted the hard, coin-shaped blob of red wax that dangled at the bottom of the parchment’s ribbon. It looked like a polished stone—it was almost certainly hundreds of years old. Impressed into the wax on one side was an image of a seated ruler holding an orb and scepter—the standard symbology of a king. On the other was an image of a galloping horse and a rider holding a sword. Around the edges was an inscription in Latin.
“Regius Caroli II ... King Charles the Second. That also checks out.”
“This is a contract,” Gill said. “I’ve gone over it. My Latin is rusty, but it contains multiple provisions for some kind of work-for-hire. In addition to a lot of what we would call boilerplate, it specifies the delivery of two products. One is referred to as the ‘medicine,’ medicinae, and the other as the ‘cleanser,’ or purgo. You are welcome to review it at your convenience. But here ...” he pointed to the bottom of the contract “... is the signature.”
*Is. Newton, baccalaureus artium.
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