Newton’s Fire

IV

It was Luke who got the nod from Pelham. ‘I found something earlier today,’ he told Olivia. ‘A folder of lost Newton papers.’

Her eyes glinted and she leaned forwards in her chair. ‘One of the Sotheby’s lots? How thrilling! But what do they have to do with me?’

He passed her the relevant page of the printout and directed her attention to Newton’s cryptic message. Olivia put on her reading glasses, held it up to the light of an ebony lamp. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Received from E.A. — and you’re thinking Elias Ashmole?’

‘Newton wrote this in 1692,’ said Luke. ‘At least, that’s what the citations and watermark suggest. Ashmole died in May that year. So we think it was probably a bequest.’

Olivia shook her head. ‘But why would Ashmole leave anything to Newton? They hardly knew each other.’

‘We don’t know that,’ said Luke. ‘Not for sure. They could easily have known each other well through the alchemists’ network.’

‘The alchemists’ what?’ asked Rachel.

‘All the alchemists were in surreptitious contact with one another,’ explained Olivia. ‘They had to be, to trade their texts and furnaces, share their potions and theories. So we have overwhelming evidence for some kind of network, but sadly we know next to nothing about how it worked.’

Luke got to his feet and went across to Olivia to point out the bottom line. ‘This is really why we’re here,’ he said. ‘This bit about “in Salomans House well concealed”.’

Olivia nodded. ‘And you think that’s the Ashmolean he’s referring to?’

‘Actually, we rather assumed it was the Royal Society? Why? Was the Ashmolean known as Saloman’s House too?’

‘Oh yes. Everything was back then. It was a real bandwagon for a while. We brought out a history a few years back: Solomon’s House in Oxford.’ She pushed herself to her feet to go fetch it when she paused, squinted at him. ‘But why are you here if you didn’t know that?’

‘There’s an anagram,’ Luke told her. ‘Rachel spotted it. Saloman’s House comes out as Sous Ashmolean.’

‘Sous Ashmolean?’ Olivia looked at him with amused consternation. ‘You’re not suggesting there’s something beneath my museum floor?’

‘We’re suggesting that Newton’s note implies it,’ said Pelham, with uncharacteristic moderation. ‘Why? Don’t you think it’s even possible?’

‘No. I don’t think it’s even possible. The Ashmolean opened in 1683. It had been up and running for nine years by 1692. And the basement wasn’t some abandoned storage area. It was one of the world’s pioneering scientific laboratories. Then it became England’s leading anatomy lecture hall. Don’t you think someone might have noticed Sir Isaac Newton turning up one afternoon with a pickaxe over his shoulder? And don’t you think that, during one or other of our various refurbishments, someone would have spotted some trace of this mysterious-’ She broke off, put a hand to her chest, her breath suddenly coming a little faster. ‘Oh my lord,’ she murmured. ‘Oh my good lord.’

‘What?’ asked Luke. ‘What is it?’

‘No. No. It’s nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing.’

‘Then you won’t mind telling us.’

She shook her head reluctantly. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘It’s just that one of my predecessors as curator used to tell a story. But no one ever took it seriously. He was always telling stories.’

‘And what was this story?’

She let out a long sigh. ‘His name was Conrad Josten. I knew him a little when I was an undergraduate. He was fascinated by Ashmole. He wrote his biography. Anyway, he oversaw a major refurbishment back in the 1960s. After the workmen had broken up and removed the old basement floor, but before they laid the new one, he ran a metal detector over it.’

‘He found something?’

‘So he claimed. Something big. Something iron.’

‘And he didn’t investigate further?’

She shook her head. ‘You’ve no idea what it’s like to run a museum, have you? Deadlines to meet, exhibitions to put on, absurdly tight budgets. Dig up a floor on a whim like that and you’d better find Sutton Hoo or start looking for a new job.’

‘So whatever it was is still down there?’

‘If there ever was anything there, which I doubt. Conrad was quite capable of spinning the slightest anomaly into some great mystery. And metal detectors were dreadfully crude beasts back then, minesweepers really, nothing like as sensitive as the ones we have today.’

‘But that’s a brilliant idea!’ enthused Pelham. ‘You’re exactly right!’

Olivia looked startled. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘We need to run a modern metal detector across your basement floor. Something state-of-the-art. Something infinitely more sensitive than what Josten had. What an inspired thought.’

‘That’s not what I meant at all!’

‘Of course it was,’ Pelham assured her. ‘Maybe not consciously, but I’ll bet it’s what your id was thinking.’ He grinned wickedly at her. ‘Come on, Olivia. You know you want to.’

‘I can’t. I really can’t. What if we found something?’

‘What kind of attitude is that?’ protested Pelham. ‘Don’t I remember you giving a talk about the virtue of relentless curiosity? That was you, wasn’t it? My memory’s not playing tricks?’

She gave him a look that could have burned toast. ‘It would never work,’ she said. ‘We’ve laid far too much concrete over the years.’

‘The latest remote sensing devices are extraordinary,’ said Rachel. ‘I spent two seasons mapping a site near Antioch with them. You wouldn’t believe how much we found, and how deep. Ten or even fifteen metres, some of it. And we could still make out what metals the artefacts were made from and how big they were.’

‘You’ve used them before, then?’ asked Luke. ‘You could do it at the museum?’

‘Sure. If it’s a model I know.’

Olivia shook her head. ‘We’ve got a history of time running in our basement. I’m not moving all our exhibits and cabinets for this. I’m simply not. It’s too absurd.’

‘What kind of cabinets?’ asked Rachel. ‘Are they solid or on legs?’

Olivia pulled a face, unwilling to cede ground. But she was too honest to lie. ‘On legs,’ she admitted.

‘Then they won’t be a problem,’ Rachel assured her. ‘We can sweep beneath them, like vacuuming under the bed.’

Olivia gave a little wail. ‘Where would we even get a metal detector at this time of night?’

‘Come on, Olivia,’ said Pelham. ‘This is Oxford. You can barely walk down the street for archaeologists lugging around remote sensing devices. You must know someone.’

‘Oh, Lord,’ she said. ‘We could try Albie, I suppose.’

‘Perfect!’ said Pelham. ‘Albie’s exactly the man.’

‘You know him?’

‘Not yet. And I never will, not unless you make the call.’

‘I knew I was going to regret this,’ said Olivia, ‘the moment I heard your voice.’ But her cheeks were flushed and there was a sparkle in her eyes as she went to her phone and flipped through her address book for Albie’s number.