“I amuse my masters,” he replied in a disagreeable tone. “They want to find out what happens if you mix verdigris with oil of niter, so I mix it for them. What happens if you heat it, so I heat it.”
“And then try to work out why it happens.”
He waved his hand airily. “Pfaf. No. We try to work out how it happens. Not why.”
“There is a difference?”
“Of course. A dangerous difference. The gap between how and why troubles me greatly, as it should you. It is a difference that will bring the world down on our heads.” He blew his nose and looked at me with distaste. “Look,” he continued, “I am a busy man. You have come here with a problem. It must be a problem of chemistry, otherwise you wouldn’t have demeaned yourself by asking me a favor. Correct?”
“I have a very high opinion of your abilities,” Lower protested. “I’ve given you evidence enough of that, surely. I have been paying you for lessons for long enough.”
“Yes, yes. But I haven’t been overburdened by social calls. Not that I mind, as I have better things to do than talk.
So if you want a favor of me, tell me what it is, then go away.”
Lower seemed quite used to this performance. I probably would have walked out by this stage, but he very placidly took the brandy bottle out of his satchel, and put it on the table. Stahl peered at it closely—I could see that he was short-sighted, and probably could have done with a pair of spectacles.
“So? What’s this?”
“It’s a bottle of brandy, with a strange slurry at the bottom, which you can see as well as I can, despite your pretense of being blind. We want to know what it is.”
“Aha. Was Dr. Grove killed by Spirits or by spirits? That’s the problem, is it? Is their wine the poison of dragons and the cruel venom of asps?”
Lower sighed. “Deuteronomy 32:33,” he responded. “Just so.” And then stood patiently as Stahl went through an elaborate display of apparent thought.
“So, how do we test this substance, even though it is corrupted by the liquid?” The German thought some more. “Why don’t you offer that tease of a servant of yours a glass of this brandy one evening, eh? Solve two problems in one go?”
Lower said he didn’t think this was a very good idea. It would, after all, be hard to repeat the experiment even if it were successful. “Now, will you help us, or not?”
Stahl grinned, showing a range of blackened, yellowing stumps that passed for teeth and which might well have accounted for his ugly temper. “Of course,” he said. “This is a fascinating problem. We need a series of tests that can be repeated, and be sufficiently numerous so that it will identify this sediment. But first I have to extract this sediment in a usable form.” He pointed at the bottle. “I suggest you go away and come back in a few days. I will not be rushed.”
“Perhaps we might start, though?”
Stahl sighed, then shrugged and stood up. “Oh, very well. If it will rid me of your company.” He went over to a shelf and selected a flexible tube with a piece of thin glass on the end, and inserted this into the open end of the bottle, which he placed on the table. Then, crouching down, he sucked on the other end of the tubing, and stood back as the liquid ran swiftly into a receptacle which he had placed underneath.
“An interesting and useful exercise,” he observed. “Common enough, of course, but fascinating nonetheless. As long as the second part of the tube is longer than the first, the liquid will continue to flow out, because the liquid falling downward weighs more than the liquid being required to flow upward. If it didn’t, a vacuum would form in the tube, which is impossible to sustain. Now, the really interesting question is, what happens if…”
“You don’t want to suck all the sediment out as well, do you?” Lower interrupted anxiously as the level of brandy fell toward the bottom of the bottle.
“I saw it, I saw it.” And Stahl quickly whipped the glass tube out.
“And now?”
“And now I remove the sediment, which must be washed and dried. This will take time, and there is no reason at all for you to be here.”
“Just tell us what you plan.”
“Simple enough. This is a mixture of brandy and sediment. I shall heat it gently to evaporate the liquid, then wash it in fresh rainwater, allow it to settle once more, again decant the liquid off and wash and dry it a second time. It should be fairly pure by then. Three days, if you please. Not a moment earlier, and if you do turn up before then, I won’t talk to you.”
And so I followed lower back to new college, and the warden’s lodgings, a large pile which occupied much of the western wall of the quadrangle. We were taken by the servant into the room in which Warden Woodward received guests, and found Locke already there, stretched out in conversation by the fire, as easy as if he owned the place. There was, I thought, something about the man which could always inveigle his way into the good graces of the powerful. How it was I do not know; he was neither easy of manner nor particularly good company, and yet the assiduity of his attention to those he considered worthy of him was so great that it was irresistible. And, of course, he carefully crafted his reputation for being a man of the utmost brilliance, so that these people ended up patronizing him and feeling grateful for it. In later years he went on to write books which pass for philosophy, although a cursory reading suggests that they do little but carry his bent for flattery onto the metaphysical plane, justifying why those who patronize him should have all power in their hands. I did not like Mr. Locke.
His ease and self-assurance in the presence of Warden Woodward contrasted with the manner of my friend Lower, who fell into despondency when required to produce the mixture of deference and politeness required for dealing with those greater than he. Poor man; he desperately wanted favor, but had not the ability to pretend, and his awkwardness was all too frequently viewed as rudeness. Within five minutes the fact that Lower had been asked to examine Grove’s body with Locke there merely to observe had been all but forgotten; all the conversation passed between the lengthy philosopher and the warden, while Lower sat uncomfortably by the side, his humor sinking as he listened in awkward silence.
For myself, I was gladly quiet, as I did not wish to incur Woodward’s displeasure again, and it was Locke—to give him credit—who rescued me.
“Mr. Cola here was dismayed at your censure of him earlier in the day, Warden,” he said. “You must remember he is a stranger in our society and knows nothing of our affairs. Whatever he said was perfectly innocent, you know.”
Woodward nodded, and looked at me. “Please accept my apologies, sir,” he said. “But I was distraught and did not mind my words as I should have done. But I had received a complaint the previous evening, and misconstrued your meaning.”
“What sort of complaint?”
“Dr. Grove was being considered for a living and was likely to be given the place, but a complaint was lodged only yesterday evening which alleged he was of a lewd way of life, and should not be appointed.”
“This was the Blundy girl, was it not?” Locke asked in a wordly, disinterested fashion.
“How do you know that?”
Locke shrugged. “Common knowledge in the taverns, sir. Not that that fact makes it true, of course. Might I ask where this complaint came from?”
“It came from within the Fellowship,” Woodward said.
“And more particularly?”
“More particularly it is a college matter alone.”
“Did your complainant give any evidence for the accusation?”
“He said that the girl in question was in Dr. Grove’s room yesterday evening, and he had seen her go in. He complained lest others see her and bring its reputation into question.”
“And was that true?”
“I had planned to ask Dr. Grove this morning.”
“So, she was there last night, and Grove was dead this morning,” Locke said. “Well, well…”