namely silver.”
The rabbi paused to allow the emperor to absorb this bit of information, which ran counter to the most commonly held beliefs about our people.
“Even the very dust under your feet may contain hidden mysteries,” said Rabbi Loew. “So it is with the Jews, who may be scattered like the dust of the earth, but as hard as men may try to trample us with their boots, we will persist, like the dust, and will not go away. In this same way, the source of truth may not be a glittering jewel like the much-coveted Philosopher’s Stone. It may initially appear to be of little value.”
“Then I may have just the tool you need for such a quest,” said the emperor. “You must observe this, for it is a most amusing curiosity. Step this way.”
He led us over to his workbench and swept his hand toward the cylindrical device that he had been peering into when we first entered the chamber.
“A Franciscan friar who men call Dr. Mirabilis and some of the Italian oculists have known for some time that a convex lens that can form an image of a faraway object will, if combined with an eye-lens with the correct—uh, focal point, I believe is the term—will magnify the image. So come forward, and if any of you have something that you’d like to see magnified, pray put it here. This apparatus only works with opaque objects. That is, it can’t bring the invisible to light, but virtually anything viewed here might reveal something hitherto unseen of its own peculiar texture. Why, even the dirt under your fingernails may provide clues as to what you had for breakfast.”
“We don’t have any dirt under our fingernails,” said Rabbi Gans. “We cleaned them for Shabbes.”
“Oh. Yes, of course.”
There was an awkward silence, then suddenly my hand flew to my chest as if it had a will of its own, searching for the shape beneath the folds of my cloak, in my inner pocket, finally clutching the pouch that I deposited there with such ceremony the day before.
“This, Your Majesty,” I said, removing the pouch. “I want to examine this.”
“What is it?”
“It is a sample of material that I collected from the floor of Federn’s shop. It may contain traces of the killers’ essential humors.”
It was a good thing the emperor was so fascinated by our “Jewish knowledge,” because when I dumped the contents out on a sheet of paper, he did not flinch or curl his lip in contempt, but eagerly took a pinch of the sweepings and placed it on a metal plate beneath the brass cylinder. He repositioned the device, aiming it more toward the light, and fiddled with one of the knobs until the image came into focus.
“There,” he said. “Yes, some of it certainly looks like ordinary dirt, but there are quite a few sparkles of light reflecting off what appear to be tiny bits of quartz. I’d have to summon the court geologist to be certain, but I’d say that this dirt has probably been combined with sand.”
“Sand? From where?” asked Rabbi Loew.
“It must come from the riverbank,” said Rabbi Gans.
The emperor went on: “And this looks like a hair from somebody’s head, or perhaps an eyelash, since it’s so short and raspy-looking, and what must be a tuft of coarse fabric of some kind, and—I say, this is rather odd.”
“What?”
“It appears to be a strand of fine silver thread.”
“The shop had been swept clean for Pesach the night before,” I said. “And the Federns weren’t wearing any clothes with fine silver thread that morning.”
“Have a look for yourself.”
It certainly appeared to be as the emperor had described. There was no mistaking the look of real silver, even though the true object was barely visible to the naked eye.
There was general amazement.
“This comes directly from God, who is lighting the way for us to find the guilty ones,” said Rabbi Loew.
But enough amazement. The hour was getting late. So I said, “This is all very well and fruitful, Your Majesty, but we actually came here to ask you a question.”
“Really? By all means, you may ask me anything you want.”
I saw the rabbis’ brows darken with trepidation.
“Will you grant us permission to examine the body of the victim?”
The rabbis’ eyes screamed Are you crazy? How could you even think of asking such a thing?
“The young Christian girl?” said the emperor. “I don’t know. Imagine the reaction from the people—and the Church—at a time like this,