The system of the world - By Neal Stephenson Page 0,448

like a compliment: Isaac reaching down to pull Daniel up to his plane for a moment. Daniel was pleased, then wary.

“It is all White’s fault,” Isaac went on. “I do think that he meant to die—to put himself beyond the grasp of Justice. But the manner of his death he could not have foreseen—and it has wrought in my favor.”

“By throwing the new government into a sort of panic, you mean.”

By way of an answer, Isaac spread his hands, and looked about at all of the perfervid diggers. “When they have grown as bored as I am with the ransacking of this place, they’ll move on to Bridewell, and if nothing is found there, they’ll follow the trail to the Bank of England.”

Daniel knew that there was an appendix to this sentence, which need hardly be spoken aloud: unless you help me by giving me some of what I need. And for a moment Daniel was ready to nip down to the Bank and fetch out a bit of Solomonic Gold for good old Isaac. Why not? Solomon Kohan would notice that it had gone missing, and Peter the Great would wax wroth, but there would probably be a way to patch it up.

Then Isaac spoke: “They say that to hide the escape of the Shaftoes from the strong-room of the Fleet, an old gager got the Mobb drunk, and told them tall tales of buried gold.”

This curdled the whole thing. Daniel remembered, now, why he had good reason to hold on to every grain of the gold: because people wanted it, and so having it gave Daniel power he might need. And, too, he was reminded of the farcical nature of the whole Alchemical world-view. So he said nothing more of substance, but excused himself, and went up above ground, and a minute later had joined the Duchess of Arcachon-Qwghlm in that vacant apartment above what had been the Court of Technologickal Arts.

“YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE LEFT me alone here,” she said to him.

Somehow Daniel did not get the idea that she was complaining of a social faux pas. “Your grace?”

She was standing at a window that looked out over the Court, and talking over her shoulder at him. He approached, and drew up next to her, but well off to the side, so that the scurrying big-wigs below would not see them together in the window.

“Something has been troubling me about this investment ever since I agreed to it,” she continued.

These words, had they been spoken in anger, might have made Daniel spin on his heel and run all the way to Massachusetts. But she was bemused and a little distracted, with the makings of a smile on her lips.

She explained, “It came clear to me when I looked out this window. The last time I saw your Court of Technologickal Arts, it was a bazaar of the mind—all those clever men, each in his own wee shop, pursuing his peculiar interests, but exchanging ideas with the others when he went to fetch a cup of coffee or to use the House of Office. That seemed to work very well, didn’t it? And because I am curious about the same things, I was cozened by it—I admit that I was! And yet as enchanted as I was, a little voice kept whispering to me that it was not, au fond, a sound investment. Today I came here and found it all gone. All the clever fellows have packed up their tools and absconded. Only the land and the building remain. For those, your investors have overpaid. This place is destined to be just another suburban shop-block, of no greater value than the ones to the left and to the right.”

“As to the value of the property, I agree,” Daniel said. “Does that mean it was not a sound investment for you and for Roger Comstock?”

“Yes,” she said, again with a smile, “that is what it means!”

“In an accompt-book, maybe that is true—”

“Oh, believe me. It is.”

“But Roger never set much store by strict accompts, did he? He pursued more than strictly financial gain.”

“That is perfectly all right,” Eliza said. “You misunderstand me. I too have many goals that cannot be assessed or rendered in an accompt-book. But it has been my practice to keep those separate, in my head, from the sorts of projects that would make sense to any investor. In the case of the Court of Technologickal Arts, I made the error of confusing one with