They were still standing there when the door of the house opened and the Professor came out, followed by his two sheepish-looking henchmen. They all had their hands in the air, which made them look like plain-clothes morris dancers.
“Hold it right there,” Danny snapped, and waved his gun. Even if nobody else was going to take this seriously, he was. They ignored him. It wasn’t fair.
“Miss Doland,” said the Professor, “before you go, would you like some tea?”
“Tea?”
“Or coffee,” said the Professor. “And if you could spare the time, there is a message I’d be grateful if you would take to Mr Vanderdecker.”
Jane frowned. “I thought you couldn’t make any sense of what I told you,” she said.
“I looked up some old records,” the Professor replied. “So, if it wouldn’t put you out too much…”
“Thank you,” Jane said, putting her gun in her pocket as if it were a powder compact. “Two sugars, please.”
∨ Flying Dutch ∧
TWELVE
This,” said the Professor, “is my computer.”
Danny, balancing his gun and a plate on his knee while he ate a sticky bun, looked up. Montalban was pointing at the harpsichord.
“Of course,” the Professor went on, “it’s rather an old–fashioned design. In particular, it has no screen; instead it prints out simultaneously.” He picked up what Jane had taken to be the sheet music and pointed to it. “You see,” he said, “when I first invented the computer in seventeen—sixteen ninety-four, the nearest approximation to a letter-free system of abstract notation was written music, and I adapted the principle for my own purposes. Minims, crotchets and quavers each have their own quantitative value in Base Seven, and as it happens it’s an extremely powerful and flexible system: much better than the binary systems that I used in the first commercial models. Since I’d got used to it over the years, I never bothered to transcribe all my data resources into the new computer languages that have since been developed; I’ve simply tinkered with my original design as and when I needed to. So now my system is entirely sufficient for my needs, with the added advantage that nobody else in the world can understand it. Complete secrecy and immunity from the attention of…Hackers, I think they’re called.”
“That’s right,” Jane said. “That’s very impressive.”
“Is it?” The Professor was mildly surprised. “I certainly don’t aim to impress. For virtually the whole of my working life, I’ve sought to do the opposite; to keep out of the limelight, so to speak. Absolutely essential, if I’m to be able to get on with my work in peace and quiet. Which is why I formed the Cirencester Group.”
“Ah,” said Danny.
“I originally founded it,” Montalban said, “in seventeen—when was it, now? It was just after the collapse of the South Sea Company. Have some more tea, and I’ll tell you about that.”
The tea was cold, but nobody mentioned it. Danny had put his plate and gun on the floor by now, and was taking notes.
“The South Sea Bubble,” said the Professor, “was my doing. I needed an economic collapse, you see.”
“You needed one?” Danny said.
“Does that make me sound terribly selfish?” the Professor said. “Well, perhaps I am. In order to get the resources I required, I had to get control of large financial and mercantile institutions. The best way to get control is to buy when prices are cheap, following a slump. I couldn’t afford to wait for a slump, so I created one. First I built up a bubble and then I pricked it. It wasn’t hard; I engineered certain changes in the national economy, by introducing new technology and new industrial processes. I put the capital I had built up by the practice of alchemy into the bubble, and the bubble grew; then I pricked it, as I said. The computer was invaluable, of course.”
“I see,” Jane said. “And then?”
“And then I got on with my work, and left all that side of things to the computer. I had programmed it to handle the economies of the developed nations, and that’s what it did. That, in fact, is what it still does.”
This time it was Neville’s turn to look shocked. “You never told me,” he said.
“I know,” said the Professor, “and I do apologise. But if you’d known, I’m afraid you couldn’t have resisted the chance to make very substantial sums of money for yourself. Instead, you have helped me, and by so doing merely made substantial sums of money. I think you have been reasonably treated, all in all.”
“Just a moment,” Jane said. “This work of yours. What exactly is it?”
“Very simple,” said the Professor. “You asked me if I smelled. I do not. That is my work.”
“But you don’t,” Jane said. “Have you finished, then?”
“Nearly,” the Professor said, “but not quite. I discovered that the elixir which Captain Vanderdecker and I both drank fundamentally altered our molecular structures. The change was similar to the effect of bombardment with intense radiation—we had become, if you like, isotopes of ourselves. I hope I’m not being too technical.”
“You are a bit,” Jane said, “but please go on.”
