“I quite hope it’s the latter,” I said.
“If it is, you’ll have a date with the noose.”
I stuck a finger in my shirt collar. “That would be unpleasant.”
“Not for me,” he said. A tight-lipped smile creased Knifing’s sepulchral features.
I leaned back against the velvet upholstery of the big chair. “Surely, you don’t think I killed the girl?”
“You’re as good a suspect as any. People tell me you made a crass and explicit sexual proposition to Felicity a couple of months ago, and responded with anger when she rejected you. Is that true?”
I rubbed my fingers across a carved armrest. “I don’t recall.”
“Lying to me is a futile enterprise, Lord Byron. I’m difficult to deceive, and I’m smarter than you.”
I shifted my weight, and crossed my legs in what I thought was a rakish manner. “No, I mean, that probably happened. But I don’t recall. I make crass sexual advances toward almost every woman I encounter, you see. Usually, when I’ve had a lot to drink.”
“You’re often drunk?” His eyebrow arched, stretching that long, wicked scar as he regarded me with distaste.
I shook my finger at him. “I’m drunk right now, as it happens.”
“It’s the middle of the afternoon, on a Tuesday.”
“Time is of little concern to me. I haven’t slept in days.” For some reason, I was proud of this. “May I offer you some whisky?”
“Certainly not.” The furrows beneath his cheeks seemed to deepen.
“Very good.” I produced a silver flask from my waistcoat pocket and tipped it back. “More for me.”
“Are you telling me, then, that you had no particular animus toward this victim?”
“Until you told me, I was unaware I had ever met her. And I’ve no particular animus toward anyone. I’m quite peaceful.” I adjusted my position on the chair, because my gun was poking me in the back.
“If you’re lying, I’ll find out,” Knifing said.
I indulged in another nip from the flask. “You don’t really believe I could have done this, do you?”
He rubbed his chin, pretending to think about it. “I’ll tell you one thing. You’ve earned a fine reputation as a villain. There are plenty of thieftakers and bounty hunters I know who would send you up and collect the fee. It’s a right good day’s work.”
“You’d see me hanged to save yourself the trouble of doing your job?”
He smiled again, and I worried his face would crack from the strain. “I’d rather enjoy seeing you hanged, even if I had to keep the trouble.”
“But you won’t accuse me of the crime?”
“For the moment, I don’t intend to. You should understand, though, that I’m not sparing you because of any admirable qualities you possess, Lord Byron. As best I can tell, you have none. Your poetry is shit and your morals are abhorrent. And I’m not sparing you because I am especially ethical or fastidious about my work. I am satisfied with the arrest of a plausible suspect, in most cases. That’s generally the best anyone can expect from men in my profession, and there’s little profit in raising people’s expectations.”
He took a couple of steps forward, so he was standing very close to me.
“You might think that men like me are in the business of uncovering truth or delivering justice,” he said. “We are not. The people who hire me have had their perception of safety upset by intrusion upon their rights, often by violence. They seek from me a catharsis; they want the disorder repaired. My job is to reaffirm the security of their position at the top of the roiling mass of civilization so that they can continue to live as they did before the disruption. My clients don’t want me to deliver them further uncertainty, and I never disappoint the people who pay me. I don’t think it’s likely that you killed Felicity Whippleby, but I’ve got nobody better to accuse yet.”
“What about Sedgewyck?”
Knifing knew, of course, that I was pressing him for information. He considered the implications of bestowing some upon me, and seemed to decide that I presented no threat that required him to hold his tongue. “Angus the Constable likes him for the killer,” he said.
“What do you think?”
“Whatever Angus likes, I am inclined to take the opposite viewpoint,” Knifing said. “Angus is the sort of fellow who couldn’t deduce the existence of his own arse-hole if he took off his trousers and sniffed at the brown stain in the seat of them. And I’ve other reasons to doubt Sedgewyck’s guilt. Based on my investigation of the murder scene, I believe the culprit gained access to Felicity’s dormitory through an open second-floor window, not a typical mode of entry for an invited guest. If the killer was not someone she knew, he may well be impossible to conclusively identify.”
“Well, what does it matter if Sedgewyck didn’t kill her?” I said. “I didn’t kill her either.”
“I don’t care,” Knifing told me. “Sedgewyck has an influential father and a fortune to back his defense. You’ve got your family’s name, which isn’t as good as it once was, and the scant funds you can borrow. I will not return empty-handed to London, and if I arrest you, you will have great difficulty clearing yourself of the charges. Though your guilt seems unlikely, judges and juries prefer to see disorder corrected, just like my clients, and they’ll convince themselves of an unlikelihood before they will tolerate an uncertainty. You are protected, for now, only by the fact that this killer is particular and identifiable in his method, and seems apt to strike again.”
“You mean that the killer’s rumored blood-draining is an unusual hallmark?” I said.
“Yes. And if I were to accuse a prominent nobleman of this crime, and later on, another bloodless corpse turned up, there is a small chance my professional reputation might suffer some damage.” He straightened his cravat as he said this, tightening it until it crimped the flesh of his neck, letting me know he was a man who valued his honor.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, I’d rather enjoy seeing you embarrassed,” I said. I took the opportunity to return his nasty leer.
“You’d have a fine view of my shame, while dangling from the gallows.”
Chapter 9
And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return’d to Earth!
—Lord Byron, “And thou art dead, as young and fair”
Distraught by my exchange with Archibald Knifing, I decided to return at once to the murder house. I found Angus the volunteer watchman still guarding the front door.
“What do you want, Lord Byron?” he asked.
“I have spoken to Archibald Knifing,” I said. “I am concerned he may intend to wrongfully accuse me of this crime. Therefore, I must catch the killer so that I may exonerate myself.”
“That’s very interesting.” He adjusted his bulk slightly, pushing the protrusion of his belly down into his trousers. “Let me know how that goes for you.”
“I must see the murder scene.”
“You know I can’t let you do that.”
“Why not? Knifing has already inspected the place for clues.”
“It’s disrespectful, nonetheless, to admit passersby to a place like this, merely to satisfy their curiosity. Death is a private affair, I’ve always believed. I suppose I am obliged to help preserve whatever I can of the poor girl’s dignity.”
I felt my face and throat flush hot with rage. I wished that I’d brought the bear. Then I became very conscious of the fact that I was armed and Angus was not. “What use have the dead for dignity?”
“What else have the dead got?” Angus said, letting a glop of emotion squish through the cracks in his absurd façade of official nonchalance.
“I need to see that body,” I said, sensing vulnerability and inching closer to the constable. “What possible harm could it do to let me in?”
“What possible good could it do you?” he asked. “
There’s nothing in there for you to learn. You are not an expert criminal investigator. If Knifing missed some clue to the killer’s identity, you won’t find it either.”
“Do you think I could have committed this crime?” I asked. I loomed even closer, putting my face near enough to the constable’s that he could feel my breath on his cheeks. My strategy was to unman him with my overbearing youth and masculinity.
He did not back away. “I can’t be certain. You seem mentally unbalanced, and very angry, especially for a gentleman of such privilege. But, no. I don’t think you did it.”
“Then let me try to exculpate myself while I still have a chance. The undertaker will surely arrive soon to take away the body, and my opportunity will be irrevocably lost.”
His features pinched and his mouth curled sourly downward. He spat some thick gray phlegm into the grass. “You really want to see what’s in there, Lord Byron?”
“I asked, did I not?”
Angus turned on his boot heel in a crisp, assured motion; his muscles perhaps recalling some long-past, slimmer time when he was a soldier. I followed the constable into the house, past the house matron’s parlor, and up a narrow stairwell. I could hear the sound of muffled weeping coming from some of the other girls’ quarters.
Angus led me down a dim hallway and stopped in front of the third entryway on the left. He removed a key from a metal ring he had looped through his belt, worked it in the lock, and cracked open the door. The windows were covered with heavy curtains, so Angus took an oil lamp down from a fixture on the wall and held it so the light cut in through the doorway.
The corpse of Felicity Whippleby was bound about the feet with knotted bedsheets and hung upside down from a chandelier-hook on the ceiling. Her open eyes had dried and begun to shrivel in the sockets, exposing pink connective tissue around the milky, discolored orbs. Her lips hung slack and loose; her cheeks were purple-white.
“She might have been beautiful,” I said.
Angus shrugged. “She’s not anymore, though.”
Her neck was slashed open, and blood pooled on the rug beneath the dangling form. The half-dried puddle was thick and brown around the edges, on the way to turning black. I noticed that there was much less of it than one might expect to find in a human body, and there was a mashed-down spot the rug beneath the corpse, which might have been left by a heavy washbasin or some similar vessel. The killer had collected her blood and taken it with him. He’d also slit her torso open from the throat to the navel, and gray coils of swollen viscera, shiny in the low light, protruded from the ragged wound.
I tried to hide my shock at the sight of the body. It was necessary for me to demonstrate my brilliance here; to find something Knifing had missed. “If the killer took the blood with him, how did he get it out of here?” I asked.
Angus was unimpressed by my observation. “He hung up the body with rope. He probably used rope to lower his bucket out the window. It would have weighed maybe fifteen pounds; plus the weight of the container. No great feat for a healthy man; easier than lifting the corpse. Knifing found a bit of spillage below, on the street. We canvassed all the houses with views of the window, but nobody saw anything.”
All I could think to say was: “Spillage?”
“Have you anything else to contribute, Lord Byron? Does your keen poet’s eye spot some subtle clue that escaped Mr. Knifing?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’ve got nothing else right now.”
“I thought not. Have you a joke or a quip? Have you a clever bit of wordplay?”
“None springs to mind.” My voice cracked a little.
“Personally, I will sleep worse tonight for having looked upon this sorry tableau,” said Angus. “I’ve got a daughter, and I fear for her. Frightens me deep down to know this kind of thing is out there in the world.”
I nodded, staring transfixed at the corpse, which swung in little circles, moved by the slight breeze from the doorway.
“You didn’t need to see this,” he told me. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, but I’ve got no patience for it. This isn’t a game. This isn’t some lark. This isn’t for your drunken amusement.”
He drew away the lamp, put it back on the wall. Felicity Whippleby fell back into shadow as he closed the door.
Chapter 10
Say, what dire penance can atone
For such an outrage, done to thee?
Arraign’d before thy beauty’s throne,
What punishment wilt thou decree?
—Lord Byron, “Lines Addressed to a Young Lady”
Angus pivoted on his heel and descended the staircase. I was about to follow him, when I heard the sound of someone moving around in the quarters opposite Felicity’s. I felt I would be remiss in my investigative duties if I failed to question a potential witness, so I knocked on the door.
A young woman about my age, wearing an informal housedress, opened the door.
“Oh my goodness,” she said. “You are not supposed to be here.”
Her appearance was really quite striking; her skin was pale and clear, and her lips sensuous. And though her figure was quite trim, her bosoms were sufficiently ample. It was immediately evident that she was a subject of great interest, and not only to my investigation.
I smiled at her, and stepped through the door and into her small, clean room. “I find the best things happen when one ventures where one is not supposed to be.”
She retreated from the doorway, so that her bed was between us. “But men are not permitted entrance to this residence, and certainly not without a chaperone. Your presence here could cause quite a scandal.”
“I came in with Angus, the constable. We were inspecting the scene of last night’s tragedy.”
“And what has that got to do with you?” she asked.
“You know who I am?”
“Yes. Everybody knows who you are.”
I was already aware of that, but was pleased to hear her say it, nonetheless. “Then you know I am one of the finest and most famous young poets in all of England.”
“What has that got to do with anything? Why would someone like you need to examine a murder scene?”
“The poet’s skills can be constructively applied to a wide range of problems and circumstances. I believe my expertise may be vital to capturing Felicity’s killer.”
“The logic of that escapes me,” she said.
I nodded. “That does not surprise me. The workings of a mind as subtle and intricate as my own baffle the mind of normal folk. And though it is no fault of your own, you are doubly disadvantaged in matters of comprehension, due to your sex.”
She frowned at me. “You overstate my disadvantages, I think. Informal though my education has been, I have spent a significant amount of time and a considerable sum of money under the tutelage of faculty members here. In fact, I have probably devoted more hours to study than you, Lord Byron. You are notorious for your poor record of class attendance.”
“I’m notorious for a lot of things,” I said.
“Yes, I’m quite aware.” It was clear my notoriety was less delightful to her than it was to me. “I cannot understand why someone admitted to Trinity would squander such an opportunity.”
“A chance to listen to a bunch of blathering professional mediocrities is hardly an opportunity,” I said.
“It is when you’re denied it,” she told me. “There are thirty colleges in Cambridge, and none of them has ever admitted a woman. Despite calls for reform, the only chance I’ve got to obtain some semblance of an education in mathematics and the Arts is to take a squalid room in a Cambridge boardinghouse and hire those mediocrities for private tutoring at obscene rates.”
I thought about this. “You know who I am,” I said, “but who are you?”
Her eyes narrowed, their delicate lashes fluttering with her irritation. “It took you a long time to ask. I’d wondered if you cared.”
“All facts are relevant, and all facts will be unc
overed,” I said. “The processes of the skilled investigator are deliberate and methodical.”
She seemed to consider making some further comment about my investigative skills, but decided against it. “I am Olivia Wright,” she told me.
Wright. It was a common name; a laborer’s name. But private tutoring from Cambridge faculty was no small expense, so she was new money, like Leif Sedgewyck. I thought of what I’d told Angus that morning; that wheelwrights can also be murderers, and I performed a series of calculations. Knifing had assumed the killer accessed Felicity’s room through the window, but her neighbor in the rooming house could also have gotten in. But I had no reason to suspect this woman, and anyway, the killer must have been a man, for a woman could not have inflicted those wounds or hung the corpse from the chandelier.
I continued my line of inquiry: “And Felicity was, like you, a thwarted scholar?”
She paused. “Not as much,” she said. “I think her tutoring sessions were a bit of a pretense.”
“Yes, of course,” I said. “She came to Cambridge in a spirit of reform, and in defiance of social norms. If she could not be admitted to college, she’d hire the professors to educate her. And she’d live in a rooming house without a chaperone, despite whatever gossips may say about her. Of course, it would merely be a joyous and unexpected accident if she happened, by chance, to encounter a wealthy and wellborn young undergraduate one fateful morning while she meandered across the warm and dewy expanse of the Great Lawn. And it would be completely unanticipated if a marriage were to result from such a meeting.”
“She met someone,” said Olivia. “And something resulted.”
Silence between us.
“But unlike her, you’re here to get an education, not to find a man?” I asked. “Have you already got a man?”
“Why should I need one?”
“All the usual reasons, I expect.” I gave her a lascivious smile, but she did not return it.
“I knew her, a little, before we were neighbors in this place,” she admitted. “We both attended the seasonal events in London for two years. Neither of us found a reasonable suitor. Her father’s wealth was insufficiently vast, and my father’s name was insufficiently respectable. After two failed seasons, there’s little point in attempting a third. The attention of the gentlemen will be focused on fresher goods.”
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