I waited outside for ten minutes. My plan was to burst into the room and catch him in the act, and then draw my pistol on him while he was naked, and search his belongings for proof of his guilt.
I caught my breath, composed myself, and knocked the secret knock that indicated I was a customer in good standing. I heard the madam inside working the bar-locks, and then the door swung open.
“Lord Byron,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to see you, as always. Which of the girls would you like?”
“Which of them are available?” I asked, tempted. I almost never forgo an opportunity for a roll with a whore. Life is harsh, volatile, and of indeterminate length. It thus seems irrational not to spend every moment mired in depravity.
“We don’t entertain many visitors in the mornings. You can have whichever girl you like.”
This particular brothel employed: a dishwater blonde, two brunettes, a redhead who wasn’t so saucy and spirited as I might have hoped, and the only black African prostitute in Cambridge, a girl I sometimes visited when I was in the mood for something exotic. Also, a boy whom I’d tried once but found uninteresting. Still, someone must have patronized him regularly; the lad had to earn his keep. I made a quick calculation about Leif Sedgewyck.
“Is Clyde around?” I asked.
“I’m sorry,” said the madam. “He’s not, today. But any of the girls would be delighted to see you.”
“You know, I think I’ve changed my mind,” I said. “Please give them all my fond regards, though, won’t you?”
I turned on the heel of my good foot and went back out onto the street. Mr. Sedgewyck, Olivia had said, was the portrait of propriety. I wished she had been present to see this. But she wouldn’t have been pleased to have me return to her rooms, and I couldn’t think of a good way to inform her of her new beau’s predilections without explaining my own.
Anyway, I needed to retrieve the Professor from Sedgewyck’s quarters. Also, for purposes of my investigation, it was imperative that I debrief Noreen, thoroughly and at once.
Chapter 18
Ah! since thy angel form is gone,
My heart no more can rest with any;
But what it sought in thee alone,
Attempts, alas! to find in many.
Then, fare thee well, deceitful maid!
’T were vain and fruitless to regret thee;
Nor Hope, nor Memory yield their aid,
But Pride may teach me to forget thee.
—Lord Byron, “To a Lady”
I’ve always been touched and a little mystified by the extent of female generosity. Women look at boys like me; fatherless and badly mothered; despairing, depressive, debauched, and drunk; and they see only the possibility of redemption.
They offer their love generously, in hopes that I’ll be moved and transformed by their outpouring of affection. But they’re wrong about redemption. Women have a habit of adopting emotional narratives that directly contradict observable facts. Their love can’t redeem me. I won’t let it. I’m uninterested in being redeemed.
Women feel the heat and see the light, and they recognize that love is a kind of flame. But they don’t know which kind. They think love is a votive candle, and it isn’t. Love is a wildfire. It’s bigger than they comprehend, and more chaotic. It dances against the sky and sucks all the moisture from the air and earth, and leaves everything charred and desiccated. Love doesn’t redeem. Love consumes. Like vrykolakas. Like my father.
And the fire goes out when there’s nothing left for it to burn.
But there’s not really much of a reason for me to try to explain this to them, especially not when I’ve got an opportunity to fornicate, as I did with Noreen.
“Does Sedgewyck ever fuck you like this?” I swirled my hips and she gasped.
“Mr. Sedgewyck doesn’t touch me at all. He’s quite—Oh!”
“Is he the portrait of propriety? Is that what he is?” I pressed into her hard enough to hurt her a little bit.
“Mr. Sedgwyck never paid me that kind of attention,” Noreen said.
“I’ll bet he didn’t,” I said, thinking of Clyde with his angular jaw and pimpled arse. He was what piqued Sedgewyck’s interest. But Sedgewyck also seemed interested in Olivia Wright. Why?
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Noreen asked.
“Shut up. Never mind.” I pulled out of her and spun her around. “Bend over, and put your hands on the floor. No. Flat. Yes, like that.”
“My God!”
“Indeed, I am. And you will worship me.”
“My mother told me when I came to work for him to watch out for myself. She said rich men didn’t know what it was like to be told they couldn’t have something. She said he’d take advantage. But he never did.”
“It was me she was warning you about. I’m what all mothers warn their daughters about. Here, put your arms around my neck and your ankles on my shoulders.”
“Can you support me?” I still had my boots on, but I knew she was talking about my clubfoot. Sedgewyck must have told her about it.
“I can, if I want to,” I said. But I braced my leg against the bedpost.
“Ooh. How did you learn to do this?”
“I’m a Trinity man; a recipient of a world-class education. If you want to have it better, you’ll have to go to Oxford. Did you know Felicity Whippleby?”
“She came around sometimes. Mr. Sedgewyck’s affections always seemed polite rather than passionate. She seemed to like him very much, or at least I think she hoped he’d marry her. When Mr. Sedgewyck’s parents came to visit, they seemed very keen on the match as well.”
“Would he have killed her to avoid being pushed into the marriage?”
“You’d know better than I. He told me yesterday that he expects he’ll just be pushed into another marriage, though.”
“Have you seen him carrying any strange buckets or pots? Perhaps at night?”
“I don’t think so.”
If Sedgewyck was guilty, there was nothing in his rooms that appeared to link him to the murder. I’d pretty well torn the place apart, and the Professor had done quite a bit of damage as well. And despite a thorough examination, Noreen had revealed no evidence of her employer’s guilt.
I flipped her over, put her on the bed, and climbed on top of her to finish off my line of inquiry.
“Is he the killer?”
“I don’t think so. He thinks you are.”
Did he really think that? Or was he just clever enough to lie to his servant? No way to tell. But there was no evidence here to corroborate my suspicions, and my theory regarding Sedgewyck’s guilt was looking weak. I supposed I would have to go find Knifing and see if I could pry information out of him. I didn’t expect that would be fun. I was of the opinion that all the witnesses should look like Noreen, and that they should all be susceptible to the same interrogation tactics.
“It was some stranger, probably,” Noreen said. “A vagrant. A drifter. Some lunatic who came out of the woods and climbed into her window.”
“Stop talking. I’m trying to concentrate.”
“Concentrate on what? Oh—Oh!”
“Yes. Exactly.”
Chapter 19
The languages, especially the dead;
The sciences, and most of all the abstruse;
The arts, at least all such as could be said
To be the most remote from common use,
In all these he was much and deeply read;
But not a page of anything that’s loose
—Lord Byron, Don Juan, canto 1
Members of the Trinity faculty made a habit of convening after hours at a tavern near the College called the Modest Proposal, an establishment known for above-average ale and a rather dubious stew. The service alley next to the bar was wide enough for a horse-cart to enter, and curved around the back of the building. This was where the local brewer delivered kegs twice a week. It was also where Cyrus Pendleton—Professor Fat Cheeks—had met his end. Angu
s the volunteer constable guarded the wrought iron gate at the mouth of the alley to keep curious types away from the scene.
“Hello, Angus,” I said. “You look civilized today.”
He was wearing a new uniform; one that was not frayed at the elbows and did not strain around his belly. Someone had taken the time to comb the tangles and gnarls from his hair. He even appeared to have bathed, for he had no smudges on his cheeks and no dirt caked beneath his fingernails. To Angus, involvement in this investigation was a source of pride and accomplishment, a chance to socialize with knights and to scold impudent young lords. I was not one to judge him for this, however, since my own reasons for interjecting myself into these matters were difficult to explain.
“Thank you, Lord Byron. You look drunk.” Angus didn’t miss a step.
“Looks can be deceiving,” I said.
“But, I think, not in this case.” He pushed a finger at his red-webbed nose. “I lack Sir Archibald’s sort of knowledge, but I ain’t one to miss the stink of booze.”
The Professor grunted assent; Angus was right.
“A bit of brandy serves as a fine lubricant for the creative processes,” I said.
“Well, being so well lubricated, why don’t you go ahead and slide off down the street.” His lower lip twitched as he spoke, and I could tell that one had taken some effort for him to think up.
“Will you deny me entry to this alley?” I asked him.
“I’ll warn you away, because I think you should leave,” he said. “But if you persist, I’ll let you pass, as was Sir Archibald’s instruction.”
It was my turn to fall silent as I digested this new bit of information and tried not to take offense at Angus’s unconcealed amusement at my speechlessness. “He told you I would be coming?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, and then he lowered his voice so Knifing, who was behind the building, could not hear. “And that’s as good a reason as any to flee. The gentleman is not somebody you ought to trifle with. I doubt you committed these crimes, but you’re getting yourself into trouble here, nonetheless. I’ve encountered a lot of the fellows and a fair few of the old dons in my rounds here in Cambridge, and none of them ever seemed so quick as Mr. Knifing. I know you take a measure of pride in your own cleverness, Lord Byron, but you can’t think your way around a man like this. I don’t know what he can see, with that white eye he’s got.”
Angus had a point. Knifing had anticipated my arrival at this murder scene, even as he’d warned me to stay away from the investigation. We might both be playing the same game, but I had to concede that he was several moves ahead of me, and I could not figure out what sort of strategy he was unfolding.
How had he known I would come here? Perhaps he’d sensed the curiosity or morbid fascination that had drawn me to Felicity Whippleby and guessed that it had not been fully satisfied. I had no problems with being morbid or curious; these were traits I’d come to embrace. But I didn’t like being predictable, and I didn’t like being manipulated.
“Let me pass,” I told Angus. “I will see Mr. Knifing.”
“I can’t see how this turns out well for you,” he replied as he shifted his bulk away from the gate. “Consider yourself warned.”
I left the bear with the constable, who took the chain leash without hesitation and rubbed the animal behind its ears. The Professor settled upon his haunches and yawned, contented. It was unusual to see him warm so quickly to a stranger, and my estimation of Angus improved somewhat. Bears are excellent judges of character.
The iron gate groaned in protest as it closed behind me, and I followed the alleyway around the side of the building, stepping carefully on the uneven stones for fear of turning my weak foot. Behind the tavern, Knifing paced in tight circles around the corpse of Professor Fat Cheeks, which was flayed open and spread across the alley like jam on a slice of bread. The killer had not, this time, collected much of his victim’s blood, for the body was surrounded by a huge, gummy pool of the stuff, with more splattered on the back wall of the building.
The investigator touched the wide brim of his black rabbit-felt hat with two fingers as a manner of greeting me. When I had seen the hat gripped in his gnarled fingers the previous day, I had assumed it was the sort of austere headwear commonly favored by ministers, but now that it was on his head, I saw it was a queer thing, a sort of slouch hat or bush hat, like one might expect to see on the head of an ex-soldier turned sheep rancher in some far-flung, hot-weather colony. Regardless of its style, it would have been appropriate for him to uncover his head in my presence, as I was his social better, but Knifing seemed to be unabashedly indifferent to protocol. I found this disrespectful but decided not to make an issue of his boorishness.
“I had not known one man could contain so much gore,” I said.
“Yes,” Knifing agreed. “But as containers go, he was a rather large one.”
I suspected that was some sort of joke, but Knifing wasn’t smiling, so I kept my face blank. “Angus the Constable said you had expected me.”
He glanced up from a coil of purple viscera he’d been poking at with the tip of his black umbrella. “Like the common maggot, you can be found wherever there is putrefying flesh.”
Perhaps this was what passed for wit in the world of Archibald Knifing, but it was sour stuff. “What has your investigation uncovered?” I asked.
He opened his arms as if to draw my attention to our grisly surroundings. “It appears that there is a dead man here.”
Evidently, Knifing was auditioning to be the jester in the royal court of Hades. “And will you use the science of detection to render his killer unto justice?” I asked.
Knifing sighed and drew himself to full height. He seemed to become even thinner and more wraithlike, which I would have thought was impossible. Whatever flicker of mirth had animated his features vanished, and he seemed to grow colder and grayer. “I don’t enjoy being here or doing this, you know,” he said. “It’s a dirty business, mucking about with corpses. And far beneath my station; I did not distinguish myself in four wars on three continents so I could get a job as an undertaker in Cambridge. I’d be quite pleased to see an end to the science of detection, and return to an era when justice was served by inquisitors and confessors who extracted God’s truth from the guilty before rendering them unto the gallows.”
“Such methods have fallen into disfavor among England’s educated classes,” I said.
“Not with me.” Knifing noticed a spot of Pendleton’s blood on the toe of his calfskin boot. He rubbed it on an unsullied cobblestone. “That was clean justice. That was certain justice. A confession certified by a clergyman and swiftly followed by a public execution. The matter was resolved without doubt or ambiguity, and everyone could go home satisfied that right had been vindicated.”
I sensed he was trying to lead me into some sort of rhetorical trap. “Confessions extracted through torturous interrogation cannot be relied upon.”
“How could a sworn confession be unreliable? How could injustice be perpetrated in the name of the Lord? He would not allow such a thing. God is justice, and there is no justice but God’s.”
“A man in torment will say whatever is necessary to be granted respite, even the respite of death.”
Knifing tapped his soiled boot against the wall of the alleyway, trying to shake the blood off it. “Your supposition is that a man exposed to the mild discomfort associated with traditional inquisitive methods is likely to admit to a crime of which he is innocent, with full knowledge that such an admission will result in his own execution?”
Traditional inquisitive methods included sleep deprivation, beatings, flaying and scourging of the skin, and chaining accused individuals in painful positions for hours, or even for days. “I’d take issue with your assumption that the discomfort caused by torture is mild,” I said.
Knifing spat upon the ground, and his thick, yellow-gray wad of phlegm landed with a little splash in the wide, deep pool of blood surrounding
Pendleton’s corpse. “It is the amount of discomfort that learned and moral members of the clergy believed was appropriate to apply in pursuit of the truth,” he said. “By suggesting differently, you are putting your assessment of their methods ahead of their own, though you are a child and know nothing of God or of justice or of morality.”
I started to say something, but he wasn’t really looking for a conversation, and he raised his voice and talked over me.
“We’ve replaced sanctified truth with the justice of man, and look at where it has gotten us. We stand in a dirty alley, speculating upon events that may have occurred, using methods adapted from the hunting tactics of savage American Indians and the heathen tribesmen of Africa. Do you think we can fashion from these crude materials a better truth than God’s? Why disdain a clergymen’s words while credulously accepting extrapolations drawn by a secular shaman about the direction of a spray of blood or the size and depth of a footprint? Why distrust a confession yet uncritically accept an ex-thief’s divinations about a bit of discarded pipe-ash?”
“If you’ve such contempt for your employment, why do you continue in it?”
“I serve at His Majesty’s direction. England has spent years at war, and London is rife with lawlessness. The populace demands safety, and perhaps His Majesty hopes a few high-profile investigators employing fashionable methods can forestall the need for the Crown to make a more comprehensive investment in stopping crime. If His Majesty says there must be scientific inquiry into a few murders, then so there will be. Indeed, because it is my duty to serve the King, I have become the foremost practitioner of this so-called science. I can read a murder scene as well as any Comanche can read a buffalo trail. But the alleged quality of my application of these methods is aided in no small amount by my lack of reverence toward them. I’m not here engaged in a search for anything like the truth. I’m performing a ritual; I’m here as a priest of man’s godless justice, though I fear this ridiculous blasphemy might be the seed of England’s downfall.”
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