“Be serious,” said Burke. “After swindling our banker, you cannot really intend to play the naïf.”
“You just accused me of serious criminal fraud, and this isn’t the first time you have done so. I think I should have no further dealings or conversations with you or your client without Mr. Hanson present.”
“You have our money, and are spending wantonly, by all reports. We lack proper collateral to secure our interest, due to your false representations. With each day that passes, you waste more of our funds, which we shall later be unable to recover. Only last night, I’ve learned, you and several dozen guests feasted on foie gras and champagne, though you’d refused to discuss business with me earlier the same day because you were overwhelmed with grief over the death of Felicity Whippleby.”
“Are you upset because I didn’t invite you to the party?” I asked. “I felt the adversarial tone of our dealings might have caused tension or awkwardness in a social setting. Also, I find your company unpleasant.”
Burke leaned toward me. On the public street, without the Professor around, he was less frightened of me than he’d been the previous day in my residence. “If you need a lawyer, find one in Cambridge.”
“Absolutely not.” I would stand firm on this point. “I will not engage in dealings with you if I am to be deprived of my trusted advisor.”
“This matter needs to be resolved at once.”
I nodded. “I understand, Mr. Burke, and you can rest assured that Mr. Hanson and I will treat this with all due urgency. His practice in London is, of course, quite busy, and I am deeply engaged with my studies here in Cambridge. However, I am confident that, with some effort, we can arrange to meet together within three months, assuming your availability coincides with ours.”
Burke stared at me, aghast. I think, if I had struck him, he might have been less piqued. “In three months, you will have wasted all of my client’s money,” he said. “I must have either security or repayment, and I must have it immediately.”
“Perhaps you should sue me. How much money do you think I can waste before a court rules on your petition?”
“I came here to seek your assistance in finding an amicable resolution to this problem. If proceedings become adversarial, you’ll find I can be much less friendly. If we involve the courts in this matter, they’ll rule for my client and order you to return the funds. If you cannot, you’ll face debtors’ prison.” He poked his finger at me, and I slapped it away.
“Debtors’ prison? Do you think I’m stupid? I’m shielded by the privileges of nobility, and your client is a foreign concern based in a nation that is presently at war with England. Given those facts, an English court is likely to rule that the defects in the agreement absolve me of all repayment obligations.” I had no idea whether this was true, but my rage was fully stoked, and aggression seemed a necessity under the circumstances.
“Such an outcome would be unprecedented.” He stammered as he spoke and he took a step back, away from me. All at once, his rage seemed to break open, exposing the impotence behind the threatening façade. I could see the fragility of his negotiating position in his downcast eyes and in the quivering corners of his mouth. And I lost all interest in his precedents or his threats. Really, I lost interest in the insignificant personage of Frederick Burke.
“It might be unprecedented, or it might not be. I really don’t know, which is why I must rely on my lawyer.”
Burke’s hands clenched and unclenched. His Adam’s apple seemed to crawl up and down his weird, long throat. A vein throbbed on his forehead. His whole body seemed poised for action. I wondered if he might try to hit me, or if he might flee in terror and humiliation.
He did neither; instead, he lowered his voice, nearly to a whisper. “Why on earth does a man of high birth defraud a bank? Why did you need the money so badly? Did you spend it on anything but women and drink?”
“I am not going to speak to you anymore without my lawyer.”
“I’ve learned about you, Lord Byron, in performing my due diligence; my preparation to handle this matter. You delight in flouting rules and systems. You have treated your corrupt and dishonest dealings with Banque Crédit Française as a kind of game. You twist the rules of the College by keeping that awful bear. Even men who number you among their friends would not trust you alone with their daughters or wives. Nor with their sons, for that matter.”
“I don’t need your scolding, Mr. Burke. If we have business to conduct, you may contact Mr. Hanson.”
Burke ignored me and continued speaking. His voice grew even softer, but the cords of his neck were tight with rage, constricting his Adam’s apple so tightly, I thought his throat might burst. “You avail yourself unashamedly of all the advantages that come with your inherited title. Yet you defy the very strictures and norms that have elevated you to your position of privilege. Why should you be celebrated for your knavishness? Why should your wrongs go unpunished?”
I turned and walked away from Burke in a crisp imitation of Archibald Knifing’s military gait. I’d actually been somewhat worried about what he might able to do, but it was now clear that he was entirely helpless. I would not be subjected to the indignities my father had suffered at the hands of his creditors. I was a baron, while Mad Jack had only been the nephew of one.
Chapter 23
And, after all, what is a lie? ’Tis but
The truth in masquerade; and I defy
Historians, heroes, lawyers, priests, to put
A fact without some leaven of a lie.
The very shadow of true Truth would shut
Up annals, revelations, poesy,
And prophecy—except it should be dated
Some years before the incidents related.
—Lord Byron, Don Juan, canto 11
To tell a lie is the most unnatural thing in the world. It’s a contravention of human nature, a violation of the social contract. Most people can’t do it, or at least they can’t do it well. Language fails them when they try. Their twitchy eyes betray them. Their hands sweat. There aren’t many people who can maintain a steady gaze and an authoritative tone while telling a lie.
I can. I’ve had a lot of practice.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a secret ritual, one I have concealed from even my mother, Joe Murray, and the Professor.
Late at night, while everyone else sleeps, I sit in front of a mirror, and I lie to myself.
“Your father loves you,” I say. “He would never abandon you.”
A gifted liar believes every word he says, even though he knows his statements misrepresent the facts. Such is his faith in his own narrative that he believes he can remake the world through the exercise of charisma, persuasion, and sheer force of will. Only falsehood can reconcile the world as it exists with the world as it should be. Or, at least, if there’s another way, it requires a great deal more effort.
Alone, in my darkened bedroom, I stare into my own reflected visage and try not to blink.
“He is away, in the East. He has traveled beyond the horizon, beyond the sunrise, in search of secrets.”
If there is doubt in my voice, I reproach myself for my faithlessness. How dare I slander the father who loves me so much that he has gone questing, like Odysseus, through the savage places of the world so that he may bring back the secret of immortality?
In any case, he had to leave; he was in my way. If he’d stayed, he’d be Lord Byron, and thus, he’d be keeping me from my special destiny. He forsook his own birthright, such was his love for me.
A lie is like a seduction, and the skillful liar knows a falsehood’s recipient is a co-conspirator rather than a victim. If the lie is framed in a way that makes the listener want to believe it, he becomes a willing party to his own deception.
That’s why I don’t ask myself how Mad Jack knew that William’s heirs would predecease him. I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to examine the lie too closely. My rise was no accident; it was all desig
ned, by Providence and by Mad Jack, my ever-vigilant benefactor.
To write a poem, it is said, is to tell the truth; poetry is worthless dross if it is not true. But the truth of poetry isn’t the truth of the world observed. Poetic truth is the truth of the world imagined; a truth made true by artistry and artifice and the sheer certainty of the writer and his reader that the world can be this way, and that, if it can be this way, it must be this way.
So I sit in front of the mirror.
My hand is steady. My eye is steady.
My cup is full, and then empty, and then full again.
And I say to myself: “Your father is not dead. He cannot be dead.
“He searches, in the East, for the secret of eternal persistence.
“You are loved.
“Your father loves you. Your mother loves you. Your friends love you.
“You will never be alone.
“You are a special boy, meant for a special destiny.
“Death is not an inevitability. Where others falter and cease, you will endure.
“Empires will rise and fall, and cities will crumble to dust, and you will persist, unchanging, drinking and dancing and making love.
“Forever.”
My hand is steady. My eyes do not falter. I sit in front of the mirror and I lie to myself.
My cup is full, and then empty, and then full again.
And I believe every word I say.
Chapter 24
But ’midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
And roam along, the world’s tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
—Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, canto 2
Upon my return to the campus, I found the lawn at the center of the Great Court crowded with students. Old Beardy, the professor who was so concerned with my growth as a man, was speaking from a makeshift dais.
“The College has been beset by senseless tragedy,” he was saying. “We have lost two beloved members of our faculty. This happened without warning, for no very good reason.”
Of course, if there had been any response from the College to the murder of Felicity Whippleby, perhaps these killings might have been avoided. Perhaps, had Cambridge been alarmed after the first murder, volunteers could have patrolled the streets and kept the killer at bay. Violet Tower’s maid might have been properly warned of the danger, and she would not have opened the door when the killer knocked.
But warnings probably would have done no good; Joe Murray had admitted three strangers to my quarters since Felicity’s death; Frederick Burke, Archibald Knifing, and Fielding Dingle. He also let Leif Sedgewyck into the party. I would have to give him a stern lecture and, perhaps, dock his wages. I could not have him subjecting me to unreasonable risks as a result of his genial and trusting nature. But even I had not previously thought to warn him of this.
“It is the role of the academy to serve as a beacon of civilization in a world predominated by cruelty and brutishness, so this kind of disruption cuts to the quick in a place like Cambridge,” Beardy said. He was impressive as a speaker. His voice swelled to a volume that overwhelmed the noise coming from the restive and nervous crowd, and his even, commanding tone seemed to calm the students. Though his esteemed colleagues were being torn to pieces in the streets, the men of Cambridge could not imagine a world where Beardy’s authority was anything but absolute.
“We live in a nation in which there are vast inequalities of means among the elites and ordinary folk. All of us are the beneficiaries of these imbalances, at least to some extent, and in many cases, to a great extent.” Here, he paused. Nobody laughed, so he continued: “But the desperation of the underclass produces ill effects that will bring sorrow and suffering to the more fortunate. A man who cannot buy bread will kill a well-dressed stranger for the coins in his purse. Every day, men and boys die in coal mines, crushed beneath the earth or asphyxiated by toxic fumes. Every day, women and children are mangled in textile factories. If the poor are desperate enough to do these things to themselves, think of what they’d do to us, given a chance. As long as we live in close proximity to the hungry and the hopeless, as long as we allow untreated lunatics to roam the streets, our walls will never be high enough, our locks will never be sturdy enough, and our guns will never have enough bullets to keep us safe.”
The crowd grew noisier, and the students’ collective murmur managed to drown out Beardy’s stentorian oration. Someone jeered loudly. This kind of disrespect was not often shown to the faculty at Trinity, except by me. Knifing had been right when he told me that people crave certainty and normality. The students had come to hear the faculty’s plan for rectifying the killer’s intrusion into the College’s bubble of safety. They did not want to hear that the entire social order that served as their lives’ foundation was unstable, or perhaps illusory.
Beardy quelled the uproar with a wave of his hand and smoothly redirected his speech to address their concern: “The twin losses of Professor Cyrus Pendleton and Senior Fellow Jerome Tower are grievous and deeply felt injuries to this institution. Both these men were beloved here, and relied upon. They can never be fully replaced, and I fear the effort to find appropriate candidates to fill their professional capacities will be difficult as well.”
Archibald Knifing had said that the killing of the Towers might have been some message to me. My affair with Violet had been sufficiently discreet to conceal our dalliances from her trusting husband, but it would not have been difficult to uncover. Anyone following me or watching her home could easily have noticed my arrivals and departures.
I considered what Knifing had said to me at the murder scene, tried to remember any revealing flickers of expression that might have crossed his nearly inscrutable features. He might have known of the affair, or he might have only suspected. Or he might have perfected the art of seeming to know things he didn’t even suspect, as a technique for eliciting spontaneous confessions.
Whether he knew or not was less important than the possibility that he could have known, for if he might have known, the killer might also have known. I thought of Professor Tower, dead and faceless, sitting at his dinner table, which was so similar to my own.
“Students who were taking courses with Professors Pendleton and Tower will be able to finish their work under different instructors. I will be taking over Professor Pendleton’s literature course; as some of you know, I taught that course until two years ago, and Professor Pendleton was using a modified version of my own syllabus, so we can resume without disruption. Similarly, since Professor Pendleton was to succeed me as faculty chair at the close of the calendar year, I have volunteered to stay on in my current capacity until such time as a qualified replacement can be identified. Professor Sharp and several of the other fellows will be taking charge of the remaining classes. I can assure each of you that, while our departed friends and colleagues will be sorely missed, the progress of your education will be unaffected, and the operation of the College will face no long-term interruption.”
This was met with several angry shouts from the crowd, but Beardy raised his hand again to silence the students. It was amazing how much deference and respect he was afforded by this mob of tense and frightened young men.
“We will have a short-term cancellation of classes for the next ten days, however, and any absences will be deemed excused for an additional week after that. Quarterly examinations will be postponed, accordingly. I know many of you feel that the safest course of action is to leave Cambridge while these unpleasant events are unresolved, and the College will take no steps to prevent you from doing so. Two professional criminal investigators from London are already in Cambridge, searching for clues. I believe the killer will be caught before classes resume. For those of you who wish to leave, we have notified local stagecoach dispatchers that many of you will require their servic
es. Messengers have been sent to London to hire more carriages. We wish you pleasant travels. For those of you unable to leave, I would emphasize that it is not my belief, nor is it the opinion of the faculty, that the College is unsafe. Personally, I will be staying in Cambridge to assist the investigators in any way I can.”
I could hire a stagecoach and return to Newstead, leaving the murders and the faculty and Mr. Burke behind me; problems for other men and other days. So many of the students would be leaving Cambridge, out of fear or out of a desire to make use of the holiday. If I were among them, no one would think less of me.
Knifing had told me I should leave, and maybe he was right. It seemed like such good advice, in fact, that I wondered why he’d given it to me. Perhaps he told me to leave because he wanted me to stay, and he knew I would disregard his counsel. If I left, after all, I would spoil myself as a murder suspect, and he’d said he had nobody better to arrest. But if he truly wanted to frame me, why would he warn me of his intentions? Why would he try to drive me off?
I had my suspicions that a judge or jury’s desire to restore certainty and order would be insufficient to win a conviction once Mr. Hanson got finished punching holes in Knifing’s case, and I suspected that was the real reason he was hesitant to charge me with the crimes. Of course, if he accused anyone else, that suspect’s lawyer would tell the jury about me and my odd and notorious reputation; about my skull-cup and the liberties I took with other men’s wives. The mere proximity of a character such as I to the murder might create enough doubt to cause the acquittal of another suspect, even a guilty one. So Knifing had good reason to want me gone.
But I was stubborn, and I didn’t want his convenience to dictate my actions. When he locked that dead white eye on me, it seemed like he could divine my secrets from the planes of my face and hear them whispered on my breath. He betrayed nothing to me; when his face closed, he became a complete cipher. He’d told me ten times at least that he was willing and prepared to arrest me for the murders. I knew absolutely that he was capable of it, and I also knew that I’d be completely surprised if he did it.
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