Riot Most Uncouth

by Daniel Friedman

  “What in seven hells do you think you’re doing?” Archibald Knifing asked Dingle, who was half-dragging me out of the student residence building and toward this monstrous conveyance.

  “I am delivering this suspect to the magistrate’s office in London,” said the fat investigator.

  “Your stupidity continues to astonish me,” Knifing said. “The trial must be held in Cambridge. The witnesses are all here. The physical evidence is all here. You ought to sequester Byron in his rooms and send for a prosecutor and a traveling judge.”

  “I’ll not give him a chance to commit more atrocities, nor will I give you a chance to undermine my case. I’m taking him to London.”

  “I’ll stand guard over him in his apartment, if you like, Mr. Dingle,” said Angus. “I can batten things down tight. He won’t get loose.”

  “If you take him away from here, you’ll have no case,” Knifing said. “Who in London will testify to the events you allege? What can you produce there in support of your theories? This is a baron you’re accusing, and he’ll mount a vigorous defense.”

  “I’ve always collected my bounties from the office in London, and I see no reason to deviate from my custom,” said Dingle, unmoved by Knifing’s logic. “You have your way of doing things, and I have mine.”

  “The habits of a penny-ante thieftaker are ill-suited to the work of a professional criminal investigator,” said Knifing. “There are established procedures, and you aren’t following them.”

  “You said you’d have no part in my folly,” Dingle said. “That’s fine with me, but I’d appreciate it if you’d take no part in a quieter fashion.”

  “You twit,” said Knifing. “You simpering imbecile.”

  “Bugger off,” said Dingle.

  The seats in the prison coach left much to be desired; they were hard wood benches bolted securely to the walls and floor. Iron rings protruded from the back of the bench, so the chains on my shackles could be looped through them, immobilizing my arms and legs.

  I thought it unwise to risk giving Dingle a reason to attempt to use lethal force, but neither did I cooperate with his attempt to load me into the stagecoach. I just sort of let my body hang limp, so the fat man had to physically haul me into the vehicle. Momentarily, I regretted my weight-loss, but that sentiment was short-lived. The only thing worse than being forced to stand trial for horrific crimes is being forced to do so while also being fat.

  Angus and Knifing watched as Dingle and the carriage driver lifted me into the cab. They made no attempt to help. Angus sucked on his mustache and shifted on his feet; I knew he didn’t think I’d done the killings, but he revered the investigators. The idea that someone like Dingle could be so confidently and decisively wrong shook the foundation of the constable’s worldview. Knifing’s features remained, as ever, sour and inscrutable.

  Only steadfast Joe Murray seemed unconcerned. He’d been through this same procedure with my great-uncle William, the fifth Lord Byron. Twice, actually. In addition to stabbing poor Lord Chaworth, my predecessor also killed his chauffer for driving too slowly. As the servants at Newstead told the story, William shot the man in the back and threw the corpse into the Lady Byron’s lap so he could climb up onto the driver’s seat and whip the horses. Due to the difference in social standing between the killer and the victim, William never stood trial for that one. His wife left him soon after, however.

  It took Dingle fifteen minutes of monumental effort to get me chained to the bench inside the carriage, and when he finished, he was wheezing and drenched with sweat.

  “You look awful,” I said. “Are you feeling ill?”

  “I hope you’re this droll on the day you hang,” he said, and he pulled the door of the carriage shut. Outside, the driver secured the padlock. The inner door had no handle, to prevent escape.

  Dingle heaved himself onto the bench opposite me and leaned forward on his hammy haunches. Up above, the driver whipped the horses, and the coach lurched into motion.

  “Old Knifing makes a great show of his supposed skill at tracking and detection,” he said. “But I figure there’s a reason the red Indians and the African blacks who showed him his trade never built themselves anything like a society. I don’t think foreign races that sleep in the dirt have anything useful to teach civilized folk.”

  “Vampires sleep in dirt,” I said. “And they live forever.”

  Dingle pounded the wall of the carriage with a meaty fist. The wood seemed to yield a bit under the force of the blow, which made me wonder if the carriage had some rot in it. I wriggled in my chains to see if I could force myself loose from the bench, but my restraints held. “You never seem to stop mocking me,” he said. “You think you’re so clever and I’m so dim. But you’re at my mercy now, boy.”

  “We will see who is where, when Archibald Knifing catches the real killer.”

  Dingle reached out and grabbed my shirt, yanking me forward and pulling my chains tight, so they cut into my wrists. “Archibald Knifing is daft. He can tell you how the crime was done, but he can’t tell you who did it. What’s the point of that? The man is nothing but a fine suit stuffed with urbane banter and horseshit. You leered at Felicity Whippleby, feuded with Sedgewyck and Pendleton, and fornicated with Violet Tower. And you were found unconscious in bed with the mangled corpse of Noreen Lime,” Dingle said. “You’re a monster.”

  “At least I’m not ugly and stupid.”

  “No, but you’re a clear murder suspect to anyone who looks at the facts. And if Knifing can’t see that, then I’ve no respect at all for his vaunted skills.”

  “You’ve made an awful mistake,” I said to Dingle, leaning forward and jangling my restraints. “Despite your fat, foolish certitude, I am innocent of these crimes and will be vindicated.”

  “You’ll be convicted, on the strength of your confession,” Dingle said, his broad, dumb mouth turning up at the corners.

  “I will give no confession,” I said.

  Dingle lifted his bulk from his seat, placed his stumpy left paw on my shoulder, and punched me twice in the gut with his right fist.

  “I believe I can persuade you to change your mind, Lord Byron,” he said. “It’s hours to London, and I’ve got nothing else to do.”

  Chapter 31

  But I, being fond of true philosophy,

  Say very often to myself, “Alas!

  All things that have been born were born to die,

  And flesh (which Death mows down to hay) is grass;

  You’ve pass’d your youth not so unpleasantly,

  And if you had it o’er again—’t would pass—

  So thank your stars that matters are no worse,

  And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse.”

  —Lord Byron, Don Juan, canto 1

  As it turns out, my preconceptions about Fielding Dingle’s capabilities had not served me well. He lacked the conversational or observational talents of Archibald Knifing, but when it came to violence, he was both well trained and naturally gifted. I have had few beatings in my life that were so symmetrically organized or so thematically coherent. He rolled my body to the side with a deft strike from his left forearm, so he could poke at my kidneys with his knuckles of his right hand, and when I cringed or writhed from the pain, I stretched and twisted my shackled limbs.

  Probing fists roamed across me, alighting upon my solar plexus, exploring my armpits and the joints of my elbow, digging into every place I was soft. My body had, in the past, endured similar abuses, but never while I was so unpleasantly sober. Dingle was smart enough to avoid striking my head or my face so that the magistrate in London would not have his sensibilities offended by the presentation of a battered suspect, but that small mercy was little consolation as my vision went red with agony.

  “You can end this with the truth,” Dingle said.

  But defiance was second nature to me. “You’ll tire before I will.” The back of my throat tasted like blood, and the words hurt coming out.

/>   He put his weight behind a fat, dimpled knee and aimed it at my crotch. I squirmed in my seat, and he caught me on the hip instead. It still hurt.

  I’d resolved to die before I’d confess to anything, but I had a habit of falling short of my ideals and aspirations, and this situation was no different from previous occasions in which I’d disappointed myself. It wasn’t very long before I started begging.

  It made no difference. Hanson would rescue me from custody, hire a physician to document my injuries, and use the evidence of coercion to throw doubt upon my confession. Perhaps I’d even get hold of some powerful painkilling drugs. Dingle’s victory would be short-lived.

  I was trying to suck in enough breath to admit to killing Felicity Whippleby, and Dingle was winding up another punch, when I heard a cracking noise, like a champagne cork popping, and then the whole carriage seemed to jump. I could feel the horses break into a mad lope, and the wheels began weaving, jerking my arms in their chains and bouncing Dingle off the walls.

  “What in bloody hell is that maniac driver doing?” Dingle shouted. He didn’t seem to be asking this question of me; he was just the sort of man who made a habit of spontaneously vocalizing his thoughts for no particular reason.

  I decided to answer him anyway, since I was a cooperative witness. “You hired him, you fat simpleton,” I said.

  Dingle clawed at the iron mesh over the slit of a window near the ceiling of the cab, which allowed passengers to speak to the coachman.

  “Slow it down, up there,” he said, pressing his fishy mouth against the grate. “I want to reach London alive.”

  The driver responded by collapsing on his seat, so the liquefied contents of his smashed skull poured through the window.

  “My God,” Dingle said as he squirmed away from the mess. Outside, there was a dull thump as the corpse slid off the roof of the carriage and landed hard in the dust.

  Under other circumstances, I would have come up with something clever to say about the series of events that had just transpired, but the coppery stink of blood and brains was filling my nose and lungs, and the violent motion of the runaway stagecoach was threatening to yank my arms from their shoulder-sockets. The pain was so distracting that I could do little more than state the obvious. “We must get to the driver’s seat and rein in the horses.”

  “This is a prison vehicle,” Dingle said. “We cannot get out. It unlocks only from the outside.”

  I twisted my body on the hard bench and began kicking my legs at the door. “Let us hope its purported security is exaggerated.” My weak leg did little damage to the wood, but I felt the boards creaking and bending beneath my stronger foot’s assault.

  “That is useless,” Dingle said.

  The stagecoach nearly ran off the road, and my persecutor fell forward, into my lap. I considered trying to wrap my manacle chain around his throat, but I knew that doing so would neither resolve my current peril nor help me to prove my innocence later, should I somehow survive the journey to London. “Do you have a better idea?” I asked. I did not expect him to; he was, after all, a bit of a brick.

  “We are doomed,” he sobbed. “Doomed!”

  If I’d had time to reflect on the situation, I might have been slightly amazed by Mr. Dingle. Every time I found myself believing I might have underestimated the man, he found some way to reinforce my preconceived notions. “Perhaps, then, while you await your demise, you might employ your considerable mass upon the task of helping me smash this door open,” I suggested.

  He nodded. His eyes were wide and dumb and full of terror, quite like one might imagine a cow’s would look at the moment it realizes it has arrived at the abattoir. He began throwing his shoulder against the wooden door, though, to his credit. In that particular enterprise, his bovinity proved an asset. He had to throw himself against the side of the carriage only four or five times before the nails that held in the hinges ripped loose. Unable to withstand such violence, the vaunted external lock snapped off and the door flew open and broke away, smashing to bits as it hit the ground behind us.

  “That was much flimsier than I was led to believe,” Dingle remarked. He seemed quite surprised that he’d been lied to. For a professional criminal investigator, he was an absurdly credulous man.

  “I shall remember that the next time I need to escape from prison,” I said. “Now, if you enjoy being alive, kindly unlock my shackles so I can climb up there and rein in the horses.”

  “I must not,” he said. “You are a prisoner, and will remain in your bonds until I deliver you to the court. I will take care of this myself.”

  Dingle hoisted himself out through the open doorway and perched on the running board along the carriage’s lower chassis. Dangling precariously over the road, he reached out for one of the ladder rungs that were bolted to the side of the cab, and he began to grunt as he tried to lift himself up onto the roof. I had about five seconds to admire his bravery before I heard a second shot, and Dingle’s head came apart. I saw him hanging, ever so briefly, in midair. The top of his skull and one of his eyes were gone, and part of his nose as well. Whatever struck him had done so with unbelievable force. The thick, wet lips hung loose and sort of flapped in the wind. What remained of his face wore an expression of confusion and incomprehension; he was as dumb in death as he had been in life.

  The corpse pitched off the side, fell beneath the wheels, and burst like an overfilled meat-pie when the carriage rolled over it. The force of the impact bounced the whole vehicle into the air.

  “He was right,” I said, vocalizing my thoughts to no one and for no particular reason, as I hung in space, tethered to my bench by chains, “about being doomed.”

  And then, the stagecoach crashed.

  Chapter 32

  And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide,

  But through it there roll’d not the breath of his pride:

  And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,

  And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

  —Lord Byron, “The Destruction of Sennacherib”

  The floor became the ceiling and the ceiling became the floor, and then things righted themselves briefly before the carriage rolled again. I didn’t know up from down; I lost track of the world and forgot my place in it. Then everything fell to earth, and splintered and broke apart.

  Angry hunks of wood slashed the thigh of my weak leg and raked my back and pounded my side hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. When the stagecoach finally flipped sideways and skidded to a halt someplace off the side of the highway, I assessed my injuries. My ribs were bruised, but they had not caved in. The manacles had cut into my wrists, but my arms were not broken or dislocated. My head felt as if it might have been concussed, but it was in considerably better repair than the skull of Fielding Dingle. My cuts were seeping rather than gushing or pumping blood, which meant my wounds would not be mortal unless some putrefying infection set in.

  I suppose I must consider myself lucky to have come through that ordeal largely intact, though perhaps I was less lucky than the millions of people who have never found themselves injured in the wreckage of a stagecoach someplace between Cambridge and London.

  And I had other problems. I was still chained to my bench, and I didn’t know where the keys to my shackles had gone. Either Dingle or the driver had been carrying them, and both their corpses had fallen off the vehicle, someplace back down the road.

  I wrenched my arms so I could peer out through the kicked-out door, but I didn’t see anything but the field I’d crashed in and the road, away in the distance. The keys could be miles back, lost in thick underbrush. And even if they were nearby, I had no way of finding them.

  One of the four horses that pulled the carriage had snapped its leg. It was lying in the grass fifty yards away and bleating in agony. The other horses had broken free of the harness and bolted off.

  I tried to take an optimistic view of what seemed a dire situation. If I were stuck in the wreck
for longer than a day or two, I was bound to die of thirst or exposure. But before that happened, somebody would probably find the corpses on the road, or else someone would hear the dying horse and come to investigate. Until then, I could only wait.

  My head throbbed and my body ached. I suppose I dozed intermittently. Several hours must have passed, though I had no sense of it, for when Angus the Constable found me, night had fallen.

  I heard him before I saw him. More precisely, I heard a gunshot when he put down the injured horse. His first attempt didn’t do the job, so I heard the loud crack of it, and then the animal’s muted whimpering turned into a terrified, high-pitched scream, which it sustained for the entirety of the two minutes it took Angus to reload. I remember thinking it was strange that a brute animal’s howl of pain and terror could sound so familiar and so human, and I thought of poor Violet and her children, who never got a chance to scream. The noise ceased only when the constable shot the horse a second time.

  Then, Angus’s flinty black eyes and round red nose appeared in the splintered doorframe of the stagecoach. He looked ashen and somewhat discombobulated, but he gurgled with relief when he saw I was alive. “You seem to have encountered a nasty bit of business, Lord Byron,” he said.

  “I hope it is evident to you that I did not kill Dingle,” I said, jangling my shackles and showing him that I was still bound to the bench. “I have been indisposed since I last saw you in Cambridge, and have, since, endured some injury. What are you doing here?”

  “I patrol the highways most nights,” Angus said. “Someone has to keep the lookout for road agents and bandits.” He proudly brandished the musket he’d used to kill the horse, and I wondered if he could have used that to shoot Dingle off the side of the carriage. He’d have needed preternatural luck to make a shot like that; and even the luckiest man alive couldn’t have done it twice. But somebody had shot both Dingle and the driver, a feat of marksmanship that seemed beyond the capacity of any human skill.