Riot Most Uncouth

by Daniel Friedman

  Knifing made a quick slicing gesture with the heel of his hand that was sufficient to silence the constable: “Nobody cares about that.”

  “But most of the victims are people I know,” I said. “Cyrus Pendleton wanted to kick me out of the College. I was engaged in an affair with Violet Tower. Leif Sedgewyck was my rival for the affections of Olivia Wright. Noreen Lime was my paramour. For God’s sake, he broke into my rooms and killed her, while leaving me alive. You can’t truly believe this has got nothing to do with me.”

  “I believe any connection the killer has to you is arbitrary and incidental,” Knifing said. “Though you’ve many character defects, you’re a fairly clever lad. If the killer were someone you knew, you’d already be suspicious of him. Homicidal lunatics are not adept at disguising their predilections. You’re something of a celebrity, though. He may know you, even if you don’t know him. The criminally insane are prone to obsession, and the weak-minded fixate on magnetic personalities, and upon famous figures.”

  “Unless he is my father.”

  Knifing turned his back and started walking toward the hearse. “Your father is dead, Lord Byron. He’s not coming back for you. I’ve really had enough of this. I’m trying to catch a killer, and you’re telling fairy stories.” He stopped and turned toward me. “You might be in danger. It might be that the killer’s proximity to you aggravates his mania, and if that’s the case, your continued presence in Cambridge may be putting others in harm’s way. In the morning, you must return to Newstead. That’s really all I have to say to you on this subject.”

  I tried to object, but Angus placed a firm hand on my arm to quiet me. We followed Knifing to Bartholomew’s black carriage and rode back to town in silence.

  Chapter 36

  But in that instant o’er his soul

  Winters of Memory seem’d to roll,

  And gather in that drop of time

  A life of pain, an age of crime.

  —Lord Byron, The Giaour

  Angus lived on the outskirts of Cambridge, so we let him off first. His house was not made of stone, but rather, from old wooden slats that had turned dark with rot. The roof was tarred paper. A yellow-haired girl, twelve or thirteen years old, sat waiting and watching out the window, her pale face almost ghostly in the dim light from a small oil lamp. When Angus opened the door, she ran to him and threw her arms around his neck.

  Knifing let me out in front of the Great Gate. The lawn was empty, the windows in the College buildings were mostly dark, and the streets were eerily silent; many of the undergraduates had fled Cambridge, and the taverns had all stopped serving after the events at the Modest Proposal.

  My own rooms were similarly dark and vacant. I checked my bedroom and found that the mattress, blankets, and feather beds had been removed, along with the corpse of Noreen Lime. I called for my manservant, and when he did not answer, I lit a few candles and fetched a bottle of whisky and a crystal glass. The laudanum bottle was, to my relief, intact, and I made some use of it.

  In the parlor, I found a note written in Joe Murray’s blocky, hesitant penmanship, explaining that he had returned to Newstead with the Professor. As he saw it, there was no need for him to remain in Cambridge if I was to be absent, and my mother might find his presence comforting. He promised to meet me in London once I secured my release.

  There was also a somewhat lengthier letter from my attorney. I sat down at the fine table Angus had made for me, and read it as I drank:

  My dearest Byron,

  Joe Murray has sent me news of your various recent difficulties, and I am writing you to offer my assistance, as always.

  Foremost among my concerns is your visitation by Mr. Frederick Burke, who holds himself out as counsel for the Banque Crédit Française. I would urge you to engage in no further communication with Mr. Burke, and to refer him to me if he attempts to speak to you. It is of utmost importance that you refuse to agree to anything he proposes, either verbally or in writing, and that you make no statement admitting any fact he alleges until I’ve had an opportunity to review the matter.

  Joe Murray informs me that Mr. Burke claimed I talked to him in London and invited him to deal directly with you in Cambridge. He is lying. I have never been in contact with this man. I suspect that the bar association will not be pleased to hear that he misled you in order to deny you the benefit of counsel’s assistance, and his misconduct may harm his client’s interests, to our substantial benefit.

  For the present time, you should pay Mr. Burke no mind, except to avoid him. I will handle this problem for you. The songs they’ll sing of our vengeance will be rollicking, bloody ones, I promise.

  Sometime soon, however, we really must have a serious talk about your finances. Your assets should allow you to live out your life richly and idly, if your holdings are well-managed, but if you continue to accrue debts, your future incomes will be lost to interest upon those notes. I know you are cavalier about disregarding my advice, but you ought to pay heed to this warning. Your temperament is not well-suited for poverty.

  As to the matter of your recent upbraiding by the faculty, I’m sure you’ve realized that the Fellows are wholly impotent to punish you for your indifference to your studies. Utter disregard for academics is a privilege of and a tradition among men of your class. If you wish, I will draft a sternly-worded missive reminding them of this, but perhaps the prudent course would be to let the matter rest.

  That being said, given your literary aspirations, you might do well to avail yourself of the resources at your disposal in Cambridge. I know you view yourself as a wholly-formed master poet, but I still think of you as the child I knew only a few years ago. I know you have suffered from your father’s neglect of his duties toward you, and my occasional attempts to provide helpful guidance are sorry compensation, but I hope you will listen to me.

  When we grow older, we regret the arrogance of our younger selves. We regret the opportunities we disdained; the possibilities we rejected. You may think it beneath yourself to take instruction from these bewhiskered dons who wear drab clothing and lead dull, cloistered lives, but they seek only to bestow upon you the benefit of their years of study, and if you neglect your coursework, you’ll find the knowledge readily available to you now may be harder to accrue in the future. I hope you will not allow vanity to impede your progress, or prevent you from realizing your great potential.

  Finally, on the matter of these dreadful killings in Cambridge, I have made arrangements for your transportation home to Newstead until that unpleasant matter is resolved. Joe Murray has reported to me that you were visited by thieftakers from London named Fielding Dingle and Archibald Knifing. I have made inquiries regarding these gentlemen; indeed, I expended great effort to deploy messengers to a number of colleagues so that I might find out everything I could about these purported criminal investigators you have gotten mixed up with. What I’ve learned has been quite upsetting. I shall not rest easy until I receive Joe Murray’s confirmation that you are safely en route.

  Fielding Dingle is the vilest form of human trash, a man so detested that even the most reprehensible criminals and ruffians refer to him as a “rat.” He’s been twice convicted of burglary, but he finally realized he was too clumsy and stupid to earn a living at that line of work. He now holds himself out as a trained private constable, but I am told that he has little real investigative talent. Instead, he claims to be able to track down criminals and stolen property by maintaining a network of “informants” in the London underworld.

  In my experience, scoundrels of the lower orders enjoy stealing and rape above all other things, but, excepting those endeavors, informing upon one another is their favored activity, especially when there is a reward for doing so. Unfortunately for them, such men are often unable to collect the bounties on the heads of their friends because they are, themselves, wanted for various offenses. This creates an opportunity for Dingle.

  By refraining from the criminal behavior that is his nat
ural predisposition, he maintains the bare minimum of reputability required to be able to walk into a magistrate’s office without being arrested. As such, he’s able to purchase information from street hoods, and then sell it profitably to London’s rather sorry policing apparatus. Dingle has also been known to accept payment for assisting victims of theft in ransoming their property, a task that is difficult to bungle when he is colluding with the thieves. However, his deductive skills are not held in much esteem; those who know him laughed at the prospect of him hunting a killer.

  I have no idea where Lord Whippleby would encounter the likes of Fielding Dingle, but the presence of such an unsavory character indicates some corruption surrounding the Cambridge investigation in much the same way that the presence of maggots indicates that a haunch of meat has gone rotten.

  Archibald Knifing inspires more confidence at first glance, but he is the subject of my greatest concern. I forwarded enquiries about both men to various constables, magistrates and barristers who are regularly involved in criminal investigations and prosecutions. While Dingle is a relatively obscure figure, scraping a living at the fringes of society, Knifing is an eminence in his field.

  I was particularly interested to learn of a case Knifing famously solved; a series of killings in which female victims were hung by their feet and drained of blood, in much the same manner that I understand the first Cambridge victim was killed. I asked my contacts for more information about the matter, and they provided me with accounts that differed on significant facts.

  First of all, there was some dispute as to the location of the events in question. A lawyer I know who defends violent criminals with some regularity believed that the killings occurred in Grimsby, but a traveling magistrate who often hears criminal matters recalled such a trial being held in Chelmsford. There was also some disagreement as to whether the man convicted of the crimes was a miller or a bricklayer.

  My colleagues are fastidious, even with their gossip, and they are not likely to get their details mistaken, so I began to suspect that the differences between their accounts of the blood-draining case Knifing was renowned for solving suggested there were, in fact, two distinct events with similar facts.

  I was able to contact the judge who presided over the Grimsby case at his home in London. While he could not confirm that there had been a second, similar incident involving Mr. Knifing, he assured me of the location of the trial; there could be no mistake, since he’d never visited Chelmsford.

  However, my friend who was certain that the killings had, indeed, occurred in Chelmsford gave me the name of the lawyer who had unsuccessfully represented the accused in that case. It turned out he’d perished from fever some six months ago, but his law partner was able to find notes on the case, and shared with me a few details that were not protected by privilege.

  Those records confirm that Archibald Knifing arrested and testified against a miller in Chelmsford in relation to the killings of three local girls there whose corpses were drained of blood. The defense lawyer had unsuccessfully tried to introduce as proof of his client’s innocence the facts of a similar case in the town of Blackpool, two years before, involving killings with a similar method, and in which Knifing had also arrested a commoner with a previously unsullied reputation in the community, and with no known violent tendencies.

  The judge in Chelmsford refused to consider this evidence, deeming the Blackpool matter settled and unrelated, since a man had already been convicted and executed there.

  I find it deeply peculiar and suspicious that Archibald Knifing has orchestrated the arrest and prosecution of three different killers in separate cases involving identical crimes of a peculiar and specific nature. The investigator is the only common thread I can identify among those disparate incidents, and the conclusion I must draw from the facts I’ve collected is that Archibald Knifing is the killer, and he has used his reputation and expertise as an investigator to manufacture false evidence that suggests the guilt of other men.

  I urge you most vehemently to disentangle yourself from this unsavory affair and flee at once for the safety of Newstead Abbey. If you wish me to, I will present the information I have uncovered to a magistrate here in London, once you have made your escape from Cambridge.

  I await your further instructions.

  Faithfully,

  John Hanson, Esq.

  Chapter 37

  Though like a demon of the night

  He pass’d, and vanish’d from my sight,

  His aspect and his air impress’d

  A troubled memory on my breast

  —Lord Byron, The Giaour

  All the houses in Angus’s ramshackle section of Cambridge looked the same, so I banged urgently on a few wrong doors before I found the right one, and I severely frightened several townsfolk in the process. It was two in the morning, my clothes were soaked through with sweat, and I was so drunk, I could barely feel the aches in my wrists or my ribs or my shoulders anymore.

  My face was swollen and bruised, my hair was quite disheveled, and I’d left my greatcoat on the floor in my parlor, so I had nothing covering the two pistols harnessed to my back. If anyone had been out to see me, they might have been quite shocked by my appearance.

  When, at last, I found the right place, Angus answered his door holding a lantern in one hand and his musket in the other. I could see his young daughter standing in the doorway behind him, and the constable took great care to physically interpose himself between me and the girl.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  I thrust the letter at him, and he set down the gun to take it. He read slowly, and moved his lips as he sounded the words out in his head. After a couple of minutes, I seized the papers from his hand and read Hanson’s news to him aloud.

  “The only thing I don’t understand is how he could have hit Dingle with that rifle,” I said. “He’s got only one eye.”

  “I think you only need one eye to sight a rifle,” Dingle said. “You aim down the barrel.”

  This fact seemed familiar to me; I didn’t know why I had failed to remember it previously. Knifing had accused me of having a deficiency of observational skill. But Knifing was a deranged murderer, so his opinions were of little relevance. “We have to go get him before he kills again.”

  “Why don’t you go home and let me handle this?” Angus said. “You’re very drunk, and you’ve had a lot of excitement today.”

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “I must be on hand to take him into custody. It was my discovery that established his guilt.”

  “It was your lawyer’s discovery.”

  “Exactly. My lawyer, acting on my behalf. So it’s my discovery.”

  “You’re wounded and manic and intoxicated. You’re in no condition to confront a killer right now.”

  I thought about this. “You’re right. We shall wait until morning. They’re weaker in the daylight.”

  I pushed past him into the house, ignoring his stammered protests. He shooed the girl into the back room, keeping his body between me and her until the door was bolted. I found a comfortable-looking cushioned chair positioned against the wall, and I wondered as I sat down in it where Angus could have obtained such a fine thing. Just before I fell asleep, I realized he had made it with his hands.

  Angus roused me an hour before sunup. I ached from my wounds and from the after-effects of the liquor and laudanum I’d had, but my head was clear, or at least, clearer.

  Angus was already prepared for battle. He was dressed in a clean blue military-style uniform shirt that his daughter must have made for him. His hair was damp and combed neatly. He had a pistol on his side, and his musket slung over his shoulder.

  “It’s time to go ask Mr. Knifing some questions,” he said.

  “I can only hope he’s committed no more murders while we rested,” I said.

  Angus knew, from previous conversations with Mr. Knifing, that the investigator was lodged at the Burning Tyger Inn; at the junction of Emmanu
el Street and Elm Street, so we journeyed back east, and past Trinity College. Here, Angus remarked that I could have slept in my rooms instead of passing the night, uninvited, in his home. I did not speak to disagree with him, but the truth was that I was hesitant to return to my empty residence. I didn’t want to be alone with my recollections of the horrific events that had recently occurred there.

  The sky was turning from black to gray as we passed Christ’s College. We followed a narrow path called Milton’s Walk that cut across the disused pastures that some clever students long ago had named Christ’s Pieces. In short order, we arrived at the inn. Our knocks raised no response, but we found the door unlocked. The innkeeper’s desk was vacant, and nobody answered the little bell when we rang it. The proprietor was likely back in his quarters, asleep. Or maybe his corpse was hanging from a meat-hook someplace; I don’t think I ever bothered to find out what had happened to him.

  In any case, Angus rummaged the desk drawers and found the master key. The inn was a large one; three stories high with eleven guest rooms, but the innkeeper’s ledger revealed that Mr. Knifing was in room number 4. All the other rooms were inhabited, but I recognized none of the other names.

  I thought it odd that the inn had no vacancies; most Cambridge innkeepers earned their year’s keep during the few weeks when students’ families packed the town: Fall student enrollment and for the graduation ceremonies in Winter and Spring. The rest of the year, there was a surplus of rooms to let, and that situation had been exacerbated by the murders, which had caused most travelers to conclude or cancel their business in town.

  At least, however, this odd bit of fortune might have explained the innkeeper’s absence. With his rooms all rented, he had no need to be on hand to receive new guests.

  I found a pencil and copied the names in the ledger onto a scrap of paper; collecting such data seemed like something Archibald Knifing might have done in similar circumstances and, thus, the sort of thing the world’s greatest criminal investigator should do as well. I also checked the book for Dingle’s mark, but he must have found his lodgings elsewhere.