Riot Most Uncouth

by Daniel Friedman

  “I’m sure we can make some sort of a deal,” Knifing said. “Your discretion in this matter is of crucial importance to the security of England.”

  “All I see is a madman bathing in human blood. England will be well served by his destruction.” I was tense, unsure whether to take my gun off Not-Burke to point it at Knifing. Both men were exceedingly dangerous.

  Knifing kept his voice calm and soothing, and made no move toward me. “Let me ask, Byron, are you a loyal subject of the King?”

  I shuffled my weight back and forth on my feet. My arm was starting to hurt. Not-Burke was standing as still as statuary, or as still as a predatory cat waiting for unsuspecting prey to wander within pouncing distance. “I’ll not have you cast aspersions against my honor,” I said to Knifing. “My family has a long military tradition, and my fealty is not subject to dispute.”

  “So I can assume, then, that you love your King and accept his rule?” Knifing asked.

  “Of course.” I took a step back and pressed my back against the far wall of the room, by the window. Neither Not-Burke nor Knifing moved toward me. I allowed my arm to bend a little, which relieved some discomfort but made me feel less safe.

  Knifing leaned forward, casting a long, sinister shadow that rippled across the bloody hardwood floor of the room. “Why?” he asked. It was like he was prodding me with a rapier.

  “Why do I love the King?”

  “Yes.”

  I studied his face for clues and found none. He was impassive and inscrutable. I couldn’t tell if the long pink scar robbed his face of expressiveness, or if it was the only thing that kept him from being completely blank. “I don’t understand the question,” I said.

  He asked: “Have you ever met the King?”

  “I’ve seen him, but never spoken to him at any length.” I’d appeared at court during the previous London season. His Majesty had seemed aged and unwell. After a brief introduction, I had kept my distance and focused my attentions on various available women.

  “And yet you love him. You must not love him for any personal quality he possesses, for you do not know him. So, we may say that you love the King solely because he is the King. Would you love him if he were not King?”

  I could not understand why Knifing was playing rhetorical games. I was trapped; the two of them stood between me and the door, which was the only route of egress from the cramped room. I didn’t say anything. The gun was starting to feel heavy. Knifing turned and regarded me with his white eye. I wondered if it was really dead, or if it still had some kind of sight, despite its discoloration.

  When I did not speak, Knifing continued: “His Majesty’s periodic affliction of the mind is well known, and was publicized during the regency crisis some years back. But while the populace is convinced His Majesty has recovered, the possibility of permanent incapacity is real. The severity of his illness is a closely held secret.”

  “But if the King is too infirm to fulfill his duties, the Prince of Wales may rule in his stead under a Regency Act, can he not?”

  Knifing shrugged. “It has not been so long, relatively, since the American colonies rejected the Crown, and the French royalty was deposed shortly thereafter. The state of monarchy in Europe has, perhaps, never been more tenuous. The rule of a prince, even a crown prince, is not rule of a king. And if England undergoes a period of prolonged rule by something other than a king, even if it is a king-in-waiting, the Throne shall never regain its power. It has long been held that the King’s rule is his Divine Right; that the King is appointed by God. How can George be the divinely chosen King, and yet be unfit to sit the Throne? The very idea of a regency punctures the essential premise of the monarchy, and would forever erode the legitimacy of the King’s claim; of any king’s claim. Parliament is staging a coup, Lord Byron.”

  I began to suspect Knifing was trying to keep me talking until my arm dropped. I braced my right hand with my left and squinted down the barrel at Burke, or whoever he was. “I see very little relation between these esoteric political concerns and Mr. Not-Burke and his vat of putrid blood.”

  Knifing kept talking. “There are influential members of the House of Lords who want to see the monarchy weakened. They are agitating for a new Regency Act, a law that will frame the King as a madman and strip away the powers of the Crown without His Majesty’s consent. A few powerful Peers command legislative constituencies that can block the bill. These men wield tremendous influence over how the Empire will be ruled in the future, and this gentleman’s father is among them.”

  I tried to think of a marquess or a powerful earl who physically resembled Not-Burke. I didn’t think he could be a duke’s son; most of them were relatives of the Royal family and not predisposed to betray the Crown.

  “So this influential father will help to hide the King’s madness, and protect the Throne from action by Parliament, in return for the King’s assistance in covering up the son’s killings,” I said.

  “My father is a swine,” Not-Burke said, and he filled the room with manic giggles. “I’d cut him up like your silly constable, if he would ever come home to see me. But I am undeserving of his attention, it seems.”

  “His father has promised to keep him sequestered in the countryside, where the harm he does can be contained,” Knifing said. “But it is unseemly for a gentleman to turn his manor house into a prison, and propriety must trump security on certain matters. The young master escapes sometimes. The father will not allow his son to be recaptured by force; someone of his line must not have lesser hands laid upon him. So, His Majesty has tasked me with retrieving the lad when he gets loose, gently remanding him to his father’s custody and containing the damage he’s caused. My charge finds great delight in watching me scramble to cover up his crimes.”

  “But surely you realize that protecting this man is reckless and immoral. The amusement he derives from forcing you to conceal his crimes is probably the only reason he has not yet stabbed you while you sleep.”

  “I do not fear death,” Knifing said.

  “Perhaps not, but I am sure you would prefer to receive it from more honorable hands.”

  Knifing frowned. “There is no greater honor than death in His Majesty’s service.”

  Not-Burke laughed again. He was still standing over Angus, who had been a better man, by far, than any of the three of us. I felt sordid, making conversation with the constable’s killer while his still-warm corpse lay supine on the floor.

  “Why has he been killing people I know?” I asked. “Why did he impersonate a debt collector to hound me? Why did he come into my window to kill Noreen Lime? What’s this got to do with me?”

  “Men like you and my father wander arrogantly about, taking whatever you want, while I am stuck in my house and consigned to the margins of society for my predilections.” Not-Burke gripped the knife so hard, his knuckles turned white and the cords of his forearm bulged beneath the skin of his wrist. “Why should you walk among men and cavort with girls, while I am locked away? Why should your excesses be tolerated, while mine are condemned? Who says you’re better than I?”

  Knifing pointed a contemptuous finger at Not-Burke. “I told you; unstable minds are drawn to celebrities and magnetic personalities. Lord Whippleby is a friend of his father, and he came here after Felicity, but you certainly got his attention when you showed up drunk at the murder scene, demanding entrance. He’s fascinated with your notoriety. He would have gone to Harrow or Eton, but after he dismembered a chambermaid, his father kept him home. I told him when I followed him here that he must not get up to his mischief in such close proximity to you, but my warnings seemed only to encourage him to do everything possible to force your continued involvement in this business. For that you have my sincere apologies.”

  I raised the gun again, ignoring the pain in my shoulder. “You’re the one who supplied him with the information about my dealings with Banque Crédit Française. He used that as a pretense to enter my home. How did you even discover t
he details of my private business?”

  “I’m an investigator, and I am very thorough in my inquiries. But I should not have disclosed that information to my charge. In retrospect, I see it was an error in judgment.”

  The knowledge that the bank itself, lacking Knifing’s thoroughness, might not yet know of my misconduct was a source of some relief, and the revelation would have been quite welcome under other circumstances.

  “That apology would be accepted with appreciation if you weren’t holding a gun on me,” I said.

  Knifing shook his head. “It’s the best I can offer. But I mean it sincerely.”

  “Mr. Dingle arrested me,” I said. “I could have been hanged for Burke’s crimes.”

  “No.” Knifing gestured emphatically with his pistol, and, startled, I nearly threw myself to the floor. “I never would have allowed you to be tried. Your lawyers would have investigated my records, discovered the other murders, and unraveled the conspiracy. I hope you appreciate my decision to extricate you from Mr. Dingle’s clutches.”

  “Your actions and your omissions put me in that situation, and I could have been killed in the stagecoach crash. You were willing to tolerate that risk, though, weren’t you?” I looked at the bayonet scar that bisected his face, and considered his square-shouldered military bearing. “You’ve got quite an aim with the Baker rifle, especially for a one-eyed man,” I said. Rage surged in my chest, and I felt my face and neck flush.

  “The continuity of the monarchy is worth more than either of our lives.”

  “Not to me, it isn’t. I’ve no desire to die protecting a mad killer so that his corrupt father will shield a mad king.”

  “Watch your tongue, boy,” Knifing said, his scar crinkling around his twisted features. “You come dangerously close to treason when you speak that way.”

  “Look at this room, Knifing,” I said, pointing at the blood splattered on the walls and pooled on the floor, and at the corpse of the constable. “All this death to protect a King who can no longer protect himself, a King who must bargain with extortionists.”

  “We can find an agreement,” said Knifing. “We can all walk away from this. A man like you is always wanting things. Money and women and drugs. The King has many resources, and some could be made available for your benefit.”

  “There will be no deal,” said Not-Burke. “I’ve no reason to negotiate with you, Byron, because you have uncovered no secrets I care to protect. Your information can connect those killings only to Archibald Knifing. Your representative knows nothing of me, and once you’re dead, he never will. If he publicizes what little he’s uncovered, only Knifing will be incriminated, and this loyal servant will accept the blame for my crimes to protect his beloved King. He’ll hang by his neck, and he’ll be thankful for the opportunity to be of service. I will be rid of both of you, and I’ll be free to resume my activities. You and your representative do not even know my name.”

  “Perhaps I don’t,” I conceded. “But I know how to learn it.”

  “I’m curious to hear how you propose to obtain that crucial fact.”

  “I shall read it in your obituary,” I said, and I discharged my pistol.

  The ball struck his long throat, bursting his Adam’s apple like a fat pimple and ripping his neck open. Not-Burke made several wet, gasping noises and then collapsed to his knees. He retched, and blood poured from his mouth, and from his gaping injury as well. He tried, once, to stand, but the trauma had rendered him feeble, and he pitched forward and struck his head upon the wood floor with a sharp crack. He clawed with his fingers at the ragged wound in his throat as if trying to clear his windpipe of some obstruction. He opened his mouth and tried to scream, but no sound came out. His cheeks had turned blue, and his lolling tongue was thick and purple.

  He collapsed and bashed his head against the floor a second time, and then his body began to shake violently. When he spastically rolled onto his back, I could see that his skull was misshapen; he’d beaten his own brains out.

  Not-Burke did not rise again; he only twitched a few times, and then he was still. His blood sprayed out of his neck in great spurts at first, but the pulses quickly grew weaker, and then slowed to a trickle, and a black shroud of flies settled upon his body, as they had upon Angus.

  “My God. You’ve killed him,” said Knifing.

  “Of course I did,” I said. “You saw the atrocities he committed against Violet Tower and her children.” I threw my spent weapon on the floor. “In this circumstance, prudence and passion counseled the same response. I could not have done otherwise.”

  Chapter 40

  He, who grown aged in this world of woe,

  In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,

  So that no wonder waits him; nor below

  Can love, or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife,

  Cut to his heart again with the keen knife

  Of silent, sharp endurance: he can tell

  Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife

  With airy images, and shapes which dwell

  Still unimpair’d, though old, in the soul’s haunted cell.

  —Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, canto 3

  I was unarmed and cornered. Knifing was still standing in the doorway, legs spread shoulder-width, holding a pistol on me.

  I believed I had better-than-even odds of beating him in a fistfight, though I was hurt and exhausted. He was a tough man and a trained soldier, but he was old and slight. Still, I didn’t see how I could get close enough to lay hands on him; he’d shoot me down. I had no hope he might miss. He’d made two impossible shots with the Baker rifle to kill Dingle and the coachman; it would be for him a triviality to hit me with a pistol from three paces away. I probably should have used my shot to take down the investigator, and taken my chances in hand-to-hand combat with Not-Burke and his knife.

  “So, what’s going to happen now? Are you going to shoot me?” I asked.

  Knifing thought about it for a moment, and then lowered the gun. “I hope I won’t have to.”

  “Are you angry I’ve killed your little friend?”

  “Quite the opposite. The world’s no worse off for his loss. My honor would not permit me to disobey orders and get rid of him myself, but I am not displeased by this resolution.”

  “But you are undone now,” I said. “Surely the father will be wroth, and he’ll cease to aid the King in Parliament.”

  “He will not,” Knifing said. “I have planned for this contingency. Hoped for it, even. This could have happened the other night when Jerome Tower almost got the better of him, or any night that little shit went slithering into someone’s residence with ill intent. The father can still be controlled; he still has a secret that needs keeping. He doesn’t want the world to know what his son was, and how he abetted the lad’s gruesome deeds.”

  “But surely all that will come out now. How can it possibly be concealed?”

  “I already bought the innkeeper’s discretion. The undertaker’s, too.”

  “What about the other tenants here in the inn? They must have heard the shot.”

  “There are no other tenants. I rented all the rooms when I arrived, and signed for them with false names. As far as anyone is concerned, this man never came to Cambridge. He died on his father’s estate, mortally injured in a tragic accident. There is nobody around to say otherwise.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “There’s me.”

  “Yes,” Knifing said.

  “So your charade depends on my acquiescence. It seems I find myself in a position of considerable power over you, Mr. Knifing,” I said.

  He brandished the pistol. “Only if I decide not to shoot you.”

  “If you shoot me, Mr. Hanson will publicize what he knows about you. To protect the King then, you’ll have to admit to the crimes and hang for them. I’m sure you’d prefer not to.”

  “I’d rather have your complicity,” Knifing conceded.

  “You mentioned money, g
irls, and drugs?”

  He nodded.

  “I’d like all those things, please.” This dire situation was beginning to look more agreeable. “I have amassed considerable debts, as you’ve evidently uncovered in your research. I’ll need them settled, including my account with Banque Crédit Française.”

  Knifing nodded again. I decided to press for more.

  “A number of properties I inherited from my great-uncle were burdened with improper leases and other encumbrances. As his interest in those assets was only a life-estate, he had no right to let those assets for any duration beyond his death. However, litigation with his tenants is ongoing. He gave away the lands on unconscionably one-sided terms to spite his heirs, and the present occupants cling to them tenaciously. I’d like to see these matters resolved in my favor.”

  “I’m not sure I can interfere with the process of the courts,” Knifing said. “The legal system’s independence from politics is fiercely guarded, and judges hate being told what to do.”

  This was expected. “Then I want more money,” I said. “The market value of leases on those properties, retroactively and prospectively, made available to me on deposit.”

  “I’m sure we can offer you a tidy sum,” Knifing said. “A reward that will satisfactorily convey the King’s gratitude for your discretion in this matter. But I will warn you not to attempt to use this secret to extort more money from the Crown when you waste what we give you. While the King rains indulgences upon his friends, he does not capitulate to his enemies.”

  “His Majesty rolled over and offered his royal ass to Burke’s father, didn’t he?”

  “Lord Byron, you will mind your tongue. I am content to shower generosity upon you if we may settle this matter now, but if you persist in being a loose end, you will get tied up.”

  “You will blame all the murders on poor Angus?”

  “He was a decent chap, but he’s dead. No slight on his reputation can cause him further harm.”