“He has a daughter. This will be disastrous for her. She’ll have no prospects, and she has no one left to look after her.”
Knifing nodded gravely. “His Majesty’s generosity will be extended to her as well. I’ll get her out of town, away from her father’s name and its history, and set her up in the country with a nice income and some property. She’ll be cared for by chaperones until she’s of age, and then she’ll be a fine match for any eligible lad who happens to be interested in wealth.”
I searched his face for dishonesty. He was, as always, inscrutable, and I knew he was untrustworthy. But I wanted badly to believe him, so I decided he was telling the truth. “The Treasury is laying out a great deal of coin to keep this matter quiet,” I said.
“These funds are the King’s to dispose of as he sees fit,” said Knifing. “And the King sees fit to keep his Throne.”
“The man I shot is neither Frederick Burke nor Colin Underhill. Who is he?”
“On my honor, I’ll never tell you his name, nor are you likely to learn any more about this matter. You’ll certainly get no more from me. None of this ever happened.” He put away his pistol.
I hesitated for as long as the noble facets of my nature could hold me at bay; not longer than a few seconds. Then, I succumbed to temptation. “Of course it didn’t,” I said, and I shook his thin, bony hand.
Chapter 41
Such are the men who learning’s treasures guard!
Such is their practice, such is their reward!
This much, at least, we may presume to say—
The premium can’t exceed the price they pay.
—Lord Byron, “Thoughts Suggested by a College Examination”
I left Knifing and his friend Bartholomew the undertaker to clean up the hideous mess in the inn. I went straight to the brothel, where I let the whores draw me a bath, and then I drank and fucked until I slid into a state of dreamless unconsciousness. Despite all my recent excitement, I’d slept more in the three days since I’d begun investigating the murder of Felicity Whippleby than I had in the previous three weeks.
I awoke late in the afternoon and had another tumble with one of the girls. When I was finished, I added the services I’d consumed to the line of credit the establishment had kindly extended me and headed back toward the College.
I found Old Beardy in his office. The sun was only just beginning the downward part of its daily arc, but he had his curtains pulled closed and was working by the light of an oil lamp; writing furiously in some kind of ledger. He looked up as I entered.
“Hello, Professor Brady.”
“Lord Byron,” he said. “I’m pleased by the news that you’ve been exonerated, as I understand it, of all those nasty accusations. I was somewhat aggrieved, however, to learn that kindly Mr. Buford was responsible for the killings. I knew him a little bit, and never would have suspected. I commissioned quite a bit of carpentry from him; a number of lecterns and desks and chairs for the College. Perhaps I shall have to replace them now. Regardless, I’m pleased to see you back in Cambridge.”
“I don’t intend to stay here for long,” I said.
“As I’ve told you, I’d consider it a grievous error in judgment for you to abandon your studies.”
I spoke without waiting for him to ramble out another disorganized thought. “Nothing will be abandoned. My studies will be finished in top form, and I’ll earn all the most prestigious prizes and Latin honors your department is empowered to confer upon me. I just won’t be spending any more time in Cambridge.”
“I don’t understand,” Beardy said.
“Let me explain it simply, then,” I said. “If you’d like, you may consider this my thesis project: It would have been difficult if not impossible for Angus Buford to kill Cyrus Pendleton on the same night he massacred the Tower family. The massacre, you see, would have been quite a time-consuming enterprise. The killer needed to drag the corpse of Professor Tower from the bedroom to the dining room, and pose it at the dinner table. He had to drain the blood from Mrs. Tower’s corpse, and then he had to carry a sloshing bucket of the stuff to the foul vat he had concealed in a rented room all the way across the city, at the Burning Tyger Inn. Pendleton was seen inside the Modest Proposal alive at half past ten. The Towers’ housemaid opened the door to Buford. She would not have been awake much past eleven. The tavern closed at midnight. The timing of the murders is confusing.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Angus Buford did not kill Cyrus Pendleton,” I said.
“This is really absurd.”
“Pendleton had pushed you out of the College, hadn’t he? He’d taken over your position. You were to be sent off to your pension and your dotage. A just reward for a long and distinguished career.”
“I don’t think I like what you’re insinuating.”
“I’m only saying that, in the wake of this sudden and unfortunate tragedy, it’s quite noble of you to delay your well-earned retirement and stay on as the head of the department.”
“Can you prove these incredible allegations?”
“Proof is a malleable thing, Professor. You show people a set of facts that makes sense, and they’re apt to believe it,” I said.
“This is slander. This is entirely baseless. This is—”
I interrupted him again: “This is ruinous, once the allegations are uttered in public, and I’m sure you understand that.”
“You’re a monster.”
“We’ve both killed men this week, Professor Brady. Let’s not go putting ugly labels on things, though. My silence in this matter has a price you can afford.”
“Diplomas. Prizes. Latin honors,” he said.
“And a fellowship for my bear. It doesn’t need to have a teaching component. Just a sheepskin denoting the honor, and a reasonable stipend to fund his studies.”
“You’re depraved,” said Old Beardy.
“Well, I learned from the best,” I said. “Or, at least, the best outside of Oxford.”
“Blackguard. Extortionist. Mad, lame, drunken thief.”
“I’m pleased you find my terms acceptable. My lawyer will be contacting you to handle the details. Good day,” I said. And I stood and strode out the door, keeping my gait as smooth as my weak leg could manage. Blood was singing in my ears as I burst through the front door of the building and out onto the manicured carpet of the College’s Great Lawn.
My body was bruised and my head was concussed and I was sick to my stomach, but nonetheless, I felt liberated. My finances were now in better repair than they’d ever been, my education was complete, with top marks, and my future was spread before me. I turned my face toward the late afternoon sun and closed my eyes. I could go wherever I wanted.
A few weeks later, I went East.
Chapter 42
I have a personal dislike to Vampires, and the little acquaintance I have with them would by no means induce me to reveal their secrets.
—Lord Byron, from an 1819 letter to the editor of Galignani’s Messenger
Archibald Knifing delivered the money he promised, and that run of fortune paid for my adventures in the Levant, which inspired me to write Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, a work of enormous and incontrovertible literary import.
However, I searched the London papers for reports about tragedy in the family of some earl or viscount, and I found no death-notice that could possibly have described the man whose name was not Frederick Burke. This seemed strange, but the wealth of those close to the Crown could buy a lot of discretion, and it was not unheard of for a shameful death in a well-heeled family to go unheralded in the press.
So I listened for gossip. While Knifing would not tell me whether Not-Burke was an heir or a younger son, the death of anyone in line to inherit an important title was always much discussed among certain social circles. Wild fluctuations in the marriage market would necessarily ensue in the wake of such a tragedy. Various players would have to reconsider their strategies. Some younger broth
er or close cousin would be a step closer to inheriting, and the prospects of all eligible relations to the decedent would need to be recalculated. But I heard no discussion of any death that could possibly be Not-Burke’s. Perhaps, if Not-Burke had been formally disinherited, he could have died and been buried without much fanfare or outside interest, and such an act by his father may, indeed, have been the fount of Not-Burke’s rage.
But still, the mad, disgraced son of an earl would be of implicit interest to gossips, and the death of such a figure would ordinarily be, at the least, fodder for much idle conversation. The silence surrounding these events was suspicious.
But I had sworn myself to secrecy and could, thus, undertake no further inquiry into the matter. Asking questions would break my promise to Knifing. So I set out for the Continent and left my thoughts about the man I’d killed behind, along with my mother and the Professor.
It was years later, as my fortunes and my marriage and my reputation came unspooled that I began to reconsider everything that had occurred in Cambridge. I had recently vacated Newstead after separating from my wife, and I discovered William Byron’s big black wardrobe among the effects Annabella had sent to my new lodgings in London. I still had a key to the sturdy padlock, and I found my arcane texts undisturbed inside.
As I had lapsed into solitude and melancholia, I found myself with ample time to consider the Cambridge murders, the vampires, and the fate of my father. Breaking, for the first time, the promise I’d made to Knifing, I began recording my narrative of those dark events.
Among my collection of vampire lore were certain tracts that discussed the habit among vampires to employ weak-willed men as thralls or familiars; hypnotized slaves tasked with seeing to the monster’s interests while it slumbers. These men gradually lose their minds as their wills are broken by the vampire’s influence, and they are known to subsist on insects and rodents and the festering remains of drained victims.
As I sat amidst the detritus of my ruined life, I reconsidered these materials and convinced myself that the wild-eyed Mr. Not-Burke, bathing in sour blood and covered in flies, may not have been the monster he seemed, but rather, merely an ordinary man under the power of such a nefarious spell.
The thrall, according to texts, will lure or force victims into the vampire’s lair, and bleed them so the master may feed at its leisure. If circumstances require it, this wretched mortal servant will happily die to protect the monster. This revelation made it clear to me that Knifing was a vampire after all, and that he’d fabricated the story about the killer and the King, and had sacrificed his minion in furtherance of the lie.
If this supposition was correct, poor, innocent Angus had been a scapegoat for a scapegoat, and my lies about his death had insulated and protected the deeper lies that Knifing told me.
I spent a lot of time thinking about vampires’ supposed allergy to sunlight, and about how Knifing had carried an umbrella when the sky bore no signs warning of rain, and how he shaded his pale skin with his wide-brimmed bush hat when he went about in the daytime. And I began to make certain inquiries.
According to public records, which my attorney, Mr. Hanson, assisted me in researching, Archibald Knifing disappeared in 1809. His house was found empty, and he had apparently informed no one of his whereabouts. After a reasonable time, it was assumed he had died while traveling abroad, and his affairs were disposed of according to the law. Since Mr. Knifing left no will and the court could find no heirs, the property reverted to the Crown and was sold at auction.
I will protect the current inhabitants by not revealing their names or the address of the house, but I visited the place. It was a relatively ordinary country estate, well constructed and appointed, but of modest size. I was convinced that some secret to Knifing’s true nature was concealed within. Fortunately, the owners had read my poems and were flattered to receive the attention of a celebrity. They indulged my investigation, which must have seemed strange to them, and allowed me to search their home for clues.
First, I counted the house’s exterior windows and verified that their number corresponded to the number of interior rooms, as they ought to have; an extra window would have signified a secret chamber. I measured hallways to see if there was a geometric inconsistency that might indicate the presence of a false wall. I tapped on baseboards, looking for hollow places, and I tugged every molding, fixture, and candelabra, in hopes of finding a concealed lever. There was nothing of the sort.
The house’s only feature of note was a small cellar with earthen walls. While it wasn’t extraordinary for a house to have an unfinished underground space to store wines or vegetables, a cellar would ordinarily have an outdoor entrance, or would be accessed through the kitchen. The entryway to Knifing’s cellar was in the master bedroom, which I thought was a most unusual place for it. The door to it was also very heavy and sturdy, and could be locked from the inside.
I consulted an architect about this strangeness, and he told me that it was not so uncommon a feature as I might have imagined; it was even fashionable among some well-off bachelors to build a small wine cellar accessible from their bedrooms so that fine beverages might be easily available without having to interrupt an intimate liaison by summoning a servant to fetch wine.
The architect also posited that the addition of the secure door might allow the cellar to function as a sort of modern castle-keep; a fortified room into which the occupant could flee and take shelter if brigands invaded the house. In fact, many finer homes throughout England had been outfitted with such burrows after Louis and his queen were dragged from Versailles by a mob of common folk.
But it seemed to me that such an earthen cellar would also be an ideal place for a vampire to keep his coffin; much of the vampire lore held that the creatures needed to return to the soil to rest. And, anyway, how could a man like Archibald Knifing, a war hero and a confidant of the King, simply disappear? If he was dead, why was there no news of his demise?
I laid the whole story out for Hanson, and he felt it more sensible to ascribe ordinary explanations to the various events that aroused my suspicions. Disappearance, he said, was not uncommon among wanderers. Many people did not carry forwarding addresses for their relatives among their effects while journeying abroad, and when tragedy struck, such people were routinely remanded to local undertakers and ended up buried anonymously in churchyards. As for the cellar, Hanson was happy to accept the architect’s explanation. And, he said, lots of men carry umbrellas when there’s no rain, especially older gentlemen who are too proud to admit they need walking-sticks to lean upon.
I always listen patiently to Hanson’s advice, but I frequently disregard it. So, I’m not yet done with this. When I return to the Continent, I will distract myself from the shambles I’ve made of my life and my marriage by attempting to pick up Knifing’s trail. There are rumors that the King of Prussia has a one-eyed military advisor. I’ve heard talk, as well, of a doomed caravan lost in the Austrian Alps. Only one man is said to have made it out alive. The vague descriptions of the lone survivor don’t seem to match Knifing’s features, but they might describe my father’s.
The Alps, I think, are close to Prussia. I find it all very suspicious. There must be more to this; there must be some meaning to it.
A poet must have a keen eye for details and for feelings; for subtext and for innuendo. This same set of skills is also essential if one hopes to have any success at the pursuit of vampires and the settling of accounts with absentee fathers. My investigation is ongoing, and I am eminently well suited to the task.
Epilogue
I am too well avenged!—but ’t was my right;
Whate’er my sins might be, thou wert not sent
To be the Nemesis who should requite—
Nor did heaven choose so near an instrument.
Mercy is for the merciful!—if thou
Hast been of such, ’t will be accorded now.
Thy nights are banish’d from the realms of sleep!—
A hollow agony which will not heal,
For thou art pillow’d on a curse too deep;
Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap
The bitter harvest in a woe as real!
—Lord Byron, “Lines, On Hearing That Lady Byron Was Ill”
I saw Olivia Wright once more, when I visited her during the course of preparing this account of the 1807 Cambridge murders. During the nine years since I’d last spoken to her, she had taken over her father’s business interests and, through clever maneuverings, improved them. But she never married.
The first thing I noticed when I visited her London home was the size of the staff she employed. I counted a house steward, several domestic maids, and two footmen as I waited in the parlor for her to receive me. The presence of the footmen implied that the house employed several cooks, and Olivia must have had at least one more maid to care for her wardrobe and chambers. There was probably a housekeeper someplace to supervise this extensive retinue.
Even the more lavish London homes were much smaller than sprawling, drafty country estates like Newstead Abbey, but I had let entire wings of my house fall into disuse and disrepair, and despite my larger space, I’d never employed this many domestic servants. I’d never had enough money to support so many people, even in the flush years after I accepted Knifing’s bribe.
That a commoner’s house should be grander and better kept than a nobleman’s was increasingly the fashion. Many old families had nothing but unalienable land holdings, the incomes from which were often insufficient even to combat the rot and dilapidation of the properties themselves.
Britain had become, therefore, a nation of pimps, as the new rich, like Sedgewyck’s family, awash with cash but lacking respectability, sought to wed their daughters and their fortunes to hereditary titles. The old aristocracy, meanwhile, bartered its sons for the funds to continue in the lifestyles its members considered their birthrights.
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