Daniel Friedman - Riot Most Uncouth

Dawn found me struggling to shake off the after-effects of the previous evening’s raucous festivities. I was nursing a snifter of brandy and trying to figure out what to do about Olivia when Joe Murray announced that another stranger had come around and was awaiting an audience with me in the parlor. I found this vexing, as the visitor was interrupting my breakfast and forcing me to break off a stimulating conversation with the Professor. I apologized to the bear as I refilled his silver bowl with champagne, and I left him to go greet the intruder in the parlor.

“Good morning,” he said. “I am Fielding Dingle.”

“I don’t care,” I told him. My head was throbbing, and my capacity for tolerance was exhausted. In the space of twenty-four hours, I’d been hounded by Mr. Burke the debt collector, bullied by the faculty, and threatened in my own home by the unsettling Archibald Knifing. Then, Leif Sedgewyck had arrived uninvited to my party to humiliate me. For reasons that quite escaped me, I’d become the wrong kind of popular.

I took the measure of my unwelcome guest. He wasn’t from any of the banks I owed; their people dressed better. His suit was well kept but poorly made, hugging his girth in some places and bunching up with excess fabric in others. His mustache was bristly and had a greenish hue to it; stained, no doubt, by cheap pipe tobacco. His face was round and red, and his lips were thick and beige. He had the sort of mouth that never seemed to close all the way, as if his big pink gums interfered with the operation of his jaw. His breathing seemed slightly labored. If one was quiet, one could hear him wheeze a little each time he exhaled.

Whatever he wanted, I was unwilling to endure further imposition without complaint.

“I am a thieftaker in the employ of Lord Whippleby,” he said. “I arrived this morning from London to investigate the death of that gentleman’s daughter. Your interest in this matter is well known, and I am sure that you’ll be unsurprised to learn you’re a suspect in the estimation of some of the locals, and therefore of concern to me.”

“You’re Whippleby’s man from London?” I asked.

“I am.”

“You’re quite sure?”

“Thoroughly.”

I looked at Dingle again to make sure he was not, in fact, Archibald Knifing. He was not. “Who are these locals who accuse me, and what is the basis for their suspicions?” I asked.

“Rumors,” said Dingle. “Gossip and innuendo.”

“Is that the craft of the criminal investigator?” I asked. “You catalog the inanities uttered by housewives and day laborers?”

“My methods are sound,” Dingle said.

“I’ve no doubt of it,” I replied. “I’ve no doubt, either, that the evidence you collect is as solid and substantial as your own impressive intellect.”

“I’ve also heard about your affinity for wordplay,” said Dingle. “I don’t share it; I am a concrete thinker. A bit of a brick, if you’ll pardon me. I hope you’ll be kind enough to dispense with your games and talk straight, so as to avoid confusion in the investigation.”

“It’s already too late to avoid confusion,” I said, still trying to figure out why someone who had retained the impressive Mr. Knifing would also hire a man like Dingle.

“I don’t get your meaning.”

“Never mind.”

I could think of no reason why Whippleby would send two men to Cambridge. Something was amiss, and if I could figure out what it was, and how it related to my father, or to Mr. Sedgewyck, perhaps I might unravel the mystery. Then, I’d inevitably become a famous and beloved national celebrity. This would certainly give my creditors a reason to avoid suing me for fraud. Such notoriety might also increase sales of Hours of Idleness, potentially providing remuneration sufficient to stave off financial disaster. And I had never experienced the sexual possibilities that were available to men with reputations for being noble and good. I was curious.

Dingle stepped closer and stooped down, so his face was inches from mine. He seemed to study me as the point of his tongue tickled the wet rim of his mouth. “Have you ever participated in a dark ritual, Lord Byron?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Ever worship the Devil? Ever conjure a demon? Ever take part in any kind of pagan or magical ceremony?”

“You are asking if I am a witch? Are you mad?”

“Witchcraft has been associated with ritualistic murder since ancient times.” Dingle spoke with the authority of a man who had once read a book on this subject, which increased my estimation of him measurably, since I had presumed him illiterate. He seemed to gather his bulk as he leaned toward me. “Tell me the truth.”

“I once attended a party where we attempted to conduct a seance. But it was done in a spirit of jest.”

“This is a joke to you?”

“Many things are jokes to me, but I’m not certain to which ‘this’ you refer. Your attempts at communicating are somewhat thwarted by your imprecision with the English language.”

His florid face surprised and delighted me by turning an even deeper shade of crimson. “I speak of the murder. Of the horrible death of young Felicity.”

“Oh. No, I don’t think that’s a joke. The seance was a joke. You are a joke, Mr. Dingle. But the murder is not a joke.” My hand curled into a fist. “I might add that, as jokes go, you are a bad one. And the longer I have to look at you, the less amusing you become.”

“Witches have been known to perform rituals that involve drinking blood out of a human skull. Does that sound familiar to you, Lord Byron?”

“Certainly not.”

“But you have been known to use a skull as a drinking cup.”

The only chair in the room was the high-backed throne I’d stolen from the College. I sank into it and let Dingle stand.

“Here’s what I see,” said Dingle. “Witches and demon-cultists drink blood out of skulls. I’ve got a girl missing her blood, and I am looking at a gentleman who drinks from a skull-cup. Now, maybe this murder has to do with witchcraft. Maybe it doesn’t. The evidence is circumstantial. Maybe it’s even coincidental. Except that this skull-drinking gentleman is also connected to the second victim.”

My throat felt dry. I swallowed, hard. “Second victim?”

“I’ve just come from examining a fresh corpse, Lord Byron. A corpse drained of blood.”

A bead of sweat ran down my forehead, and then I felt damp all over. “Olivia?”

Dingle’s brow furrowed. “Who?”

“Olivia Wright. She has been murdered?”

He shook his head. “Cyrus Pendleton, Lord Byron. Cyrus Pendleton is dead.”

“I don’t know who that is,” I said.

Dingle bared his teeth at me. They were small and sharp, like the needle-fangs of a carnivorous deep-sea fish. I was briefly mesmerized by the way his lips slid over his gums as he spoke. His mouth bore a remarkable and improbable resemblance to a terrifying vagina dentata that featured prominently in one of my more baroque recurring nightmares. “I keep telling you not to lie to me,” the vagina said. “I already know you earned poor marks in his course. I already know about the argument you had with him yesterday.”

“Professor Fat Cheeks?” I asked.