Daniel Friedman - Riot Most Uncouth

“If you’ve such contempt for your employment, why do you continue in it?”

“I serve at His Majesty’s direction. England has spent years at war, and London is rife with lawlessness. The populace demands safety, and perhaps His Majesty hopes a few high-profile investigators employing fashionable methods can forestall the need for the Crown to make a more comprehensive investment in stopping crime. If His Majesty says there must be scientific inquiry into a few murders, then so there will be. Indeed, because it is my duty to serve the King, I have become the foremost practitioner of this so-called science. I can read a murder scene as well as any Comanche can read a buffalo trail. But the alleged quality of my application of these methods is aided in no small amount by my lack of reverence toward them. I’m not here engaged in a search for anything like the truth. I’m performing a ritual; I’m here as a priest of man’s godless justice, though I fear this ridiculous blasphemy might be the seed of England’s downfall.”

“I hardly see the nation’s ruin in the science of detection,” I said. “I am, indeed, baffled at how the two things could be related.”

His brows pulled together and his face became a collection of shadowy triangles. “I suspect you spend a lot of time being baffled, Lord Byron. You certainly seem to spend a lot of time drunk.”

I couldn’t help noticing that he parried my rhetorical jabs with the same sort of bored insouciance that I’d employed in insulting Fielding Dingle. Everything about Archibald Knifing was scary, but the scariest thing about him was how brilliant he was. I suspected, for the first time, that my assumption that I was the world’s greatest criminal investigator might have been mistaken. I wondered if Knifing had ever written verse, and I rather hoped he had not. He’d probably have been spectacular at it.

I replied: “I am a poet, and I am thusly endowed, at least, with a finely honed sense of truth.”

“A finely honed sense of the truth?” His clenched features lifted and spread apart, and his lips peeled off his teeth. I was terrified that I was about to find out what it sounded like when he laughed, but he restrained himself.

“It is not a thing for your mockery, Sir Archie. It’s the most sacred and exquisite tool in an artist’s repertoire.”

He tucked his hands into his waistcoat pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels, stretching his legs as he did so. Finally, he spoke: “I just want to make sure I understand this,” he said. “Your finely honed sense of the truth is an exquisite tool?”

“I do not appreciate your tone,” I said.

He relinquished his self-control and cackled. The evil sound reverberated off the blood-spattered stone walls. “I must say, I am thoroughly enjoying your ridiculous presence. You add no small amount of levity to these grim and routine proceedings.”

“I spread joy wherever I go,” I said. Contrary to rumor, I am capable of embarrassment, and I was, then, embarrassed.

“Do you use the whole repertoire to spread the joy, or do you merely require the exquisite tool?”

“You’re very funny yourself.”

“Perhaps, my dear Poet, you’d like to engage your tool upon the matter at hand. Do your finely honed senses lend you any insight into what has befallen our poor Professor Pendleton?”

He was baiting me, but I wanted very badly to humiliate him by demonstrating that my talents eclipsed his own, even in the narrow field of his supposed expertise. I scratched my chin and wobbled a little bit on my feet. “Well,” I said. “Professor Fat-er, Pendleton wouldn’t have climbed over the gate. He probably couldn’t have, for he was quite heavy. I’d assume the killer either possessed a key to the padlock, or he was strong and agile enough to carry his victim over seven feet of wrought iron.”

“My God, I must retract and apologize for all my previous mockery; your reasoning is wondrous to behold,” said Knifing. “We elderly fellows often forget that we have much to gain by availing ourselves of the cleverness of youths. Were it not for you, I might have overlooked the significance of the gate.”

I should have perceived his sarcasm; which would have been obvious to even the least savvy of observers. But I did not. It is possible, I will admit, that my perception was impeded by drink, for I was already about six fingers deep into a bottle. I was also considering whether Fielding Dingle could have heaved Pendleton over the gate. It seemed unlikely; Dingle didn’t seem much of an athlete. Knifing couldn’t have done it either, for the victim matched his weight, plus half of it again.

Sedgewyck, perhaps, could have managed it; the Dutchman was large, and such a feat was, perhaps, within his abilities. But the timing was also difficult to work out; he’d been at my party, and then he’d walked Olivia home. So when could he have committed this murder? And how could any of them have known Fat Cheeks? There was only one suspect in these killings who had feuded with the dead man: me.

What I said to Knifing was: “It’s wise of you to acknowledge your deficiency.”

Knifing glanced downward, ashamed, and seemed to notice something on the ground.

“Have a look at this,” he said, pointing to one of the cobblestones. “See, there, how it’s scuffed in the middle, how its coloration is dull, while the others around it are damp and shiny? Suppose I said that I could deduce from my scientific methods that this scuff mark was made by the boot of the perpetrator of this crime, and suppose I could tell you that based on the angle of the marking and my scientific knowledge of the force necessary to scuff such a stone, that the killer had a foot-length of roughly ten and one-half inches, a weight of at least two hundred and ten pounds, and was likely taller than six feet, but no taller than six feet and three inches.”

“Why, that’s remarkable,” I said, mentally calculating Sedgewyck’s height and weight. “I believe you’ve nearly solved the thing, for there could only be a handful of men in Cambridge matching that description.”

“Perhaps I could determine the guilty party by deduction and intuition,” Knifing agreed. “I could round those men up, interview them, and see who has reasons to want this man dead. I could examine their boots to see whose match the cobblestone. Indeed, that would be convenient, except that everything I just told you is utter fabrication.”

“Pardon?”

“Fabrication. Horseshit. I made it up.”

“You made it up?”

“Entirely.”

“But there really is a scuff.”

His good eye gave me a blank stare. His bad eye always looked blank. “So?”

“So what, then, does that scuff mean?”

He laughed again. “It means nothing at all. It was probably like that before the murder. And yet, you were ready to believe me, and ready to place criminal suspicion on a small group of men based upon that assessment. How is the employment of such easily manipulated scientific methods more reliable than a sworn confession by the accused? How can judges and jurors assess the veracity of statements by professed experts regarding these obscure forms of evidence?”

“Perhaps such observations are reliable if they are the legitimate deductions of qualified men acting in good faith,” I retorted.

“The legitimate deductions of good faith experts such as yourself?” Knifing asked.

“Precisely,” I said.

He smiled his thin gravedigger’s smile. “Well, let’s explore, then, your little theory about the gate, shall we?

“I’d be delighted to hear your thoughts.”

He seemed delighted as well. “Tell me what you smell in this alley.”

The air was heavy and stank of copper. “Blood,” I said. “And also, shit.”