Daniel Friedman - Riot Most Uncouth

“Lord Byron,” said Fielding Dingle, “I am placing you under arrest for the murders of Felicity Whippleby, Cyrus Pendleton, Jerome and Violet Tower, their two minor children, Leif Sedgewyck, and Noreen Lime.”

“Sedgewyck’s not dead,” I said, sitting up and leaning against the bed. “He left town.”

“He did not. He was all over the street in front of the Modest Proposal. He left in a stagecoach after your fight, but somebody brought him back in a couple of burlap bags.”

Dingle reached up into the pile of shredded flesh and meat that had been Noreen, and found a man’s severed hand among the slimy coils of her unraveled guts. The thing was gray-white like the belly of a day-old fish, but the skin and fat had been flayed off the fourth finger, so that a familiar betrothal ring could be jammed down onto it.

“Somebody left a bit of him here as well,” he added, holding the foul thing close to my face. “Mr. Sedgewyck, as you know, planned to propose marriage to Olivia Wright. I spoke to her, and she told me of your objection to their union.”

“Yes,” I said. “Sedgewyck intended to forsake his betrothed, Felicity Whippleby, to marry Olivia.”

“In light of Mr. Sedgewyck’s murder, I think we can eliminate him as a suspect in Felicity’s death. Several witnesses saw you beating him last night.”

“They also saw him return to the tavern after I left.”

“Your whereabouts during the hours after the fight cannot be verified.”

“I was here, making love to Noreen.”

“That would be a convenient alibi, if only she were able to confirm it.”

I could not even recognize her face in the mess that had been made of her; the vampire had bashed her head to mush with something heavy. Some part of me believed I’d seen my father in the opium haze of the previous night. Some part hoped to Christ I hadn’t. And some part knew that Mad Jack could not have been the killer, because he was dead and buried in a pauper’s grave, somewhere in France.

In fact, some part of me knew that my belief that Mad Jack might be involved meant that I was crazy. And if I was crazy, I myself might have committed the murders. My recent habits had not been conducive to clear-mindedness or reliable recollection. I’d starved my body of food, deprived it of sleep, and filled it with drugs and liquor. I had no illusions that my grasp upon reality was anything other than tenuous. This had always been my intent, for reality was something I viewed with a measure of disdain. But it was possible that my purifying regimen had dredged up something ugly from some deep, primordial place within me.

“I have learned the Towers had a second servant girl, a maid who survived the attack on their home,” Dingle continued. “Were you aware of this fact?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“The girl has two young brothers in Wales, and she sends funds for their support. To earn their keep, she cleans for the Towers in the daytime and prostitutes herself at night.”

“Oh yes. I know that one,” I said, and my still-foggy brain forgot the grimness of the current situation long enough for me to smile at my recollection of the girl’s thighs.

“She knows you as well. She saw you coming and going from the Tower residence on multiple occasions. Why did you conceal your adultery with Violet Tower from me and Mr. Knifing?”

“I saw no need to share that private fact with you or anyone else.”

“Surely you’re aware that it seems pertinent in light of recent events?” Dingle gestured toward the remains of Noreen.

I didn’t know what to say, which was fine, since Knifing chose that moment to enter the room. He marched up to me and grabbed my face with his hands. He pinched my eyelid between his thumb and forefinger and stretched it open. Then he leaned close, as if to kiss me or to bite my throat. Instead, he sniffed at my lips.

“Ether,” he said. Then, to Dingle: “Someone drugged Byron. His servant, too.”

“What of it?” said Dingle. “Byron probably dosed himself on that foul stuff. He consumes every other manner of intoxicant.”

The laudanum and the absinthe were still sitting on the bedside table, and everyone was clearly aware of them. I wanted some of the laudanum, and I wondered if it was polite to offer it to my guests in these circumstances.

Instead, I asked: “Has Joe Murray been harmed?”

“He’ll recover,” said Knifing. He walked over to the bedroom window and examined it. “Dingle, this has been forced open from without.”

“This murder occurred inside a fourth-floor apartment,” said Dingle. “Is it your hypothesis that the killer flew in here?”

I thought of an inscription from one of my books; an image of the vrykolakas climbing the sheer wall of a castle, like a spider. I remembered certain legends that said the vampire could turn its body into mist and pass through the cracks beneath doors.

But I had to concede, a degenerate poet in a drug-frenzy seemed a likelier suspect.

“A man in good physical condition could scale the side of this building. The window-ledges are wide enough to stand upon, and the spaces between the bricks would serve as adequate handholds. I believe the killer gained access to Felicity Whippleby’s residence in precisely such a manner.” Knifing walked over to my bedroom window and threw it open. “Here upon the sill, there is a notch; a groove in the wood. I found similar damage to the window-frame at Felicity Whippleby’s rooming house. This sort of damage is consistent with someone lowering a large chamberpot or a similar vessel out of the window on the end of a rope; it’s how the killer took the blood.”

“So?” Dingle asked, his face blank and uncomprehending.

“So, the killer left this place via the window. Unlike Lord Byron, who, of course, is still here. Surely you’ve noticed that Noreen Lime was drained of blood. Where do you suppose that went?”

“Byron could have taken the blood someplace and returned after he’d got rid of it,” Dingle said.

“So you contend Byron killed the girl, drained her corpse, and lowered the blood out of his own window. Then he took the blood someplace and disposed of it, but left the disemboweled corpse in his bed. And afterward, he returned here, drugged himself with ether, hit himself over the head, and passed out on the floor. How does that make sense to you, Mr. Dingle?”

Dingle didn’t seem to like what Knifing was implying. “I do not concern myself with trying to find sense in the conduct of madmen. Nor do I see any purpose to these deductive exercises you seem to enjoy so much. In my experience, when an investigator finds a practitioner of witchcraft in bed with a victim of a ritual murder, the difficult work is mostly done.”

“Have you ever found a practitioner of witchcraft in bed with a victim of ritual murder before?” Knifing asked.

“Not as such.”

“Then you have no experience to speak of, do you?”

“I don’t practice witchcraft,” I said.

“You have a cup made from a human skull,” Dingle said.

“What of it?” I asked. “You’ve got folds of loose flesh around your neck, but that doesn’t make you a turkey.”

He leapt at me like an obese jungle cat, with his fat fingers clawed to scratch me, or something. But he was very slow, and even with my head still foggy, I was easily nimble enough to step to his side. As he propelled himself past me, I gently tapped his head with my fist. He toppled sideways, tripped over the end of the bed, and landed facedown in Noreen’s uncoiled entrails, which broke open like overcooked sausages and filled the room with a horrific stink.

“Constable!” Dingle shouted as he floundered wetly in the remains of my paramour. Angus stepped into the room and looked with disapproval at Dingle, who was trying to climb up off the bed, making the mess there somewhat worse.