Daniel Friedman - Riot Most Uncouth

“Vampires sleep in dirt,” I said. “And they live forever.”

Dingle pounded the wall of the carriage with a meaty fist. The wood seemed to yield a bit under the force of the blow, which made me wonder if the carriage had some rot in it. I wriggled in my chains to see if I could force myself loose from the bench, but my restraints held. “You never seem to stop mocking me,” he said. “You think you’re so clever and I’m so dim. But you’re at my mercy now, boy.”

“We will see who is where, when Archibald Knifing catches the real killer.”

Dingle reached out and grabbed my shirt, yanking me forward and pulling my chains tight, so they cut into my wrists. “Archibald Knifing is daft. He can tell you how the crime was done, but he can’t tell you who did it. What’s the point of that? The man is nothing but a fine suit stuffed with urbane banter and horseshit. You leered at Felicity Whippleby, feuded with Sedgewyck and Pendleton, and fornicated with Violet Tower. And you were found unconscious in bed with the mangled corpse of Noreen Lime,” Dingle said. “You’re a monster.”

“At least I’m not ugly and stupid.”

“No, but you’re a clear murder suspect to anyone who looks at the facts. And if Knifing can’t see that, then I’ve no respect at all for his vaunted skills.”

“You’ve made an awful mistake,” I said to Dingle, leaning forward and jangling my restraints. “Despite your fat, foolish certitude, I am innocent of these crimes and will be vindicated.”

“You’ll be convicted, on the strength of your confession,” Dingle said, his broad, dumb mouth turning up at the corners.

“I will give no confession,” I said.

Dingle lifted his bulk from his seat, placed his stumpy left paw on my shoulder, and punched me twice in the gut with his right fist.

“I believe I can persuade you to change your mind, Lord Byron,” he said. “It’s hours to London, and I’ve got nothing else to do.”

As it turns out, my preconceptions about Fielding Dingle’s capabilities had not served me well. He lacked the conversational or observational talents of Archibald Knifing, but when it came to violence, he was both well trained and naturally gifted. I have had few beatings in my life that were so symmetrically organized or so thematically coherent. He rolled my body to the side with a deft strike from his left forearm, so he could poke at my kidneys with his knuckles of his right hand, and when I cringed or writhed from the pain, I stretched and twisted my shackled limbs.

Probing fists roamed across me, alighting upon my solar plexus, exploring my armpits and the joints of my elbow, digging into every place I was soft. My body had, in the past, endured similar abuses, but never while I was so unpleasantly sober. Dingle was smart enough to avoid striking my head or my face so that the magistrate in London would not have his sensibilities offended by the presentation of a battered suspect, but that small mercy was little consolation as my vision went red with agony.

“You can end this with the truth,” Dingle said.

But defiance was second nature to me. “You’ll tire before I will.” The back of my throat tasted like blood, and the words hurt coming out.

He put his weight behind a fat, dimpled knee and aimed it at my crotch. I squirmed in my seat, and he caught me on the hip instead. It still hurt.

I’d resolved to die before I’d confess to anything, but I had a habit of falling short of my ideals and aspirations, and this situation was no different from previous occasions in which I’d disappointed myself. It wasn’t very long before I started begging.

It made no difference. Hanson would rescue me from custody, hire a physician to document my injuries, and use the evidence of coercion to throw doubt upon my confession. Perhaps I’d even get hold of some powerful painkilling drugs. Dingle’s victory would be short-lived.

I was trying to suck in enough breath to admit to killing Felicity Whippleby, and Dingle was winding up another punch, when I heard a cracking noise, like a champagne cork popping, and then the whole carriage seemed to jump. I could feel the horses break into a mad lope, and the wheels began weaving, jerking my arms in their chains and bouncing Dingle off the walls.

“What in bloody hell is that maniac driver doing?” Dingle shouted. He didn’t seem to be asking this question of me; he was just the sort of man who made a habit of spontaneously vocalizing his thoughts for no particular reason.

I decided to answer him anyway, since I was a cooperative witness. “You hired him, you fat simpleton,” I said.

Dingle clawed at the iron mesh over the slit of a window near the ceiling of the cab, which allowed passengers to speak to the coachman.

“Slow it down, up there,” he said, pressing his fishy mouth against the grate. “I want to reach London alive.”

The driver responded by collapsing on his seat, so the liquefied contents of his smashed skull poured through the window.

“My God,” Dingle said as he squirmed away from the mess. Outside, there was a dull thump as the corpse slid off the roof of the carriage and landed hard in the dust.

Under other circumstances, I would have come up with something clever to say about the series of events that had just transpired, but the coppery stink of blood and brains was filling my nose and lungs, and the violent motion of the runaway stagecoach was threatening to yank my arms from their shoulder-sockets. The pain was so distracting that I could do little more than state the obvious. “We must get to the driver’s seat and rein in the horses.”

“This is a prison vehicle,” Dingle said. “We cannot get out. It unlocks only from the outside.”

I twisted my body on the hard bench and began kicking my legs at the door. “Let us hope its purported security is exaggerated.” My weak leg did little damage to the wood, but I felt the boards creaking and bending beneath my stronger foot’s assault.

“That is useless,” Dingle said.

The stagecoach nearly ran off the road, and my persecutor fell forward, into my lap. I considered trying to wrap my manacle chain around his throat, but I knew that doing so would neither resolve my current peril nor help me to prove my innocence later, should I somehow survive the journey to London. “Do you have a better idea?” I asked. I did not expect him to; he was, after all, a bit of a brick.

“We are doomed,” he sobbed. “Doomed!”

If I’d had time to reflect on the situation, I might have been slightly amazed by Mr. Dingle. Every time I found myself believing I might have underestimated the man, he found some way to reinforce my preconceived notions. “Perhaps, then, while you await your demise, you might employ your considerable mass upon the task of helping me smash this door open,” I suggested.

He nodded. His eyes were wide and dumb and full of terror, quite like one might imagine a cow’s would look at the moment it realizes it has arrived at the abattoir. He began throwing his shoulder against the wooden door, though, to his credit. In that particular enterprise, his bovinity proved an asset. He had to throw himself against the side of the carriage only four or five times before the nails that held in the hinges ripped loose. Unable to withstand such violence, the vaunted external lock snapped off and the door flew open and broke away, smashing to bits as it hit the ground behind us.