Daniel Friedman - Riot Most Uncouth

“After all this, you think the murders are just the work of some stranger, with no motivation behind them?” I said.

“What do you expect?” Knifing replied. “Do you want to finish this with some confrontation or catharsis? Do you want to learn that this violence was motivated by some comprehensible rationale? I’ve solved a lot of mysterious crimes, Lord Byron, and I shall save you the suspense. Mystery seduces, but solutions disappoint. The perpetrator of every crime inevitably turns out to be somebody unspeakably banal. He’ll be dumber than you’d expect him to be, given the great deductive and observational effort required to identify him, for brutality is the special gift of stupid men. And he’ll be crazy and delusional. Murderers are great monsters in the imagination, but the reality of them would be pathetic if it weren’t so loathsome.”

“So what are we to do?” Angus asked.

Knifing shrugged. “I will stay here until the killings cease, on the slim and unlikely hope that the killer’s identity will be revealed by some lucky happenstance. Maybe when our quarry drains the next victim, he’ll leave a trail of bloody drippings that will lead me back to his lair. I am not optimistic, however.”

“You said you’d deliver certainty to your clients, even if you had to manufacture false evidence against an innocent,” I said. Though he always sounded convincing when he spoke, Knifing seemed to constantly contradict his earlier statements. Every time I saw him, he was a different person, and it had begun to annoy me. He didn’t even seem to be drunk anymore.

“My investigation won’t end when I leave Cambridge. When I return to London, I’ll press my military contacts to provide me with the discharge records for any trained rifle marksmen the army deemed mentally unfit for combat. Hopefully, when the killings begin again someplace else, I’ll have better information.”

Angus reached his hand out, and Knifing gave him back the flask. “What about us?”

Knifing took the flask back and slipped it back into his jacket. Then he rose to his feet, wincing slightly as his knees bent. “Your service has been appreciated, Angus, but I’ve no further need of it. You may return to your ordinary occupation. Lord Byron, you have sustained more than enough injury and humiliation in your pursuit of this killer, and it’s time for you to stop. You should arrange immediate transport to your home at Newstead.”

I climbed to my feet so he couldn’t look down at me. The process of standing was painful, but not unbearably so. I rolled my shoulders and flexed my fingers, and found their condition much improved. “That is unacceptable, Mr. Knifing. These killings are not arbitrary. They are related, in some way, to me. I must find out how and why.”

“I can promise you the perpetrator is not your dead father, nor are the killings the work of some mythical creature,” Knifing said. If his tone had been compassionate a moment before, it wasn’t any longer. Now he was cold and contemptuous again. The man changed his skin like a tropical lizard.

“Jerome Tower’s corpse was posed at his dining table, a piece of furniture identical to the one I own,” I said.

“A table crafted by Angus, who sees no need to perceive himself as the fulcrum of recent events,” Knifing countered. He’d always seemed to regard the volunteer constable with a sort of indifference, so I was surprised he’d taken the time to learn about Angus’s trade.

“You said the tableau might be a message to me.”

He shrugged. “I was only having a joke at your expense. Angus tells me there are at least two dozen similar tables in Cambridge. I’ve been quite diligent in running down every possible clue. Since I haven’t found anything yet, I feel certain there’s nothing to find.”

“I sell lots of nice furniture to the dons and fellows, and to the better-off students,” Angus said. “Buying a table from me is a good deal cheaper than hauling one in from London.”

Knifing made a quick slicing gesture with the heel of his hand that was sufficient to silence the constable: “Nobody cares about that.”

“But most of the victims are people I know,” I said. “Cyrus Pendleton wanted to kick me out of the College. I was engaged in an affair with Violet Tower. Leif Sedgewyck was my rival for the affections of Olivia Wright. Noreen Lime was my paramour. For God’s sake, he broke into my rooms and killed her, while leaving me alive. You can’t truly believe this has got nothing to do with me.”

“I believe any connection the killer has to you is arbitrary and incidental,” Knifing said. “Though you’ve many character defects, you’re a fairly clever lad. If the killer were someone you knew, you’d already be suspicious of him. Homicidal lunatics are not adept at disguising their predilections. You’re something of a celebrity, though. He may know you, even if you don’t know him. The criminally insane are prone to obsession, and the weak-minded fixate on magnetic personalities, and upon famous figures.”

“Unless he is my father.”

Knifing turned his back and started walking toward the hearse. “Your father is dead, Lord Byron. He’s not coming back for you. I’ve really had enough of this. I’m trying to catch a killer, and you’re telling fairy stories.” He stopped and turned toward me. “You might be in danger. It might be that the killer’s proximity to you aggravates his mania, and if that’s the case, your continued presence in Cambridge may be putting others in harm’s way. In the morning, you must return to Newstead. That’s really all I have to say to you on this subject.”

I tried to object, but Angus placed a firm hand on my arm to quiet me. We followed Knifing to Bartholomew’s black carriage and rode back to town in silence.

Angus lived on the outskirts of Cambridge, so we let him off first. His house was not made of stone, but rather, from old wooden slats that had turned dark with rot. The roof was tarred paper. A yellow-haired girl, twelve or thirteen years old, sat waiting and watching out the window, her pale face almost ghostly in the dim light from a small oil lamp. When Angus opened the door, she ran to him and threw her arms around his neck.

Knifing let me out in front of the Great Gate. The lawn was empty, the windows in the College buildings were mostly dark, and the streets were eerily silent; many of the undergraduates had fled Cambridge, and the taverns had all stopped serving after the events at the Modest Proposal.

My own rooms were similarly dark and vacant. I checked my bedroom and found that the mattress, blankets, and feather beds had been removed, along with the corpse of Noreen Lime. I called for my manservant, and when he did not answer, I lit a few candles and fetched a bottle of whisky and a crystal glass. The laudanum bottle was, to my relief, intact, and I made some use of it.

In the parlor, I found a note written in Joe Murray’s blocky, hesitant penmanship, explaining that he had returned to Newstead with the Professor. As he saw it, there was no need for him to remain in Cambridge if I was to be absent, and my mother might find his presence comforting. He promised to meet me in London once I secured my release.

There was also a somewhat lengthier letter from my attorney. I sat down at the fine table Angus had made for me, and read it as I drank:

My dearest Byron,

Joe Murray has sent me news of your various recent difficulties, and I am writing you to offer my assistance, as always.