Riot Most Uncouth (28 page)

First of all, there was some dispute as to the location of the events in question. A lawyer I know who defends violent criminals with some regularity believed that the killings occurred in Grimsby, but a traveling magistrate who often hears criminal matters recalled such a trial being held in Chelmsford. There was also some disagreement as to whether the man convicted of the crimes was a miller or a bricklayer.

My colleagues are fastidious, even with their gossip, and they are not likely to get their details mistaken, so I began to suspect that the differences between their accounts of the blood-draining case Knifing was renowned for solving suggested there were, in fact, two distinct events with similar facts.

I was able to contact the judge who presided over the Grimsby case at his home in London. While he could not confirm that there had been a second, similar incident involving Mr. Knifing, he assured me of the location of the trial; there could be no mistake, since he'd never visited Chelmsford.

However, my friend who was certain that the killings had, indeed, occurred in Chelmsford gave me the name of the lawyer who had unsuccessfully represented the accused in that case. It turned out he'd perished from fever some six months ago, but his law partner was able to find notes on the case, and shared with me a few details that were not protected by privilege.

Those records confirm that Archibald Knifing arrested and testified against a miller in Chelmsford in relation to the killings of three local girls there whose corpses were drained of blood. The defense lawyer had unsuccessfully tried to introduce as proof of his client's innocence the facts of a similar case in the town of Blackpool, two years before, involving killings with a similar method, and in which Knifing had also arrested a commoner with a previously unsullied reputation in the community, and with no known violent tendencies.

The judge in Chelmsford refused to consider this evidence, deeming the Blackpool matter settled and unrelated, since a man had already been convicted and executed there.

I find it deeply peculiar and suspicious that Archibald Knifing has orchestrated the arrest and prosecution of three different killers in separate cases involving identical crimes of a peculiar and specific nature. The investigator is the only common thread I can identify among those disparate incidents, and the conclusion I must draw from the facts I've collected is that Archibald Knifing is the killer, and he has used his reputation and expertise as an investigator to manufacture false evidence that suggests the guilt of other men.

I urge you most vehemently to disentangle yourself from this unsavory affair and flee at once for the safety of Newstead Abbey. If you wish me to, I will present the information I have uncovered to a magistrate here in London, once you have made your escape from Cambridge.

I await your further instructions.

Faithfully,

John Hanson, Esq.

 

Chapter 37

Though like a demon of the night

He pass'd, and vanish'd from my sight,

His aspect and his air impress'd

A troubled memory on my breast

—
Lord Byron,
The Giaour

All the houses in Angus's ramshackle section of Cambridge looked the same, so I banged urgently on a few wrong doors before I found the right one, and I severely frightened several townsfolk in the process. It was two in the morning, my clothes were soaked through with sweat, and I was so drunk, I could barely feel the aches in my wrists or my ribs or my shoulders anymore.

My face was swollen and bruised, my hair was quite disheveled, and I'd left my greatcoat on the floor in my parlor, so I had nothing covering the two pistols harnessed to my back. If anyone had been out to see me, they might have been quite shocked by my appearance.

When, at last, I found the right place, Angus answered his door holding a lantern in one hand and his musket in the other. I could see his young daughter standing in the doorway behind him, and the constable took great care to physically interpose himself between me and the girl.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

I thrust the letter at him, and he set down the gun to take it. He read slowly, and moved his lips as he sounded the words out in his head. After a couple of minutes, I seized the papers from his hand and read Hanson's news to him aloud.

“The only thing I don't understand is how he could have hit Dingle with that rifle,” I said. “He's got only one eye.”

“I think you only need one eye to sight a rifle,” Dingle said. “You aim down the barrel.”

This fact seemed familiar to me; I didn't know why I had failed to remember it previously. Knifing had accused me of having a deficiency of observational skill. But Knifing was a deranged murderer, so his opinions were of little relevance. “We have to go get him before he kills again.”

“Why don't you go home and let me handle this?” Angus said. “You're very drunk, and you've had a lot of excitement today.”

“Absolutely not,” I said. “I must be on hand to take him into custody. It was my discovery that established his guilt.”

“It was your lawyer's discovery.”

“Exactly. My lawyer, acting on my behalf. So it's my discovery.”

“You're wounded and manic and intoxicated. You're in no condition to confront a killer right now.”

I thought about this. “You're right. We shall wait until morning. They're weaker in the daylight.”

I pushed past him into the house, ignoring his stammered protests. He shooed the girl into the back room, keeping his body between me and her until the door was bolted. I found a comfortable-looking cushioned chair positioned against the wall, and I wondered as I sat down in it where Angus could have obtained such a fine thing. Just before I fell asleep, I realized he had made it with his hands.

Angus roused me an hour before sunup. I ached from my wounds and from the after-effects of the liquor and laudanum I'd had, but my head was clear, or at least, clearer.

Angus was already prepared for battle. He was dressed in a clean blue military-style uniform shirt that his daughter must have made for him. His hair was damp and combed neatly. He had a pistol on his side, and his musket slung over his shoulder.

“It's time to go ask Mr. Knifing some questions,” he said.

“I can only hope he's committed no more murders while we rested,” I said.

Angus knew, from previous conversations with Mr. Knifing, that the investigator was lodged at the Burning Tyger Inn; at the junction of Emmanuel Street and Elm Street, so we journeyed back east, and past Trinity College. Here, Angus remarked that I could have slept in my rooms instead of passing the night, uninvited, in his home. I did not speak to disagree with him, but the truth was that I was hesitant to return to my empty residence. I didn't want to be alone with my recollections of the horrific events that had recently occurred there.

The sky was turning from black to gray as we passed Christ's College. We followed a narrow path called Milton's Walk that cut across the disused pastures that some clever students long ago had named Christ's Pieces. In short order, we arrived at the inn. Our knocks raised no response, but we found the door unlocked. The innkeeper's desk was vacant, and nobody answered the little bell when we rang it. The proprietor was likely back in his quarters, asleep. Or maybe his corpse was hanging from a meat-hook someplace; I don't think I ever bothered to find out what had happened to him.

In any case, Angus rummaged the desk drawers and found the master key. The inn was a large one; three stories high with eleven guest rooms, but the innkeeper's ledger revealed that Mr. Knifing was in room number 4. All the other rooms were inhabited, but I recognized none of the other names.

I thought it odd that the inn had no vacancies; most Cambridge innkeepers earned their year's keep during the few weeks when students' families packed the town: Fall student enrollment and for the graduation ceremonies in Winter and Spring. The rest of the year, there was a surplus of rooms to let, and that situation had been exacerbated by the murders, which had caused most travelers to conclude or cancel their business in town.

At least, however, this odd bit of fortune might have explained the innkeeper's absence. With his rooms all rented, he had no need to be on hand to receive new guests.

I found a pencil and copied the names in the ledger onto a scrap of paper; collecting such data seemed like something Archibald Knifing might have done in similar circumstances and, thus, the sort of thing the world's greatest criminal investigator should do as well. I also checked the book for Dingle's mark, but he must have found his lodgings elsewhere.

I produced a brimming whisky flask from my waistcoat, and Angus and I drained it before proceeding up the narrow, creaking stairs to confront Knifing.

“The smell of death is heavy in this place,” the constable whispered.

I didn't smell much of anything, since my own nostrils were stuffed and scabbed as a result of my various recent injuries and indulgences, but I saw no reason to disagree with him.

The inner hallway was dark; barely lit by a couple of lamps, and I tensed myself as Angus worked the key in the lock. The door squeaked, and we stepped into Knifing's room, and found it empty.

“He hasn't been here,” Angus said. “Perhaps he's slipped out of town.”

“If he did, he left his things,” I said. We paused for a moment to examine the heavy trunk at the foot of the bed. It was framed in iron and secured with a sturdy padlock. Breaking it open would require some uncommon skill or specialized tools, and neither was immediately at our disposal.

But something was wrong about the bed itself. I ran my hands over the blankets. They were tucked under the thin mattress and pulled tight and smooth.

“I've used the accommodations of various Cambridge inns when consorting with lovers whom I would not allow to be seen entering my campus residence,” I said. “I often find the bedclothes rumpled in these places and I'm lucky if the linens appear to have been recently laundered. I've never known an innkeeper to make a bed like this.”

“You're right,” Angus said. “That's how we square a rack in the army. Knifing did this himself.” He peeled back the bedclothes and ran his hands over them. “The sheets are cool, but just slightly damp. He's slept here tonight, but he left some time ago.”

In the wardrobe, we found the Baker rifle. Angus stuck his little finger down the barrel, and it came out black with powder.

“It's been fired very recently, unless Knifing's the sort to leave his weapon dirty.” Neither of us thought Knifing was that sort. “But if Knifing is the killer, why would he stop Dingle from arresting you?”

“I'd have mounted a vigorous defense against the charges, and uncovered his misbehavior in the course of clearing my own name,” I said. “He needs to pin the crimes on someone who can't effectively rebut them.”

“But if he's fled, how do we find him?”

“Most likely, we don't,” I said. Angus and I were employing techniques to track Knifing's whereabouts that the investigator himself had taught us. It was no wonder he had escaped ahead of our discovery; he probably had a number of deductive skills he hadn't shared with us. Maybe he had some way of knowing about Hanson's missive to me, and if he was adept in the tracking techniques of the bushman and the red Indian, he was probably capable of covering his trail as well. He'd have no trouble escaping to safety on the Continent before we ever got close to him.

“What a disappointing resolution,” I said. “There were no vampires for me to discover, and no bandits for you to rain vengeance upon. Just a mad one-eyed butcher who outflanked and outsmarted us.”

“Maybe when we crack open his luggage, we'll find some clue.”

“I don't think he's the sort who'd leave us one. We didn't find anything useful at any of the murder scenes.”

I looked around the room. Everything was clean; far cleaner than any room I'd ever seen in any English inn. He must have wiped the dust from all the furniture and moldings, and swept the floor, either as an expression of his fastidious nature or as a means of destroying some evidence of his guilt. I wondered what he'd done with all the blood he'd taken from the victims.

Angus shook his head. “I suppose it will be me who will have to go to London to tell poor Lord Whippleby his daughter's killer slipped away from us.”

“I'll do it, if I can keep the rifle,” I said.

“That's a murder weapon. You want no association with that.” We stepped back into the hallway and Angus locked the room.

“It's such a nice murder weapon, though.”

Angus stuck the keys in his pocket; he didn't seem to think the disposition of Knifing's rifle was a matter open for discussion. “I could do with some breakfast,” he said as he started back downstairs.

“I could do with a drink,” I said. But I stopped; a thought had occurred to me. “When you said the stink of death was in this place, did you mean that in a metaphorical sense?” I asked.

Angus turned, smushing his ample belly against the walls of the narrow stairwell as he did so. “No. It smells in here.”

The blood was concealed someplace nearby.

“We're not done searching,” I said.

 

Chapter 38

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;

And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

—
Lord Byron,
“The Destruction of Sennacherib”