“Mr. Dingle, I am awed by the subtly and sophistication with which you practice the art of criminal detection,” I said.
Dingle scratched at his chin. “The point of your sarcasm evades me, I’m afraid.”
I turned my back to him and walked to the nearest open window.
“If I could have your attention, gentlemen!” I shouted down at the students milling about on the lawn of Trinity’s Great Court. “We are thieftakers, on the hunt for a killer. Have any of you murdered anyone? Any murderers, please, identify yourselves.” A few men turned to glance up at me and then continued about their business. I pulled the window closed and turned back to Dingle. “Well, nonetheless, I’m sure this investigative tactic is effective when applied rigorously,” I said.
“I don’t think you are very funny, Lord Byron,” he said.
“That’s understandable,” I replied. “You seem rather slow-witted.”
“And you have not answered my question.”
“What question?”
“Do you know who killed the girl?”
“If I did, don’t you think I might have told someone?”
“I am unsure of your motives, but your poking about this matter has aroused curiosity.”
“When I poke about, I assure you, I arouse much more than curiosity.”
“And still, you give me no answers!” Dingle turned very red and balled his meaty fists.
“There is a deeply suspicious and shadowy man by the name of Leif Sedgewyck skulking about Cambridge. He was a suitor to Felicity, but I’ve no evidence yet that conclusively links him to her murder,” I said. “Angus Something-or-other is the local volunteer constable, and may possess useful information. I’d not accuse him of corruption or complicity in the murder, but neither would I trust him.”
“Thank you,” said Dingle. “And I’ll have you know, I am not slow-witted. I am deliberate. Methodical. I am a professional dedicated to the advancement of a burgeoning field, and though people like you may not respect what I do, I am sincere and diligent in the practice of it. And whatever you might think, I am effective.”
“I’m sure you are,” I said. “Now, methodically remove yourself from my premises.”
Chapter 15
I hate you, ye cold compositions of art!
Though prudes may condemn me, and bigots reprove;
I court the effusions that spring from the heart,
Which throbs, with delight, to the first kiss of love.
It seemed to me that criminality must be rooted in peculiarity, and I was surrounded by the strange. But the weirdest detail of all was the arrival of the second investigator. I decided to confront Archibald Knifing and see what he had to say about his new colleague. Perhaps he would let slip some useful fact. So, as soon as I got rid of Mr. Dingle, the Professor and I set out with resolve to interrogate the one-eyed man hunter.
We made it halfway across the Great Lawn before we got distracted. You see, although I was quite interested in untangling the mystery, I also had girls on my mind, and girls must always take precedence over all other concerns, even very urgent ones. So the Professor and I marched with purpose to the women’s rooming house to see Olivia.
If one did not know the horrors that had occurred in there, one would think the house to be a peaceful place. It was a three-story white-columned structure on a rather quiet side street, close to the College but far enough removed that the noise and stink from the horse traffic along the main drag would not impose upon the young ladies’ tender ears or delicate noses during their hours of repose. Indeed, the smooth, warm cobblestones were so spotless, they looked as though no horse had ever trod or shat upon them, and I imagined that they bore the footfalls of a disheveled, rakish young lord and his trusty bear with some measure of disdain.
My frenzied knocking upon the front door was met by the house matron, a dour and joyless spinster who served as the girls’ chaperone. Her task was protecting the virtues of her charges from my sort of contamination, so she was naturally loath to permit me to enter upon the premises.
I was certainly not about to be cowed by this glorified nanny; the house matron was a mere servant, an unimportant person with no official capacity and no authority to prevent me from doing whatever I wanted. She was merely someone concerned parents had hired to keep men out of the girls’ rooms. And better guard dogs than this one had failed to protect henhouses from bears. All that was required to gain entrance to the house was the invocation of my noble title and a threat to inform various respected friends of my displeasure at the matron’s conduct if she refused me.
“I can’t allow that animal inside, though,” she said. “He’s a danger.”
I shrugged. “That’s fine. He can wait with you. You’ll find he is excellent company.” I offered her the end of the Professor’s chain leash.
She hesitated while the Professor busied himself by scraping his four-inch claws against the doorframe.
“Maybe you can take him in with you, after all,” she said.
Olivia had not been awake for long when I banged on her door; she answered my knock clad in a sheer dressing gown that was falling off one shoulder. The girls shared a kitchen and the services of a couple of cooks among them, and the rooming houses didn’t offer parlors or sitting rooms, so Olivia had only the single chamber. I noticed, however, that the room was immaculate, even though this house had no maids or servants. Like Archibald Knifing’s clients, Olivia Wright would not tolerate disorder. Her bed was already made, the sheets carefully tucked and the coverlet pulled smooth. Books were stacked on her desk, alphabetized by subject, and none of the clothing or papers that typically littered the floors of collegiate residences were in evidence. Her mode of decor was antithetical to the chaos and grand decay that defined my own brooding aesthetic, and her room was precisely the kind of place where one might expect not to see a bear. Olivia took one look at the Professor and screamed.
“Do try to control yourself,” I said. “You will hurt his feelings.”
“What is that?”
“Ursus arctos arctos. The European brown bear. You may refer to him as Professor, or, if you do not like the honorary, you may call him Earl Honeycoat. He’s not really an earl. That’s just a name.”
“Why are you here, Lord Byron? You’re drunk.”
“Usually. But there’s a murderer about, and I feared you might be in mortal danger. My gallant friend and I rode to your rescue, because we are heroes.”
She gasped a couple of deep breaths, recoiling from the bear and trying to recompose herself. “That’s why you brought that animal to my home?”
“That’s the most honorable reason.”
“No one poses any danger to me, excepting you, and possibly your pet,” she told me. “Your presence here is a scandal, especially after your visit yesterday with the constable. I fear this will be the subject of much gossip among the other girls, and may harm my prospects.”
“Your prospects?” I asked. “But why should you need a man?”
“We’ve already had this conversation,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me what I need.”
“If what you need is a respectable marriage you do yourself injury by wandering unsupervised in the dubious company of Leif Sedgewyck,” I said. “I am convinced he’s responsible for the plague of violence that has torn Cambridge asunder.”
“Mr. Sedgewyck? A murderer? That’s absurd. Mr. Sedgewyck is the portrait of propriety. Nobody would accuse you of being anything similar, Lord Byron.”
“I should hope not.”
“Mr. Sedgewyck took his leave at the front door, so as not to allow others to cast aspersions,” she said. “But they will certainly be cast in the wake of your arrival.”
“Let them. I enjoy aspersions.”
“Not everyone shares your appetite for notoriety.”
I grabbed her around the waist. “I have appetites for all sorts of things.”