“I spread joy wherever I go,” I said. Contrary to rumor, I am capable of embarrassment, and I was, then, embarrassed.
“Do you use the whole repertoire to spread the joy, or do you merely require the exquisite tool?”
“You’re very funny yourself.”
“Perhaps, my dear Poet, you’d like to engage your tool upon the matter at hand. Do your finely honed senses lend you any insight into what has befallen our poor Professor Pendleton?”
He was baiting me, but I wanted very badly to humiliate him by demonstrating that my talents eclipsed his own, even in the narrow field of his supposed expertise. I scratched my chin and wobbled a little bit on my feet. “Well,” I said. “Professor Fat-er, Pendleton wouldn’t have climbed over the gate. He probably couldn’t have, for he was quite heavy. I’d assume the killer either possessed a key to the padlock, or he was strong and agile enough to carry his victim over seven feet of wrought iron.”
“My God, I must retract and apologize for all my previous mockery; your reasoning is wondrous to behold,” said Knifing. “We elderly fellows often forget that we have much to gain by availing ourselves of the cleverness of youths. Were it not for you, I might have overlooked the significance of the gate.”
I should have perceived his sarcasm; which would have been obvious to even the least savvy of observers. But I did not. It is possible, I will admit, that my perception was impeded by drink, for I was already about six fingers deep into a bottle. I was also considering whether Fielding Dingle could have heaved Pendleton over the gate. It seemed unlikely; Dingle didn’t seem much of an athlete. Knifing couldn’t have done it either, for the victim matched his weight, plus half of it again.
Sedgewyck, perhaps, could have managed it; the Dutchman was large, and such a feat was, perhaps, within his abilities. But the timing was also difficult to work out; he’d been at my party, and then he’d walked Olivia home. So when could he have committed this murder? And how could any of them have known Fat Cheeks? There was only one suspect in these killings who had feuded with the dead man: me.
What I said to Knifing was: “It’s wise of you to acknowledge your deficiency.”
Knifing glanced downward, ashamed, and seemed to notice something on the ground.
“Have a look at this,” he said, pointing to one of the cobblestones. “See, there, how it’s scuffed in the middle, how its coloration is dull, while the others around it are damp and shiny? Suppose I said that I could deduce from my scientific methods that this scuff mark was made by the boot of the perpetrator of this crime, and suppose I could tell you that based on the angle of the marking and my scientific knowledge of the force necessary to scuff such a stone, that the killer had a foot-length of roughly ten and one-half inches, a weight of at least two hundred and ten pounds, and was likely taller than six feet, but no taller than six feet and three inches.”
“Why, that’s remarkable,” I said, mentally calculating Sedgewyck’s height and weight. “I believe you’ve nearly solved the thing, for there could only be a handful of men in Cambridge matching that description.”
“Perhaps I could determine the guilty party by deduction and intuition,” Knifing agreed. “I could round those men up, interview them, and see who has reasons to want this man dead. I could examine their boots to see whose match the cobblestone. Indeed, that would be convenient, except that everything I just told you is utter fabrication.”
“Pardon?”
“Fabrication. Horseshit. I made it up.”
“You made it up?”
“Entirely.”
“But there really is a scuff.”
His good eye gave me a blank stare. His bad eye always looked blank. “So?”
“So what, then, does that scuff mean?”
He laughed again. “It means nothing at all. It was probably like that before the murder. And yet, you were ready to believe me, and ready to place criminal suspicion on a small group of men based upon that assessment. How is the employment of such easily manipulated scientific methods more reliable than a sworn confession by the accused? How can judges and jurors assess the veracity of statements by professed experts regarding these obscure forms of evidence?”
“Perhaps such observations are reliable if they are the legitimate deductions of qualified men acting in good faith,” I retorted.
“The legitimate deductions of good faith experts such as yourself?” Knifing asked.
“Precisely,” I said.
He smiled his thin gravedigger’s smile. “Well, let’s explore, then, your little theory about the gate, shall we?
“I’d be delighted to hear your thoughts.”
He seemed delighted as well. “Tell me what you smell in this alley.”
The air was heavy and stank of copper. “Blood,” I said. “And also, shit.”
“Yes, that happens when murderers kill by disemboweling. He must have slashed open the lower intestine whilst digging with his knife in Professor Pendleton’s guts.”
I shuddered. “That is a fact I could have lived without knowing.”
Knifing puffed up his narrow chest and pointed an emphatic finger at me. “You came here of your own volition, without any prompting or invitation. You appeared unbidden as well at the scene of Felicity Whippleby’s murder. If, as you contend, you have no connection to these killings, then you have no reason for involving yourself with me or my investigation. Your presence here is an unseemly expression of your curiosity, so if you cannot endure the unpleasantness, you are welcome to leave me alone.”
“I just don’t see how the stink of Pendleton’s blood and shit are at all relevant.”
“Blood and shit are not relevant,” Knifing said, making a steeple of his fingers and assuming a lector’s pose. “The important fact here is that this alleyway smells like piss.”
“You mock me,” I said.
“Even a man of my assiduous discipline and impeccable manners could scarce resist such a ripe and easy target for ridicule, but on this matter I am utterly without pretense. The smell of urine, pungent though it may be, would not ordinarily be discernible over the stink of this corpse, or of all this blood, unless said urine was present in large quantities. Observe, also, the water stains upon the walls around this alley, suggesting that the buildings here are regularly leaked upon from waist-high spigots.”
“I still fail to see the importance of this.”
“Despite the benefit of your finely honed poet’s sense, and despite the advantage of having twice as many eyes as I’ve got, your observational failure comes as no surprise to me. I have already learned that, though this establishment serves as many as twenty concurrent patrons on a busy night, it is equipped with only a single outhouse. It’s evidently the custom among the bar’s regulars to relieve themselves in this alleyway. That gate was not locked last night, nor was Pendleton carried over it. He most likely stepped out here, of his own volition, to see to his functions. The killer took that opportunity to empty out all the stuffing in the unfortunate gentleman’s torso.”
I thought about that. Knifing continued:
“Now, there are only a few taverns in Cambridge, and you’ve been a local resident and a drunkard for quite some time; certainly for long enough to become familiar with this place and its accommodations. Therefore, you should have known, and probably did know, that this alley is left open as a public urinal.”
He was right. Only a few evenings earlier, my weak foot had rolled sidewise on one of the wet, slippery cobblestones in this very alley as I’d leaned against the wall. Staggering, I’d pissed all over the front of my trousers. How could I have believed the gate was locked? My mouth felt very dry, and I fumbled in my waistcoat for my flask. “I was not trying to mislead you,” I said.
“I don’t believe you were. I simply think your faculties as an observer are substandard, your deductive capabilities are undeveloped, and your alleged gifts as a poet are of limited applicability to the task of hunting killers. Among criminal investigators, Lord Byron, you’re the worst I’ve ever seen.”