But warnings probably would have done no good; Joe Murray had admitted three strangers to my quarters since Felicity’s death; Frederick Burke, Archibald Knifing, and Fielding Dingle. He also let Leif Sedgewyck into the party. I would have to give him a stern lecture and, perhaps, dock his wages. I could not have him subjecting me to unreasonable risks as a result of his genial and trusting nature. But even I had not previously thought to warn him of this.
“It is the role of the academy to serve as a beacon of civilization in a world predominated by cruelty and brutishness, so this kind of disruption cuts to the quick in a place like Cambridge,” Beardy said. He was impressive as a speaker. His voice swelled to a volume that overwhelmed the noise coming from the restive and nervous crowd, and his even, commanding tone seemed to calm the students. Though his esteemed colleagues were being torn to pieces in the streets, the men of Cambridge could not imagine a world where Beardy’s authority was anything but absolute.
“We live in a nation in which there are vast inequalities of means among the elites and ordinary folk. All of us are the beneficiaries of these imbalances, at least to some extent, and in many cases, to a great extent.” Here, he paused. Nobody laughed, so he continued: “But the desperation of the underclass produces ill effects that will bring sorrow and suffering to the more fortunate. A man who cannot buy bread will kill a well-dressed stranger for the coins in his purse. Every day, men and boys die in coal mines, crushed beneath the earth or asphyxiated by toxic fumes. Every day, women and children are mangled in textile factories. If the poor are desperate enough to do these things to themselves, think of what they’d do to us, given a chance. As long as we live in close proximity to the hungry and the hopeless, as long as we allow untreated lunatics to roam the streets, our walls will never be high enough, our locks will never be sturdy enough, and our guns will never have enough bullets to keep us safe.”
The crowd grew noisier, and the students’ collective murmur managed to drown out Beardy’s stentorian oration. Someone jeered loudly. This kind of disrespect was not often shown to the faculty at Trinity, except by me. Knifing had been right when he told me that people crave certainty and normality. The students had come to hear the faculty’s plan for rectifying the killer’s intrusion into the College’s bubble of safety. They did not want to hear that the entire social order that served as their lives’ foundation was unstable, or perhaps illusory.
Beardy quelled the uproar with a wave of his hand and smoothly redirected his speech to address their concern: “The twin losses of Professor Cyrus Pendleton and Senior Fellow Jerome Tower are grievous and deeply felt injuries to this institution. Both these men were beloved here, and relied upon. They can never be fully replaced, and I fear the effort to find appropriate candidates to fill their professional capacities will be difficult as well.”
Archibald Knifing had said that the killing of the Towers might have been some message to me. My affair with Violet had been sufficiently discreet to conceal our dalliances from her trusting husband, but it would not have been difficult to uncover. Anyone following me or watching her home could easily have noticed my arrivals and departures.
I considered what Knifing had said to me at the murder scene, tried to remember any revealing flickers of expression that might have crossed his nearly inscrutable features. He might have known of the affair, or he might have only suspected. Or he might have perfected the art of seeming to know things he didn’t even suspect, as a technique for eliciting spontaneous confessions.
Whether he knew or not was less important than the possibility that he could have known, for if he might have known, the killer might also have known. I thought of Professor Tower, dead and faceless, sitting at his dinner table, which was so similar to my own.
“Students who were taking courses with Professors Pendleton and Tower will be able to finish their work under different instructors. I will be taking over Professor Pendleton’s literature course; as some of you know, I taught that course until two years ago, and Professor Pendleton was using a modified version of my own syllabus, so we can resume without disruption. Similarly, since Professor Pendleton was to succeed me as faculty chair at the close of the calendar year, I have volunteered to stay on in my current capacity until such time as a qualified replacement can be identified. Professor Sharp and several of the other fellows will be taking charge of the remaining classes. I can assure each of you that, while our departed friends and colleagues will be sorely missed, the progress of your education will be unaffected, and the operation of the College will face no long-term interruption.”
This was met with several angry shouts from the crowd, but Beardy raised his hand again to silence the students. It was amazing how much deference and respect he was afforded by this mob of tense and frightened young men.
“We will have a short-term cancellation of classes for the next ten days, however, and any absences will be deemed excused for an additional week after that. Quarterly examinations will be postponed, accordingly. I know many of you feel that the safest course of action is to leave Cambridge while these unpleasant events are unresolved, and the College will take no steps to prevent you from doing so. Two professional criminal investigators from London are already in Cambridge, searching for clues. I believe the killer will be caught before classes resume. For those of you who wish to leave, we have notified local stagecoach dispatchers that many of you will require their services. Messengers have been sent to London to hire more carriages. We wish you pleasant travels. For those of you unable to leave, I would emphasize that it is not my belief, nor is it the opinion of the faculty, that the College is unsafe. Personally, I will be staying in Cambridge to assist the investigators in any way I can.”
I could hire a stagecoach and return to Newstead, leaving the murders and the faculty and Mr. Burke behind me; problems for other men and other days. So many of the students would be leaving Cambridge, out of fear or out of a desire to make use of the holiday. If I were among them, no one would think less of me.
Knifing had told me I should leave, and maybe he was right. It seemed like such good advice, in fact, that I wondered why he’d given it to me. Perhaps he told me to leave because he wanted me to stay, and he knew I would disregard his counsel. If I left, after all, I would spoil myself as a murder suspect, and he’d said he had nobody better to arrest. But if he truly wanted to frame me, why would he warn me of his intentions? Why would he try to drive me off?
I had my suspicions that a judge or jury’s desire to restore certainty and order would be insufficient to win a conviction once Mr. Hanson got finished punching holes in Knifing’s case, and I suspected that was the real reason he was hesitant to charge me with the crimes. Of course, if he accused anyone else, that suspect’s lawyer would tell the jury about me and my odd and notorious reputation; about my skull-cup and the liberties I took with other men’s wives. The mere proximity of a character such as I to the murder might create enough doubt to cause the acquittal of another suspect, even a guilty one. So Knifing had good reason to want me gone.
But I was stubborn, and I didn’t want his convenience to dictate my actions. When he locked that dead white eye on me, it seemed like he could divine my secrets from the planes of my face and hear them whispered on my breath. He betrayed nothing to me; when his face closed, he became a complete cipher. He’d told me ten times at least that he was willing and prepared to arrest me for the murders. I knew absolutely that he was capable of it, and I also knew that I’d be completely surprised if he did it.
The worst thing about Archibald Knifing was that I could not help liking the man, despite his protean nature and his penchant for insulting me. He had evidently been a distinguished soldier, and he was obviously a brilliant investigator. Everything about him was admirably, aggravatingly capable, and his self-deprecating wit was both appealing and disarming. I liked his casual, smirking admissions of his own corruption. I liked his quickness and facility with language. I could see how witnesses and criminals might forget themselves in his presence. It was too easy to say too much to him. There was no question that I admired Archibald Knifing more than was safe. It would be advisable to admire him from a great distance.