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.
Chapter 36
But in that instant o’er his soul
Winters of Memory seem’d to roll,
And gather in that drop of time
A life of pain, an age of crime.
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.
Foremost among my concerns is your visitation by Mr. Frederick Burke, who holds himself out as counsel for the Banque Credit Francaise. I would urge you to engage in no further communication with Mr. Burke, and to refer him to me if he attempts to speak to you. It is of utmost importance that you refuse to agree to anything he proposes, either verbally or in writing, and that you make no statement admitting any fact he alleges until I’ve had an opportunity to review the matter.
Joe Murray informs me that Mr. Burke claimed I talked to him in London and invited him to deal directly with you in Cambridge. He is lying. I have never been in contact with this man. I suspect that the bar association will not be pleased to hear that he misled you in order to deny you the benefit of counsel’s assistance, and his misconduct may harm his client’s interests, to our substantial benefit.
For the present time, you should pay Mr. Burke no mind, except to avoid him. I will handle this problem for you. The songs they’ll sing of our vengeance will be rollicking, bloody ones, I promise.
Sometime soon, however, we really must have a serious talk about your finances. Your assets should allow you to live out your life richly and idly, if your holdings are well-managed, but if you continue to accrue debts, your future incomes will be lost to interest upon those notes. I know you are cavalier about disregarding my advice, but you ought to pay heed to this warning. Your temperament is not well-suited for poverty.
As to the matter of your recent upbraiding by the faculty, I’m sure you’ve realized that the Fellows are wholly impotent to punish you for your indifference to your studies. Utter disregard for academics is a privilege of and a tradition among men of your class. If you wish, I will draft a sternly-worded missive reminding them of this, but perhaps the prudent course would be to let the matter rest.
That being said, given your literary aspirations, you might do well to avail yourself of the resources at your disposal in Cambridge. I know you view yourself as a wholly-formed master poet, but I still think of you as the child I knew only a few years ago. I know you have suffered from your father’s neglect of his duties toward you, and my occasional attempts to provide helpful guidance are sorry compensation, but I hope you will listen to me.
When we grow older, we regret the arrogance of our younger selves. We regret the opportunities we disdained; the possibilities we rejected. You may think it beneath yourself to take instruction from these bewhiskered dons who wear drab clothing and lead dull, cloistered lives, but they seek only to bestow upon you the benefit of their years of study, and if you neglect your coursework, you’ll find the knowledge readily available to you now may be harder to accrue in the future. I hope you will not allow vanity to impede your progress, or prevent you from realizing your great potential.
Finally, on the matter of these dreadful killings in Cambridge, I have made arrangements for your transportation home to Newstead until that unpleasant matter is resolved. Joe Murray has reported to me that you were visited by thieftakers from London named Fielding Dingle and Archibald Knifing. I have made inquiries regarding these gentlemen; indeed, I expended great effort to deploy messengers to a number of colleagues so that I might find out everything I could about these purported criminal investigators you have gotten mixed up with. What I’ve learned has been quite upsetting. I shall not rest easy until I receive Joe Murray’s confirmation that you are safely en route.
Fielding Dingle is the vilest form of human trash, a man so detested that even the most reprehensible criminals and ruffians refer to him as a “rat.” He’s been twice convicted of burglary, but he finally realized he was too clumsy and stupid to earn a living at that line of work. He now holds himself out as a trained private constable, but I am told that he has little real investigative talent. Instead, he claims to be able to track down criminals and stolen property by maintaining a network of “informants” in the London underworld.
In my experience, scoundrels of the lower orders enjoy stealing and rape above all other things, but, excepting those endeavors, informing upon one another is their favored activity, especially when there is a reward for doing so. Unfortunately for them, such men are often unable to collect the bounties on the heads of their friends because they are, themselves, wanted for various offenses. This creates an opportunity for Dingle.
By refraining from the criminal behavior that is his natural predisposition, he maintains the bare minimum of reputability required to be able to walk into a magistrate’s office without being arrested. As such, he’s able to purchase information from street hoods, and then sell it profitably to London’s rather sorry policing apparatus. Dingle has also been known to accept payment for assisting victims of theft in ransoming their property, a task that is difficult to bungle when he is colluding with the thieves. However, his deductive skills are not held in much esteem; those who know him laughed at the prospect of him hunting a killer.
I have no idea where Lord Whippleby would encounter the likes of Fielding Dingle, but the presence of such an unsavory character indicates some corruption surrounding the Cambridge investigation in much the same way that the presence of maggots indicates that a haunch of meat has gone rotten.
Archibald Knifing inspires more confidence at first glance, but he is the subject of my greatest concern. I forwarded enquiries about both men to various constables, magistrates and barristers who are regularly involved in criminal investigations and prosecutions. While Dingle is a relatively obscure figure, scraping a living at the fringes of society, Knifing is an eminence in his field.