A Date with the Executioner

by Edward Marston

  ‘Mr Bowerman is dead, Sir Geoffrey.’

  ‘Dead? But he was a picture of health when I last saw him.’

  ‘He did not die by natural means,’ said Paul, quietly. ‘I regret to inform you that he was murdered.’

  Sir Geoffrey was so shocked that he collapsed into an armchair. A look of sheer despair covered his face. The news had silenced him completely so Paul went on to explain what exactly had happened, starting with a description of the duel. The other man had great difficulty matching what he was hearing to a friend for whom he had a deep affection. He was torn between anguish and incredulity.

  ‘Mark tried to fight a duel?’ he asked with a mirthless laugh. ‘The fellow didn’t know how to hold a pistol, let alone fire one. It was madness for him to challenge anyone. No disrespect to your tuition, Mr Skillen, but it would take you six months at least to get him to a point where he was even competent. Poor, dear, kind, blameless Mark!’ he sighed. ‘What have you done to deserve this? Who could dislike you so strongly that he was moved to sink a dagger in your back? It’s beyond belief.’ After struggling with grief for a few minutes, he suddenly looked up. ‘What about dear Miss Somerville?’ he asked. ‘Does she know about this?’

  ‘I had to apprise her of the situation,’ said Paul. ‘The lady was stunned.’

  ‘I don’t blame her. Well, what a turn of events this is! Thank you so much for taking the trouble to bring the news to me.’

  ‘I’m not simply here as a messenger, Sir Geoffrey. I intend to find the man who killed Mr Bowerman. To that end, I’d be grateful for some help from you.’

  ‘I don’t see what help I can possibly give you, Mr Skillen, but I’m at your service, nonetheless. Ask me whatever you wish.’

  Long after she’d departed, Leonard Impey was still savouring the experience. Hester Mallory had not only returned to transact business with his bank, she’d stayed for half an hour to converse with him. A customer who had an appointment with him was forced to wait while the manager revelled in the privacy of his office. When she’d eventually departed, Impey escorted his new client all the way to the waiting carriage, opening the door for her and assisting her into the vehicle with a gentle hand under her elbow. The fleeting moment of contact was exhilarating.

  Back in his office, he’d showered the other client with apologies for making him wait, then discussed the loan that was requested. Much later, when he was alone again, Impey had another visitor. The chief clerk knocked on the door and entered without waiting for an invitation. He was carrying something in his hand.

  ‘I’ve been looking at this bond, sir,’ he said, worriedly. ‘You deposited it in the safe when you took out some money for Mrs Mallory.’

  Impey was tetchy. ‘You had no reason to look at it.’

  ‘I was only following your advice, sir. You’ve always insisted that, where a major transaction is involved, a second pair of eyes is recommended.’

  ‘Perhaps I did say that, but you should have asked my permission first.’

  ‘I’m sorry that I didn’t,’ said the clerk, ‘and even sorrier that you didn’t let me examine the document before you advanced the cash. I might have saved you from a rather embarrassing situation.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Given the faith you so clearly placed in Mrs Mallory, I hesitate to suggest this, sir …’

  ‘Don’t beat about the bush, man,’ said the manager, irritably. ‘I’m a busy man. Say what you have to say then leave me alone.’

  ‘The bond is not genuine, Mr Impey.’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense. I’ve been through every line with great care.’

  ‘Then perhaps I should remind you that I dealt with Mr Picton for many years. I got to know him extremely well. There is no way that he would have sanctioned a bond of this kind. I’m surprised that you missed this blatant error, for instance,’ he went on, putting the document in front of the manager and jabbing a finger at a particular point. ‘Do you see what I mean, sir?’

  Snatching up the bond, Impey looked at the wording indicated. Doubts began to form and swiftly turned into fears. He’d given a stranger one thousand pounds from the safe and helped her into the carriage so that she could take the money away. The colour drained from his face and the authority from his voice.

  ‘It’s a forgery,’ he croaked.

  Hester Mallory sailed into the room with a smile of triumph.

  ‘How did you get on at the bank?’ asked the man.

  ‘That fool of a manager would have given me twice the amount.’

  Opening her bag, she took out the banknotes and threw them high into the air so that she could stand in a veritable blizzard of paper. Hester laughed.

  ‘I’ll try that other bank tomorrow,’ she decided.

  Joining in the laughter, the man swept her up in his arms.

  ‘This deserves a celebration,’ he said and he carried her quickly upstairs.

  Sir Geoffrey Melrose talked at length about his late friend with an affection edged with sorrow. All that Paul had to do was to listen and toss in the occasional question. At the root of the relationship with Mark Bowerman there was a family connection. Sir Geoffrey was uncle to Bowerman’s wife. Belonging to the same club, the two men saw a lot of each other until the unexpected death of Lucy Bowerman. As a result, her husband had become something of a recluse and Sir Geoffrey was one of the few people who could tempt him out of his self-imposed exile from society.

  ‘When you got to know him,’ he recalled, ‘Mark was a delightful companion. He was witty, intelligent and interested in politics. We talked for hours on end. I fancy that I was his only contact with real life.’

  ‘How did he come to meet Miss Somerville?’ asked Paul.

  ‘It was completely by accident.’

  ‘You didn’t deliberately bring them together, then?’

  ‘Dear Lord – no! That’s not what happened at all.’

  Sir Geoffrey went on to explain his own routine. Crippled with arthritis, his wife rarely left their country estate but she insisted that he went up to London on a regular basis to enjoy seeing his friends. Mark Bowerman was one of them. Though he didn’t confide his plan to Lady Melrose, he hit on the idea of holding a dinner party at his London address for some male friends and a group of beautiful young women. With a disarming smile, Sir Geoffrey warned Paul not to misunderstand the situation. His female guests had not been professional sirens, hired for the occasion and prepared to be compliant. They were all eminently respectable and were simply there to adorn the room and lighten the conversation. The dinner party, Sir Geoffrey said, had been an unqualified success.

  ‘Laetitia Somerville was a gorgeous creature but too serious-minded for my taste. To be candid, I preferred one of the others. A serious thought had never passed through her brain, God bless her.’ He quickly wiped the broad grin from his face. ‘Not that anything untoward happened between us, of course. She was far too young and I was far too married. In any case, it was not that kind of occasion.’

  ‘Did Mr Bowerman and Miss Somerville have the opportunity to speak alone?’ asked Paul.

  ‘No, we all stayed together in the dining room. In fact, Mark hardly said a word to Laetitia. He was mesmerised by her. As soon as the guests departed, he demanded to know how he could get in touch with her.’

  ‘Did you give him her address?’

  ‘I’d have given him the address of anyone who cheered him up so much.’

  ‘He told me that she had a resemblance to his first wife.’

  ‘That’s true. Lucy was a beauty as well.’

  ‘Did you ever see him and Miss Somerville together again?’

  ‘No,’ said Sir Geoffrey, ‘but I was hoping to do so at their wedding. That was an event that even Lady Melrose would insist on attending. Alas, it was not to be!’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Paul, getting to his feet. ‘That was enlightening. You’ve been more helpful than you know.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear you say that.�
��

  ‘There is one favour I’d like to ask. Could you possibly provide me with the names of all the people who were at that dinner party you gave?’

  As he considered the request, Sir Geoffrey’s eyebrows formed a chevron.

  ‘I’m not sure that I can,’ he said at length.

  Charlotte was still dazed by her latest visit from her friend. Hannah Granville had talked at her for the best part of an hour. When her husband returned to the gallery, Charlotte was grateful for his welcoming kiss.

  ‘Thank you, Peter,’ she said, ‘I needed that.’

  ‘Don’t tell me that Hannah’s been chewing your ear off again.’

  ‘Somebody has to listen to her.’

  ‘Why must it always be you?’

  ‘There’s yet another crisis, Peter. Suffice it to say that the chances of the play actually being performed are very slim. Still,’ she continued. ‘what’s your news?’

  ‘I was baulked.’

  ‘Didn’t they tell you who owns the property where the murder occurred?’

  ‘The agent refused to do so.’

  ‘Then he was withholding what might be valuable evidence.’

  ‘I made the point very forcefully. That garden was no random choice. The killer selected the venue on purpose.’

  ‘Is there no way of identifying the owner?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Peter, blithely. ‘I’ll get the information tonight.’

  ‘But you just told me that the agent refused to give it to you.’

  ‘There’s more than one way to skin a cat, Charlotte.’

  ‘You don’t mean …?’ He gave a nod. ‘But that’s illegal.’

  ‘If it’s the only way to get what we need, so be it.’

  ‘I don’t want you taking any risks, Peter.’

  ‘It will be something of a squeeze to get into the building but I think that I can manage it. On the other hand,’ he went on as an alternative popped into his mind, ‘it would be even easier for my accomplice.’

  ‘Who do you mean?’ Peter looked up at the ceiling. ‘Jem?’

  ‘He’d be ideal. Jem is small enough and nimble enough.’

  ‘Be careful, Peter. We don’t want him to have another brush with the law. The Runners would dearly love to have a legitimate reason to arrest Jem.’

  ‘They won’t get the chance, my love. He’ll be in and out of there in a flash. Besides, the Runners have something far more important to worry about than a case of trespass. Micah Yeomans has a murder to solve.’

  As they stood on the Thames embankment, the Runners discussed ways of trying to appease the chief magistrate. All their efforts had so far been frustrated and they were stung by the realisation that Peter and Paul Skillen were moving faster than them.

  ‘How do they do it?’ asked Hale. ‘They’re always ahead of us. I felt sure that we’d be the first to call on Miss Somerville but one of them had already been to the house. In fact, he broke the news of the murder to her. We should have done that, Micah.’

  ‘Be quiet.’

  ‘Why didn’t we?’

  ‘I’m thinking,’ said Yeomans. ‘We need to hobble the Skillens.’

  ‘We tried that when we raided the gallery.’

  ‘There has to be a subtler way.’

  Hale pondered. ‘We could always get Chevy to keep an eye on them,’ he said after a short while. ‘He could lurk outside the gallery.’

  ‘No, he’d only give himself away. When we asked him to keep Paul Skillen under surveillance, the idiot finished up down there in the Thames.’ He spat into the river. ‘Besides, he can’t tell the difference between the two brothers.’

  ‘Neither can I, if I’m honest.’

  ‘It’s easy,’ said Yeomans. ‘One is right-handed and the other is left-handed.’

  ‘Which is which?’

  ‘Peter is right-handed.’ He scratched his head. ‘Or is that Paul?’

  They began to stroll meditatively along the embankment, searching for a way to advance their own investigation at the expense of the one being pursued by their rivals. Hale offered a few suggestions but they were hastily dismissed by his colleague. It was Yeomans who finally believed that he’d espied a way to seize the advantage.

  ‘The duel,’ he said, coming to a halt. ‘We’re forgetting the duel, Alfred.’

  ‘But it never took place.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘We are privy to information that the Skillen brothers don’t have.’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘How did we know when and where the duel was to take place?’

  ‘An informer gave us the information.’

  ‘That’s our starting point,’ argued Yeomans. ‘We must find the informer. I’ll wager that we’ll get a lot more evidence that way. It’s somebody who knows all the people involved and who had a motive for preventing that duel.’

  ‘You’re right, Micah. How do we find him?’

  ‘We don’t, Alfred.’

  ‘But you just said that he might be the key we needed.’

  ‘Try listening properly,’ said Yeomans, giving him a shove. ‘I didn’t mention a man at all. The one thing we do know about our informer is this: it was a woman.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When Paul eventually arrived at the gallery, they were all keen to know what he’d found out in Eltham. Since Jem Huckvale was busy teaching someone the fundamentals of swordsmanship, only Peter, Charlotte and Gully Ackford were left to form an attentive audience. While the men were amused by his treatment of the robbers who’d lain in ambush, Charlotte was concerned.

  ‘Supposing there were more of them? You might have been hurt.’

  ‘As you see,’ said Paul, stretching his arms, ‘there’s not a scratch on me.’

  ‘Are you going to tell Hannah about this encounter?’

  ‘No, Charlotte, I’m not.’

  ‘What’s the reason for that?’

  ‘There are two reasons, actually. First, Hannah is not in a listening mode. All she wants to do is to talk about this latest play of hers. It’s been a source of friction with the manager ever since she agreed to act in it.’

  ‘The friction continues,’ warned Charlotte. ‘Hannah walked out of a rehearsal today after a fierce argument with the playwright.’

  Paul grimaced. ‘That means I’ll hear all the gruesome details.’

  ‘What’s the second reason?’

  ‘I don’t wish to upset her. When she first realised what a hazardous life Peter and I lead, I almost lost her. It’s far better if I keep the truth from Hannah. For instance, she knew nothing about the duel.’

  ‘In your place, Peter would have told me everything.’

  ‘That’s because I can trust you not to try to stop me,’ said Peter. ‘Hannah is different. She’d be more fearful.’

  ‘Go on with your story, Paul,’ suggested Ackford. ‘What sort of man was Sir Geoffrey Melrose and did you learn enough to make the journey worthwhile?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ replied Paul, ‘I did.’

  He went on to describe Sir Geoffrey and the life that he led in the country. It was very different to the time he spent in the city. Freed from his disabled wife, the man was a bon viveur who spread his wings wide. Of his fondness for Bowerman, Paul had no doubt. It had been a deep and lasting friendship. He’d been interested to discover more about the man for whom he’d acted as a second. What Paul was less certain about was Sir Geoffrey’s account of the fateful dinner party. The older man had claimed that he couldn’t remember how the women came to be invited and he only provided the name of one male guest.

  ‘What’s he trying to hide?’ asked Ackford.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Paul.

  ‘Do you think he deliberately arranged for Mr Bowerman to meet Miss Somerville? Is that what happened? Was he playing Cupid?’

  ‘He swears that he’d never met her before.’

  ‘Yet he obviously knew the sort of woman who coul
d attract Bowerman. It was one who reminded him of his first wife.’

  ‘Sir Geoffrey said that that was an agreeable coincidence.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound as if he’s been entirely truthful with you, Paul,’ said his brother. ‘He wanted to give the impression of helping you while holding some of the information back.’

  ‘I got one name out of him, Peter. Before I track down the man, I want to pay a second visit to Miss Somerville. I’ve lots of questions for her. For a start, I’d like to see if her memories of the dinner party chime in with those of Sir Geoffrey.’ He turned to his brother. ‘What will you be doing, Peter?’

  ‘Jem and I are going to break the law,’ said the other.

  ‘Then be very careful.’

  ‘It won’t take long, Paul.’

  Before he could explain what he was planning to do, Peter was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. He opened it to find a man standing there with a letter in his hand. He held it up.

  ‘I’m to deliver this to a Mr Peter Skillen,’ he said.

  ‘Who sent it?’

  ‘I’ve come from Mr Impey.’

  ‘Then it’s important,’ said Peter, taking the missive from him. ‘Come in a moment. When I’ve read this, you can take back my reply.’

  He stood back to admit the man then walked to a corner of the room. Unfolding the letter, he read the single sentence that it contained.

  ‘You won’t need to give him my reply,’ he said to the man. ‘I’ll deliver it in person.’ He turned to the others. ‘Mr Impey needs help. He wouldn’t summon me unless it was very serious. I’ll have to go to the bank immediately.’

  Notwithstanding the setback following their first visit there, the Runners decided to call at Stephen Hamer’s house for the second time. When they were invited in, they had to face some stinging invective both from Hamer and from Rawdon Carr. They withstood it with fortitude. As it eventually died away, Yeomans tried to mollify the two men with an apologetic shrug.