The Hyde Park Headsman

by Anne Perry

  “Quarter of a mile away.”

  “Well he certainly didn’t need a gig for a quarter of a mile. See if someone had a gig stolen from that neighborhood. Shouldn’t take long.”

  Tellman preempted his next question, leaning back a little in his chair.

  “Don’t know where he was killed yet, but should be somewhere around there. Unless he hit the poor fellow on the head and took him somewhere in the gig, so he could do the job in private. It’s not actually so easy to cut a man’s head off. Needs a swing and a lot of weight behind it.” He shook his head unhappily. “Wasn’t done in the gig. Could have taken him somewhere and tipped him out, cut off his head, then put the head and the body back in the gig and driven it to Hyde Park. But why? It doesn’t make sense any way you look at it.”

  “Then there’s something about it we don’t know yet,” Pitt reasoned. “Find out what it is, Tellman.”

  “Yes sir.” Tellman rose to his feet, then hesitated.

  Pitt was about to ask him what he wanted, then changed his mind.

  “You know,” Tellman said slowly, “I still don’t know whether it’s a lunatic or not. Even a madman’s got to have some sort of sense to pick people—some place, a job, or an appearance—something that set him off. And it wasn’t the same place, we know that. They didn’t look much alike.” He leaned a little on the back of his chair. “The first two, maybe, although Winthrop was a big man, Arledge was very thin, and probably ten or fifteen years older. But the bus conductor was a little bald fellow with wide shoulders and a potbelly. And he was still in his conductor’s uniform, so anyone would know he wasn’t a gentleman. In fact they couldn’t have mistaken him for anyone but who he was.” He frowned in irritation. “Why would anyone want to kill a bus conductor?”

  “I don’t know,” Pitt confessed. “Unless he saw something to do with the murders. Although how our madman knew that is beyond me.”

  “Blackmail?” Tellman suggested.

  “How?” Pitt tipped back in the chair again. “Even if he saw one of the murders, how would he know who the madman was, or where to find him?”

  “Maybe he would,” Tellman said slowly, his eyes widening. “Maybe our madman is somebody he would recognize—somebody anyone would recognize!”

  Pitt sat up a little straighter. “Someone famous?”

  “It would say why he had to kill a bus conductor!” Tellman’s voice was firm and hard, his face bright with satisfaction.

  “And the others?” Pitt asked. “Winthrop and Arledge?”

  “There’s a connection,” Tellman said stubbornly. “I don’t know what it is—but it’s there. Somewhere in his black mind there’s a reason for those two!”

  “I’m damned if I know what it is,” Pitt confessed.

  “I’ll find it,” Tellman said between closed teeth. “And I’ll see that bastard swing.” Pitt forbore from comment.

  The storm burst with the midday newspapers. The Hyde Park Headsman was on the front of every edition and there was a harsh note of panic in the screeds of print beneath. It was a little after one when Pitt’s door was flung open and Assistant Commissioner Farnsworth strode in, leaving it swinging on its hinges behind him. His face was white except for two high spots of color in his cheeks.

  “What the hell are you doing about it, Pitt?” he demanded. “This lunatic is rampaging through London killing people at will. Three headless corpses, and you still haven’t the faintest idea who he is or anything about him.” He leaned over the desk towards Pitt, glaring at him. “You make the whole force look like incompetent fools. I’ve had Lord Winthrop in my office again, poor devil, asking me what we’ve done to find the man who murdered his son. And I’ve got nothing to tell him. Nothing! I have to stand there like a fool and make excuses. Everyone’s talking about it—in the street, in the clubs, in houses, theaters, offices, they’re even singing songs about it in the halls, so I’m told. We’re a laughingstock, Pitt.” His hands were clenching and unclenching in his emotion. “I trusted you, and you’ve let me down. I took Drummond’s word for it that you were the man for the job, but it begins to look as if it is too big for you. You are not up to it!”

  Pitt had no defense. The same doubts had begun to occur to him, although he could not think what anyone else could have done, least of all a man like Drummond, who had never been a detective himself. Nor, for that matter, had Farnsworth.

  “If you wish to place the case with someone else, sir, then you had better do so,” he said coldly. “I’ll pass over all the information we have so far, and the leads we intend to follow.”

  Farnsworth looked taken aback. It was apparently not the answer he had expected.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, man. You cannot just abdicate your responsibility!” he said furiously, taking a step back. “What information do you have? Seems from what your inspector says that it’s damned little.”

  It was little, but it galled Pitt that Tellman had discussed it with the assistant commissioner. Even if Farnsworth had asked him, Tellman should have referred him to Pitt. It was a bitter thought that he could not expect loyalty even from the foremost of his own men. That was a failure too.

  “Winthrop was killed in a boat, which indicates he was not afraid of his killer.” He began to list off the few facts they had. “He was hit from behind, then beheaded over the side, at around midnight. Arledge was also struck first, but he was killed somewhere other than the bandstand where he was found. He may or may not have known who killed him, but it is indicative that he was moved. If we can find where he was killed, it may tell us a great deal more. I have half a dozen men looking.”

  “Good God, man, it can’t be far,” Farnsworth exploded. “How far can a madman carry a headless corpse around the heart of London, even in the middle of the night? How did he do it? Carriage, gig, horseback? Use your head, man!”

  “There were no hoof marks or carriage tracks anywhere near the bandstand,” Pitt said stiffly. “We searched the ground thoroughly, and there was nothing unusual whatever.”

  Farnsworth stood three paces away, then swung around.

  “Well what was there, for Heaven’s sake? He didn’t carry him over his shoulder.”

  “Nothing unusual,” Pitt repeated slowly, his thoughts racing. “Which means he was brought in something that passed that way in the normal course of events.”

  “Such as what?” Farnsworth demanded.

  “The gardener’s equipment …” Pitt said slowly.

  “What? A lawn mower.” Farnsworth’s expression was filled with derision.

  “Or a wheelbarrow.” Pitt remembered le Grange saying something about seeing a man with a wheelbarrow. “Yes,” he went on with increasing momentum. “A witness saw a wheelbarrow. That would have been it” He sat a little more upright as he said it. “He can’t have been killed far away. You can’t wheel a corpse ’round in a barrow through the streets …”

  “Then find it,” Farnsworth commanded. “What else? What about this wretched bus conductor this morning? What has he to do with the other two? What was he doing in the park?”

  “We don’t know that he was in the park.”

  “Of course he was in the park, man. Why else was he killed? He must have been in the park. Where was he last seen alive?”

  “At the end of his route, in Shepherd’s Bush.”

  “Shepherd’s Bush?” Farnsworth’s voice rose almost an octave. “That’s miles from Hyde Park.”

  “Which raises the question of why the Headsman brought him back to the park to leave firm,” Pitt said.

  “Because his madness has something to do with the park, of course,” Farnsworth replied between his teeth, his patience fast wearing out. “He’ll have knocked him senseless when he found him, and brought him to the park to take his head off there. That’s obvious.”

  “If he didn’t find him in the park, why kill him at all?” Pitt asked calmly, meeting Farnsworth’s eyes.

  “I don’t know,” Farnsworth said angrily, tur
ning away. “For God’s sake, man, that’s your job to find out, and a dammed slow business you are making of it.” He looked back, his expression controlled. “The public have a right to expect more of you, Pitt, and so do I. I took Drummond’s counsel to promote you, against my own instincts, and I may say it looks as if I’ve made a mistake.”

  He seized the newspaper he had dropped on the desk. “Have you seen this? Look!” He opened it to show a large cartoon of two small policemen standing with their hands in their pockets and looking at the ground, while the giant figure of a masked man with an executioner’s ax towered over a terrified London.

  There was nothing to say. Farnsworth had no better ideas, but to point that out would be useless. He already knew it, which was part of what made him so angry. He too was helpless, and had to answer to the political pressures above him. This failure could end the hopes of his career. The men above him were not interested in excuses, or even reasons. They judged by results alone. They answered to the public, and the public was a fickle, frightened master who forgot quickly, forgave very little, and understood only what it wanted to.

  He slammed the newspaper down on the desk.

  “Get on with it, Pitt. I expect to hear something definite by tomorrow.” And with that he turned and stalked out, leaving the door still open.

  As soon as Farnsworth’s footsteps had died away down the stairs, Bailey’s head appeared around the door, pale and apologetic.

  “What is it?” Pitt looked up.

  Bailey pulled a face. “Don’t take no notice of ’im,” he said tentatively. “ ’E couldn’t do no better, an’ we all know it.”

  “Thank you, Bailey,” Pitt said sincerely. “But we’ll have to do better if we’re going to catch this—creature.”

  Bailey shivered very slightly. “D’yer reckon as ’e’s mad, Mr. Pitt, or it’s personal? What I don’t understand is why that poor bleedin’ little bus conductor? Gentlemen you can understand. They might ’ave done somethink.”

  Pitt smiled in spite of himself.

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” He rose to his feet. “I’m going to find out what Arledge’s keys open, for a start.”

  “Yes sir. Shall I tell Mr. Tellman, sir, or not—as I don’t really know where you’re goin’.” He opened his eyes wide. “I can’t say as I recall what you said.”

  “Then if I don’t repeat it, you won’t know, will you?” Pitt said with a smile.

  “No sir, I won’t,” Bailey agreed happily.

  Pitt took the two sets of keys and left for Mount Street. He hailed a cab and sat back to think while the driver eased his way through the traffic, stopping and starting, calling out encouragement and abuse.

  Dulcie Arledge received him with courtesy, and if she were surprised to see him she concealed it with the sort of sensitivity he had come to expect of her.

  “Good morning, Mr. Pitt.” She did not rise from the sofa where she was seated. She was still dressed entirely in black, but it was gracefully slender in the new line, with little peaks at the point of the shoulder.

  She wore an exquisite mourning brooch of jet and seed pearls at her throat and a mourning ring on her slender hand. Her face was composed and she managed to smile. “Is there something further I can help you with? I hear that there has been another death. Is that true?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I am afraid it is.”

  “Oh dear. How very dreadful.” She swallowed painfully. “Who—who was it?”

  “An omnibus conductor, ma’am.”

  She was startled. “An omnibus conductor? But—but why would anyone—I mean…” She turned away as if embarrassed by her confusion. “Oh dear, I don’t know what I mean. Was it in Hyde Park again?”

  He hated having to tell her at all. It seemed such an added offense to a woman of such courage and sensibility.

  “Just outside it,” he said gently. “At least that is where he was found. We don’t know where he was killed.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes dark and troubled. “Please sit down, Superintendent. Tell me what I can possibly do to help. I cannot think of any conceivable connection between my husband and an omnibus conductor. I have been searching my mind to think if Aidan ever mentioned Captain Winthrop, but I can think of nothing which would be of service. He knew a great many people, a large proportion of whom I never met.”

  “Concerned with his music?” he asked, accepting the invitation to sit.

  “Indeed. He really was very gifted, and so in great demand.” Her eyes filled with tears. “He was a remarkable man, Superintendent. It is not only I who will miss him.”

  Pitt did not know what to say. Weeping, fainting, hysterics were embarrassing and left any man helpless, but there was a quality in this quiet, dignified grief which was uniquely moving, and in its own way left him feeling even more inadequate.

  She must have seen his consternation.

  “I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “I have placed you in an impossible situation. What can you say? I should not have let my feelings intrude.” She folded her hands. “What else could I help with?”

  He produced the keys out of his pocket and passed them to her.

  She took them and looked at one set first, then at the second with a frown on her face.

  “These are our household keys,” she said, holding aside the first set. “One is the front door. He used to come home late on occasions and would not keep the staff up to wait for him.” She smiled very bleakly, looking at Pitt. “The small ones are desk drawers and so on. I think this is for the cellar. There were times when he wanted to go down and perhaps get himself a bottle of wine without asking Horton.” She turned to the second set, a pucker between her brows. “But these I have no idea. I don’t recognize any of them.” She held up the two sets side by side. “They don’t look alike, do they?”

  “No ma’am,” he agreed, and yet he saw in her eyes the same thought that occurred to him. They looked like another set of house keys.

  She passed them back to him. “I’m sorry. I’m not being of any assistance.”

  “Of course you are,” Pitt assured her quickly. “Your candor is invaluable. Few people would have the courage that you have in such fearful circumstances, let alone the clarity of mind to be of practical help. It distresses me to have to put it to you at all.” He meant it profoundly.

  She smiled at him, warmth filling her face.

  “You are very generous, Superintendent. Although with someone as sympathetic as you have been, talking of Aidan, and the whole tragedy, is not as difficult as you may imagine. It is never far from my mind anyway, and to be able to be frank is something of a relief.” She made a little gesture of rueful impatience. “People mean to be kind, but they will speak of anything else, skirting around the subject all the time, when we all know we are thinking of little else, whatever we may say.”

  He knew precisely what she meant, he had seen it countless times before, the embarrassment, the averted eyes, the hesitation, then the rush into meaningless, irrelevant speech.

  “Please ask me whatever you wish,” she invited.

  “Thank you. On the possibility that Mr. Arledge actually met whoever killed him, or had some connection, however accidental or tenuous, I would like to follow his actions in the last week of his life.”

  “What a good idea,” she agreed immediately. “I am sure I can help with that. I can bring you his diary of professional appointments. I kept it because I was looking ahead to see what he was doing, and of course I have since had to write a great many letters.” She shrugged delicately and pulled a little face of distaste. “I expect everyone read about it in the newspapers, or heard, but that is not the same.”

  “I would appreciate it.” He had not asked before because Arledge’s professional engagements seemed so far removed from a violent murder by a madman.

  “Of course.” She rose to her feet and he stood also, without even thinking, and it seemed a natural gesture of courtesy toward her.

>   She went to a small, inlaid walnut escritoire and opened it, putting her hand to a dark green leather-bound book and bringing it out. She offered it to him.

  He took it and opened it where it fell naturally and saw the entry for the day of Arledge’s death. There was a notation of a rehearsal in the afternoon and nothing else. He looked up and met Dulcie’s eyes.

  “He had only the one appointment that day?” he asked.

  “I am afraid I don’t know,” she answered. “There is only one written there, but he did sometimes, in fact really quite often, go out on the spur of the moment. That diary was largely for professional engagements.”

  “I see.” He turned the pages back for a week, then started reading forwards. Rehearsals, performances and luncheon and dinner engagements for meeting with various people connected with future projects were all written in a neat, strong hand with bold capitals and clearly legible cursive script. It was an elegant hand, yet not florid. “If I may take this, I shall see what I can learn.”

  “Of course you may,” she said eagerly. “I can give you the names of certain people he worked with regularly. Sir James Lismore, for one; and Roderick Alberd. They would know many others, I am sure.” She stood up again and turned back to the desk. “I have their addresses in here somewhere. Lady Lismore is a friend of long standing. I am sure she would give you every assistance.”

  “Thank you,” he accepted, unsure if it would prove of any value at all, and torn between the desire to know Aidan Arledge better and the dislike of finding that he kept a mistress. It would be an appalling burden for this woman to bear, on top of bereavement. He decided at that moment that if it were not relevant to the case he would keep silent, forget it as if it had never happened. He would be quite prepared to return the keys to her and lie about it, say he had failed to find the doors they opened.

  He thanked her again, stood facing her in the quiet room trying to think of something further to say, to offer comfort or hope, and nothing came to him. She smiled and bade him good-bye.

  “You will tell me—what you find, won’t you, Superintendent?” she said as he was almost at the door.