The Hyde Park Headsman (10 page)

*  *  *

Hurlwood had been gone only half an hour when the sergeant returned, eyes wide again, breath catching in his throat. This time it was Giles Farnsworth, the assistant commissioner, who was a step behind him. He was smooth-faced, cleanshaven and perhaps ten years younger than Hurlwood. Today he looked angry and harassed. His white shirt was immaculate, his winged collar high and a trifle tight, his fair brown hair was thick and brushed back off his broad brow, but there was anxiety in his expression and the beginnings of a ragged temper.

“Good afternoon, Pitt.” He closed the door behind him and remained standing.

Pitt came around the desk. “Good afternoon, sir.”

“This damned Winthrop business,” Farnsworth said, his mouth pulled tight with distaste. “What have you done so far? We can’t let this one stand around. Police reputation is bad enough. We’ve never recovered from the Ripper and all the harm that did us. We can’t afford another episode like that!”

“No reason to suppose we will have one again—” Pitt began.

Farnsworth’s temper was intent and savage. “Good God, man! Of course it will happen again if we’ve got a criminal lunatic loose in Hyde Park. Why on earth would he be satisfied with one dead body?” He jerked his head angrily. “And if it’s a gang of robbers come from God knows where, they’d do it as long as they can get away with it! We’ll have panic in the streets again, people terrified to go out of their own doors, half the city paralyzed …”

“Captain Winthrop was not robbed.”

“Then it’s a madman!”

“Neither did he put up any struggle.” Pitt kept his tone calm with an effort. He understood why Farnsworth was afraid. The political situation was tense. The Whitechapel affair had shown ugly manifestations of anarchy, a violence simmering frighteningly close to the surface. There was unrest in many of the major cities, the old sore of the Irish question was as painful as ever. The popularity of the monarchy was at its lowest ebb. It would not take much to spark the underlying fear into a blaze of destruction which would carry many of them away with it. “He was killed in the pleasure boat while leaning over the side, and with one clean stroke,” Pitt said aloud.

Farnsworth stood still, his face tight and bleak.

“What are you saying, Pitt? That it was someone he knew? He must have known him well. Why on earth does a naval captain get into a pleasure boat on the Serpentine, at midnight, with another man carrying an ax? It’s absurd. It’s very, very ugly, Pitt.”

“I know that, sir.”

“Who is it? What was the man’s private life? What about the wife? If it’s scandalous, you are going to have to cover this up, if you can. I trust you know that?” He fixed Pitt with a sharp stare.

“I never expose people’s private griefs and sins voluntarily,” Pitt replied, but it was an equivocation, and Farnsworth knew it.

“Winthrops are an important family, connections all over the place,” Farnsworth went on, moving his weight restlessly from one foot to the other. “For Heaven’s sake be discreet. And don’t pull faces, man! I know you’ve got to solve the case!” He bit his lip, looking at Pitt hard and obviously turning over something in his mind.

Pitt waited.

“It’s going to be difficult,” Farnsworth said again.

The remark was so obvious Pitt did not reply.

Farnsworth looked Pitt up and down closely, still cogitating. “You’ll need connections yourself,” he said slowly. “Not impossible. Self-made man, but that doesn’t rule out influence, you know.”

Pitt felt a sudden stab of fear, but still he said nothing.

“Just a few friends can make the world of difference,” Farnsworth went on. “If they are the right ones.”

The fear subsided. It was not what Pitt had dreaded. He found himself smiling.

Farnsworth smiled as well.

“Good man,” he said with a nod. “Opens a lot of doors for you, furthers your career. Drummond was, you know?”

Pitt went cold. It was the Inner Circle he was referring to after all, that secret society, outwardly benevolent, inwardly malign, which Drummond had joined in his innocence and regretted so bitterly afterwards. The price of brotherhood was the surrender of loyalties, the forfeit of conscience so that an unknown army helped you, and could call on your help, at whatever cost, whenever it chose. The price of betrayal was ruin, sometimes even death. One knew only a half dozen or so
other members, as the need arose. There was no way to tell to whom your loyalty might be pledged, or in what cause.

“No.” Pitt blurted out the word before realizing how foolish it would be, but he felt cornered, as if a darkness were trapping him and closing tight around him. “I …” He drew in his breath and let it out slowly.

Farnsworth’s face was flushed with annoyance and there was a bright glitter in his eyes.

“You are making a mistake, Pitt,” he said between his teeth.

“I don’t belong.” Pitt kept his voice as calm as he could.

“If you want to succeed, you had better make yourself belong.” Farnsworth looked at him unsmilingly. “Otherwise the doors will be closed. And I know what I am talking about. You need to clear up this case quickly.” He gestured towards the window and the street below. “Have you seen the newspapers? The public are beginning to panic already. You have no time to dither.” He walked to the door. “I’ll give you three days, Pitt, then you had better have something very decisive. And I expect you to reconsider that other matter. You need friends, believe me. You need them very much.” And with that he went out, leaving the door open behind him, and Pitt heard his footsteps down the stairs.

3

C
HARLOTTE HAD HEARD
the newsboys crying out the latest speculation on the Hyde Park murder, but she had given it less of her attention than she usually gave to Pitt’s more sensational cases because her mind was very fully occupied with the matter of plasterwork on the ceiling of the new house. At present she was in the middle of what was to be the withdrawing room, and staring upwards. The builder, a thin, lugubrious man in his thirties with sad eyes and a long nose, was standing in front of her shaking his head.

“Can’t do it, ma’am. Wouldn’t expect you to understand why, but it just in’t possible. Too far gorn, it is. Much too far.”

Charlotte looked up at the broken plaster on the cornice.

“But it’s only about two feet altogether. Why can’t you just replace that bit?” she asked, as she thought, very reasonably.

“Oh no.” Again he shook his head. “It’ll look like a patch, ma’am. Wouldn’t be right Can’t turn out work like that I’ve got my reputation to consider.” He met her eyes with a clear, indignant gaze.

“No it wouldn’t,” she argued. “Not if you put in the same pattern.”

“Can’t patch old wine bottles with new skins, ma’am. Don’t you read your Bible?” he said accusingly.

“Not when I’m looking for instruction on repairing the ceiling, I don’t,” she replied briskly. “Well, if you can’t do that piece, what about the whole of that side?”

“Ah—well.” He squinted up at it, head on one side. “I’m not sure about that Might be a different pattern, mightn’t it?”

“Can’t you find the same one? It doesn’t look very complicated to me.”

“That’s ’cause you in’t a plasterer, ma’am. Why don’t you ask your husband to explain it to you?”

“My husband is not a plasterer either,” she said with rising irritation.

“No ma’am, I daresay not,” he agreed. “But ’cos ’e’s a man, yer see, and men understand these things better than ladies, if you don’t mind my saying so?” He regarded her with a sententious smile. “Now I wouldn’t understand how to stitch a seam, or bake a cake, but I do know about cornices and the like. And you’ll be wanting a new rose too, to ’ang them good chandeliers from. Gotta watch that, or it’ll spoil the ’ole thing.”

“And how much will a new one be?”

“Well now, that’ll depend on whether you want paper stucco, which is very light, like, and very cheap, and comes at anything from three shillings for one what’s nineteen inches across, to one what’s forty-nine inches across, and it’d be too big for this room, at thirty-two and seven pence ha’penny.” He sucked in his breath noisily and continued. “Or you could have plaster, plain or perforated, which comes at one and sixpence or thereabouts for twelve inches across, right up to four and sixpence for thirty inches across. It all depends upon what you want.”

“I see. Well, I’ll think about it. Now what about the lamp in the hall?”

“Ah well now, that’s different. You could have a real plain twisted-’eart pendant which comes at about four and sixpence each, or the bigger ones at seven and sixpence each.” He shook his head. “That don’t include the globe, o’ course.”

“But that won’t be the one I wanted. I like the one with the engraved glass.”

“Ah—well that’d be a great deal more, ma’am; that’d be fifty-one shillings each, bronzed or lacquered. And now if you want it polished, it’d be fifty-seven shillings.” He sucked at what was apparently a hollow tooth and stared at her.

“I don’t like the other one,” she said adamantly. “It’s vulgar.”

“I just fitted one like that for the lady what lives opposite,” he said with satisfaction. “Very nice it is too. Very nice lady. Her cousin is married to Lady Winslow’s brother-in-law.” He imparted this last piece of information as if it clinched the argument.

“Then she won’t thank me for doing the same,” Charlotte retorted. “What about the finial for the west gable? Can you match the others?”

“I don’t know about that.” He shook his head doubtfully. “You’d be better to replace them all—”

“Balderdash!” said a brisk voice from the doorway. “You find a finial that matches, young man, or my niece will employ somebody who will.”

Charlotte spun around with surprise and delight to see Great-Aunt Vespasia advancing across the room. More strictly speaking, she was Emily’s Great-Aunt-in-law from her first marriage. However, George’s death had made no difference to the closeness of their affection, indeed they grew in each other’s regard with each new turn in their relationship. Now she felt a sharp sense of pleasure that Vespasia had spoken of her as a niece, even though she had no claim to that title.

“Aunt Vespasia,” she said immediately. “How very nice to see you! You have come at the very best moment to give me your advice. I cannot offer you any refreshment. I am so sorry. I can barely offer you a seat.” She felt acutely apologetic, even though she had not invited Vespasia and therefore was not responsible for the situation.

Vespasia ignored her and looked at the builder, who had little idea who she was but had worked on enough houses of the quality to know that in this instance he was now totally out of his depth. This was a lady of a quite different order. She was tall, slender verging on gaunt, but with a face of exquisite bones which still retained much of the marvelous beauty which had made her famous throughout England in her youth. She looked at him as if he himself had been the offending piece of plaster.

“What are you doing about that?” she asked, staring up at the broken cornice.

“Repairing that side,” Charlotte said quickly. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Robinson?”

“If you say so, ma’am,” he replied sullenly.

“Quite right,” Vespasia approved. “And I’m sure if you look hard enough, you will discover a rose that will fit with it quite satisfactorily. What about the dado rail? That is in an awful state. You will need to replace all of it.” She looked at Robinson. “You had better set about finding something suitable. Now be off with you and begin.” She dismissed him without further thought and turned to Charlotte. “Now, my dear, where
may we go to leave this man to his business? What about the garden? It looks charming.”

“By all means,” Charlotte agreed hastily, leading the way, opening the French door for Vespasia and then closing it behind her. Outside on the paved terrace the air was soft and there was a scent of bruised grass on the breeze and the smell of hyacinths somewhere just beyond sight.

Vespasia stood very straight, her hair brilliant in the light, her black silver-topped cane in her right hand, not leaning on it so much as resting her hand over it.