The Hyde Park Headsman (2 page)

Pitt considered telling him not to be insolent, but he was still feeling his way with the men in his command. He had not worked with them closely before, always having had one sergeant with him at most, more often no one at all. He was regarded more as a rival than a colleague.

They had obeyed Micah Drummond because he was from a distinguished family with private means and had a career in the army behind him, and thus was of a class doubly used to command. Pitt was totally different, a gamekeeper’s son who spoke well only because he had been educated, by grace, with the son of the estate. He had neither the manner nor the appearance of one born to lead. He was tall, but he frequently stood awkwardly. His hair was untidy, even on his best days. On his worst it looked as if he had been blown in by a gale. He dressed with abandon, and kept in his pockets a marvelous assortment of articles which he thought might one day prove handy.

The Bow Street men were slow to get used to him, and he was finding leadership alien to his nature. He was used to disregarding the rules, and being tolerated because he succeeded. Command placed quite different obligations on him and required a stiffer and less eccentric example to be set. Suddenly he was responsible for other men’s orders, their successes and failures, even their physical safety.

Pitt fixed Grover with a cold eye. “Time of death, Constable,” he said levelly. “That would be more instructive to know. And was he killed in the boat or brought there afterwards?”

Grover’s face fell. “Oh, I don’t think we know that, sir. Not yet. Bit of a risky thing to do, though, chop a man’s ’ead orf right there in the park. Could ’ave bin seen by anyone out for a walk.”

“And how many people were out for a walk at that hour, Grover?”

Grover shifted his feet.

“Oh, well, don’t seem as if there were nobody but them two as found ’im. But your murderer couldn’t ’ave counted on that, could ’e.” It was a statement rather than a question. “Could’ve been anyone out for a morning ride,” he went on reasonably. “Or even someone comin’ home late from a party, or a night out, takin’ the air …”

“That is if it was done in daylight,” Pitt pointed out. “Perhaps it was done long before that. Have you found anyone else who was in the park yet?”

“No sir, not yet. We came to report it to you, Mr. Pitt, as soon as we realized as it were someone important.” It was his ultimate justification, and he knew it was sufficient.

“Right,” Pitt agreed. “By the way, did you find the head?”

“Yes sir, it was right there in the boat beside ’im, like,” Grover replied, blinking.

“I see. Thank you. Send Mr. Tellman up, will you.”

“Yes, sir.” Grover stood to attention momentarily. “Thank you, sir.” And he turned on his heel and went out, closing the door softly behind him.

It was less than three minutes before Tellman knocked, and Pitt told him to enter. He was a lean man with a narrow aquiline face, hollow cheeks and a tight sarcastic mouth. He had come up through the ranks with hard work and ruthless application. Six months ago he had been Pitt’s equal, now he was his junior, and resented it bitterly. He stood to attention in front of the large leather-inlaid desk, and Pitt sitting in the easy chair behind it.

“Yes, sir,” he said coldly.

Pitt refused to acknowledge he had heard the tone in Tellman’s voice. He looked across at him with innocent eyes. “There’s been a murder in Hyde Park,” he said calmly. “A man by the name of Oakley Winthrop, Captain the Honorable, R.N. Found a little after dawn in one of the pleasure boats on the Serpentine. Beheaded.”

“Unpleasant,” Tellman said laconically. “Important, was he, this Winthrop?”

“I don’t know,” Pitt said honestly. “But his parents are titled, so we can assume he was, at least in some people’s eyes.”

Tellman pulled a face. He despised those he considered passengers in society. Privilege stirred in him a raw, bitter anger that stretched far back into his childhood memories of hunger, cold, and endless weariness and anxiety, a father beaten by circumstances till he had no pride left, a mother who worked till she was too tired to talk to her children or laugh with them.

“I suppose we will all be trudging holes in our boots so we can get the beggar who did it,” he said sourly. “Sounds like a madman to me. I mean, why would anyone do anything so—” He stopped, uncertain what word he wanted. “Was his head there? You didn’t say.”

“Yes it was. There was no attempt to hide his identity.”

Tellman pulled a face. “Like I said, a madman. What the hell was a naval captain doing in a pleasure boat on the Serpentine
anyway?” A smile lit his face quite suddenly, showing a totally different side to his nature. “Bit of a comedown, isn’t it? Fellow like that’d be more used to a battleship.” He cleared his throat. “Wonder if he was there with a woman. Someone else’s wife, maybe?”

“Possibly,” Pitt agreed. “But keep such speculation to yourself for the time being. First of all find out all the physical facts you can.” He saw Tellman wince at being told something he considered so obvious. He disregarded the man’s expression and continued. “Get all the material details. I want to know when he was killed, what with, whether it took one blow or several, whether he was struck from the front or the back, left hand or right, and if he was conscious at the time or not …”

Tellman raised his eyebrows.

“And how will they know that, sir?” he inquired.

“They’ve got the head,” Pitt replied. “They’ll know if he was struck first—and they’ve got the body, they can find out if he was drugged or poisoned.”

“Won’t know if he was asleep,” Tellman pointed out sententiously.

Pitt ignored him. “Tell me what he was wearing,” he went on. “And the state of his shoes. Did he walk across the grass to the boat, or was he carried? And you certainly ought to be able to work out whether his head was chopped off there in the boat or somewhere else.” He looked up at Tellman. “And then you can drag the Serpentine to see if you can find the weapon!”

Tellman’s face darkened. “Yes, sir. Will that be all, sir?”

“No—but it’s a start.”

“Anyone in particular you want me to take on this job, sir? Being as it’s so delicate?”

“Yes,” Pitt said with satisfaction. “Take le Grange.” Le Grange was a smooth-tongued, rather glib young man whose sycophantic manner irritated Tellman even more than it did Pitt. “He’ll handle the possible witnesses very well.”

Tellman’s expression was vile, but he said nothing. He stiffened to attention for an instant, then turned on his heel and went out.

Pitt leaned back in his chair and thought deeply. It was the first major case he had been in charge of since taking over from Micah Drummond. Of course there had been other crimes, even serious ones, but none within the scope for which
he was particularly appointed: those which threatened scandal or tragedy of more than purely private proportions.

He had not heard the name Winthrop before, but then he did not move in society, nor was he familiar with the leading figures in the armed services. Members of Parliament he knew more closely, but Winthrop was not of that body, and if his father ever took his seat in the House of Lords, it had not so far been to sufficient effect for it to have reached public awareness.

Surely Micah Drummond would have reference books for such an occasion? Even he could not have stored in his memory all the pertinent facts of every important man or woman in London.

Pitt swiveled around in the chair and stared at the immaculate bookshelves. He was already familiar with many of the titles. It had been one of the first things he had done on moving in. There it was—
Who’s Who.
He pulled it out with both hands and opened it on the desk. Captain the Honourable Oakley Winthrop was not present. However, Lord Marlborough Winthrop was written up at some length, more for his heritage than his achievements, but nonetheless the book gave a very fair picture of a proud, wealthy, rather humorless man of middle age whose interests were tediously predictable. He had had a host of respectable minor offices and was related to a wide variety of the great families in the land, some quite distantly, but nevertheless each connection was duly noted. Some forty years ago he had married one Evelyn Hurst, third daughter of an admiral, later ennobled.

Pitt closed the book with a feeling of foreboding. Lord and Lady Winthrop were not likely to be placated easily if answers were slow in coming, or displeasing in their nature. It was probably unfair, but already he had a picture of them in his mind.

Was Tellman right—was a madman loose in the park? Or had Oakley Winthrop in some way brought it upon himself by courting another man’s wife, welshing on his debts, or cheating? Or was he privy to some dangerous secret? These were questions that would have to be asked with subtlety and extreme tact.

In the meantime he would like to have gone to the park and sought the material evidence himself, but it was Tellman’s job, and it would be time wasting as well as impolitic to oversee him in its pursuance.

*  *  *

Charlotte Pitt was occupied as differently as possible. With Pitt’s promotion had come the opportunity to move to a larger house, one with a garden offering not only a broad lawn and two large herbaceous borders but also a very considerable kitchen garden and three old apple trees, at the moment the gnarled boughs fat with buds for blossom. Charlotte had fallen in love with it the moment she stepped through the French doors of the withdrawing room onto the stone-flagged terrace and seen the garden in front of her.

The house itself needed much work before it was ready to move into, but she could imagine all sorts of wonderful possibilities for it. A hundred times in her mind she had decorated it, hung curtains, found carpets, arranged and rearranged the furniture.

Now the wallpaper was stripped off in many places and the plaster was so damaged as to need gouging out and replacing with new. There were other things missing or broken, large pieces out of cornices, friezes and moldings. The plaster ceiling rose in the dining room was so badly chipped as to need replacing. The hall lamp was missing all its glass, as were several of the gas brackets in other rooms. The mirror on the overmantel in the dining room was spotted across the center and cracked at the edges, and the fireplace in the main bedroom had lost several of its border tiles. There would be a great deal to do, but she was full of enthusiasm, and so far undaunted by the prospect.

She was completely unaware of the murder in Hyde Park. She stood in the middle of the withdrawing room visualizing how splendid it would be when it was all finished. In the house in Bloomsbury they had had only a front parlor, very pleasant in its fashion, but it was a poor thing by comparison with this; or to be more exact, with what this could become. Then she would be able to invite people to dinner—something she had not done before in her married life, with the exception, of course, of immediate family.

Her parents had been quite comfortable—although at the time she had felt it to be barely sufficient. There was never money in hand for as many dresses as she would have wished, or for more than one carriage. But when she had scandalized her friends by marrying a policeman, at the same time as her younger sister, Emily, had married a viscount, both their lives
had changed beyond recognition and beyond their power to imagine beforehand.

Then George Ashworth had died, leaving Emily a very rich widow, and later she had married Jack Radley, charming, handsome and virtually penniless. She seemed totally happy, and that was all that mattered. Her seven-year-old son, Edward, now Lord Ashworth, had a baby sister, Evangeline, known as Evie, and Jack was again attempting to gain a seat in Parliament. Under Emily’s cajoling, flattering and persuasion he had found a social conscience and determined to forge himself a career. His first attempt had ended in failure, although, both Emily and Charlotte conceded willingly, a moral victory.

“Excuse me, ma’am …” Charlotte’s thoughts were interrupted by the voice of her maid, Gracie, a tiny waif of a girl who had been with her ever since her move to Bloomsbury. Now she was an intelligent and determined eighteen-year-old who had beyond question found her place in life as the confidante and, as of the last case, the assistant to the wife of a detective. The change in her from the child she had been was miraculous. She bristled confidence and appetite for adventure. She was still as thin as a ninepenny rabbit. All the clothes she was given were too long for her and had to be taken up, but her cheeks had color, and she was more than a match for the most impertinent delivery boy or the most uppity servant of anyone else. After all, she had adventures. All they ever did was housework.

“Yes, Gracie?” Charlotte said absently.

“The dustman’s ’ere ’oo said as ’e’d take them broken tiles and get the linoleum up from the kitchen that’s all scuffed and frayed at the edges,” Gracie said busily. “ ’E said that it’d only cost one and sixpence, an’ ’e’d take the rubbish out o’ the back yard too.”

“A shilling,” Charlotte said automatically. “And he can have the broken lamp brackets as well, if he’ll take them down.”

“Yes ma’am.” Gracie whisked out to return less than a moment later with Emily at her heels. Charlotte’s sister came in in a whirl of rose-pink skirts, marvelous sleeves and a fashionably slender waist, not quite as it was before Evie, but still most becoming. Her fair hair sat in an aureole of curls around her face, and her expression was one of amazement.

“Oh Charlotte!” She gazed around and swallowed hard.

Charlotte glared at her.

“It could be … beautiful,” Emily added, then burst into giggles,
sinking in a heap of skirts into the old sofa pushed over towards the front windows.

Charlotte opened her mouth to say something furious, then realized how absurd that would be. The room was bare and drab. Old wallpaper hung in ribbons from broken plaster, the windows were dirty and one was cracked, the lamp brackets broken. The old sofa was covered in a dust sheet like a solitary ghost. The rest of the house was no better. The only way to cope was to laugh.

“It will be all right,” she said at length when they had recovered themselves.