A Date with the Executioner

by Edward Marston

  ‘Then they don’t know the Stephen Hamer that I do.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Rawdon Carr had been his second at the ill-fated duel, an old and trusted friend to whom he often turned for advice. They were in Hamer’s house, looking back over recent events. Carr was furious that the Runners had dared to suspect Hamer of murder and urged him to institute legal action. They were still discussing its nature when a servant knocked on the door and opened it.

  ‘You have a visitor, Captain Hamer,’ he said.

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Mr Paul Skillen.’

  ‘It’s the fellow who acted as Bowerman’s second,’ said Hamer, puzzled. ‘What can he possibly want with me?’

  ‘At least he won’t have come to arrest you,’ said Carr. ‘He discharged his duties well on Putney Heath. Have him admitted.’

  Hamer gave a signal and the servant disappeared. Seconds later, he conducted Paul into the room then left all three men together. After formal introductions, Paul was invited to sit down.

  ‘I’d prefer to remain standing, if you don’t mind,’ said Paul.

  Carr smiled. ‘That sounds ominous.’

  ‘I came to deliver a message to the captain.’

  ‘Then let’s hear it,’ said Hamer.

  ‘Miss Somerville wishes you to know that she has no wish ever to see you again. She requests that you make no attempt to call on her because you will not be allowed inside her house under any circumstance.’

  ‘And this is the message she asked you to communicate?’

  ‘I may have paraphrased her words.’

  ‘Why did she choose you as her intercessor? You don’t even know her.’

  ‘It fell to me to break the news of Mr Bowerman’s death to her,’ explained Paul. ‘It caused her untold anguish. When I asked about you … Miss Somerville said that the door would be slammed in your face.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like Laetitia,’ said Hamer.

  ‘Indeed, it doesn’t,’ agreed Carr. ‘It’s far too unladylike. You misheard her, Mr Skillen. Such sentiments could never be expressed by her.’

  ‘I promise you that they were,’ said Paul, stoutly. ‘But that’s not the only reason that brought me here. I wanted to speak to Captain Hamer about his time in the Peninsular War.’

  Hamer became wary. ‘Why the devil should you want to do that?’

  ‘I’ve known many soldiers in my time and – to a man – they like to collect trophies from their victories. The souvenirs usually comprise uniforms, hats, flags or, more often, perhaps, enemy weapons.’

  ‘Damn your effrontery, Mr Skillen!’

  ‘Are you saying that you did not forage on the battlefield?’

  ‘Oh, Captain Hamer came back with a whole arsenal of weapons,’ said Carr, laughing, ‘but, frankly, that’s none of your business.’

  ‘It might be if the collection included a dagger made of Toledo steel and having a decorative handle.’

  ‘I think it’s time that you left,’ said Hamer, forcefully.

  ‘Evidently, you’ve not seen the murder weapon that took Mr Bowerman’s life. It was such a dagger as I’ve described. It crossed my mind to wonder if it had once belonged to you.’

  Hamer took a menacing step forward. ‘Mind what you say, Mr Skillen.’

  ‘It’s a simple question,’ said Paul, holding his ground.

  ‘Are you going to leave or must I throw you out bodily?’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise the latter course of action, sir. I’m no defenceless opponent like Mr Bowerman. Even with my tuition, he could never have won a duel. The odds were stacked too overwhelmingly in your favour.’ He drew himself up. ‘The situation is very different now.’

  Hamer looked as if he was about to attack Paul but something held him back. His cheeks reddened and his jaw muscles tightened. There was sheer malice in his eyes but there was also a hint of respect as well. They stood there in silence for several minutes. When Hamer turned sharply away, Paul knew that he’d won the confrontation.

  ‘Remember what Miss Somerville said,’ Paul reminded him.

  ‘Get out of my house!’

  ‘Good day to you, sirs.’

  ‘And to you,’ said Carr, cheerfully.

  Turning on his heel, Paul left the room and could soon be heard opening the front door of the house. Carr had viewed it all with mingled interest and amusement but the visit had left Hamer fuming.

  ‘Do you have such a weapon, Stephen?’ asked his friend.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I do,’ replied the other, ‘but I was not going to tell that to him. I can’t believe the infernal cheek of the man. He was lucky that I didn’t knock him to the floor.’

  ‘The luck may have been yours. Had you attacked him, I might now have been helping you up from the carpet. Mr Skillen is no mean adversary. He has the look of a fighting man to me.’

  ‘I should have refused to see him, Rawdon.’

  ‘But the fact is that you did and, as a consequence, I’m curious. If you have a dagger of the kind described, I’d be most interested to look at it.’

  ‘You’ve seen my collection before.’

  ‘Yes, but I did so without any particular weapon in mind – there are so many to choose from, after all. Things have changed now.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Hamer, reluctantly, ‘if you must …’

  ‘It’s an odd coincidence if the murder weapon is identical to yours.’

  ‘There won’t be the slightest resemblance between them.’

  He led his friend out and along a corridor to the rear of the house. Producing a key from his pocket, he opened the door of a room and stood back so that his friend could go in first. Carr entered what was, in effect, a small military museum. Filled with weapons of every description – from foreign as well as British armies – it also had an assortment of uniforms, hats, boots, gloves and medals. A large telescope interested Carr enough to make him handle it for a moment.

  ‘It’s French,’ said Hamer.

  ‘Nobody would have parted with this easily. It’s an expensive instrument.’

  ‘I had to kill its owner to get it.’

  ‘What about the rest of these items?’

  ‘Spoils of war.’

  Carr replaced the telescope on a table. ‘What about the dagger?’

  ‘It’s over here,’ said Hamer, leading him to a glass-fronted cabinet. ‘As you see, it’s a large and varied collection. The one that Skillen referred to is right here at the front of the …’

  Words ran dry and he simply gaped. Opening the cabinet, he took out the weapons one by one until they were all side by side on the table. Carr was concerned about his reaction.

  ‘What’s the trouble, dear fellow?’

  ‘It’s not here, Rawdon.’

  ‘Are you quite certain that it was here?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘One of the servants might have absent-mindedly moved it.’

  ‘They wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘Then it’s somewhere else,’ said Carr, looking around.

  ‘It’s gone, I tell you. It’s been stolen.’

  ‘But that’s impossible.’

  ‘So I thought, Rawdon, but I was wrong. This room was not as secure as I intended. Since the dagger is not here …’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Then it might have been the murder weapon, after all.’

  ‘Let’s find out at once,’ urged his friend. ‘If Skillen can get access to Bowerman’s corpse, then so can we. I’ll bear you company. This is mystifying.’

  Peter Skillen returned to the gallery to find his wife seated at the table, writing something in a large notebook. It contained a record of all the cases in which they’d been involved over the years. Kept scrupulously up to date, it had details of every criminal who had ever crossed their paths. In some cases – if Charlotte had actually seen the person – there would be a rough portrait of him or her. The record book was an invaluable source of information and it was only one of ma
ny initiatives that she’d introduced. She gave her husband a welcoming smile and he responded with a kiss.

  ‘Did you manage to see the Home Secretary?’ she asked.

  ‘I did more than that, Charlotte. He was so eager to help me that he dashed off a letter there and then. I’ve just come from delivering it to the War Office.’

  ‘It pays to have friends in high places.’

  ‘I earned his friendship, my love – and you know how.’ He sat opposite her. ‘But what’s all this fuss about Hannah’s latest play? Can she really have murder on her mind?’

  ‘It’s becoming something of an obsession, Peter.’

  ‘Who exactly is Abel Mundy?’

  ‘If you listen to her, he’s the most black-hearted villain Hannah has ever met. She called him a freakish monster germinated outside lawful procreation.’ Peter laughed. ‘It’s not a cause for glee,’ she said, reprovingly. ‘I had to endure almost an hour of her diatribes. The situation is intractable.’

  ‘There’s always a way out of a dilemma.’

  ‘Not if both parties are obdurate.’

  ‘Give me the full details, my love.’

  ‘That would take far too long. All you need is the essence.’

  But there was not even time for Charlotte to reveal that. Before she could utter another word, the door was flung open and a dozen men charged into the room on the heels of Micah Yeomans. Peter and his wife jumped to their feet.

  ‘This is very uncivil of you,’ he protested.

  ‘Civility has to go by the board when a crime has been committed,’ said the Runner. ‘We’ve had information that a wanted man is hiding here.’

  ‘That’s arrant nonsense.’

  ‘Harbouring a fugitive is against the law.’

  ‘And that’s precisely why we’d never dream of doing it. Everybody in this building has a legal right to be here.’

  ‘We’ll need to make sure of that,’ said Yeomans, turning to his men. ‘Search every nook and cranny of the place. Flush him out of his lair.’

  The members of the foot patrol who’d come in support charged off to begin their search, making as much noise as possible and causing as much disruption.

  ‘I will complain to the chief magistrate,’ said Peter, angrily. ‘It’s wholly unwarranted.’

  ‘Complain, if you must, Mr Skillen, but I would have thought you’d like to keep well away from Mr Kirkwood. You were before him only yesterday.’

  ‘That was my brother, Paul.’

  ‘Really?’ Yeomans gaped. ‘I could have sworn that you were Paul.’

  ‘That’s not the only mistake you’ve made today.’

  ‘We are acting on reliable information, sir.’

  ‘I beg leave to doubt that.’

  ‘If the rogue is here, my men will find him.’

  ‘You should mention this incident the next time you talk to the Home Secretary,’ said Charlotte to her husband. ‘He can overrule the chief magistrate with ease.’

  ‘Viscount Sidmouth is wedded to law and order,’ said Yeomans, pompously, ‘so do not think you can frighten me by waving his name in the air like a banner. We came to smoke out a villain and that’s what we will do.’

  The next moment, there was the sound of a fierce struggle as several feet clattered down the staircase. Loud protests were filling the air.

  ‘That sounds like Jem,’ said Charlotte, going through the open door.

  Peter followed her and was horrified to see Jem Huckvale being manhandled down the stairs by Alfred Hale, Chevy Ruddock and two other men. Small but powerful, Huckvale was wriggling like an eel. They had difficulty holding him.

  ‘We caught him, sir,’ said Ruddock, breathlessly. ‘This is the man we were after. I’d recognise him anywhere. He stole a leg of mutton in the market this very morning.’

  ‘I haven’t left the gallery,’ cried Huckvale.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Peter. ‘Jem lives and works here. He’s being arrested for a crime he couldn’t possibly have committed.’

  ‘Besides,’ added Charlotte, ‘he’s the most law-abiding person. Release him at once, Mr Yeomans. You have the wrong man.’

  ‘We’ll see about that, Mrs Skillen.’ He nodded to the others. ‘Take him out.’

  Still protesting his innocence, Huckvale was more or less carried out.

  ‘I understand your game,’ said Peter, coldly. ‘Because we have more success at solving crimes than you do, you try to frighten us by raiding our premises. As you well know, Jem is no thief. You’ll soon have to release him.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Yeomans, beaming, ‘we’ll have to raid the gallery again, won’t we? And we’ll keep on doing it until we catch the man we’re after. He’s here somewhere. I sense it.’

  He walked jauntily out of the building.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  On the journey to the morgue, Stephen Hamer sat in the carriage bristling with an irritation tempered by perplexity. He was utterly baffled. Someone appeared to have stolen an item from his collection of weapons. The discovery came only a day after the duel in which he’d been involved had been rudely interrupted. How could anyone enter his house so easily and walk away with a prized dagger? Who could have learnt of the duel and alerted the Runners? Were the two incidents the work of the same person? If so, had he also been the killer of Mark Bowerman? It seemed very likely.

  One question dominated: where was the villain?

  ‘I share your concern,’ said Carr, patting his friend’s knee. ‘Somebody is one step ahead of us and that’s vexatious. We need to track him down.’

  ‘I agree, Rawdon, but how do we do that?’

  ‘Let’s start with the dagger. It may have gone missing but that doesn’t mean it has to have been the murder weapon. You’re not the only soldier to bring weapons back from the Peninsular War. London is probably awash with them.’

  ‘There’s only one that matters to me,’ said Hamer, grimly.

  ‘After we’ve established if it was or wasn’t used to kill Mr Bowerman, I suggest that we pay a visit to the gentleman’s house. We need to find out where the attack took place and what Bowerman was doing there in the first place. There will be an investigation into the murder but – from what you tell me of the Runners – it would be foolish to place any trust in them.’

  ‘They’re imbeciles. It’s no wonder that crime is so rampant in the capital. If they are the only means of enforcing the law, then malefactors will continue to run riot. Look for no help from the Runners.’

  ‘We’ll act without them, Stephen. They may, of course, object.’

  ‘A fig for their objections!’ exclaimed Hamer with an obscene gesture.

  The carriage rolled to a halt and they got out in turn. Once they’d identified themselves at the front door, they were taken to the room where Bowerman’s corpse was kept. Herbs had been sprinkled to ward off the stink of death but it still invaded Carr’s nostrils and he began to cough. More accustomed to the abiding reek of decay, Hamer was untroubled. During his days in uniform, he’d become habituated to endless casualties on the battlefield. After a brief examination of the cadaver, he asked to see the murder weapon. As he retrieved it from a drawer, the assistant passed on some information.

  ‘It’s made of Toledo steel,’ he said, handing it over. ‘That’s the finest there is, sir. As a matter of fact—’

  ‘Stop blathering,’ snapped Hamer, interrupting him. He turned the dagger over to examine it from every angle. ‘I know all about Toledo steel.’

  ‘Well?’ asked Carr. ‘Is it yours?’

  ‘It is,’ confirmed the other.

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘I recognise one of my weapons when I see it, Rawdon.’

  ‘Then how did it end up in Mr Bowerman’s back?’

  ‘That’s what I intend to find out.’

  ‘I’m afraid that you can’t keep that dagger,’ said the assistant, extending a hand. ‘It’s evidence in a case of murder. You can reclaim it when the crime i
s solved.’

  Reluctant to give it back, Hamer eventually did so, warning the man to take good care of it. He then asked if the Runners had been there.

  ‘Oh, yes, sir,’ replied the other. ‘I had a visit from Mr Yeomans and Mr Hale but they were not the first to come. A younger gentleman called before them. He was the one who told me about Toledo steel.’

  ‘What was his name?’ asked Hamer.

  ‘Mr Skillen.’

  ‘Why is he poking his nose into this affair?’

  ‘He was Bowerman’s friend,’ said Carr, not realising that it was Peter Skillen who’d been there rather than his brother, ‘and, like any decent man, he wishes to know who committed the murder. If you’d been the victim, I’d have done the same. In fact, I wouldn’t have rested until I’d learnt the full truth.’

  They left the building and paused outside the door. Hamer was rancorous.

  ‘We don’t want Skillen getting in our way,’ he said.

  ‘I concur.’

  ‘He’s not like those bumbling incompetents who decided that I was the killer. Skillen is more intelligent, for a start.’

  ‘He’s more intelligent and, I’d venture, more resolute.’

  ‘We must find a way to frighten him off.’

  ‘He won’t be frightened easily,’ said Carr, thoughtfully, ‘so it might be better simply to divert his attention. I’m sure we can devise a means of doing that.’

  The moment he stepped across the threshold, Paul knew that he was in a house of mourning. It was a palatial residence that reflected the character of its late owner. The well-stocked library, the plethora of fine artwork and the selection of musical instruments told of a cultured man. Shown into the drawing room, Paul was able to view the striking portrait above the mantelpiece.

  ‘That was the first Mrs Bowerman,’ explained Silas Roe in a voice hoarse with grief. ‘A happier couple never existed. They were ideally suited.’

  ‘And yet he was prepared to embark on a second marriage.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘How did that come about?’

  ‘I can’t give you precise details, Mr Skillen. It was not my place to pry. The master was an intensely private man. I respected his privacy.’