A Date with the Executioner

by Edward Marston

  ‘Like others before them, all that they will do is to try. Nothing eludes me. I have a sixth sense where fraud and forgery are concerned. It’s led to a number of arrests. I can do without your warning, sir. The door is behind you.’

  ‘Then I bid you farewell,’ said Peter, mastering his irritation.

  He let himself out of the manager’s office and walked to the main door. As Peter stepped out into the street, a carriage drew up outside. Glancing through the window, he could see the figure of a woman in a wide-brimmed hat. When she opened the door of the vehicle, however, he looked more closely. Everything about her suggested that she might be the very person about whom he’d attempted to talk to Oscott. She was young, shapely and excessively beautiful. There was a brimming confidence about her that alerted Peter. Oscott had spoken of a particularly important customer. Here, he surmised, she was.

  Peter was in two minds. Part of him wanted to get out of her way in the hope that Hester Mallory or Arabella Kenyon would beguile the bank manager as skilfully as she’d enchanted Leonard Impey. Great satisfaction could then be drawn by Peter from the fact that Oscott had also been fleeced. Another part of him, however, urged him to strike while he had the opportunity. Left at liberty, she’d get away with the thousand pounds she’d extracted from Impey and whatever she conjured out of Oscott’s safe. Peter decided to follow her into the bank so that he could challenge her there.

  But the chance never came. The intense interest he’d shown in her had been noticed. The woman sensed danger at once. Instead of getting out of the carriage, therefore, she stepped straight back into it and a servant shut the door after her. She banged the roof of the vehicle and it set off down the street with the driver cracking his whip to demand more speed. Peter chased hard for some time but was unable to catch up with it. Cursing his luck, he stood on the pavement and panted from his exertions. When he got his breath back, he realised that he had one pleasurable duty to perform. He could return to the bank to inform Harold Oscott that the appointment with his important client had been abruptly cancelled and that the manager’s fabled sixth sense had somehow detected nothing amiss about the lady.

  Abel Mundy had learnt to rely on his wife over the years. Having no children, they’d been drawn ever closer together. What was remarkable about Marion Mundy was her ability to adapt to her husband’s moods and needs. Most women brought up in a country vicarage would have looked askance at the whole business of theatrical presentation. In their opinion, it would have smacked of corruption and sexual licence. Those who flocked to watch plays, they believed, were as louche and venal as the people who actually appeared on the stage. It was a view supported by the stories of drunken brawls and riots that appeared in newspapers. Theatres were breeding grounds of danger.

  When she’d first met Mundy, he’d been a devout young man of literary inclination. Poetry was his first love and she’d been wooed by his verses. While he’d made a living as a printer, he’d yearned for the status that came with being an author, wishing to write words himself instead of merely putting the work of others into print. Poetry had slowly given way to plays, initially of a strongly Christian character. His wife had been his only audience at first. In spite of her upbringing, she was slowly drawn towards the theatre and, when his first play was eventually performed in public, it was a moment of transfiguration for her.

  ‘Miss Granville has at last agreed to meet me,’ he told her.

  ‘Thank heaven for that!’

  ‘I’ll need the patience of Job to contend with her.’

  ‘Bear in mind what she’s been through,’ advised his wife. ‘I think about it all the time. She was lucky not to be blinded. Deal gently with her, Abel.’

  ‘I’ll be gentle but firm, my dear.’

  ‘Don’t let her dictate. When all is said and done, it’s your play.’

  ‘What is left of it,’ he said with a sigh. ‘But all great works undergo a measure of rewriting. One must accept that. Even the Bard’s plays have been amended over the years to suit the prevailing public taste. Nahum Tate’s version of King Lear, for instance, has a happy ending.’

  ‘I hope that the same can be said of your battle with Miss Granville.’

  ‘She can be inspirational, there’s no question about that.’

  ‘Then she is privileged to work with an inspirational playwright.’

  ‘Thank you, my dear.’

  Mundy understood the significance of the meeting. It was a last chance to rescue his play. He therefore had to make the effort to bend a little. Whether or not the actress would do the same was an open question.

  ‘You’ve come such a long way,’ said Marion with pride. ‘You’re on the verge of fulfilling a life’s ambition. Please don’t fall at the final hurdle.’

  ‘I won’t,’ he assured her. ‘I feel that the storm is finally over.’

  At the end of an hour of teaching someone how to fence with foil and rapier, Gully Ackford saw his pupil to the front door and waved him off. As one man left, another arrived for instruction in the boxing ring from Jem Huckvale. Inviting the newcomer in, Ackford called up the stairs for his colleague to come down. There was no reply. When he shouted even louder, the result was the same. It suddenly struck Ackford that, during the previous lesson, he’d heard very few shots being fired above his head. A lesson would normally be punctuated by gunfire. He ran quickly upstairs to the shooting gallery and found it empty. He made a quick search of the upper part of the building but saw no sign of Huckvale.

  Ackford then heard a flapping sound. It seemed to come from the backstairs. Bounding down them two steps at a time, he saw that the rear door was ajar and was being blown to and fro by the wind. Since the invasion by the two dogs, they’d been very careful to keep the doors securely locked. Huckvale would never have dreamt of departing from the building that way without telling Ackford, and he would certainly never have left the door open. Huckvale had unaccountably disappeared. There was only one explanation.

  He’d been kidnapped.

  Bound, gagged and with a splitting headache, Huckvale lay in the dark and wondered where he could possibly be and how he could have got there.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  After his adventures at one bank, Peter Skillen returned to the person who’d hired him so that he could deliver his report. Leonard Impey listened with an interest edged with disappointment. Hearing that the woman who’d comprehensively deceived him had made her escape, he sagged in his chair.

  ‘So you missed your chance,’ he groaned.

  ‘I gave her an almighty fright, sir. That will slow her down. She knows that someone is on her tail now. I don’t think she’ll be unwise enough to venture into another bank for a while.’

  ‘What about Oscott?’

  ‘I had the pleasure of telling him that the woman had been ready to help herself to some of the bank’s money with bogus documents. Since he’d already declared those documents to be legitimate,’ said Peter, ‘he was very embarrassed.’

  ‘Then he’ll know how I feel.’

  ‘You actually lost money, sir. He didn’t. When he realised just how close he’d come to doing so, he had the grace to thank me.’

  ‘Did he apologise?’

  ‘He mumbled a few words but that was all.’

  ‘Oscott and I are two of a kind,’ confessed Impey. ‘We were taken in by the woman’s appearance and never thought to ask what lay behind it.’

  ‘She’s a very striking lady. Most men would have been similarly impressed.’

  ‘I’m not paid to be impressed, Mr Skillen. I was given the task of running this bank because of my ability to read people’s characters. I completely misread hers. My only solace is that she worked her spell on Oscott as well.’

  ‘He begged me not to divulge that information.’

  ‘His secret is safe with me.’

  ‘So,’ said Peter, ‘I feel we’ve made progress. I now know exactly what Mrs Mallory, or Miss Kenyon, actually looks like and I’ve protect
ed other banks from falling victim to her. She’ll be more cautious from now on.’

  ‘So will I, Mr Skillen.’

  ‘I was very sorry that she got away and my other regret is that I didn’t see who her companion was. All I caught was a glimpse of a man who stayed in the carriage. It must have been her accomplice. My instinct was to let her get inside the bank before I moved in. Having apprehended her,’ explained Peter, ‘I could then have gone outside to arrest the man as well.’

  ‘The pair of them should hang.’

  ‘Forgery is no longer a capital offence, sir.’

  ‘It should be.’

  ‘All victims of it must feel that.’

  ‘What will you do now, Mr Skillen?’

  ‘I’ll continue my search for her,’ replied Peter, ‘though I can only devote limited time to it. The main thing is that Mr Picton is now aware of her forging documents in his name. As a consequence, he supplied valuable information about her. I was lucky enough to be on hand to encounter her but she interpreted my curiosity only too well.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’

  ‘Knowing she’s at risk, she’ll stay hidden for a while.’

  ‘You’ve done well,’ said Impey, opening a desk and taking out a pile of banknotes. ‘Let me know how much I owe you for the time you’ve already given me.’

  ‘I won’t take a penny until she and her accomplice are in custody.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘The sooner, the better,’ said Peter. ‘This has been a fascinating case but, with respect, it lacks the importance of a brutal murder. I’m hoping that Mrs Mallory will be caught in the very near future, enabling me to concentrate all my energies on the search for a killer and his female confederate.’

  ‘So there’s a woman at the heart of both cases, is there?’

  ‘Unhappily, there is. Crime has an attraction for both genders. Men and women can labour under the illusion that it will bring them a fortune and cost them no pain. By the time they realise they were misled, they feel the full weight of the law.’

  ‘When was this, Gully?’

  ‘It must have been well over an hour ago.’

  ‘What was Jem doing?’

  ‘He was teaching someone how to fire a pistol.’

  ‘Do we know the man’s name?’

  ‘We know the one he gave to us. It was Philip Needham. In retrospect,’ said Ackford, ‘it’s likely to have been false.’

  The first thing he did when he discovered Huckvale’s disappearance was to send word to Paul Skillen, who responded to the call for help instantly. Having ridden at a gallop to the gallery, Paul was now standing with his friend in the courtyard at the rear of the property.

  ‘Have you searched for any witnesses?’

  ‘That’s what I did until you got here.’

  ‘Did anyone see anything?’

  ‘Two people watched a carriage leave here in a hurry but they had no idea who was inside it. It’s ironic, Paul. Dozens of people were around at the time yet not one of them was aware what was happening right under their noses.’

  ‘Did you actually meet this Philip Needham?’

  ‘No,’ said Ackford, ‘but Charlotte did. She put his name in the book so she’ll be able to give us a good description of him. But why pick on Jem? He has no family from whom a large ransom can be demanded.’

  ‘Money is not at stake here.’

  ‘Then what lies behind it?’

  ‘This is another ruse from Hamer and that friend of his, I fancy. Having failed with their first attempt, they’re set on diverting us another way. While we’re spending all our time looking for Jem,’ said Paul, ‘they’ll have the field clear.’

  ‘Not entirely – there are the Runners.’

  ‘Oh, they can be outwitted without too much difficulty. We can’t, Gully, so we have to be removed from the chase. Hamer and Carr are determined to be the first to lay hands on the people behind the murder.’

  ‘Do they covet the reward money?’

  ‘No, they’re wealthy men in their own right. They’re driven by rage that someone robbed them of their prize. Mr Bowerman should have been shot dead on Putney Heath, not murdered in the garden of a house owned by Hamer.’

  ‘Do you think that they’ll hurt Jem?’

  ‘There’s no need for that. They simply want to hamper us.’

  ‘So where do we start looking?’

  ‘First of all, I’ll tell Peter what’s happened. Then the two of us will pay the counterfeit Captain Hamer a visit. He was warned of the danger of upsetting us.’

  ‘What about me, Paul?’

  ‘You must hold the fort here.’

  ‘But I want to join in the search. Jem would expect it of me.’

  ‘He’ll know that we won’t let him down, Gully. Wherever he is, Jem won’t be downhearted. He can trust in us to rescue him.’

  Though his eyes gradually grew accustomed to the dark, Huckvale could still see very little. What he did realise was that he was in a coal cellar. There was dust everywhere. He also had a nasty taste in his mouth and surmised that the sack put over his head had once contained rotten potatoes. Struggling to piece together what had happened, all that he could recall was that the Reverend Philip Needham had tricked his way into the gallery then put a pistol to Huckvale’s skull. Unable to feel the large bump on his head, he knew that it was there because of its insistent throbbing. His attackers had tied him up securely and made it impossible for him to make any noise beyond a muffled cry. And who, in any case, was likely to hear him? He was underground in a cellar that served equally well as a dungeon.

  Huckvale was helpless.

  Lemuel Fleet was banking heavily on the success of the meeting between the two antagonists. The last time they’d come face-to-face, he reflected, was when Abel Mundy had interrupted the rehearsal of a revised version of his play and exchanged abuse with Hannah Granville before making a hasty exit. At that point, the situation had seemed irrecoverable. What had changed everything was a stone hurled through a window at Hannah. Terrifying her, it had opened a wellspring of compassion in the playwright that Fleet didn’t suspect was there. Both parties were therefore coming in a different frame of mind. Hannah had been chastened and Mundy was sympathetic towards her. It was a basis on which the manager felt that he could build.

  There was a long table in his office. When the disputants arrived, he took care to seat them at either end and to put himself in the middle between them. Decanters and glasses had been set out. Hannah turned down the offer of a little wine but Mundy, unusually, accepted a glass of brandy to fortify him. Fleet talked in general terms about his plans for the rest of the season before turning to The Piccadilly Opera. He first invited each of them to make an opening statement.

  Controlled and subdued, Hannah began with an apology for any hurt she’d caused the playwright by her unfair criticism of his work. She praised the aspects of it that she found most appealing and said that, in the interests of the whole company, she was prepared to be more tolerant of what she perceived as weaknesses. Mundy winced at the mention of weaknesses but he did not rush to the defence of the play. Instead he told her how sorry he and his wife had been to hear of the attack on her and he went on to say that it was a privilege to work with an actress who had no equal on the stage. He spoke with more caution than any real passion but he nevertheless managed to coax a slight smile onto her face.

  So far, Fleet decided, it was going well. There was no hint of the pulsating hostility that had bedevilled their earlier conversations. Both were calm and respectful towards each other. It was the moment to reveal a bonus.

  ‘I have been in communication with Benjamin Tregarne,’ he said, pleased to see the looks of sudden joy on their faces. ‘I took the liberty of showing the play to him and he was complimentary.’ Mundy beamed. ‘At the same time, he felt that it could be improved musically.’

  ‘I accept that,’ said the playwright.

  ‘It’s something I’ve advocated f
rom the start,’ added Hannah.

  ‘At last,’ said Fleet, ‘we have something that unites us.’

  Hannah did more than offer approval. Benjamin Tregarne had written some of the finest comic operas ever seen on the English stage. Now in his declining years, he didn’t take on any more commissions for operatic work and confined himself to less taxing enterprises. To sing something specially composed for her by Tregarne was truly an honour in Hannah’s eyes. By the same token, Mundy was thrilled to be associated with the renowned composer.

  ‘Mr Tregarne feels that full-blown arias would be out of place,’ Fleet told them, ‘and he has suggested that, in their stead, he’d compose a series of ariettas to be placed throughout the play, mostly to be sung by Miss Granville. They would delight the ear and lift the whole performance immeasurably.’ He looked from one to the other. ‘Do we agree on that?’

  ‘We do,’ replied Hannah. ‘Mr Mundy?’

  ‘I couldn’t be happier,’ said the other.

  ‘To secure Mr Tregarne’s services is a coup on your behalf, Mr Fleet, but can he possibly compose the ariettas in time?’

  ‘As it happens,’ said Fleet, ‘he has work in progress that he can adapt very easily to the demands of the play. It has everything we need. He played and sang one of the songs for me. It was exquisite. Needless to say, when his name appears on the new bills we’ll have printed, there will be even more interest in the play.’

  ‘That goes without saying,’ said Mundy.

  Hannah nodded. ‘I’ve sung his songs before. They are magical.’

  ‘I’ve made my attempt at improving the play,’ said Fleet. ‘Now it is your turn. Please state what you believe should be done in a polite and reasonable way.’ He smiled at Hannah. ‘Miss Granville.’

  Opening her purse, she took out a sheet of paper and unfolded it.

  ‘I have pared down my suggestions to a bare minimum,’ she said. ‘In essence, the play is too long and too mawkish.’ Mundy gulped. ‘I believe that we should omit the last scene in Act One and the first in Act Two. The duet in Act Three is slightly awkward to sing but it may be that Mr Tregarne can rescue it from its inherent infelicities. The ending, of course, needs to be given more drama and deeper emotion. Apart from that,’ she went on, refolding the paper, ‘I have no comments to make.’