A Date with the Executioner

by Edward Marston

  With great difficulty, he hauled himself to his feet and rocked unsteadily for a few moments. When he was able to walk properly, he felt his way around the walls until he came to a door. Thrilled that he’d be able to escape, he turned the handle only to discover that the door was securely locked. His sense of triumph evaporated. His bonds might have been discarded, but he was still a prisoner. There was no way out.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The brothers returned to the gallery to find that Hannah was still there with Charlotte. When Paul asked how the meeting with Abel Mundy had gone, the actress promised to tell him everything later on. Her predicament couldn’t compare with the one in which Huckvale found himself. Hannah had been praying that no physical harm would come to him. Charlotte wondered about their visit to Hamer’s home and, between them, they recounted in detail what had happened.

  ‘They denied all knowledge of the kidnap,’ continued Peter. ‘For the first time since I had the misfortune to meet him, I actually believed Hamer when he said that he didn’t know who’d seized Jem from here. There was a glimmer of sincerity in his eyes.’

  ‘He’s still involved somehow,’ said Paul.

  ‘We have to prove it.’

  ‘Our main task is to find Jem quickly.’

  ‘We can only do that if we track down his kidnapper.’

  ‘I was hoping we could drag his name out of Hamer.’

  ‘He wasn’t the one who hired him, Paul,’ said his brother. ‘That’s the kind of work Carr would have undertaken. He’s the friend who runs errands for the captain.’

  ‘Hamer’s only a lieutenant.’

  ‘Yet he did actually bear arms in battle. That’s in his favour. And he did bring back military souvenirs from Spain. One of them killed Mr Bowerman.’ He turned to his wife. ‘You’re the only person who actually met this Philip Needham. What sort of person was he, Charlotte?’

  ‘He was a well-built, well-dressed man in his thirties, a little above my height. In some ways he might have been accounted good-looking. He seemed polite and reasonably well educated,’ she said. ‘And he insisted on having Jem as his instructor. That struck me as odd, considering that Gully is the expert with any guns. When I told him that, Mr Needham said that it was Jem or nobody.’

  ‘Did he explain why?’

  ‘He claimed that a friend of his had recommended Jem.’

  ‘Is that all you can tell us about him?’ asked Paul.

  ‘Well, no, as it happens, it isn’t,’ she said, recalling the meeting.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘There was something vaguely familiar about him, Paul. I’ve been racking my brains trying to work out why that was.’

  ‘Has he come to the gallery before?’ asked Hannah.

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘How else can you have met him?’

  ‘There’s only one possibility,’ said Charlotte, thinking hard. ‘His was one of the countless faces I’ve seen at the magistrate’s court. And the only reason I’d be there was that Peter or Paul must have arrested him at some time. Yes,’ she went on with a growing certainty, ‘that’s where it must have been. If so, we’re in luck. I’ll probably be able to tell you what Philip Needham’s real name is.’

  The unexpected visit of the two brothers had shaken him as much as it had annoyed him. Stephen Hamer needed two glasses of brandy before he calmed down. He turned angrily on Rawdon Carr.

  ‘I asked you to get them out of my way,’ he yelled, ‘not set the pair of them on to me. Why did you have to arrange a kidnap?’

  ‘It was the best way to distract them, Stephen. If they’re spending all their time looking for their friend, they’re not going to trouble you.’

  ‘But that’s exactly what they did. They forced their way in here.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Carr, easily, ‘and you got rid of them by giving them an honest answer. You didn’t contrive the abduction. You had no part in it. Until they rushed in here, you had no idea what I’d done.’

  ‘I do now,’ said Hamer, ruefully.

  ‘I deliberately held back the details of what I’d arranged by way of protecting you. When they stopped hectoring you, Peter and Paul Skillen had to accept that your answers were patently truthful. The first time you even knew of the kidnap was when they accused you of organising it.’

  ‘In future, I’d like to know exactly what you do, Rawdon.’

  ‘So be it.’

  ‘It was galling to be made to feel at a disadvantage in my own home. From now on, tell me what you’ve been up to at every point.’

  ‘Then I will,’ said Carr with an emollient smile. ‘You already know about this man Huckvale now. His disappearance will keep them preoccupied for days. For the rest, I’ve set in motion a search for Miss Eleanor Gold and for the other two ladies whose names you gave me. I have minions looking for them right this moment.’

  ‘I’ve done the same with regard to the other couple of women.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be so prodigal, Stephen. I can make a mistress last a year or more. I get full value out of my investment that way.’

  ‘My appetite is stronger than yours. I wear ladies out.’

  ‘You didn’t wear Eleanor Gold out. She was eager to stay.’

  ‘Her charms faded.’

  ‘Throwing her out so roughly may have been a fatal error,’ said Carr. ‘You have to learn to be more considerate towards your conquests. If you treat them like mere whores, they nurse resentment.’

  ‘Eleanor was certainly resentful. She’s a real demon.’

  ‘I look forward to meeting her when my men have found out where she is. Every new piece of information you give me about her makes me think she’s the most likely person to be party to the persecution of you. We must locate her,’ said Carr, ‘and bewilder the Skillen brothers.’

  ‘Paul Skillen is the worst of them. He’s so tenacious.’

  ‘Earlier today, I saw a good example of his tenacity. When I called into my club, I almost bumped into him.’

  ‘Whatever was he doing there?’

  ‘It was not difficult to descry his purpose,’ said the other. ‘He was talking to my old friend, Rollo Winters. I’m sure that you can guess what he was talking about.’

  ‘It was that dinner party!’

  ‘He’s leaving no stone unturned, Stephen.’

  ‘Laetitia told me that he’s also been to see Sir Geoffrey Melrose.’

  ‘Neither he nor Rollo will give anything away,’ said Carr, confidently, ‘but my point holds. Paul Skillen is obstinacy personified.’

  ‘How do you know that it was Paul and not Peter?’

  ‘You’ve seen them both together.’

  ‘They’re quite indistinguishable.’

  ‘Not to my eye,’ boasted his friend. ‘Paul is the more flamboyant. That’s how I identified him at the club. I was very careful not to let him spot me.’

  ‘I’m glad of that, Rawdon. He knows too much about us already.’

  ‘Well, he won’t be in a position to gather any more information. I made sure of that. This friend of his, Jem Huckvale, is being hidden in a place that nobody would ever find. Skillen and his brother will spend ages looking for him.’

  Newcomers to the gallery were always surprised to find a woman of Charlotte’s appearance working there. Now in her thirties, she looked younger. She was intelligent, composed and beautiful. While she looked out of place, however, she fulfilled some important functions. In addition to helping to run the place, she had kept a record of every crime in which Peter and Paul had been involved as detectives. Most had been solved but there were occasional failures. If her husband and her brother-in-law were appearing in court to give evidence, she usually went along to watch the proceedings and to make notes about the defendant. Details of name, age, appearance and crime were duly entered in her record book and, if she had the time, she’d even include a rough sketch of the man or woman being convicted. It was through her sketches that she was now searching.

&
nbsp; Two or three times, Charlotte stopped to scrutinise a particular face, trying to convert her deft lines into something of flesh and blood. While she pored over the table, the others waited expectantly. When she suddenly stood up, they thought that she’d found what she was after at last but it was a false hope. With a long sigh, she sat down and began to go through all the faces again.

  ‘Have you found anyone remotely like him?’ asked her husband.

  ‘I’ve found at least two, Peter, perhaps more.’

  ‘How recently did you actually see the man?’

  ‘Oh, it must be two years ago, at least,’ she said. ‘I remember thinking that he looked too law-abiding to be a villain.’

  ‘You could say that of a lot of them,’ interjected Paul. ‘They cultivate an appearance of innocence that sometimes fools a magistrate.’

  ‘It would never fool the chief magistrate,’ said Peter. ‘Mr Kirkwood has eyes like a hawk. He can see through people.’

  ‘Here he is,’ said Charlotte, tapping a page. ‘I think it is, anyway.’

  They gathered round and looked over her shoulder at the sketch. Hastily drawn, it had nevertheless caught the salient details of the man’s face.

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Hannah.

  ‘His name is Luke Swait. He’s a bootmaker by trade. He was charged with receiving stolen goods but the case was dismissed for lack of evidence.’

  ‘I remember him,’ said Peter. ‘He was well spoken and very plausible.’

  ‘Do you have an address, by any chance?’

  ‘No,’ said Charlotte, ‘but I made a note of where you arrested him. It was in a tavern in Covent Garden called The Black Horse. It’s probably one of his haunts.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Peter to his brother. ‘Let’s go there straight away.’

  When they opened the door to leave, however, they found their way barred by Yeomans and Hale. The Runners stood there with folded arms.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ asked Yeomans.

  ‘We’re going to rescue a friend,’ said Paul. ‘He was kidnapped from here and we think we’ve identified the man involved.’

  ‘We’ve come to speak to Jem Huckvale.’

  ‘He’s the person who’s been abducted.’

  ‘You’re stopping us from catching the man responsible,’ said Peter, irritably. ‘In any case, why are you interested in Jem?’

  ‘We’ve just come from an office that was burgled,’ explained Yeomans. ‘We were told that Peter Skillen – whichever one of you that is – went there to find out who owned the house where Mr Bowerman was murdered.’

  ‘That’s true. I did. I was turned away.’

  ‘So you went back at night with Huckvale.’

  ‘I did nothing of the kind.’

  ‘He would have been small enough to climb through that little window,’ said Hale. ‘That was how the burglar must have got in.’

  ‘London is full of people even smaller than Jem. Start questioning them. Our only concern at the moment is to rescue our friend. He could be in serious danger. Now, are you going to get out of our way or not?’

  After a moment’s token resistance, the Runners stood aside and the brothers ran out of the building. Yeomans and Hale went after them. If there was an arrest to be made, they intended to make it. And they were determined to accuse Huckvale of taking part in the burglary.

  Huckvale tried his best to lever open the door with the help of the shovel but he could not get the edge of the tool into the tiny gap between door and jamb. All that he succeeded in doing was to expend a lot of energy and to bend the implement out of shape. After a brief respite, he sought to break the lock by smashing it with the shovel but it held firm. The real problem was that he couldn’t actually see what he was doing so was unable to direct the blows accurately. He threw the shovel away in disgust and sat down on the dusty floor. Above him he could hear distant sounds of traffic as people moved freely about the street. Huckvale had shouted for help until his throat was hoarse. He was now aching badly and his hands were blistered.

  Another idea then struck him. The coal must have been delivered from above through a hole. Somewhere in the dark ceiling would be a cast iron cover of some sort. All that he had to do was to find it. There was a problem. Even with the shovel fully extended, he could only just touch the ceiling. He prodded around until he heard a dull clang. While he’d located the cover, he couldn’t push it with any force so it stayed firmly in place. The only way that he could get close enough to exert any force was to bring all the coal together in one pile. Ignoring the pain from his blisters, he therefore shovelled away for all he was worth, tossing the coal into the area directly below the cover. When he’d finished, he needed a few minutes to catch his breath.

  Climbing onto the pile was hazardous. The first time he tried it, Huckvale slipped and fell, grazing his hands on the sharp pieces of coal and collecting a few bruises for good measure. But he was not deterred. He took more care as he picked his way up the pile for the second time. Coal shifted mutinously under his feet but he maintained his balance somehow. He also got the shovel fixed against the middle of the cover. With every ounce of his remaining strength, he pushed.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Swait, depositing two tankards on the table. ‘Drink up.’

  ‘It’s my turn next,’ said his friend.

  ‘We can afford to drink for a week.’

  Swait had a long, noisy sip of his ale then lowered himself onto his chair. Though the tavern was quite full, they managed to find a quiet corner where they could talk without being overheard. Swait was still enjoying the memory of how he’d tricked Huckvale at the gallery. His companion, however, was troubled by a twinge of compassion.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, Luke …’

  ‘What have you been thinking about?’

  ‘It’s that lad we locked in the coal cellar.’

  ‘Best place for him, if you ask me.’

  ‘Yes, but how will he get out?’

  ‘I couldn’t care less, Nathan.’

  ‘It’s dark down there and cold,’ said the other. ‘We ought to let him out at some point. He’s tied up and can’t move. If he’s not released, he’ll die of starvation, eventually.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Swait. ‘We’ve finished with him.’

  ‘But you were told to set him free when the word came.’

  ‘Who’s to know if we don’t?’

  ‘I’ll know, Luke, and it’ll be on my conscience.’

  ‘If you work with me, you don’t have a conscience.’

  ‘I was ready to help you kidnap him but I’ll not be a party to murder. That’s what it’ll be if we leave him down there.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Swait, pulling him close. ‘This is the second time I’ve put work your way. When you knocked down the door of that shooting gallery and let the dogs in, you got paid more than you’d earn in months of selling vegetables in the market. You didn’t have a conscience about that, did you?’

  ‘No,’ agreed his companion. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Then why is this so different? You don’t care if Huckvale is savaged by a dog yet you worry about him when he gets tied up in a dark cellar.’

  ‘Nobody else knows he’s down there, Luke.’

  ‘Somebody will one day. When the weather changes and they need coal for a fire, somebody will find him. It’s not our problem any more,’ said Swait. ‘Enjoy the money to the full. That’s what I’m doing. What if he does die? Nobody will ever suspect us. We’re in the clear.’

  But even as he spoke, he saw a look of horror in the man’s eyes as the latter noticed someone entering the tavern. Spinning round, Swait understood the reason for his friend’s alarm. Yeomans and Hale, familiar figures to the criminal fraternity, were searching for someone and they had a third person with them.

  It was Peter Skillen who spotted them first. He saw enough of Swait to recognise him from his wife’s sketch and the man’s reaction in any case gave him away. He an
d his companion leapt to their feet in a panic. Peter elbowed his way through the small crowd to get to them. While he tried to grab Swait, the Runners managed to intercept the other man before he could reach the back door. They quickly overpowered him. Peter, however, was having a struggle. He grappled with Swait until the latter shoved him hard and made him fall backwards over a stool, banging his head on the floor. In a flash, Swait ran to the rear exit and dashed out into a small courtyard, only to run straight into the arms of the waiting Paul Skillen.

  ‘How did you get out here?’ cried Swait in amazement. ‘I just pushed you to the floor in the tavern.’

  Paul grinned. ‘Baffling, isn’t it?’

  Then he flung the man against a wall and felled him with a punch to the jaw.

  On his way, Rawdon Carr made sure that he was not being followed. Having heard how Hamer’s house had been watched, he was being even more cautious. Far too much information had already seeped out and that was disturbing. When he reached the house, he was admitted at once and taken into the drawing room. He whisked off his hat and gave Laetitia a token bow.

  ‘Stephen sent me in his place,’ he explained.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Rawdon. Do sit down.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He took the chair opposite her. ‘I heard about the visit of the Runners. They’re becoming a real nuisance.’

  ‘They are indeed.’

  ‘Stephen said that you browbeat them into making an apology.’