The Hyde Park Headsman

by Anne Perry

  “What happened?” Pitt asked wearily.

  In careful and very precise detail, and without interruption from Emily, Jack recounted the events of the previous evening from the time he and Emily had left the reception until they had reached their home and closed the door on the street, with its sudden, inexplicable violence and fear.

  The maid had brought a further cup and Emily had poured the tea, which Pitt sipped as he listened. Finally he put it down and regarded Jack with furrowed brows.

  “Are you sure you haven’t forgotten anything?”

  Jack looked at Emily.

  “Nothing,” she replied. “That is exactly what happened.”

  “Who was the man who came to your rescue?” Pitt looked from one to the other.

  “I don’t know,” Emily said quickly. “I didn’t ask his name, nor did I give him mine.”

  “Would you know him if you were to meet him again?”

  “Possibly.” This time it was Jack who answered. “I’m not certain. The street was very ill-lit and I was considerably shaken. Added to which he was not dressed as one customarily meets someone.”

  “How were you dressed?”

  “Evening clothes, black and white.” Jack shrugged. “I did not have an overcoat because the evening was very mild.” He glanced at Emily. “Emily was in a deep green gown, but she did have a cloak, one with a hood, which she had up over her head”

  “Could he have recognized you?” Pitt asked her thoughtfully.

  Emily shook her head. “I’ve never met him before, so far as I can think. Anyway, why should he recognize me? I’m not running for Parliament.” She shook her head even more vehemently. “No, no, I was on the ground some of the time, and while he was helping Jack I did stand up, but my face was towards Jack. I don’t think I ever really looked at the man.”

  Pitt was thoughtful. “Then how did he know who you were? You are quite sure there was no one else?”

  “Another man did come up as we were leaving,” Jack replied “But all we said to him was that we were unhurt.”

  “There were other people approaching as well,” Emily added. “I had screamed as loudly as I was able. I imagine it attracted the attention of several people—I surely hope so. I tried hard enough.”

  “But I was not within a mile of Hyde Park,” Jack pointed out. “And I know nothing about Winthrop or Arledge. Why me?”

  “I don’t know.” Pitt sounded thoroughly discouraged and Emily was so sorry for him that for a moment she forgot her own anger.

  “Jack thinks it might not have been the Headsman,” she said very gravely. “He did have an ax, though, because I saw it quite distinctly. Do you suppose it could have been political?”

  Pitt stared at her.

  She looked embarrassed. Perhaps it was a foolish question. Pitt rose to his feet and thanked them for the tea. “I want to find out how Uttley knew about it,” he said with a frown. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  He expected to have some trouble locating Nigel Uttley, considering that the political campaign was in full swing, but actually it turned out to be quite easy. Uttley was at his home just off Manchester Square and received Pitt without any prevarication, choosing to come out to the hall to meet him rather than invite him into a library or study.

  “Good morning, Superintendent,” he said briskly, smiling and putting his hands into his pockets. “What can I do for you? I am afraid my knowledge of last night’s affray is very secondhand and I can think of nothing to tell you which you could not easily discover for yourself.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Uttley,” Pitt said grimly. “That may be so. However, I should like to know directly from you the facts you wrote in the Times and seem to be so familiar with.”

  Uttley’s eyebrows rose. “I detect a certain note of sarcasm in your tone, Superintendent” He smiled as he spoke, and rocked very slowly back and forth on the balls of his feet. The hall was handsome, very classical, with a Romanesque frieze around the walls just below the ceiling. The front door was still standing wide open and the sun streamed in. A young man stood on the steps outside, apparently awaiting Uttley’s attention.

  Pitt would very much rather have discussed the matter in private, but Uttley apparently chose not to. He was going to wring the last possible political advantage out of it.

  Pitt ignored the jibe. “How did you know about it, Mr. Uttley?”

  “How?” Uttley seemed amused. “The local constable mentioned it. Why? Surely that cannot matter, Superintendent?”

  Pitt was furious. What irresponsible constable had spoken to a civilian about the case? To have discussed it with anyone at all would have been bad enough, but to have chosen a politician who was building his platform upon his accusations of police incompetence was a breach of loyalty and duty beyond excusing.

  “What was his name, Mr. Uttley?”

  “Who? The constable?” Uttley’s eyes were very wide. “I have no idea. I didn’t ask him. Really, Superintendent, aren’t you wasting your time over quite the wrong thing? Perhaps he should not have confided in me, but it is just possible he is as concerned as the general public about the violence in our midst.” He hunched his shoulders and drove his hands deeper into his pockets. His voice was loud and very distinct when he continued. “I don’t think you seem to realize, Superintendent, just how deeply alarmed people are. Women are terrified to go out and many are ill with fear for their husbands and fathers, begging them not to leave home after nightfall. The parks are deserted. Even theaters are complaining that their patronage is falling off because no one wishes to have to return home in the dark.”

  There were all sorts of answers Pitt might have given, but none of them countered the fact that the fear was real, however exaggerated. There was a smell of panic in the streets and he had felt it himself.

  “I am aware of it, Mr. Uttley,” he replied as civilly as he could. It was not that Uttley was pointing it out to him that stirred his anger, but the pleasure that gleamed in the man’s eyes as he did it. “We are doing everything we can to apprehend the man.”

  “Well it is patently not enough,” Uttley said penetratingly.

  Outside on the step the young man was joined by a second.

  “What did the constable tell you, Mr. Uttley?” Pitt kept the temper out of his voice as well as he could, but was not completely successful.

  “That Radley had been attacked by a man with an ax who tried to kill him,” Uttley replied, looking beyond Pitt to the man on the step. “I shall be with you in a moment, gentlemen!” He looked back at Pitt, the smile on his lips broader. “Really, Superintendent, is this the best you can do? Surely a man of your rank can think of something more profitable to pursue than asking me for secondhand information, which I cannot help but think you want for the purpose of victimizing some wretched junior for having told me what you perhaps wish to keep secret.”

  The young men outside came closer.

  “Certainly if I find him, Mr. Uttley,” Pitt replied between his teeth, “I shall criticize him for having told you rather than me. That was a dereliction of duty which requires a good deal of explanation!”

  “Not told you?” Uttley was amazed. “Good heavens!” His face filled with surprise, and then delighted amusement, so open as to be on the edge of laughter. “Do you mean you are here to find the facts, because your own police force has not told you? My God! Your incompetence exceeds all imagination. If you think I have criticized you so far, my dear man, I assure you, I have hardly begun.”

  “No, Mr. Uttley, I am not here to find out the facts,” Pitt spat back. “I have those from Mr. Radley, including the fact that he gave no one his name and did not call the police.”

  “Didn’t call the police?” Uttley’s face fell and he looked totally confused. “What do you mean? He was attacked in the street and damn nearly killed. Of course he called the police.”

  “He was attacked.” Pitt was now also raising his voice. “But he was in perfect health this morning, and I un
derstand from Mrs. Radley that he saw off the assailant fairly quickly, sustaining nothing more than a few bruises.”

  “Is that what he says?” Uttley’s expression changed again to one of derision. “How brave of him—and loyal to his rather eccentric position of defending the police.”

  “Is it not the truth?” Pitt inquired, suddenly softly.

  “He was attacked by the Hyde Park Headsman, I heard,” Uttley said, not quite so blandly now. “Surely any man with a shred of responsibility would report that instantly to the police, whether he was actually hurt or not?”

  “He reported it to me,” Pitt replied, stretching the truth very considerably—in fact, if not in spirit.

  Uttley shrugged, pulling a face, and turned away. “Well then I assume you know all that you need to. That makes it rather unpleasantly obvious that you are asking me only in order to persecute this wretched constable, doesn’t it?”

  “If he was the officer at the scene of the crime, it is important that I speak to him,” Pitt replied, gaining confidence every second. “Since Mr. Radley left immediately upon his escape from the attacker, waiting only long enough to assure his rescuer that he was unhurt, it is possible the constable may have found something of interest, for example the ax.”

  Uttley looked startled, then composed himself rapidly.

  “Then you had better go and look for him. It should not be beyond the powers of an officer of your experience to detect where one of your men has got to.” He laughed loudly. “What a farce! Gilbert and Sullivan could write a hilarious song about you, Superintendent, even funnier than the one in Pirates. Wait until the newspapers hear that the superintendent in charge of the case is busy combing London for one of his own constables. I imagine the cartoonists will have a marvelous time. What a gift!”

  “You seem to think I shall have some difficulty, Mr. Uttley,” Pitt said just as clearly and penetratingly as Uttley had spoken. “Will it not be simply a matter of going to the appropriate station and inquiring as to who was on duty that evening?”

  “I have no idea,” Uttley replied, but there was a very faint pinkness to his cheeks and his eyes did not meet Pitt’s as squarely as they had before. He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets and turned away. “And now if there is nothing further I can do for you, I have a great deal of other business to attend. I am sorry I cannot do anything to help you when you so apparently need it.”

  “You have helped me a great deal,” Pitt replied. Then he added with a touch of bravado, “In fact, you may have solved it for me entirely. Good day, sir.” He walked out of the front door and passed the two young men on the steps, tipping his hat gently. “Good day, gentlemen.”

  They turned to stare after him as he went on down the steps to the pavement, then looked at each other with wide eyes.

  Pitt intended going straight to the police station from where any patrolling constable would have come, but before he reached it he was crossing a broad thoroughfare, moving between a fishmonger’s barrow and a cart filled with potatoes and cabbages, when he was accosted by a very fat man with grayish hair which fell in curls over his collar. His green eyes were bulbous in his bloated face. He was dressed immaculately with a long gold watch chain across his vast stomach. Beside him was another man, who barely came up to his elbow, his squat figure distorted, his sharp face vicious, lips open to show pointed, discolored teeth.

  “Good morning, George,” Pitt said to the huge man. He looked from Fat George to his companion. “Good morning, Georgie.”

  “Ah, Mr. Pitt,” Fat George said in a soft, high-pitched voice, oddly sad and whispering. “You’ve let us down, sir, that you have. The park isn’t safe for gentlemen anymore. It’s awful hard for business, sir. Awful hard.”

  “You aren’t doing right by us, Mr. Pitt,” Wee Georgie added in a voice that was a hideous mimicry of his partner’s, the same breathy softness, but with a sibilance which made it harsher and immeasurably uglier. “We don’t like that. It’s costing us a lot o’ money, Mr. Pitt.”

  “If I knew who the Headsman was, I assure you I’d arrest him,” Pitt answered as levelly as he could. “We are doing everything we can to find him.”

  “Not good enough, Mr. Pitt,” Wee Georgie said, pulling a face. “Not good enough at all.”

  “There’s a lot of gentlemen wot’s too scared to take their pleasures, Mr. Pitt,” Fat George added, poking his silver-handled stick at the ground. “They’re not happy, not happy at all.”

  “Then you had better see what you can do to find out who the Headsman is,” Pitt replied. “You have more eyes and ears in the park than I have.”

  “We don’t know anyfink,” Fat George said plaintively. “I thought we’d told you that already, one way and another. Do you suppose if we did we’d be standing here in this street between the carts reproaching you, Mr. Pitt? We’d have dealt with him ourselves. It isn’t any of our people. If you imagine it is something to do with business, you are mistaken.”

  “Fool!” Wee Georgie spoke viciously. “Cretin! Do you think we like this kind o’ thing going on? If one of our people started cutting gents’ ’eads off, we’d stick a shiv in ’is back and put ’im in the river. We might teach the odd person a lesson wot gets above ’emselves and starts poachin’, but never touch a toff. It’s bad for business, and that’s stupid!” He fingered something at the side of his leg, invisible under his coat. Pitt was sure it was a knife. The little man licked his lips with a pointed tongue and stared at Pitt without blinking.

  “What Georgie says is true, Mr. Pitt,” Fat George whispered, breathing in and out wheezily. “It’s not us. It’s somefink to do with gentlemen, you mark my words.”

  “A lunatic from some …” Pitt began.

  Fat George shook his head. “You know better than that, Mr. Pitt. I’m surprised at you. You’re wasting my time. There’s no lunatic living in the park, we both know that.”

  Wee Georgie fidgeted from one foot to the other. A succession of carts and wagons was passing in the streets just beyond the two men.

  Pitt did not argue. He had never thought it was a random madman.

  “You’d better find ’im, Mr. Pitt,” Fat George said again, shaking his head till his curls bounced on his Astrakhan collar. “Or we shall be very upset, Wee Georgie and me.”

  “I shall be upset myself,” Pitt said sourly. “But if it really bothers you, you’d better start doing something about it yourself.”

  Wee Georgie looked at him venomously. Fat George smiled, but there was neither humor nor pleasantness in it.

  “That’s your job, Mr. Pitt,” he said softly. “We would like it very much if you would attend to it.” And without saying anything further he turned on his heel and in a moment had disappeared between the carts. Wee Georgie looked up at Pitt one more time, his eyes full of malice, then trotted after his companion. He was obliged to trot in order to keep up, and it infuriated him.

  Pitt continued on his way without giving the matter a great deal more thought, but it was an indication of the public mood that even Fat George should have felt the pinch of fear touching his business.

  At the police station he was met with blank incomprehension. The inspector who spoke to him was a tall, lean man with a lugubrious, ascetic face and an air of harrowed dignity.

  “We don’t know anything about it,” he said wearily. “Incredible as it seems, it was not reported to us. I know little more than I read in the newspapers.”

  “Not reported?” Pitt was startled. “This is the right station?”

  “Yes it is.” The inspector sighed. “I checked all my men. I wanted to know for myself what irresponsible idiot spoke to Uttley about it, but no one was on patrol in that area. And I’ve checked, so you don’t need to wonder if my men are telling the truth or if someone is trying to lie their way out of a stupid mistake. Every man can account for where he was. Uttley didn’t get it from one of them.”

  “How very curious,” Pitt said thoughtfully. He did not doubt the m
an, nor did he think his constables were lying; it would be too easy to check, and the man found in such a stupid act would lose his employment.

  “It’s a dammed sight more than that,” the inspector said tartly. “I can only suppose it must have been one of the people who came to help. Radley himself would hardly have told the newspapers. He at least seems to be on our side. He’s about the only one. Have you seen the papers, sir?”

  “Yes—yes, that’s how I heard of it, in spite of the fact that Radley’s my brother-in-law.”

  The inspector’s bushy eyebrows shot up. “Wasn’t he going to report it?”

  “To me, because the man had an ax, but not to you. Wanted to save us the publicity of another attack.”

  “Makes us look pretty stupid, doesn’t it?” the inspector said grimly. “It has to come to a sad state when a member of Parliament rides to power on the tide of public disgust with the police.” He pulled a face. “Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it, that the Headsman should attack Uttley’s rival in the by-election?”

  “More than a bit,” Pitt replied. “Thank you for your time, Inspector. I think I’ll go and see these gentlemen who came to Mr. Radley’s aid, see what they have to say for themselves.”

  “Can’t think what for. They didn’t see the wretched man,” the inspector said lugubriously. “Still, if you think it’s worth it?”

  “Oh yes—yes, it may be.”

  “Most certainly not, sir,” Mr. Milburn said in amazement. “That would be an inexcusable liberty, sir. Why in Heaven’s name should I do such a thing, indeed?”

  “It might have been how you saw your public duty,” Pitt responded soothingly. “Or it is possible to let something slip in the heat of the moment.”