Anne Perry - [Thomas Pitt 14]

by The Hyde Park Headsman

  “Oh no, sir,” the boy replied solemnly, backing away, then following Pitt as he searched the rest of the gig and the carriage house before returning to the back door, unaccountably tired, as if the energy were drained out of him.

  Pitt did not go back to Bow Street. He was angry, with no reason, and loath to go and see the formal charge against Carvell. Farnsworth would be oozing satisfaction and it would gall Pitt bitterly. He felt no sense of achievement at all. It was a tragedy of such proportions all he could think of was the darkness and the pain of it. When he closed his eyes he could see Dulcie’s sweet, intelligent face, and the terrible shock in it when he had told her of her husband’s love for another man. She had accepted that he had had some involvement with another person, but that it should have been a man had almost broken her courage.

  And yet deeply as Pitt abhorred it, there was a part of him still suffering a kind of shock, not yet accepting that it was Carvell.

  He gave the cabdriver Nigel Uttley’s address. It would serve no purpose at all, but he wished to tell Uttley he knew it was he who had attacked Jack. It would be acutely satisfying to frighten the man, and he could not see how it would harm Jack. Anything Uttley was able to do in that line, he would do anyway, regardless of Pitt.

  He arrived there to find Uttley out, which was infuriating, but he should not have been surprised. It was very close to the by-election now. He might well be absent all day.

  “I really cannot say, sir,” the footman replied coolly. “It is possible he may return before dinner. If you wish to wait you may sit in the morning room.”

  Pitt hesitated only a moment, then accepted. He would wait exactly half an hour. If Uttley did not return by then he would leave his card with a cryptic message on it, and hope it unsettled Uttley as much as possible.

  For over forty minutes he walked up and down the elegantly and economically furnished room, surprisingly comfortable in its simplicity. Then he heard Uttley’s voice in the hall, sharp with surprise.

  “Pitt? Whatever for now? Poor devil’s hopeless, isn’t he? I don’t know what he imagines I can do. My God, there’ll be some change in the police when I’m in office. Excuse me, Weldon. I’ll only be a few moments.” His step sounded briskly on the marble-inlaid floor until he opened the morning room door and stood just inside the entrance, big, square-shouldered, dressed in a pale suit and beautifully polished boots. He looked casual and supremely confident. “Good afternoon, Superintendent. What can I do for you this time?” His expression was full of amusement.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Uttley,” Pitt replied. “I came to tell you that we know who attacked Mr. and Mrs. Radley the other evening, although precisely why is not clear.” He raised his eyebrows. “It seemed such a pointless thing to have done.”

  “I would have thought that all crime of that sort was rather pointless,” Uttley replied, leaning against the doorpost and smiling. “But it was civil of you to come and tell me you have solved it.” He looked at Pitt, hesitated a moment, then went on. “Was it the Headsman after all, or some chance thief?”

  “Neither,” Pitt said, equally calmly. “It was a political opportunist hoping to make a little capital out of the present tragedies in order to gain office for himself. I don’t imagine he intended actually to kill Mr. Radley …”

  Uttley paled. He still leaned against the doorway, but now his pose was contrived and his body rigid.

  “Indeed.” He swallowed, his eyes on Pitt’s face. “You mean someone wanted to get rid of Radley? Frighten him out of his—candidacy?”

  “No, I don’t.” Pitt held his gaze. “I think he wanted to make Radley’s position of defending the police seem absurd and cause him to be laughed at by the public.”

  Uttley said nothing.

  “Which is not as feasible as it might have seemed,” Pitt continued. “Because it angered a number of people with a great deal of power.”

  Uttley swallowed, his throat tight. His hands were clenched by his sides.

  “In certain quarters,” Pitt added with a smile. “People with influence more than one might suppose.”

  “You mean—” Uttley stopped short.

  “Yes, that’s what I mean,” Pitt agreed.

  Uttley cleared his throat. “What—what are you going to do about it? I … suppose you have no proof, or you would arrest the fellow, wouldn’t you? After all, it’s an offense—isn’t it!”

  “I don’t know whether Mr. Radley will prefer charges or not,” Pitt said offhandedly. “That is up to him. Since he didn’t report it in the regular way, maybe he considers it will rebound upon the perpetrator sufficiently that justice will be served without his taking any hand in it.”

  “But you?” Uttley said, taking a step forward. “What about you? You … didn’t say whether you had proof or not.” He was watching Pitt very closely.

  “No, I didn’t, did I?” Pitt agreed.

  Uttley was beginning to gain confidence. His shoulders straightened a little.

  “Sounds rather like guesswork to me, Superintendent,” he said, pushing his hands back into his pockets. “I imagine that is what you would like it to be. The assistant commissioner would be less … critical of your performance.”

  Pitt smiled. “Oh, Mr. Farnsworth had very strong feelings about it indeed,” he agreed. “He was furious.”

  Uttley froze.

  “But I rather think he would like to deal with it in his own way,” Pitt continued lightly. “That is the one reason I have not bothered to make a case. The proof is there. I don’t think Mr. Farnsworth would have accepted my word for it otherwise. After all, it is so incredibly … inept! Isn’t it?”

  Uttley forced a sickly smile, but words failed him.

  “I thought you should know,” Pitt concluded, smiling back at him. “The next time you write an article, I’m sure you will wish to be fair.” And with that he put his own hands in his pockets. “Good day, Mr. Uttley.” He walked past him and out of the front door into the sun.

  Pitt arrived home with no sense of elation. The satisfaction of having bested Uttley had worn off, and all he could think of was Carvell’s shocked and despairing face. Even with his eyes closed he could see his hunched shoulders as he walked out beside Tellman, and the slightly spiky hair at the back of his head when the light caught it as he went down the steps.

  For once Charlotte was home. She had been away so often in the last few months, organizing one thing or another for the new house, he had fully expected to find the place silent and nothing but a message on the kitchen table. However, there was the cheerful noise of bustle, kettle hissing, pans bubbling and the clink of china and swish of skirts. When he pushed open the kitchen door the room was bright with late sun and filled with the aroma of fresh bread, clean linen on the rack above him hanging from the high ceiling, steam from the kettle, and a faint savor of cooking meat from the oven.

  Gracie was finishing tidying away after the children’s supper and she whisked the last dishes off the table and put them on the dresser before dropping him a hasty bob and fleeing upstairs. A passing thought occurred to him to wonder why, but Jemima launched herself at him with cries of delight and demands that he listen to her account of the day. Daniel pulled faces and tugged at his sleeve to show him a paper kite he had made.

  Charlotte dried her hands on her apron and came over to him immediately, poking her hair back into its pins, then smiling as she kissed him. For several minutes he was involved in giving everyone due attention before Daniel and Jemima departed, satisfied, and they were left alone.

  “You look very tired,” Charlotte said, looking at him closely. “What’s happened?”

  He was glad not to have to find a way of cutting through her stories of the house and its triumphs and disasters in order to catch her attention and tell her. Too often if he had to seek for her to listen, there was no sense of sharing and no release in it.

  “I arrested Jerome Carvell,” he replied. He knew she was watching his face and would read the
emotions in him. She knew him far too well to imagine it would please him or give him any sense of victory.

  “Why?” she asked.

  It was not the response he had expected, but it was a good one. He told her everything that had happened during the day, including his visit to Uttley. She listened in silence, but she did smile towards the end.

  “You are not sure Carvell did it, are you?” she said at last.

  “I suppose my head tells me he must have, at least Scarborough, even if not the others. It was certainly his gig that was used to take him from the house to the park, and he had an excellent reason if the man was blackmailing him.”

  “But?” she asked.

  “But I find it so hard to think he would kill Arledge. I cannot help but believe he loved him.”

  “Is it possible he killed Scarborough but not Arledge?” she asked.

  “No. His only reason would be if Scarborough knew something that would damn him. The relationship itself doesn’t seem enough after all this time. He must have known about it before. And servants who betray confidences about their masters’ private lives don’t find another position. He would have to make enough out of his blackmail to live on for the rest of his life. No—it—” He fell silent. There was really nothing more to say.

  She finished cooking the dinner and they ate it in companionable silence. He went up to see the children, and read a very short story, before saying good-night, then came back down again and sat in the parlor, thinking that for all the pleasure of moving to a larger house, a beautiful house with a garden in which he would take intense delight, if he ever had the time, still there had been so much of his happiness here in this house, rich memories, and he would not leave it without regret and a sense of tearing.

  Charlotte sat on the floor beside him, her sewing idle, her thoughts who knew where, but the warmth of her close to him gave him a sense of peace so sweet he eventually fell asleep in his chair, and she had to waken him to go to bed.

  At noon the following day Bailey came into the Bow Street station looking worried and out of breath, his long face flushed and his eyes filled with a strange mixture of anxiety and determination.

  Pitt was downstairs with Tellman and le Grange, discussing the final details of evidence.

  “You’ve still got to find the weapon, or at least—”

  “He could have thrown it anywhere,” Tellman argued.

  “In the river,” le Grange added with a glance of sympathy at Pitt. “We may never find it. It could be under the mud by now. It’s tidal, you know?”

  “Of course I know it’s tidal!” Pitt said. “If you hadn’t interrupted me I would have said, or at least the place where he was killed. He can’t have thrown that away.”

  “He killed Scarborough right where he was found,” Tellman replied, disregarding Bailey, who was moving from one foot to the other in impatience.

  “And Arledge?” Pitt insisted. “Where did he kill him, and how did he get him to the bandstand?”

  “In a wheelbarrow, or something of the sort,” le Grange replied, attempting to be helpful.

  “Whose wheelbarrow?” Pitt pressed. “Not his own. You looked at that: no blood anywhere. Not the park keeper’s either. You looked at that.”

  “I don’t know,” Tellman admitted grudgingly. “But we’ll find it.”

  “Good! Because without it you are giving the defense an excellent weapon to raise doubt. No wheelbarrow, no murder site, no weapon and no proof of a motive.”

  “A quarrel, jealousy. His gig was used for moving Scarborough, and his horse to pull it,” Tellman responded. “Not to mention Scarborough was his butler.”

  “Tidy it up,” Pitt commanded. “You aren’t finished yet.”

  Bailey could not contain himself any longer.

  “ ’E didn’t kill the bus conductor!” he burst out. “ ’E was at the concert, just like ’e said!”

  Tellman glared at him.

  “I found someone ’oo saw ’im,” Bailey said defiantly. “No mistake. Stood as close to ’im as I am to you, and knew ’im quite well.”

  “Who is he?” Tellman asked, doubt heavy in his voice.

  “Manager o’ Courts Bank,” Bailey said with profound satisfaction. “They’re bankers to royalty, they are.”

  Tellman’s face pinched. “Maybe the bus conductor was done by somebody else,” he said irritably. “We couldn’t work out how he fitted with anyone.”

  “Yes,” le Grange agreed. “Perhaps we couldn’t make any connection because there wasn’t one. Maybe it was just a private revenge for something, and whoever did it made it look the same?”

  “Maybe they’re all different,” Pitt said sarcastically. “But I doubt it. No, it looks as if Carvell is not the Headsman. Thank you Bailey. An excellent piece of work.”

  Bailey flushed with pleasure. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re not going to let him go, are you?” le Grange asked with wide eyes, forgetting the “sir.”

  Tellman made a short, sneering sound, but it seemed to be anger in general, rather than directed specifically at Pitt.

  “Yes I am,” Pitt replied. “A good lawyer will force us to anyway. There are too many other possible explanations.”

  “It was his gig and his horse,” Tellman said darkly. “He damned well has something to do with it”

  “Scarborough could conceivably have taken it himself,” Pitt replied. Then as Tellman’s face showed quite plainly his total disbelief, he added, “A lawyer would point that out, and a jury might very well consider it reasonable doubt. It is not impossible to steal a gig, especially if you have the connivance of the butler, who might well have keys. Carvell has no stable boy.”

  “Oh yes?” Tellman said incredulously. “What for? Just to take a midnight spin after a long day ordering the other servants around?”

  “Maybe he had a lady friend,” Pitt suggested. “Nice and impressive to roll up in a handsome gig. Much better than an omnibus, and less expensive than a cab, as well as giving him more freedom. A romantic ride in the park, perhaps?”

  “With the Headsman around?” Tellman said scornfully. “Very romantic.”

  “Or maybe he intended to pick up a prostitute,” Pitt continued.

  Tellman gave him a filthy look. “Are we back to that again? I thought we’d dismissed that.”

  “We have,” Pitt agreed. “Doesn’t mean to say any lawyer worth his fee couldn’t make a case for it.”

  Tellman swung around to Bailey and le Grange.

  “Then you’d better start all over again, hadn’t you. God knows where, or with what!”

  “With finding where Arledge was killed,” Pitt answered him.

  Tellman swore long and viciously and without repeating himself.

  Pitt also went back to the beginning. It was a long time since he had thought of Oakley Winthrop and centered his deliberations on Winthrop’s death instead of Arledge’s. That had been the start of it, perhaps the one on which all the rest hung. Who had killed Winthrop, why, and why at that time? Whom had he met in the park that night that he would get into a pleasure boat with? He should have given that more thought. It was the key.

  It was an absurd thing to do. It could only have been someone he knew, someone of whom he had had no fear. But even so, why? What possible reason could anyone have, even a friend, for such a ridiculous activity in the middle of the night?

  Bart Mitchell?

  Or Bart and Mina?

  He alighted from the hansom and crossed the pavement to the Winthrops’ front door, and rang the bell. It was answered almost immediately by the parlormaid.

  “Good afternoon.” He passed her his card. “Will you please ask Mrs. Winthrop if I may speak with her? It is a matter of some importance.”

  She took the card, and returned only a few moments later to conduct him to the withdrawing room, where Mina was standing by the window staring into the garden. She was dressed in deep green which was so dark it was almost black except for the she
en on it where the sunlight fell. It suited her marvelously, complementing her fair skin and long slender neck. Her soft hair was coiled on her head. She was smiling, and suddenly Pitt could see in her the girl she must have been twenty years before.

  Bart Mitchell was standing by the mantel shelf watching Pitt with vivid blue eyes, his expression guarded.

  “Good afternoon, Superintendent,” Mina said warmly, coming towards him. “Is there something more I can tell you? I’m sure I don’t know what. I have searched my mind over and over, but nothing seems to mean anything.”

  “It wasn’t about your husband I was going to speak, Mrs. Winthrop,” Pitt replied. He glanced at Bart Mitchell and acknowledged him, then looked back at Mina. “It was about Mr. Arledge I wished to ask you.”

  She looked startled.

  “Mr. Arledge?”

  “Yes ma’am. I believe you knew him?”

  “I—not to say knew him. I …” She looked confused, and glanced at her brother.

  “Why do you ask, Superintendent?” Bart stepped forward into the middle of the room. “Surely you don’t imagine Mrs. Winthrop had anything to do with his death? That would be absurd.”

  “I am looking for information, Mr. Mitchell,” Pitt replied with a small gesture of courtesy towards Mina. “An observation, a word overheard, or a perception which only now seems relevant.”

  “I apologize,” Bart said stiffly, and without moving back. “But why would Mina know anything pertinent about Arledge’s death? She met him only very formally on the occasion of attending one or two of his concerts. That’s hardly a personal friendship where she could know the sort of detail you imply.”

  Pitt ignored him and looked at Mina.

  “You did know Mr. Arledge, ma’am?”

  “Well.” She hesitated. “I did meet him one or two times. I am very fond of music. He was such a good musician, you know.”

  “Yes, so I believe,” Pitt conceded. “But surely you also knew him a little more personally, Mrs. Winthrop? You were not merely a member of the audience.”