'You'd better not touch him.' This was an authoritative voice, quite different in tone, educated and self-confident. 'Someone send for the police. Here, you go, there's a good chap. There should be a constable along the Embankment.'
There was the sound of running feet again, fading as they drew farther off.
Hetty struggled to stand up, and the man holding her hoisted her with good-natured concern. There were five of them, standing shivering and awed. She wanted to get away, most particularly before the rozzers arrived. Really, she had not used the wits she was born with, yelling out like that! She could have held her tongue and been half a mile away, and no one the wiser.
She looked round the ring of faces, all shadows and eerie highlights from the yellow lamps, breath making faint wisps of vapor in the cold. They were kindly, concerned-and there was no chance whatsoever she could escape. But she might, at least, get a free drink out of it.
'I've 'ad an 'orrible shock,' she said shakily and with a certain dignity. 'I feel all cold an' wobbly like.'
Someone pulled out a silver flask, the light catching on its scrolled sides. It was a beautiful thing. 'Have a sip of brandy?'
3
' 'Thank you, I fai sure.'' Hetty took it without protestation and drank every drop. She ran her fingers over it, tracing the engraving, before reluctantly handing it back.
Inspector Thomas Pitt was called from his home at five minutes past one in the morning, and by half past he found himself standing at the south end of Westminster Bridge in the shivering cold looking at the corpse of a middle-aged man dressed in an expensive black overcoat and a silk hat. He was tied by a white evening scarf round his neck to the lamppost behind him. His throat had been deeply cut; the right jugular vein was severed and his shirt was soaked in blood. The overcoat had hidden it almost entirely; and the folded scarf, as well as holding him up and a trifle backwards so the stanchion of the lamp took some of his weight, had also covered the wound.
There was a group of half a dozen people standing on the far side of the bridge, across the road from the body. The constable on duty stood beside Pitt with his bull's-eye lantern in his hand, although the streetiamps provided sufficient light for all that they could do now.
'Miss 'Etty Milner found 'im, sir,' the constable said helpfully. 'She said as she thought 'e were ill, an' inquired after 'is 'ealth. Reckon more like she were toutin' fer 'is business, but don't suppose it makes no difference, poor devil. 'E's still got money in 'is pockets, an' 'is gold watch 'n chain, so it don't look as if 'e were robbed.'
Pitt looked again at the body. Tentatively he felt the lapels of the coat, taking off his own gloves to ascertain the texture of the cloth. It was soft and firm, quality wool. There were fresh primroses in his buttonhole, looking ghostly in the lamplight, with the faint wisps of fog that drifted like chiffon scarves up off the dark swirling river below. The man's gloves were leather, probably pigskin; not knitted, like Pitt's. He looked at the gold-mounted carnelian cuff links. He moved
4
the scarf aside, revealing the blood-soaked shirt, studs still in place, and then let it
'Do we know who he is?' he asked quietly.
'Yes sir.' The constable's voice lost some of its businesslike clarity. 'I knows 'im meself, from bein' on duty round 'ere. 'E's Sir Lockwood 'Amilton, member o' Parliament. 'E lives somewhere souf o' the river, so I reckon as 'e was goin' 'ome after a late sittin', like usual. Some o' the gennelmen walks of a fine night, if they lives close, an' a lot o' them do, wherever they're a member for.'' He cleared his throat of some impediment, perhaps cold, perhaps a mixture of pity and horror. 'Could be some town the other end of the country. They 'as to 'ave a place in town w'en the 'ouse is in session. And o' course them as is 'igh in government 'as ter be 'ere all the time, 'cept fer 'olidays and the like.'
'Yes,' Pitt smiled bleakly. He already knew the customs of Parliament, but the man was trying to be helpful. It was easier to talk; it filled the silence and drew one's mind from the corpse. 'Thank you. Which one is Hetty Milner?'
' 'Er over there, with the light-colored 'air, sir. T'other girl's in the same line o' business, but she isn't got nothin' ter do with this. Just nosy.'
Pitt crossed the road and
