“Well certainly not in the halls!” Tellman gave a dry laugh. “His clothes were expensive, best tailors, Savile Row, shirts from Gieves.”
“Any money on him?” Pitt asked.
“Not a halfpenny.”
“Nothing at all? Not even coppers?”
“Not a farthing. Just a handkerchief, a pencil, and two sets of house keys. He must have been robbed. No one goes out without even the price of a newspaper, a cab ride, or a packet of matches.” Tellman met Pitt’s eyes, challenging them. “Funny they left the card case, though. As if they wanted us to know who he was, don’t you think? Come to that, his shirt studs were still in.”
“Maybe they were interrupted,” Pitt said thoughtfully. “More likely they didn’t want the card case. Not easy to sell a thing like that.”
“Sane,” Tellman said with a twist of his mouth. “Very sane, this madman of ours. Knows what will do him good and what won’t. But then it makes you wonder why he didn’t take the money the first time, from Winthrop, doesn’t it?”
“It makes me wonder a lot of things,” Pitt replied. He looked at Tellman’s dark, flat eyes, giving nothing. He decided to preempt the criticism he thought was in Tellman’s mind and say it himself. “I thought Winthrop’s murder was personal. Now it begins to look as if it was a lunatic after all.”
“Does, doesn’t it?” Tellman agreed. He lifted his chin a trifle, his face almost expressionless. “Maybe it isn’t a society case after all, just ordinary police work? Unless, of course, our lunatic is a gentleman?” A flash of humor crossed his eyes and vanished again. He said nothing, staring at Pitt and waiting for him to continue.
“I suppose lunacy can afflict any walk of life,” Pitt agreed, knowing that had nothing to do with what Tellman meant. “But less likely, simply because there are fewer of them. What does the medical examiner say? Any struggle?”
“No sir. No other injuries at all, or scratches. No bruises. Hit on the head, like Winthrop, that’s all.”
“And his clothes?” Pitt asked.
“Damp in a few places,” Tellman replied. “As if he lay on the ground. Muddy here and there, but nothing torn, and nothing soiled with blood, except around the neck as you would expect.”
“So he didn’t fight either,” Pitt said.
“Doesn’t look like it. Will you be dropping the case yourself then, sir?” He assumed an air of innocent inquiry.
It was absurd. His words were ambiguous, but always sufficiently respectful to keep him from charges of insolence, and underneath them his expression, his true meaning, was challenging, resentful, itching for Pitt to make a mistake professionally serious enough to lose him his position. They both knew it, although Tellman would have denied it with a smile if he had been accused.
“I should be delighted,” Pitt said, meeting Tellman’s eyes with an equally hard stare. “Unfortunately, I doubt the assistant commissioner will allow me to. Lord and Lady Winthrop seem to be of some importance, in his estimation, and that requires our very best effort, not only factually but apparently as well. However …” He leaned back a little farther in his chair and looked up at Tellman standing before the desk. He slid his hands into his pockets deliberately. “I certainly shall not take you off the case. You are far too important to it.” He smiled. “Not a good idea to take an officer off when it’s a series of murders anyway. You might have seen something too small or too subtle to put into your notes, but nonetheless of importance. One never knows. You may see something else, one day, and it will all make sense.”
Tellman glared at him.
“Yes sir,” he said with an answering smile that was a baring of the teeth, which were oddly irregular in his symmetrical lantern face. “I’m sure I shall solve it, one way or another.”
“Excellent. You’d better find out about this Aidan Arledge, who he was, if there’s any possible connection between him and Oakley Winthrop …”
“Probably just the same place,” Tellman said dismissively. “Lunatics don’t ask if people know each other.”
“I said a connection,” Pitt corrected. “Not necessarily a relationship. Did they look alike? Dress alike? Pass in exactly the same spot at the same time? Did they have some habit or interest in common? There must be some reason why our lunatic killed those two, and not any of the other people who were regularly in the park at night”
“Give ’im time,” Tellman said dryly. “That’s two in two weeks. At this rate he could do fifty in a year. That is if fifty people go on walking in the park. Which doesn’t seem very likely. I wouldn’t cross the park alone at night now.” He looked at Pitt steadily, and Pitt knew what he was thinking. They both knew the atmosphere of fear that was rising, the whispers, the jumpiness, the ugly jokes and the beginning of accusation and persecution of anyone new in an area or a trifle different. Some had even awoken memories of Whitechapel and that other awful madman never found.
“How far away was the bandstand from the Serpentine where Winthrop was found?” Pitt asked aloud.
“Just under half a mile.”
“Was he killed at the bandstand where your trumpeter found him?”
“No,” Tellman said immediately. “No blood at all, worth speaking of, and it would have been all over the place with a beheading like that. No grass on his feet even, but then the grass in the park hasn’t been cut for several days, from the look of it. None on my feet when I walked across it. But I’ll see the park keeper of course,” he added before Pitt could tell him.
“Clean wound, was it?” Pitt asked.
“No, much messier than the first. Took two or three strokes, from the look of it.” Tellman’s face crumpled in disgust in spite of himself. “Takes a pretty good blow to cut through a man’s neck. Maybe he was lucky the first time.”
“And he was hit on the head first as well?” Pitt pursued.
