Hyde Park Headsman

“No—but it’s a start.”

“Anyone in particular you want me to take on this job, sir? Being as it’s so delicate?”

“Yes,” Pitt said with satisfaction. “Take le Grange.” Le Grange was a smooth-tongued, rather glib young man whose sycophantic manner irritated Tellman even more than it did Pitt. “He’ll handle the possible witnesses very well.”

Tellman’s expression was vile, but he said nothing. He stiffened to attention for an instant, then turned on his heel and went out.

Pitt leaned back in his chair and thought deeply. It was the first major case he had been in charge of since taking over from Micah Drummond. Of course there had been other crimes, even serious ones, but none within the scope for which he was particularly appointed: those which threatened scandal or tragedy of more than purely private proportions.

He had not heard the name Winthrop before, but then he did not move in society, nor was he familiar with the leading figures in the armed services. Members of Parliament he knew more closely, but Winthrop was not of that body, and if his father ever took his seat in the House of Lords, it had not so far been to sufficient effect for it to have reached public awareness.

Surely Micah Drummond would have reference books for such an occasion? Even he could not have stored in his memory all the pertinent facts of every important man or woman in London.

Pitt swiveled around in the chair and stared at the immaculate bookshelves. He was already familiar with many of the titles. It had been one of the first things he had done on moving in. There it was—Who’s Who. He pulled it out with both hands and opened it on the desk. Captain the Honourable Oakley Winthrop was not present. However, Lord Marlborough Winthrop was written up at some length, more for his heritage than his achievements, but nonetheless the book gave a very fair picture of a proud, wealthy, rather humorless man of middle age whose interests were tediously predictable. He had had a host of respectable minor offices and was related to a wide variety of the great families in the land, some quite distantly, but nevertheless each connection was duly noted. Some forty years ago he had married one Evelyn Hurst, third daughter of an admiral, later ennobled.

Pitt closed the book with a feeling of foreboding. Lord and Lady Winthrop were not likely to be placated easily if answers were slow in coming, or displeasing in their nature. It was probably unfair, but already he had a picture of them in his mind.

Was Tellman right—was a madman loose in the park? Or had Oakley Winthrop in some way brought it upon himself by courting another man’s wife, welshing on his debts, or cheating? Or was he privy to some dangerous secret? These were questions that would have to be asked with subtlety and extreme tact.

In the meantime he would like to have gone to the park and sought the material evidence himself, but it was Tellman’s job, and it would be time wasting as well as impolitic to oversee him in its pursuance.

*  *  *

Charlotte Pitt was occupied as differently as possible. With Pitt’s promotion had come the opportunity to move to a larger house, one with a garden offering not only a broad lawn and two large herbaceous borders but also a very considerable kitchen garden and three old apple trees, at the moment the gnarled boughs fat with buds for blossom. Charlotte had fallen in love with it the moment she stepped through the French doors of the withdrawing room onto the stone-flagged terrace and seen the garden in front of her.

The house itself needed much work before it was ready to move into, but she could imagine all sorts of wonderful possibilities for it. A hundred times in her mind she had decorated it, hung curtains, found carpets, arranged and rearranged the furniture.

Now the wallpaper was stripped off in many places and the plaster was so damaged as to need gouging out and replacing with new. There were other things missing or broken, large pieces out of cornices, friezes and moldings. The plaster ceiling rose in the dining room was so badly chipped as to need replacing. The hall lamp was missing all its glass, as were several of the gas brackets in other rooms. The mirror on the overmantel in the dining room was spotted across the center and cracked at the edges, and the fireplace in the main bedroom had lost several of its border tiles. There would be a great deal to do, but she was full of enthusiasm, and so far undaunted by the prospect.

She was completely unaware of the murder in Hyde Park. She stood in the middle of the withdrawing room visualizing how splendid it would be when it was all finished. In the house in Bloomsbury they had had only a front parlor, very pleasant in its fashion, but it was a poor thing by comparison with this; or to be more exact, with what this could become. Then she would be able to invite people to dinner—something she had not done before in her married life, with the exception, of course, of immediate family.

Her parents had been quite comfortable—although at the time she had felt it to be barely sufficient. There was never money in hand for as many dresses as she would have wished, or for more than one carriage. But when she had scandalized her friends by marrying a policeman, at the same time as her younger sister, Emily, had married a viscount, both their lives had changed beyond recognition and beyond their power to imagine beforehand.

Then George Ashworth had died, leaving Emily a very rich widow, and later she had married Jack Radley, charming, handsome and virtually penniless. She seemed totally happy, and that was all that mattered. Her seven- year-old son, Edward, now Lord Ashworth, had a baby sister, Evangeline, known as Evie, and Jack was again attempting to gain a seat in Parliament. Under Emily’s cajoling, flattering and persuasion he had found a social conscience and determined to forge himself a career. His first attempt had ended in failure, although, both Emily and Charlotte conceded willingly, a moral victory.

“Excuse me, ma’am …” Charlotte’s thoughts were interrupted by the voice of her maid, Gracie, a tiny waif of a girl who had been with her ever since her move to Bloomsbury. Now she was an intelligent and determined eighteen-year-old who had beyond question found her place in life as the confidante and, as of the last case, the assistant to the wife of a detective. The change in her from the child she had been was miraculous. She bristled confidence and appetite for adventure. She was still as thin as a ninepenny rabbit. All the clothes she was given were too long for her and had to be taken up, but her cheeks had color, and she was more than a match for the most impertinent delivery boy or the most uppity servant of anyone else. After all, she had adventures. All they ever did was housework.

“Yes, Gracie?” Charlotte said absently.

“The dustman’s ’ere ’oo said as ’e’d take them broken tiles and get the linoleum up from the kitchen that’s all scuffed and frayed at the edges,” Gracie said busily. “ ’E said that it’d only cost one and sixpence, an’ ’e’d take the rubbish out o’ the back yard too.”

“A shilling,” Charlotte said automatically. “And he can have the broken lamp brackets as well, if he’ll take them