Pitt was about to ask him what he wanted, then changed his mind.
“You know,” Tellman said slowly, “I still don’t know whether it’s a lunatic or not. Even a madman’s got to have some sort of sense to pick people—some place, a job, or an appearance—something that set him off. And it wasn’t the same place, we know that. They didn’t look much alike.” He leaned a little on the back of his chair. “The first two, maybe, although Winthrop was a big man, Arledge was very thin, and probably ten or fifteen years older. But the bus conductor was a little bald fellow with wide shoulders and a potbelly. And he was still in his conductor’s uniform, so anyone would know he wasn’t a gentleman. In fact they couldn’t have mistaken him for anyone but who he was.” He frowned in irritation. “Why would anyone want to kill a bus conductor?”
“I don’t know,” Pitt confessed. “Unless he saw something to do with the murders. Although how our madman knew that is beyond me.”
“Blackmail?” Tellman suggested.
“How?” Pitt tipped back in the chair again. “Even if he saw one of the murders, how would he know who the madman was, or where to find him?”
“Maybe he would,” Tellman said slowly, his eyes widening. “Maybe our madman is somebody he would recognize—somebody anyone would recognize!”
Pitt sat up a little straighter. “Someone famous?”
“It would say why he had to kill a bus conductor!” Tellman’s voice was firm and hard, his face bright with satisfaction.
“And the others?” Pitt asked. “Winthrop and Arledge?”
“There’s a connection,” Tellman said stubbornly. “I don’t know what it is—but it’s there. Somewhere in his black mind there’s a reason for those two!”
“I’m damned if I know what it is,” Pitt confessed.
“I’ll find it,” Tellman said between closed teeth. “And I’ll see that bastard swing.” Pitt forbore from comment.
The storm burst with the midday newspapers. The Hyde Park Headsman was on the front of every edition and there was a harsh note of panic in the screeds of print beneath. It was a little after one when Pitt’s door was flung open and Assistant Commissioner Farnsworth strode in, leaving it swinging on its hinges behind him. His face was white except for two high spots of color in his cheeks.
“What the hell are you doing about it, Pitt?” he demanded. “This lunatic is rampaging through London killing people at will. Three headless corpses, and you still haven’t the faintest idea who he is or anything about him.” He leaned over the desk towards Pitt, glaring at him. “You make the whole force look like incompetent fools. I’ve had Lord Winthrop in my office again, poor devil, asking me what we’ve done to find the man who murdered his son. And I’ve got nothing to tell him. Nothing! I have to stand there like a fool and make excuses. Everyone’s talking about it—in the street, in the clubs, in houses, theaters, offices, they’re even singing songs about it in the halls, so I’m told. We’re a laughingstock, Pitt.” His hands were clenching and unclenching in his emotion. “I trusted you, and you’ve let me down. I took Drummond’s word for it that you were the man for the job, but it begins to look as if it is too big for you. You are not up to it!”
Pitt had no defense. The same doubts had begun to occur to him, although he could not think what anyone else could have done, least of all a man like Drummond, who had never been a detective himself. Nor, for that matter, had Farnsworth.
“If you wish to place the case with someone else, sir, then you had better do so,” he said coldly. “I’ll pass over all the information we have so far, and the leads we intend to follow.”
Farnsworth looked taken aback. It was apparently not the answer he had expected.
“Don’t be ridiculous, man. You cannot just abdicate your responsibility!” he said furiously, taking a step back. “What information do you have? Seems from what your inspector says that it’s damned little.”
It was little, but it galled Pitt that Tellman had discussed it with the assistant commissioner. Even if Farnsworth had asked him, Tellman should have referred him to Pitt. It was a bitter thought that he could not expect loyalty even from the foremost of his own men. That was a failure too.
“Winthrop was killed in a boat, which indicates he was not afraid of his killer.” He began to list off the few facts they had. “He was hit from behind, then beheaded over the side, at around midnight. Arledge was also struck first, but he was killed somewhere other than the bandstand where he was found. He may or may not have known who killed him, but it is indicative that he was moved. If we can find where he was killed, it may tell us a great deal more. I have half a dozen men looking.”
“Good God, man, it can’t be far,” Farnsworth exploded. “How far can a madman carry a headless corpse around the heart of London, even in the middle of the night? How did he do it? Carriage, gig, horseback? Use your head, man!”
“There were no hoof marks or carriage tracks anywhere near the bandstand,” Pitt said stiffly. “We searched the ground thoroughly, and there was nothing unusual whatever.”
Farnsworth stood three paces away, then swung around.
“Well what was there, for Heaven’s sake? He didn’t carry him over his shoulder.”
“Nothing unusual,” Pitt repeated slowly, his thoughts racing. “Which means he was brought in something that passed that way in the normal course of events.”
“Such as what?” Farnsworth demanded.
“The gardener’s equipment …” Pitt said slowly.
“What? A lawn mower.” Farnsworth’s expression was filled with derision.
“Or a wheelbarrow.” Pitt remembered le Grange saying something about seeing a man with a wheelbarrow. “Yes,” he went on with increasing momentum. “A witness saw a wheelbarrow. That would have been it” He sat a little more upright as he said it. “He can’t have been killed far away. You can’t wheel a corpse ’round in a barrow through the streets …”
“Then find it,” Farnsworth commanded. “What else? What about this wretched bus conductor this morning? What has he to do with the other two? What was he doing in the park?”
