They turned to stare after him as he went on down the steps to the pavement, then looked at each other with wide eyes.
Pitt intended going straight to the police station from where any patrolling constable would have come, but before he reached it he was crossing a broad thoroughfare, moving between a fishmonger’s barrow and a cart filled with potatoes and cabbages, when he was accosted by a very fat man with grayish hair which fell in curls over his collar. His green eyes were bulbous in his bloated face. He was dressed immaculately with a long gold watch chain across his vast stomach. Beside him was another man, who barely came up to his elbow, his squat figure distorted, his sharp face vicious, lips open to show pointed, discolored teeth.
“Good morning, George,” Pitt said to the huge man. He looked from Fat George to his companion. “Good morning, Georgie.”
“Ah, Mr. Pitt,” Fat George said in a soft, high-pitched voice, oddly sad and whispering. “You’ve let us down, sir, that you have. The park isn’t safe for gentlemen anymore. It’s awful hard for business, sir. Awful hard.”
“You aren’t doing right by us, Mr. Pitt,” Wee Georgie added in a voice that was a hideous mimicry of his partner’s, the same breathy softness, but with a sibilance which made it harsher and immeasurably uglier. “We don’t like that. It’s costing us a lot o’ money, Mr. Pitt.”
“If I knew who the Headsman was, I assure you I’d arrest him,” Pitt answered as levelly as he could. “We are doing everything we can to find him.”
“Not good enough, Mr. Pitt,” Wee Georgie said, pulling a face. “Not good enough at all.”
“There’s a lot of gentlemen wot’s too scared to take their pleasures, Mr. Pitt,” Fat George added, poking his silver-handled stick at the ground. “They’re not happy, not happy at all.”
“Then you had better see what you can do to find out who the Headsman is,” Pitt replied. “You have more eyes and ears in the park than I have.”
“We don’t know anyfink,” Fat George said plaintively. “I thought we’d told you that already, one way and another. Do you suppose if we did we’d be standing here in this street between the carts reproaching you, Mr. Pitt? We’d have dealt with him ourselves. It isn’t any of our people. If you imagine it is something to do with business, you are mistaken.”
“Fool!” Wee Georgie spoke viciously. “Cretin! Do you think we like this kind o’ thing going on? If one of our people started cutting gents’ ’eads off, we’d stick a shiv in ’is back and put ’im in the river. We might teach the odd person a lesson wot gets above ’emselves and starts poachin’, but never touch a toff. It’s bad for business, and that’s stupid!” He fingered something at the side of his leg, invisible under his coat. Pitt was sure it was a knife. The little man licked his lips with a pointed tongue and stared at Pitt without blinking.
“What Georgie says is true, Mr. Pitt,” Fat George whispered, breathing in and out wheezily. “It’s not us. It’s somefink to do with gentlemen, you mark my words.”
“A lunatic from some …” Pitt began.
Fat George shook his head. “You know better than that, Mr. Pitt. I’m surprised at you. You’re wasting my time. There’s no lunatic living in the park, we both know that.”
Wee Georgie fidgeted from one foot to the other. A succession of carts and wagons was passing in the streets just beyond the two men.
Pitt did not argue. He had never thought it was a random madman.
“You’d better find ’im, Mr. Pitt,” Fat George said again, shaking his head till his curls bounced on his Astrakhan collar. “Or we shall be very upset, Wee Georgie and me.”
“I shall be upset myself,” Pitt said sourly. “But if it really bothers you, you’d better start doing something about it yourself.”
Wee Georgie looked at him venomously. Fat George smiled, but there was neither humor nor pleasantness in it.
“That’s your job, Mr. Pitt,” he said softly. “We would like it very much if you would attend to it.” And without saying anything further he turned on his heel and in a moment had disappeared between the carts. Wee Georgie looked up at Pitt one more time, his eyes full of malice, then trotted after his companion. He was obliged to trot in order to keep up, and it infuriated him.
Pitt continued on his way without giving the matter a great deal more thought, but it was an indication of the public mood that even Fat George should have felt the pinch of fear touching his business.
At the police station he was met with blank incomprehension. The inspector who spoke to him was a tall, lean man with a lugubrious, ascetic face and an air of harrowed dignity.
“We don’t know anything about it,” he said wearily. “Incredible as it seems, it was not reported to us. I know little more than I read in the newspapers.”
“Not reported?” Pitt was startled. “This is the right station?”
“Yes it is.” The inspector sighed. “I checked all my men. I wanted to know for myself what irresponsible idiot spoke to Uttley about it, but no one was on patrol in that area. And I’ve checked, so you don’t need to wonder if my men are telling the truth or if someone is trying to lie their way out of a stupid mistake. Every man can account for where he was. Uttley didn’t get it from one of them.”
“How very curious,” Pitt said thoughtfully. He did not doubt the man, nor did he think his constables were lying; it would be too easy to check, and the man found in such a stupid act would lose his employment.
“It’s a dammed sight more than that,” the inspector said tartly. “I can only suppose it must have been one of the people who came to help. Radley himself would hardly have told the newspapers. He at least seems to be on our side. He’s about the only one. Have you seen the papers, sir?”
“Yes—yes, that’s how I heard of it, in spite of the fact that Radley’s my brother-in-law.”
The inspector’s bushy eyebrows shot up. “Wasn’t he going to report it?”
“To me, because the man had an ax, but not to you. Wanted to save us the publicity of another attack.”
“Makes us look pretty stupid, doesn’t it?” the inspector said grimly. “It has to come to a sad state when a
