herself that she should support his choice of occupation yet it cost her both her identity and her peace of mind. It also meant that she had no real friends.'
'Her life was snatched away from her.'
'Yes, Madeleine,' he noted, sadly. 'In a sense, she was another of his victims. That rope of his effectively destroyed Louise Guttridge by turning her into someone she did not really wish to be.'
'Perhaps that's why she's unable to mourn him properly.'
'It was a strange marriage, that much is apparent.'
'What will happen to her?'
'Who knows? All that I can do is to offer her some protection by making sure that her street is patrolled regularly. The one thing that will be of real benefit for her, of course, is the arrest and conviction of the man who committed this crime.'
'And you say that you found new evidence?'
'Yes, Madeleine.'
'So my visit was not a waste of time.'
'I could not have achieved any progress without you.'
'Does that mean you'll ask your Superintendent to take me on?'
Colbeck grinned. 'Even I would not be brave enough to do that,' he confessed. 'No, your sterling assistance must go unreported but by no means unappreciated.' He squeezed her hand. 'Thank you again.'
'Call on me any time, Robert. It was exciting.'
'It's one of the reasons that I became a policeman. There's nothing quite as stimulating as taking a giant step forward in an investigation,' he said, smiling, 'and that's what I feel we did this morning.'
Still smarting from the rebuke he had received on his arrival, Victor Leeming spent the whole morning at Scotland Yard trying to finish the work that Colbeck had started and assimilate the mass of material that had been assembled. As well as a list of executions carried out by Guttridge over the past two years, Leeming had also found descriptions of the man's career in back copies of various London newspapers. One even contained an artist's impression of the execution of a woman in Chelmsford who, too weak to stand, had been strapped into a chair before being hanged. Leeming felt his stomach lurch. He moved quickly on to the next case he had listed.
Brisk footsteps could be heard in the corridor outside and he steeled himself for yet another abrasive encounter with Superintendent Tallis. Instead, it was Inspector Colbeck who came in through the door with a large bundle under his arm. Leeming got to his feet with relief.
'I'm so glad to see you, Inspector,' he said.
'It's always pleasing to receive a cordial welcome.'
'I've been studying Jacob Guttridge's work and it does not make happy reading.' He shuffled some sheets of paper. 'I know that you made a start on all this but I've more or less finished it off.'
'Well done, Victor,' said Colbeck, dropping the bundle on his desk.
'What have you got there, sir?'
'The contents of a private museum. Most of it, anyway. I had to leave the bottles of brandy that were hidden under the bed. The fact that her husband was a secret drinker is one shock that I can't keep from Mrs Guttridge. The items in here, however,' he said, undoing the knot in the cloak so that it fell open to display its contents, 'would have caused her a lot of unnecessary suffering.'
'Why?'
'Judge for yourself, Victor.'
'What are all these things?'
'Trophies.'
'Saints preserve us!' exclaimed Leeming as he saw the lengths of rope that had been used in various executions and tagged accordingly. 'There's everything here but the dead bodies themselves.'
'Wait until you come to the religious tracts and the poems.'
'Poems?'
'Written by Jacob Guttridge.'
While the Sergeant sifted his way through the relics, Colbeck told him about the visit to Hoxton, omitting only the fact that Madeleine Andrews had been with him. He then showed him the threatening note that he had found at the house.
Leeming studied it. 'Who is N, sir?'
'That's what we have to determine.'
'It could be Noonan,' said the other, snapping his fingers. 'I was looking at the case just before you came in. Sean Noonan was hanged for murder in Dublin a year ago.'
'Then he's unlikely to be our man.'
'N stands for Noonan, doesn't it?'
'Yes,' agreed Colbeck, 'but it's unlikely that a surname would be used. In all probability, that note was sent to Mr Guttridge by a family member or by a close friend of the condemned man, and they would surely refer to him by his Christian name. We should be looking for a Neil, Nigel or Norman.'
'None of those spring to mind, sir.'
'Where's that list?'
'Wait!' said Leeming. 'There was a Nairn McCracken from Perth.'
'Too long ago,' decided Colbeck, picking up the paper from the table and studying it. 'I'm convinced that we want a more recent case. According to this, McCracken was executed in 1849. I don't think that someone would wait three years to wreak revenge on his behalf.'
'Maybe they'd already had two attempts. Doctor Keyworth told us that there were scars on the body of the deceased.'
'Put there in separate incidents, that much is clear. According to the post-mortem, the stomach wound was several years old, inflicted long before Guttridge went anywhere near Perth.' He tapped the list. 'Now this is much more promising.'
'Who is he, sir?'
'Nathan Hawkshaw. Executed less than a month ago.'
'I remember him. It was in Maidstone.'
'What do we know about the case?'
'Precious little. He murdered someone called Joseph Dykes. That's all I can tell you, Inspector. I could find no details.'
'Then I'll have to go in search of them.'
'To Kent?'
'It's not far by train.' He smiled as Leeming pulled a face. 'Yes, I know that you hate rail travel, Victor, so I won't subject you to the ordeal just yet. I've a more attractive assignment for you.'
'I won't find searching through this lot very attractive,' complained Leeming, gazing down at the items in the cloak. 'What sort of man would want to keep things like this?'
'One with a rather macabre outlook on life – and on death, for that matter. Have no fear. We'll lock all this away for the time being.' He tied the cloak into a knot again. 'What I need you to do for me is to find the answer to something that's puzzled me from the start.'
'And what's that, sir?'
'How did the killer know that Jacob Guttridge would be on that excursion train and in that particular carriage?'
'He must have followed him.'
'Granted,' said Colbeck, 'but how did he find him in the first place? You've seen the lengths that Guttridge went to in order to preserve his anonymity. He changed his name, moved house often and never got too friendly with his neighbours.'
'So?'
'Whoever tracked him down went to enormous trouble.'
'Then bided his time until Guttridge caught that excursion train.'
