The Hyde Park Headsman (33 page)

Pitt hated the place. He had hoped he would never be here again. Now he was following a deeply offended Melchett along these corridors with their long silences and sudden screams, the moaning and the sobs, the wild laughter, and then the silence again.

Melchett was far ahead. Pitt had to hurry to catch up with him. It even occurred to him not to, to turn around and go back out. But he did not. His feet increased their pace and Melchett was waiting for him at the door, holding it open.

“There!” he said through clenched teeth, his eyes round and angry.

Pitt walked past him into the long high-ceilinged room. Around the walls was a kind of narrow walkway slightly three feet above the floor, creating the impression of a wall full of people, most of them sitting on chairs or on the floor, many huddled over, hugging themselves, some rocking back and forth rhythmically, moaning and muttering unintelligibly, and it was along this that Melchett now led Pitt. Between them a man with matted hair picked at a scab on his leg till it bled. His arms were covered with similar wounds, some half healed, others obviously new. There were what looked like bite marks on his wrists and forearms. He did not even see Pitt standing close above him, so intent was he upon his own flesh.

A second stared into space, saliva running down his chin. A third reached up towards them, hands clasping at the air, throat straining, mind seeking words and failing to find them. A fourth sat with his wrists in leather-padded chains, banging against the restraint with sharp, jiggling movements as if he were sawing at something. He too was so absorbed in his pointless, painful task that he neither saw Pitt nor heard Melchett when he spoke.

“How many do you want to see?” Melchett asked quietly, his voice hard with a mixture of anger and offense. “We have scores, all much like this, all sad, unreachable by anything we know how to do. Do you think someone like this is your lunatic?
Do you think we accidentally let one go, and he got hold of an ax and started decapitating people in Hyde Park?”

Pitt opened his mouth to deny it, but Melchett rushed on, his anger if anything increasing.

“Where are they, Pitt?” he demanded. “Living in the park somewhere? Where do they sleep? What do they eat? All your police swarming over the area, searching for clues, cannot find the poor devil?”

There was no answer. Looking at the fierce, pathetic, troubled souls all around him, beyond reason, beyond reach, the idea was ridiculous. If Tellman had come this far into Bedlam, he would have curbed his tongue before making such comments to Melchett, or anyone else.

Pitt’s silence seemed to soften Melchett a fraction. He cleared his throat.

“Hm—if your man is insane, Pitt, his obsession has not reached the stage where he would be committed to a place like this. He’ll appear much like anyone else most of the time—that is if he is mad at all.” He lifted his shoulders and straightened them again. “Are you certain there is no sane reason for all this carnage?”

“No I’m not,” Pitt replied. “But there seems to be no connection between the victims, not one that we can find so far.” He turned away from the poor creature nearest him, who was reaching up to the full extent of his restraining jacket as if to pluck at him.

Melchett saw he had more than made his point. He turned and led the way out of the great room into the corridor and back down in the direction of his office.

“If he were mad,” Pitt went on, “what sort of an obsession would I be looking for, Dr. Melchett? What sort of a past makes a man turn to such random violence?”

“Oh, it is not random,” Melchett said immediately. “Not in his mind. There will be a connection: time, place, appearance, something said or done which prompted the rage, or the fear, or whatever emotion drives him. It may be a religious passion of some sort. Many lunatics have a profound sense of sin.” He raised his shoulders again and let them fall. “Nasty question, I know, but is it possible your men were all committing some act he might have felt to be sinful? Soliciting women, for example? It’s not an uncommon form of delusion—that sexual congress with women is evil, debilitating, a snare of the devil.” He sniffed. “Sick, of course. Springs from some dark recesses
of the mind we have barely begun to realize is there, let alone what may be in it. Lot of most interesting work being done abroad, you know? No—why should you …” He shook his head and increased his pace a trifle.

Pitt did not attempt to press him further until they were back in his office and the door closed, surrounded by books and papers and the paraphernalia of administration. It looked impersonal, sanitized from the confusion and despair he had just seen, and which still clung to him, thick in his throat like a taste he could not get rid of.

“What sort of a man am I looking for, Dr. Melchett, if it is that kind of obsession?” he asked finally. “What sort of character? What manner of family? What past will he have that has driven him to this?” He stared at Melchett. “What event will have provoked him to do this now, not before, not after?”

Melchett hunched his shoulders again in his odd, characteristic gesture.

“God knows. It could be anything from a real tragedy, such as a death in the family, right down to something as trivial as an insult. It could spring from memory. Someone said or did something that reminded him violently of a past shock, and he was disconnected, so to speak, from reality.” He waved his hand dismissively. “I’m sorry, there is really little use in my speculating. I should think some sort of moral or religious passion is your best line. When I asked if your victims could have been soliciting women you did not reply. Were you being discreet?”

“Possibly,” Pitt conceded. “But it wouldn’t be the answer. One of them at least had a long-standing relationship with a lover.”

“You mean a mistress,” Melchett corrected. “That doesn’t prevent him from—”

“No—I mean what I said,” Pitt reasserted.

Melchett’s eyebrows rose.

“Oh. Oh I see. Yes, well that would make it excessively unlikely he was soliciting a woman. What about the others? Same thing?”

“No reason to think so. But I suppose that could set off the same sort of violent reactions.” Pitt was dubious and it must have shown in his face.

“Could have been anything,” Melchett said with a sharp little laugh. “Something they said, something they did, a trick or gesture, something they wore, a place, anything at all. I would
look seriously into the possibility that your man is as sane as most and has a perfectly understandable reason. I’m sorry I can’t help you.” He held out his hand.

It was dismissal, and there was nothing Pitt could usefully do but accept it. It was pointless to go on pressing for information neither Melchett nor anyone else could give him.

“Thank you,” he said, stepping back a pace. “Thank you for your time.”

Melchett smiled, drawing his lips tightly over his teeth. He acknowledged the courtesy, and showed Pitt to the door.

Pitt was hardly back in Bow Street when Farnsworth came in, stared at the desk sergeant, who snapped to attention, then at Pitt, and then at Tellman and le Grange, who were standing just beyond him.

“Find something,” he said eagerly, looking from one to another.

Le Grange shifted his feet and looked away. It was not his responsibility to answer.

The desk sergeant blushed.

“The superintendent is just back from Bedlam,” Tellman said sourly.

Farnsworth’s face darkened. “For Heaven’s sake what for?” He turned back to Pitt irritably. “If this dammed lunatic was safely locked up in the asylum, we shouldn’t be having all this mayhem!” He swiveled to Tellman. “Didn’t you already go there to make sure they hadn’t had an escape?”

“It was the first thing I did, sir,” Tellman replied.

“Pitt?” Farnsworth’s voice was rising with anger and there was a sharp note of anxiety in it.

“I wanted to see if Dr. Melchett could tell me what sort of a man we are looking for,” Pitt replied, biting his lip to keep from losing his own temper.

“It’s damned simple what we’re looking for!” Farnsworth said tartly, beginning to move towards the hall and the stairs up to Pitt’s office. “Jerome Carvell! The man has motive, can’t account for his whereabouts, and we’ll find the weapon sooner or later. What else do you need?”

“A reason for him to have killed Winthrop and the omnibus conductor,” Pitt replied between his teeth. “There’s no connection so far to suggest he even met either of them, let alone had any cause to hate or fear them.”

“If he killed Arledge, of course he killed the other two.”
Famsworth stared at him. “We don’t need to prove it. Perhaps he made some wretched advance to Winthrop and was rebuffed. Winthrop may even have threatened to make it public. That would be enough to send the fellow off his head.” His voice gained in conviction. “Had to kill him to keep him quiet. Sodomy is not only a crime, man, it’s social ruin.” He snorted very slightly through his nose and looked at Tellman.

Tellman’s lantern face was sardonic. He looked at Pitt with a smile, and for the first time Pitt could recall, there was no animosity in it at all. On the contrary, it was faintly conspiratorial.

“Well?” Farnsworth demanded.

“I don’t think so, sir,” Tellman replied, standing to attention.

“Don’t you, indeed!” Farnsworth turned back at Pitt. “And why not? I assume you have a reason, some evidence you have not yet shared?”

Pitt concealed a smile with difficulty. There was nothing remotely amusing in the situation. It added to the tragedy that it should also be absurd.

“Place,” he said simply.

“What?”

“If Winthrop was disinclined, why would he be in a pleasure boat on the Serpentine at midnight? And would Carvell really bring along an ax on the off chance he was rebuffed?”

Farnsworth’s face flamed. “What in God’s name was anybody doing on the Serpentine with an ax?” he said furiously. “You cannot explain that for anyone at all. In fact you haven’t answered very much, have you? I assume you read the newspapers? Have you seen what this damned fellow Uttley is saying about you in particular, and by extension about all of us?” His voice was rising and there was a thread of panic in it now. “I resent it, Pitt! I resent it deeply, and I am not alone. Every policeman in London is being tarred by the same brush as you, and blamed for your incompetence. What’s happened to you, Pitt? You used to be a damned good policeman.” He abandoned his decision to go upstairs to the privacy of Pitt’s office. He was aware of le Grange and the desk sergeant listening to his own humiliation, and now Bailey as well was standing on the edge of the group. He would retaliate equally in public. “There’s enough evidence. For Heaven’s sake use it! Before the bloody madman kills again.” He stared at Pitt. “I shall hold you responsible if you don’t arrest him and we have another murder.”

There was a moment’s bristling silence. Farnsworth stood defiantly, unwilling to withdraw a word. Le Grange looked acutely unhappy, but for once there was no indecision in him. The accusation was unfair, and he backed Pitt.

“We can’t arrest him, sir,” Tellman said distinctly. “He’d have us for false charges, because there’s no proof. We’d have to let him go again straightaway, and we’d only look even stupider.”

“That would be hard,” Farnsworth said grimly. “What about this omnibus conductor? What do you know about him? Any criminal record? Does he owe money? Gamble? Drink? Fornicate? Keep bad company?”

“No criminal record,” Tellman replied. “As far as anyone in the neighborhood knows, he is a perfectly ordinary, respectable, rather self-important little omnibus conductor.”

“What’s an omnibus conductor got to be important about?” Farnsworth asked derisively.

“Touch of authority, I suppose,” Tellman replied. “Tell people whether they can get on or not, where they can sit or if they have to stand.”

Farnsworth rolled his eyes and his face expressed his contempt.

“Indeed. No secret vices?”

“If he had, they are still secret,” Tellman replied.

“Well, there was something! What does the local station say?”

“Nothing known. He was a regular churchgoer, sidesman, or something of the sort.” Tellman pulled a lugubrious face, bitter humor in his eyes. “Obviously liked telling people where to sit,” he finished. “Had to do it on Sundays as well.”

Farnsworth looked at him. “Nobody’s going to cut his head off just because he’s an officious little swine,” he said, then moved back towards the door out again. “I must do something about this Uttley chap.” He looked at Pitt, dropping his voice. “You should have listened to me, Pitt. I made you a good offer, and if you had taken my advice you wouldn’t be in this predicament now.”

Tellman looked from Farnsworth to Pitt and back again; he had only caught half of what had been said, and obviously did not comprehend the meaning. Bailey was still as amused as he dared to be at the vision of Winthrop and Carvell in the boat, the oars and the ax between them. He disliked Farnsworth and
always had done. Le Grange was waiting for orders from someone and moved from one foot to the other in uncertainty.

Pitt knew precisely what Farnsworth was referring to. It was the Inner Circle again, this time torn in its loyalties. Micah Drummond’s words came back to his mind with added chill. But surely Farnsworth knew Uttley was a member himself? And Jack was not?

Or perhaps with all the secrecy, the different levels and rings, he did not? And even if he attacked, and drew on those loyal to him, perhaps he could not predict the outcome of such a test of strength. And far more dangerous, the trial of loyalty, the blooded knights against the tyros. Who else was bought by covenant, committed to a battle in which they had no interest and no gain but would be punished mortally if they backed the losing side?

Farnsworth was waiting, as if he thought even at this point Pitt might have changed his mind.

Pitt faced him blankly. “Perhaps not,” he said pleasantly, but with finality in his voice.

Farnsworth hesitated only a moment longer, then swung around and went out.

Bailey let his breath out in a sigh and le Grange relaxed visibly.

Tellman turned to Pitt.