The Hyde Park Headsman (51 page)

By the time he reached Marylebone Road it was dark, and he had great difficulty in not increasing his speed. It was an odd, prickling feeling, and most unpleasant. If he were correct in his guesses, tenuous as they were, built on impressions and
a few threads of tangible, definite evidence, then it was the Headsman who was now behind him, watching, coming closer, waiting his chance. He would have the weapon with him. He would have taken it from its hiding place and left the house, hurrying to catch up.

In spite of his resolution to appear natural, he could not keep his step from hastening. He heard the rapid, slightly uneven tap, tap of his boots on the pavement, and behind him, closer now, the echoing feet, swift and light, of his follower.

Marylebone Road turned into the Euston Road. A landau passed him, carriage lamps yellow, horses’ hooves loud on the cobbles. He was walking now as fast as he could without actually running. The lamplighter was passing, tipping his long pole to each wick and one by one they sprang to life, a row of brilliant isolated globes, between which stretched areas of darkness, hiding passersby, people on their way home, weary from the day or expectant of the evening. He saw the tall outline of a stovepipe hat against the light as a man hurried by.

Euston station was only a hundred yards ahead. He could feel the sweat of fear on his body and he was breathing hard, even though he still had not quite broken from a walk.

The steps were closer behind him.

He dare not force a confrontation here. Until he was actually attacked, there was no proof. All his bullying of Mina would have been to no purpose.

He turned into the entrance of the railway station. It was late and there were few people about. The chill air of evening after the warm day had turned misty. In the clatter of trains and the shout of porters, the whistles and hoots, the hiss of steam, he could no longer hear footsteps behind him.

On the platform he turned. There was a porter; an elderly gentleman with a document case; a woman with hair that looked black in the dim light, and a shawl around her shoulders; a young man half in the shadows, seemingly waiting for someone. Another, older woman came in, looking anxiously about her.

Pitt walked across the platform then turned and went along its length towards the bridge over the tracks. He climbed up; the steps were slippery. He heard his boots clattering on the metal edges of each rise. Clouds of steam billowed up into the gathering mist and slight drizzle. The platform lights were a jumble of harsh, gleaming globes, swimming in the closing
night and the gray rain, the train headlights and the belching steam.

He walked across the bridge above the tracks. There was too much noise to hear anyone’s footsteps, even his own. He could no longer see the platform.

Suddenly there was movement, a sense of violent danger, a hatred so scalding it was like a prickle at the back of his neck.

He swung around.

Victor Garrick was a yard away from him, the light from below catching his ashen face, his blazing eyes and the fair, almost silver gleam of his hair. Above him in his right hand was a naval cutlass, raised to strike, the arc of its blade shining.

“You’re doing it too!” he sobbed, his lips stretched back over his teeth, his face twisted in tormenting, inner pain. “You’re just the same!” he shouted above the roar. “You hurt people! You make them sick and frightened and ashamed, and I won’t let you do it to her anymore!” He slashed the cutlass through the air and Pitt moved sideways just in time to avoid its blade on his shoulder. It would have been a crippling blow, all but severing his arm.

Pitt backed away sharply as Victor lunged forward, going past him and swinging around.

“You can’t get away!” Victor’s breath was hissing through his teeth and the tears streamed down his face. “Why do you lie to me?” The cry was torn from him in a terrible, wrenching sound, and he seemed to be looking not at Pitt, but somewhere beyond him. “Liar! Liar! You keep saying it doesn’t hurt—but I know it does! It hurts right through till your whole body aches, and you lie awake all night, knotted up, sick and ashamed and guilty, thinking it’s all your fault and waiting for the next time! I’m frightened! Nothing makes any sense! You lied to me all the time!” His voice was a scream and again the cutlass slashed through the air. “You’re frightened too! I’ve seen your face, and the bruises, and the blood! I can smell your misery! I can taste it in my mouth all the time! I won’t let it go on! I’ll stop him!” Again he slashed wildly with the blade.

Pitt backed away desperately. He did not dare use his stick; that blade would have sliced it through and left him defenseless.

It was all very plain now: the bullying Winthrop, beating Mina; the bus conductor who had callously damaged the beloved cello; the arrogant Scarborough, who had dismissed the
maid and threatened her with ruin; it was always the bruised and defenseless women. He must have attacked Bailey when he had been pursuing Bart’s whereabouts at the time of the murders, and frightened Mina. She was haunted by the terror that Bart was guilty, at least of Winthrop’s death.

“But why did you kill Arledge?” he shouted aloud, his voice hoarse.

Behind them a train belched out steam and blew its whistle.

Victor looked blank.

“Why did you kill Arledge?” Pitt shouted again. “He didn’t bully anyone!”

Victor was bending a little at the knees, adjusting his balance, one hand on the railing, the other clenched around the cutlass.

Pitt moved sideways again, and backwards, just beyond reach of the blade. “What did Arledge do?”

For a moment Victor was surprised. The sudden confusion showed in his face. The anger vanished and he stood motionless.

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes you did. You cut his head off and left him in the bandstand. Don’t you remember?”

“No I didn’t!” Victor’s voice was a shriek above the hiss and rattle of the trains. He lunged forward, swinging the blade, his weight carrying him. Pitt leapt sideways and towards him, catching him on the shoulders as Victor’s hand, clenched around the hilt, landed on his arm so hard he dropped the stick and heard it clatter on the bridge.

Pitt let out a yell of pain and fear, but it was swallowed up in the shriek of the train whistle. Now steam billowed around them. He charged forward, head down, and caught Victor in the chest. All his weight was on one foot as he reached to strike again. He lost his balance and fell backward. The railing caught him in the middle of his back and the weight of the cutlass carried him still farther. His foot slipped on the wet metal of the bridge.

Pitt scrambled after him, trying to grasp his arm, but it slipped out of his hands. His legs came up, catching Pitt and knocking him off balance.

With a scream of surprise, and then momentary terror, Victor toppled over and disappeared into the headlights of an oncoming train.

The sound of the impact was lost in the roar of the engine
and the shrill screech of the whistle. For a blazing second the engine driver’s white face was imprinted on Pitt’s mind, and then it was all over. He stood gripping the rail with shaking hands, his body cold and his mind illuminated with a harsh, clear understanding, and an undeniable pity.

Victor was gone. His rage and his pain were unreachable now.

Then as the steam cleared and he turned, he saw another figure behind where he had stood. She was moving forward, clasping the rail and pulling herself along like a blind person in the dark, her face ashen.

He stared at her in horror. Suddenly it was all clear. It was she Victor had been shouting at, not Pitt at all. That fearful emotion had been directed at her, and all the terror and pain of the past.

“I didn’t know!” The words were torn out of her. “Not until tonight. I swear!”

“No,” he answered, so overwhelmed with pity his voice was barely a whisper in his throat.

“It was his father, you see,” she went on, desperate he should understand. “He beat me. He wasn’t a wicked man, he just couldn’t control his temper. I always used to tell Victor it was all right, that it didn’t hurt. I thought it was the right thing to do!” A look of confusion and despair filled her, obliterating even grief for the moment. “I thought I was protecting him. I thought it would be all right, do you see? I didn’t want him hating his father, and Samuel wasn’t bad—just …” An anguished pleading filled her. Her eyes searched his face, willing him to believe her. “He did love us, in his way, I know he did. He told me so … often. It was my fault he got so angry. If I had been …”

“It’s over,” he said, moving towards her. He could not bear any more. Down below them the train had stopped, billowing steam, and there were men running along the platform and shouting. She should not see this. Someone should take her away. Someone should try to do something for the terrible pain in her. “Come.” He held her by the arm and half dragged her towards the steps. “There’s nothing else here now.”

That same morning Charlotte had gone straight from breakfast to see Emily. They were sipping lemonade together, sitting on the terrace in Emily’s garden. It was a mild sunny day, and apart from that, they chose to be out of earshot of any possible
hovering servant. The situation was desperate. Plans must be made which were better not overheard. Jack would disapprove intensely, he would be bound to, with his new responsibilities. But apart from the desire to know the solution to the problem, far more urgently than that, they must do everything possible to defend Pitt.

“How on earth can we find out the identity of someone’s lover?” Charlotte said desperately, sipping her lemonade. “We can’t follow her.”

“That is impractical,” Emily pointed out. “And anyway it would take far too long. It might be days before they see each other again. We must do something more rapid than that.”

“But if she doesn’t see him?” Charlotte said desperately.

“Then we must make her!” Emily had lost none of her resolution. One unexpected victory had filled her with confidence. “We must send her a letter, or something of that sort. An invitation, purporting to come from him.”

“She will know it was not his handwriting,” Charlotte pointed out. “Beside that, people who are in love usually have a special way of communicating with each other, some term of endearment, or pet name or the like.”

Emily frowned at her.

“Apart from that,” Charlotte went on. “Even if she answered it, that would not tell us who he is.”

“Don’t be obstructive,” Emily said with a touch of asperity. “We should have to word it so that she would go to him, and then we should know who he was.”

“And he would equally know who we were,” Charlotte finished for her. “They would then know there was something very peculiar going on. It would look like the most vulgar of curiosity. We might do more harm than good.” She set down her lemonade glass. “Don’t forget that establishing who he is is only the beginning. To have an admirer is not a crime, in fact if you are discreet, it is not really even regarded as a sin.”

Emily glared at her. “Do you want to solve this or not?”

Charlotte did not even bother to answer her.

“I don’t think Dulcie will betray herself,” she said thoughtfully, taking up her lemonade again. It really was delicious, and most refreshing. “But he might”

“But we don’t know who he is,” Emily retorted. “Before we know that, we have to trace him—through her.”

“I am not sure that that is necessarily true.”

Emily drew her brows together with suddenly sharpened concentration. “Do you have an idea?”

“Possibly. Let us consider what qualities he must possess.”

“To be a lover?” Emily looked incredulous. “Don’t be absurd. He must be virile—that’s about all. Everything else is purely a matter of taste.”

“You are being simplistic,” Charlotte said acidly. “I mean what is it that makes sense of murdering Aidan Arledge now, instead of sooner, or later, or better still, not at all? Most people who are lovers don’t murder a spouse. Why did it happen this time, and why now?”

Emily sat silent for several minutes, carefully eating a piece of fudge before she replied.

“Circumstances have changed,” she answered at length. “That is the only thing that makes sense.”

“Yes, I agree, but in what way?” Charlotte took a piece of the fudge also.

“Someone discovered her? No, that would mean they killed the discoverer, if he, or she, threatened blackmail. Her husband discovered, and was about to expose her to public shame? Even to throw her out for adultery?”

“When he was having a love affair with Jerome Carvell? Hardly!”

“She discovered him with Jerome Carvell and killed him in a fit of utter disgust,” Emily offered.

“Thomas thought she didn’t know about Jerome Carvell,” Charlotte said. “She suspected he had a lover, but she thought it was a woman, as anyone would.”

“But Thomas thinks she is a grieving widow,” Emily responded, pulling a face. “He doesn’t know she has a lover herself.”

Charlotte conceded that point in silence. Pitt’s opinion of Dulcie was not something she wished to dwell on.

“I love Thomas to distraction,” Emily continued. “But he is not always the best judge of a woman. Very few men are,” she added graciously. “Well, something made it imperative. Perhaps he was going away, because she couldn’t marry him, and she had to make herself free to stop him leaving forever?”

“And maybe he was going to marry someone else?” Charlotte suggested.

“Which would mean he was free to marry,” Emily said with rising eagerness. “That narrows down the field automatically.
There are not so many gentlemen of Dulcie Arledge’s age who are unmarried, and respectable.”

He did not have to be of her age, but that was a subject neither of them wished to pursue.

“Do you think he really intended to go away?” Charlotte was doubtful.

“No. All right then, if he is not about to become unavailable, perhaps he has suddenly become available? When there was no point in her being free before, because he was not, now he is, so she acted to become free also.”

“That makes sense,” Charlotte agreed. “Yes, indeed, that sounds quite possible. Or, of course, someone she has met only recently?”