The Hyde Park Headsman - Anne Griffin Perry [125]
“I have no idea,” Uttley replied, but there was a very faint pinkness to his cheeks and his eyes did not meet Pitt’s as squarely as they had before. He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets and turned away. “And now if there is nothing further I can do for you, I have a great deal of other business to attend. I am sorry I cannot do anything to help you when you so apparently need it.”
“You have helped me a great deal,” Pitt replied. Then he added with a touch of bravado, “In fact, you may have solved it for me entirely. Good day, sir.” He walked out of the front door and passed the two young men on the steps, tipping his hat gently. “Good day, gentlemen.”
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