The Hyde Park Headsman - Anne Griffin Perry [52]
“And you had better work dammed hard too.” Farnsworth stared at him. “And something more. If you want to keep this office, we’ve got to get him.”
“I’ve also got men out trying to find out where the murder was committed,” Pitt added. Farnsworth was unreasonable. Even though Pitt understood the knowledge and the fear which drove him, it still angered him, though he could not afford to show it. It was a position he resented bitterly. There was no honor in placing a man so you could abuse his courage or his intelligence and leave him no recourse to retaliate, or even to defend himself. Now that he had power, he must make sure he did not do it so easily, regardless though Tellman might tempt him.
Did Farnsworth find him as irksome?
“What do you mean?” Farnsworth demanded, staring at Pitt. “Wasn’t he killed where he was found? How do you know?”
“No—no blood,” Pitt replied. “At the moment we don’t know if it was somewhere else in the park or a place entirely different, which could be anywhere.”
Farnsworth rose to his feet and began pacing the floor.
“What about Winthrop?” he demanded. “Wasn’t he killed in the boat? Isn’t that what you said before?”
“Yes—with his head over the side. We can’t prove that, but it seems extremely likely.”
Farnsworth stopped abruptly.
“Why?”
“Because there was a fresh nick in the wood of the boat corresponding in size, position and depth with where a blade would have caught it if it had struck off someone’s head over the side,” Pitt answered. “Also he had a few pieces of cut grass on his shoes. He was quite dry himself, but his head was wet.”
“Good—good. That’s definite. So Winthrop was killed in the boat, and Arledge was killed somewhere else, but you don’t know where. I still think it could be connected with a prostitute. You’d better bring in all those who work around that area—and don’t tell me it’s several hundred. I know there are well over eighty thousand prostitutes in London. One of them may have seen something, may even know who this lunatic is. Do that, Pitt!”
“Yes sir,” Pit agreed immediately. Actually it was an extremely sensible idea. So far the connection did seem the most likely. Prostitutes had their own areas, and the number he would need to see was actually relatively small. Winthrop might indeed have gone to the park for that purpose, or even have thought of it afterwards, when an opportunity presented itself. That was an answer to the seemingly impossible question of why he would have got into a pleasure boat with anyone. He could have with a prostitute, if she had expressed the desire to do so as a preliminary to her favors. Winthrop would suspect nothing, especially since he was a sailor. It might seem to him an amusing thing to do.
“Well?” Farnsworth went on. “What else? What do we say to the newspapers? Can hardly tell them we suspect the late Captain Winthrop of soliciting a whore in the park. Apart from anything else, we’d be sued. Lord Winthrop has been onto the Home Secretary, saying too little has been done.”
“Tell them the assistant commissioner has made a penetrating and lucid suggestion which the police on the case are following,” Pitt suggested soberly. “Let the newspapers work out for themselves what it is. Tell them you cannot say until it is proved, in case you do someone an injustice.”
Farnsworth glared at him, uncertain whether to suspect sarcasm or not.
Pitt was saved the necessity of explaining himself by a knock on the door, and as he answered, Police Constable Bailey came in. He was tall, sad-faced, with a sweet tooth for striped peppermint drops. He looked at the assistant commissioner apprehensively.
“What is it, Bailey?” Pitt asked.
“We have found out ’oo Arledge was, poor devil,” he replied, turning from Pitt to Farnsworth and back again.
They both spoke at once. Bailey opted to answer Pitt.
“ ’E were a musician, sir. ’E conducted a small orchestra sometimes and guested with a lot o’ other different people. Quite distinguished ’e were, in ’is own circle, like.”
“That’s