The Hyde Park Headsman - Anne Griffin Perry [55]
“No doubt,” he said dryly. “Which girls do you have working the park at the moment? And don’t miss any out, because if I find out, I’ll see you’re dragged through every charge in the book.”
“Promotion’s gorn to yer ’ead,” the man said with a sour twist of his mouth. “And yer always was a nasty piece o’ work.”
“Rubbish. I never did anything to you you didn’t deserve. Nothing to what I could do, and will, if you don’t tell me who was in the park. And while we’re discussing this …” Pitt sat down on one of the overstuffed chairs. It was more comfortable than he had expected. He crossed his legs and leaned back. “Anyone new in the area?”
The man smiled and ran his long forefinger across his throat. Then as Pitt’s grin broadened, he blanched. “Oh no yer don’t. I never done it! I can run me rivals out without doin’ anything so—so dangerous.” He pulled a face. “Anyway, if I was goin’ ter do summink like that, which to my way of thinkin’ is pure vulgar and unnecessary, I wouldn’t do it in the park, now would I? If gents get too scared to come in the park on their own, what ’appens to me business, eh? I ain’t stupid. And if yer think I’d do summink like that—”
“I don’t,” Pitt interrupted impatiently. “But I think your girls might have seen something. And more than that, they might know if there is someone strange around, someone with bizarre tastes, someone who carries a large blade.”
“No. No one any odder than always. Gents what comes into the park looking fer a bit o’ fun often ’as their own tastes.”
“Which might go too far?” Pitt said with eyebrows raised questioningly. “Which a new girl might resent?”
“Oh yeah? So she chops ’is ’ead orf?”
“Not personally.”
“Well I don’t follow me girls around. Gents don’t like it.” He laughed in a soft, whispering falsetto. “Daft bastards, think no one knows about ’em, so they like to keep things private.” He grimaced, showing dark teeth. “And ’ow would I do that anyway? I don’t carry an ax wi’ me.” He struck an absurd pose. “Pardon me, sir, but me girls don’t like that sort of thing and would yer mind just bending down on the grass, like, so I can chop yer ’ead orf—just ter teach other gents wi’ nasty ideas as it don’t pay.”
“They were hit on the head first,” Pitt said sourly, but he could see the reason in the man’s words.
“If I’d knocked ’im senseless, why cut ’is ’ead orf?” The man curled his lip with contempt.
“Someone did!” Pitt said. “Tell me which of your girls was in the park on those nights?”
“Marie, Gert, Cissy and Kate,” he answered readily enough.
“Fetch them,” Pitt said tersely.
The man hesitated only a moment, then disappeared, and a few moments later four women came in looking tired and drab in the daylight. By moonlight or gaslight they may have had a certain glamour, but now their skins were pasty, their hair lusterless and full of knots, their teeth stained and chipped, several gaps showing when they opened their lips. Kate, seemingly the leader, was a tall thin woman with red hair, and looked at Pitt with dislike. She appeared about forty, but she may well have been no more than twenty-five.
“Bert says as yer looking for the geezer what done them murders in the park. Well we dunno nuffink about it.”
The other three nodded in agreement, one pulling her soiled robe around herself, another pushing a mane of fair hair away from her eyes.
“But you were in the park those nights.” Pitt made it a statement.
“Some o’ the time, yeah,” Kate conceded.
“Did you see anyone on the Serpentine around midnight?”
“No.” Her face filled with amusement. Pitt had spoken to her several times before over one thing or another. She had been a seamstress until she became pregnant. Sewing coats at sevenpence ha’penny for a coat and by working a fifteen-hour day she could make two shillings and sixpence; but out of this she had to pay threepence for getting the buttonholes worked and fourpence for trimmings. Even eighteen hours a day was not enough to keep herself and her child. She had taken to the streets to earn a day’s wages in an hour. Let the future take care of