The Hyde Park Headsman - Anne Griffin Perry [88]
“I don’t know,” Pitt confessed. “Unless he saw something to do with the murders. Although how our madman knew that is beyond me.”
“Blackmail?” Tellman suggested.
“How?” Pitt tipped back in the chair again. “Even if he saw one of the murders, how would he know who the madman was, or where to find him?”
“Maybe he would,” Tellman said slowly, his eyes widening. “Maybe our madman is somebody he would recognize—somebody anyone would recognize!”
Pitt sat up a little straighter. “Someone famous?”
“It would say why he had to kill a bus conductor!” Tellman’s voice was firm and hard, his face bright with satisfaction.
“And the others?” Pitt asked. “Winthrop and Arledge?”
“There’s a connection,” Tellman said stubbornly. “I don’t know what it is—but it’s there. Somewhere in his black mind there’s a reason for those two!”
“I’m damned if I know what it is,” Pitt confessed.
“I’ll find it,” Tellman said between closed teeth. “And I’ll see that bastard swing.” Pitt forbore from comment.
The storm burst with the midday newspapers. The Hyde Park Headsman was on the front of every edition and there was a harsh note of panic in the screeds of print beneath. It was a little after one when Pitt’s door was flung open and Assistant Commissioner Farnsworth strode in, leaving it swinging on its hinges behind him. His face was white except for two high spots of color in his cheeks.
“What the hell are you doing about it, Pitt?” he demanded. “This lunatic is rampaging through London killing people at will. Three headless corpses, and you still haven’t the faintest idea who he is or anything about him.” He leaned over the desk towards Pitt, glaring at him. “You make the whole force look like incompetent fools. I’ve had Lord Winthrop in my office again, poor devil, asking me what we’ve done to find the man who murdered his son. And I’ve got nothing to tell him. Nothing! I have to stand there like a fool and make excuses. Everyone’s talking about it—in the street, in the clubs, in houses, theaters, offices, they’re even singing songs about it in the halls, so I’m told. We’re a laughingstock, Pitt.” His hands were clenching and unclenching in his emotion. “I trusted you, and you’ve let me down. I took Drummond’s word for it that you were the man for the job, but it begins to look as if it is too big for you. You are not up to it!”
Pitt had no defense. The same doubts had begun to occur to him, although he could not think what anyone else could have done, least of all a man like Drummond, who had never been a detective himself. Nor, for that matter, had Farnsworth.
“If you wish to place the case with someone else, sir, then you had better do so,” he said coldly. “I’ll pass over all the information we have so far, and the leads we intend to follow.”
Farnsworth looked taken aback. It was apparently not the answer he had expected.
“Don’t be ridiculous, man. You cannot just abdicate your responsibility!” he said furiously, taking a step back. “What information do you have? Seems from what your inspector says that it’s damned little.”
It was little, but it galled Pitt that Tellman had discussed it with the assistant commissioner. Even if Farnsworth had asked him, Tellman should have referred him to Pitt. It was a bitter thought that he could not expect loyalty even from the foremost of his own men. That was a failure too.
“Winthrop was killed in a boat, which indicates he was not afraid of his killer.” He began to list off the few facts they had. “He was hit from behind, then beheaded over the side, at around midnight. Arledge was also struck first, but he was killed somewhere other than the bandstand where he was found. He may or may not have known who killed him, but it is indicative that he was moved. If we can find where he was killed, it may tell us a great deal more. I have half a dozen men looking.”
“Good God, man, it can’t be far,” Farnsworth exploded. “How far can a madman carry a headless corpse around the heart of London, even in the middle of the night? How did he do it? Carriage, gig, horseback?