The Hyde Park Headsman - Anne Griffin Perry [97]
“I can’t,” Pitt repeated. “There is no evidence.”
“What do you want, an eyewitness?” Farnsworth demanded, his face darkening with anger. “He probably killed him in his house, which is why you couldn’t find the site of the crime before. You have searched his premises, Pitt?”
“No.”
“You blithering incompetent!” Farnsworth exploded. “What’s the matter with you, man? Are you ill? I feared you were promoted beyond your ability, but this is absurd. Get Tellman to search the place immediately, and then arrest the man.”
Pitt felt his face burn with anger and a kind of embarrassment for both Farnsworth’s ignorance and assumption, and for Carvell’s crippling and so obvious emotion.
“I have no grounds for searching his house,” he said coldly. “Arledge stayed there sometimes. That is not a crime. And there is nothing whatever to connect Carvell with Winthrop or the omnibus conductor.”
Farnsworth’s lip curled.
“If the man is a sodomite he probably approached Winthrop, and when Winthrop rebuffed him he flew into a rage and killed him,” he said with conviction. “And as for Yeats, perhaps he knew something. He might have been in the park and witnessed the quarrel. He tried blackmail and was killed for his pains. Lose no sleep over that. Filthy crime, blackmail.”
“There’s no proof of any of it,” Pitt protested as Farnsworth took another step towards the door. “We don’t know where Carvell was the night Winthrop was killed. He may have been dining with the local vicar.”
“Well find out, Pitt!” Farnsworth spat between clenched teeth, his voice sharp with his own fear. “That’s your job. I expect you to report an arrest within forty-eight hours at the outside. I shall tell the Home Secretary we have our man, it is just a matter of collecting irrefutable evidence.”
“It’s a matter of collecting any evidence at all,” Pitt retorted. “All we know so far is that Carvell loved Arledge. For Heaven’s sake, if that were evidence of a murder, we should have to arrest the husband or wife of every victim in the country.”
“That is hardly the same,” Farnsworth said viciously. “We are talking about unnatural relations, not a normal marriage between husband and wife!”
“I thought you said most murders were domestic anyway?” Pitt said with a sharp note of sarcasm.
“Get out and do your job.” Farnsworth pointed his finger at Pitt. “Now.” And without waiting for any further debate he went out of the door and left it wide open.
Pitt went to the top of the stairs after him.
“Tellman!” he shouted, more violently than he had intended.
Le Grange appeared in the passageway at the bottom just as Farnsworth went out into the street.
“Yes sir? Did you want Mr. Tellman, sir?” he asked with elaborate innocence.
“Of course I did! What in the hell do you suppose I called him for?” Pitt retorted.
“Yes sir. He’s working on some papers—I think. I’ll ask him to come up, sir.”
“Don’t ask him, le Grange, tell him!” Pitt said.
Le Grange disappeared instantly, but it was another full ten minutes with Pitt pacing the floor before Tellman came in the door and closed it, his face registering bland complacency. No doubt Farnsworth’s exchange with Pitt had been heard, and reported over half the station.
“Yes sir?” Tellman said inquiringly, and Pitt was positive he knew perfectly well what he was wanted for.
“Go and get a warrant to search the house and grounds of number twelve Green Street.”
“Green Street?”
“Off Park Lane, two south of Oxford Street. It is the residence of a Mr. Jerome Carvell.”
“Yes sir. What am I looking for, sir?”
“Evidence that Aidan Arledge was murdered there, or that the owner, Jerome Carvell, knew Winthrop or the bus conductor, Yeats.”
“Yes sir.” Tellman went to the door, then turned and looked at Pitt with wide eyes. “What would be evidence of knowing a bus conductor, sir?”
“A letter with his