The Hyde Park Headsman Read online

  Pitt swiveled around in the chair and stared at the immaculate bookshelves. He was already familiar with many of the titles. It had been one of the first things he had done on moving in. There it was—Who’s Who. He pulled it out with both hands and opened it on the desk. Captain the Honourable Oakley Winthrop was not present. However, Lord Marlborough Winthrop was written up at some length, more for his heritage than his achievements, but nonetheless the book gave a very fair picture of a proud, wealthy, rather humorless man of middle age whose interests were tediously predictable. He had had a host of respectable minor offices and was related to a wide variety of the great families in the land, some quite distantly, but nevertheless each connection was duly noted. Some forty years ago he had married one Evelyn Hurst, third daughter of an admiral, later ennobled.

  Pitt closed the book with a feeling of foreboding. Lord and Lady Winthrop were not likely to be placated easily if answers were slow in coming, or displeasing in their nature. It was probably unfair, but already he had a picture of them in his mind.

  Was Tellman right—was a madman loose in the park? Or had Oakley Winthrop in some way brought it upon himself by courting another man’s wife, welshing on his debts, or cheating? Or was he privy to some dangerous secret? These were questions that would have to be asked with subtlety and extreme tact.

  In the meantime he would like to have gone to the park and sought the material evidence himself, but it was Tellman’s job, and it would be time wasting as well as impolitic to oversee him in its pursuance.

  * * *

  Charlotte Pitt was occupied as differently as possible. With Pitt’s promotion had come the opportunity to move to a larger house, one with a garden offering not only a broad lawn and two large herbaceous borders but also a very considerable kitchen garden and three old apple trees, at the moment the gnarled boughs fat with buds for blossom. Charlotte had fallen in love with it the moment she stepped through the French doors of the withdrawing room onto the stone-flagged terrace and seen the garden in front of her.

  The house itself needed much work before it was ready to move into, but she could imagine all sorts of wonderful possibilities for it. A hundred times in her mind she had decorated it, hung curtains, found carpets, arranged and rearranged the furniture.

  Now the wallpaper was stripped off in many places and the plaster was so damaged as to need gouging out and replacing with new. There were other things missing or broken, large pieces out of cornices, friezes and moldings. The plaster ceiling rose in the dining room was so badly chipped as to need replacing. The hall lamp was missing all its glass, as were several of the gas brackets in other rooms. The mirror on the overmantel in the dining room was spotted across the center and cracked at the edges, and the fireplace in the main bedroom had lost several of its border tiles. There would be a great deal to do, but she was full of enthusiasm, and so far undaunted by the prospect.

  She was completely unaware of the murder in Hyde Park. She stood in the middle of the withdrawing room visualizing how splendid it would be when it was all finished. In the house in Bloomsbury they had had only a front parlor, very pleasant in its fashion, but it was a poor thing by comparison with this; or to be more exact, with what this could become. Then she would be able to invite people to dinner—something she had not done before in her married life, with the exception, of course, of immediate family.

  Her parents had been quite comfortable—although at the time she had felt it to be barely sufficient. There was never money in hand for as many dresses as she would have wished, or for more than one carriage. But when she had scandalized her friends by marrying a policeman, at the same time as her younger sister, Emily, had married a viscount, both their lives had changed beyond recognition and beyond their power to imagine beforehand.

  Then George Ashworth had died, leaving Emily a very rich widow, and later she had married Jack Radley, charming, handsome and virtually penniless. She seemed totally happy, and that was all that mattered. Her seven-year-old son, Edward, now Lord Ashworth, had a baby sister, Evangeline, known as Evie, and Jack was again attempting to gain a seat in Parliament. Under Emily’s cajoling, flattering and persuasion he had found a social conscience and determined to forge himself a career. His first attempt had ended in failure, although, both Emily and Charlotte conceded willingly, a moral victory.

  “Excuse me, ma’am …” Charlotte’s thoughts were interrupted by the voice of her maid, Gracie, a tiny waif of a girl who had been with her ever since her move to Bloomsbury. Now she was an intelligent and determined eighteen-year-old who had beyond question found her place in life as the confidante and, as of the last case, the assistant to the wife of a detective. The change in her from the child she had been was miraculous. She bristled confidence and appetite for adventure. She was still as thin as a ninepenny rabbit. All the clothes she was given were too long for her and had to be taken up, but her cheeks had color, and she was more than a match for the most impertinent delivery boy or the most uppity servant of anyone else. After all, she had adventures. All they ever did was housework.

  “Yes, Gracie?” Charlotte said absently.

  “The dustman’s ’ere ’oo said as ’e’d take them broken tiles and get the linoleum up from the kitchen that’s all scuffed and frayed at the edges,” Gracie said busily. “ ’E said that it’d only cost one and sixpence, an’ ’e’d take the rubbish out o’ the back yard too.”

  “A shilling,” Charlotte said automatically. “And he can have the broken lamp brackets as well, if he’ll take them down.”

  “Yes ma’am.” Gracie whisked out to return less than a moment later with Emily at her heels. Charlotte’s sister came in in a whirl of rose-pink skirts, marvelous sleeves and a fashionably slender waist, not quite as it was before Evie, but still most becoming. Her fair hair sat in an aureole of curls around her face, and her expression was one of amazement.

  “Oh Charlotte!” She gazed around and swallowed hard.

  Charlotte glared at her.

  “It could be … beautiful,” Emily added, then burst into giggles, sinking in a heap of skirts into the old sofa pushed over towards the front windows.

  Charlotte opened her mouth to say something furious, then realized how absurd that would be. The room was bare and drab. Old wallpaper hung in ribbons from broken plaster, the windows were dirty and one was cracked, the lamp brackets broken. The old sofa was covered in a dust sheet like a solitary ghost. The rest of the house was no better. The only way to cope was to laugh.

  “It will be all right,” she said at length when they had recovered themselves.

  “It will have to be replastered, then repapered,” Emily pointed out, “before you can begin to choose new fixtures and fittings.”

  “I know that.” Charlotte sniffed, wiped the tears away with her hand. “That will be half the pleasure. I will have reclaimed a disaster and made it into something fine.”

  “How very feminine of you, my dear,” Emily said with a broad smile. “So many women I know spend their lives trying to do that—and not only with houses: mostly with husbands. But the trouble with that is you cannot move if it doesn’t work!” She stood up again, absently straightening her skirts. “Show me the rest of this catastrophe. I promise I will try to see what a noble thing it may become. By the way, there has been a fearful murder in Hyde Park, did you know?”

  “No, when?” Charlotte led the way to what would become the dining room. “How do you know? Was it in the morning newspapers?”

  “No.” Emily shook her head. “I gather the body was only found this morning, on the Serpentine in one of those little boats.” She gazed around her. “This room has nice proportions, except it needs a larger mantel. But you could replace that one quite easily, and put it in the bedroom perhaps? It is too narrow for here. I heard it as we stopped for traffic at the Tottenham Court Road. The newsboys were shouting about it. Some naval officer had his head cut off.”

  Charlotte had started towards the window and stopped abr
uptly, swinging around to face Emily. “His head cut off!”

  “Yes. Unpleasant, isn’t it? I suppose Thomas will be in charge of it, because he was a captain, and his parents are Lord and Lady Winthrop.”

  “Who are they?” Charlotte asked with sharper interest. She and Emily had first met Pitt when he had investigated the murder of their elder sister, Sarah, and ever since then they had both involved themselves in his more serious cases as much as opportunity permitted, and frequently a great deal more than Pitt would have allowed, had he been consulted before rather than informed when it was too late.

  “Oh, neither old money nor new,” Emily replied dismissively. “Not really very colorful, but connected to half the Home Counties in one way or another, and very aware of it.” She shrugged. “You know the sort of person? Never achieved anything in particular, but always wanted to be important. No imagination, absolutely sure they know what they believe about everybody and everything, quite kind in their own way, as honest as the day, and no sense of humor whatsoever.”

  “Deadly,” Charlotte said succinctly. “And all the harder because you cannot really dislike them, just be infuriated and bored.”

  “Exactly,” Emily agreed, moving towards the door. “You know, I can’t even remember quite what Lady Winthrop looks like. She might be fairish and a little stout, or else she might be that darkish woman who is too tall. Isn’t it silly? Or she might even be the pigeon-chested one whose face I can’t place at all. I’m not usually like that. I can’t afford to be, with Jack hoping to be in Parliament.” She pulled a face. “Just imagine if one addressed the wrong person as the Prime Minister’s wife!” She pulled an even worse face. “Disaster! Even the Foreign Office wouldn’t consider you after that.”

  They were in the hallway, and she stopped with a little sigh of appreciation. “I do like your stairs. Now that is really very elegant, Charlotte. This newel post is one of the handsomest I’ve seen. My goodness, it must have taken some carving.” She tilted her head back and followed the line of the banister upwards to the newel at the top, and then along the landing. “Yes, very gracious. How many bedrooms are there?”

  “I told you, five, and plenty of space in the attic for Gracie,” Charlotte replied. “Really nice rooms. She can have two, and I’ll keep the box room and a spare one, just in case.”

  Emily grinned. “In case what? Another resident servant?”

  Charlotte shrugged. “Why not—one day? Do you know anything about the man who was murdered?” She was thinking of Pitt.

  “No.” Emily opened her eyes very wide and bright. “But I could find out.”

  “I don’t think you should say anything to Thomas yet,” Charlotte said cautiously.

  “Oh, I know,” Emily agreed, nodding her head and leading the way up the stairs, caressing the banister rail as she went. “That’s really very nice.” She stopped for a moment and looked up at the ceiling. “That’s nice too. I do like coffering. None of that plasterwork is broken. All it needs is a little paint. Yes, I know to be careful, Thomas is so much more important these days.” She turned and gave Charlotte a radiant smile. “I’m so glad. I like him enormously, I hope you know that.”

  “Of course I know that,” Charlotte said warmly. “I’m glad you like the ceiling too. I thought it was rather fine. It gives the hall dignity, don’t you think?”

  They reached the landing at the top and began looking at the bedrooms. Emily was joining in the spirit and ignoring the broken tiles in the fireplaces and the peeling paper on the walls.

  “Have they set the date for the by-election yet?” Charlotte inquired.

  “No, but we know who is standing for the Tories,” Emily replied with a frown. “Nigel Uttley. Highly respected and very powerful. I’m not sure just how much of a chance Jack has, realistically. Of course I don’t tell Jack that.” She smiled ruefully. “Especially after last time.”

  Charlotte said nothing. Last time had been so fraught with other pains and tragedies that political failure had seemed almost incidental. Jack had withdrawn, refusing to be compromised or to join the secret society known as the Inner Circle, which would have ensured his acceptance as candidate and the support of a vast hidden network of men with influence, money and an unbreakable bond. But there was also the covenant of secrecy, the preferments offered to members at the expense of outsiders, the promises of protection, lies to conceal, and ostracism and punishment for transgressors. Above all what appalled Jack and frightened Pitt was the secrecy—the doubt, suspicion and fear sown by not knowing who were members, whose loyalties were already spoken for in a dark covenant, which consciences were in bondage even before the choices were framed.

  “I assume this is going to be your room?” Emily asked, gazing around the large bedroom with its wide window over the garden. “I like this. Is this the biggest room, or is the front one a trifle wider?”

  “I think it is, but it doesn’t matter. I’d sacrifice size for that window,” Charlotte replied without hesitation. “And that room”—she indicated the door to her left—“as a dressing room for Thomas. The front one will do well for a nursery for Daniel and Jemima, and they can have the smaller ones for bedrooms.”

  “What color?” Emily looked at the walls, by now totally ignoring the stains and tears.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe blue, maybe green,” Charlotte said thoughtfully.

  “Blue will be cold,” Emily answered. “Actually, so will green.”

  “I like it anyway.”

  “What direction are we facing?”

  “Southwest,” Charlotte replied. “The afternoon sun comes in the French doors below us in the dining room.”

  “Then I daresay it’ll be all right. Charlotte …”

  “Yes?”

  Emily stood in the middle of the floor, her face puckered. “I know I was rather hard on you when I came back from the country, in fact possibly even unfair …”

  “About Mama? You certainly were,” Charlotte agreed. “I don’t know what you expected me to do!”

  “I wasn’t there,” Emily said reasonably. “I don’t know what could have been done, but surely something. For heaven’s sake, Charlotte, the man’s not only an actor—and a Jew—but he’s seventeen years younger than Mama!”

  “She knows that,” Charlotte agreed. “He’s also charming, intelligent, funny, kind, loyal to his friends, and he seems to care for her very much.”

  “I expect all that’s true,” Emily conceded. “But to what end? She can’t possibly marry him! Even supposing he asked her.”

  “I know that!”

  “She’ll ruin her reputation if she hasn’t done so already,” Emily went on. “Papa will be turning over in his grave.” She swiveled around very slowly. “You could have blue in here if you didn’t have dark furniture.” She looked back at Charlotte. “What are we going to do about her now? Grandmama is beside herself.”

  “She’s been in a rage for months,” Charlotte said without concern. “If not years. She enjoys it. If it wasn’t this, it would be something else.”

  “But this is different,” Emily protested, her face puckered with concern. “This time she’s right! What Mama is doing is absurd and dangerous. She could find herself quite outside society when it’s all over. Have you even thought about that?”

  “Yes, of course I have. And I’ve told her till I’m blue in the face—but it doesn’t make a ha’p’orth of difference. She knows it all, and she considers it worth the price.”

  “Then she isn’t thinking clearly,” Emily said tartly, hunching her shoulders a little. “She can’t mean it.”

  “I think I would.” Charlotte spoke not so much to Emily as to the view beyond the window. “I think I would rather have a brief time of real happiness, and take the chance, than an age of gray respectability.”

  “Respectability isn’t gray!” Emily retorted. Then suddenly her face crumpled into a giggle. “It’s—brown.”

  Charlotte shot her a look of swift appreciation.
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  “All the same,” Emily went on, her eyes steady in spite of her laughter. “The lack of respectability can be very unpleasant, especially when you are older. It can be very lonely to be shut out, whatever color the inside is.”

  Charlotte knew it was true, and why Emily had said it. Perhaps in her mother’s place she too would have opted for a brief, painful and glorious romance, but she was not unaware of the bitter price.

  “I know,” she said quietly. “And Grandmama will never let her forget it, even if everyone else does.”

  Emily gazed around the room thoughtfully.

  Charlotte read her thought.

  “Oh no!” she said decidedly. “Not here! We haven’t room!”

  “No, I suppose not,” Emily agreed reluctantly, then suddenly she smiled again. “Were you thinking of Mama or Grand-mama?”

  “Grandmama, of course,” Charlotte responded. “Mama would remain in Cater Street, naturally. It is her house. I’m not sure which would be worse, living with Grandmama goading and complaining all the time, or all by yourself with no one to talk to at all. Sitting every day wondering if anyone will call, and if you dare call on someone else, or if they will all send polite messages to the door that they are not at home, even when you can see the carriages in the drive and know perfectly well that they are—and they know you know.”

  “Don’t.” Emily winced as if she had been struck. “I can’t bear to think of it. We’ll simply have to do something!” She looked at Charlotte. “Have you tried appealing to him? If he cares for her at all, he must realize what will happen. Is he a complete fool?”

  “He’s an actor.” Charlotte shrugged in a sort of exasperation. “It’s a different world. He may not understand …”

  “Well, have you tried to explain to him?” Emily demanded. “For goodness sake, Charlotte!”

  “No I haven’t! Mother would never forgive me. Telling her is one thing; telling him is quite another. We have no business to do that.”