The Hyde Park Headsman (29 page)

“Mr. Carvell?”

“Yes?” Carvell came in looking anxious. “Superintendent Pitt? Have I done something amiss? I was not aware of anything …”

“I doubt there is anything, sir,” Pitt replied honestly. “I am calling only in case you may have some knowledge which could help …”

“Oh dear. With what?” Carvell came farther in and waved absently for Pitt to sit down. He perched on one of the other easy chairs. “I don’t think I know anything remotely useful to the police. I am a man of business. I know of no crimes. Has someone embezzled money?”

He looked so transparently innocent Pitt almost abandoned the quest altogether. It was only the necessity of explaining his presence at all that made him continue.

“Not so far as I am aware, Mr. Carvell. It is in connection with the death of Mr. Aidan Arledge. I believe—” He stopped. Carvell’s face had gone completely white and he looked so profoundly distressed Pitt was afraid for him. He seemed to be having difficulty breathing. Pitt had been about to say “I believe you knew him”; but such a remark now would have been absurd. “Can I fetch you a glass of water?” he offered, rising to his feet. “Or brandy?” He looked around for a decanter or a tantalus.

“No—no—I apologize,” Carvell stammered. “I—I—” He came to a halt, not knowing what to say. There was no reasonable explanation. He blinked several times.

At last Pitt saw the decanter. It looked like Madeira in it, but it would be better than nothing. He could see no glasses, so he simply picked up the whole thing and held it to Carvell’s lips.

“Really—I …” Carvell stuttered, then took a long gulp and sat back, breathing hard. His face regained some color and Pitt put the decanter down on the table next to him and went back to his own seat. “Thank you,” Carvell said wretchedly. “I really do apologize. I—I cannot think what came over me….” But the grief in his face made it tragically obvious what had so robbed him of composure.

“No apology is necessary,” Pitt said with a strange, dull ache of pity inside him. “It is I who should seek pardon. I was extremely clumsy in broaching the subject so very bluntly. I take it you were extremely fond of Mr. Arledge?”

“Yes—yes, we have been friends for a great number of years. In fact since youth. It is such a—a terrible way to die….” His voice was husky with the crowding emotions he felt.

“It is,” Pitt agreed. “But I think you can be assured that he knew nothing of it One quick blow, and he would have lost sensibility. It is only terrible for those of us who now know the full details.”

“You are very considerate. I wish—” Carvell stopped abruptly. “I have no idea what I can tell you, Superintendent.” He looked at Pitt earnestly. “I know nothing about it at all. And I have naturally searched my brains to see if there is anything I could have done to prevent it, to foresee such—such an abominable thing, but I cannot. It was a bolt from nowhere! There was no”—he pulled his lips back in a ghastly caricature of a smite—“ ‘cloud bigger than a man’s hand’ on the horizon. One day everything was as usual, all the pleasures one takes for granted, the sun, the earth brimming with returning life, young people everywhere full of hopes and ambitions, old men full of memories, good food, good wine, good companionship, fine books and exquisite music.” He sighed. “The world in its ordered course. Then suddenly …” His eyes filled with tears and he turned away, ashamed, blinking to cover his embarrassment.

Pitt felt acutely for him.

“We are all very shaken by it,” he said quietly. “And very afraid. That is why I am obliged to intrude upon people in this fashion. Any help you can give, anything at all, may assist us to catch whoever is doing this. Did you know Captain Winthrop? Did Mr. Arledge ever speak of him to you?” He was evading the real issue, and he knew it, but he wanted to give Carvell time to regain his composure. Even while he was doing it, he knew it was tactically a mistake. Tellman would not have hesitated.

“Captain Winthrop?” Carvell looked totally confused. “Oh, yes, the first man who was … murdered. No. No, I cannot say I had heard of him before that Oh—just a moment. Yes, I had heard his name mentioned, by a Mr. Bartholomew Mitchell, with whom I have had slight dealings. About a matter of business.
I believe it was Mrs. Winthrop’s name, in fact. Mrs. Winthrop is his sister, I think.”

“May I ask what business, sir?”

“He purchased some shares on her behalf. I cannot think it could possibly have any connection.”

“No, I cannot think of any either. When was the last time you saw Mr. Arledge?”

Again his face paled. “The evening of the day before he died, Superintendent. We had supper together after a performance. It was late and he knew his own household would have retired …”

“I see.” Pitt pulled the set of keys out of his pocket and held them up. He was about to ask if Carvell knew what they were when the expression in his face made the question unnecessary.

“Where—” he began, then fell silent, staring helplessly at Pitt.

“Do they fit doors in this house, Mr. Carvell?” Pitt asked.

Carvell gulped. “Yes,” he said huskily.

Pitt took the largest. “The front door?”

“The back,” Carvell corrected. “It—it seems …”

“Of course. And these?” He held up the other two.

Carvell said nothing.

“Please, sir. It would be most undignified to have to obtain a warrant and search through all the doors and cupboards and drawers in the house.”

Carvell paled even more and he looked desperately unhappy.

“Do you—do you have to … go through his—his things?” he stammered.

“What did he keep here?” Pitt asked with wrenching distaste. It was grossly intrusive, and yet he dared not avoid it.

“Personal toiletries.” Carvell spoke jerkingly, as if he had to wrench each item from his memory. “A little clean linen, evening dress, some cuff links and collar studs. Nothing that can possibly be of use to you, Superintendent.”

“A silver-backed hairbrush?”

“Yes—I think so.”

“I see.”

“Do you? I loved him, Superintendent. I have no idea whether you can understand what that means. All my adult life I …” He bent his head and covered his face with his hands. “What’s the use? I thought it would be a relief if I could share it with someone. At least be able to admit to being bereaved.” His voice choked with pain. “I had to keep it secret, pretend
I was merely a friend, that he meant no more to me than that. Have you any idea what it is like to lose the person you love most in the world, and have to behave as if it were a mere acquaintance? Have you?” He looked up suddenly, his face stained with tears, his emotion naked.

“No,” Pitt said honestly. “It would be impertinent of me to say I know how you must hurt. But I can imagine it must be unbearably deep. I offer you my condolences, which I know are worth nothing.”

“Not nothing, Superintendent. It is something to have at least one person understand you.”

“Did Mrs. Arledge know of your—your regard?”

Carvell looked appalled.

“Dear Heaven, no!”

“You are sure?”

He shook his head vehemently. “Aidan was sure. I have never actually met her except for a few moments at a concert, quite by accident. I did not wish … Can you understand?”

“I see.” Pitt could only guess at the emotions of jealousy, guilt and fear which might have stormed through his mind.

“Do you?” Carvell said with only a thread of bitterness.

He looked utterly wretched. Pitt was acutely aware of his isolation. There was no one to comfort him in his grief, no one even to be aware of it.

Carvell looked up. “Who did this terrible thing, Superintendent? Is there really some demented soul loose in London with a lust for—for blood? Why should he have killed Aidan? He harmed no one….”

“I don’t know Mr. Carvell,” Pitt confessed. “The more I learn of the facts, the less I feel I grasp the elements of it.” There was nothing more to add, no questions he could think of that would have any meaning, even if he received an honest answer. He had come looking for a mistress, a cause for jealousy, a link with Winthrop. He had found instead a gentle, articulate man devastated with a very private and personal grief.

He excused himself and went out into the spring evening under a calm sky where an early moon had risen even before the sun had set.

“You’ve found her!” Farnsworth said the following morning, sitting bolt upright in the chair in Pitt’s office. “What about the husband? What is he like? What did he say? Did he admit any connection with Winthrop? Never mind, you’ll find it. Have
you arrested him yet? When shall we have something to tell the public?”

“His name is Jerome Carvell, and he’s a quiet, respectable businessman,” Pitt began.

“For Heaven’s sake, Pitt!” Farnsworth exploded, his cheeks suffusing with color. “I don’t care if he’s an archdeacon of the church! His wife was having an affair with Arledge, and he found out about it and took his revenge. You’ll find the proof if you look for it.”

“There is no Mrs. Carvell.”

Farnsworth’s face fell. “Then what on earth are you telling me for? I thought you said you found the place where these alternative keys fitted? If he wasn’t having an affair, what on earth did he have keys to the house for?”

“He
was
having an affair,” Pitt said slowly, hating having to try to explain this to Farnsworth.

“Make sense, Pitt,” Farnsworth said between his teeth. “Was he having an affair with Carvell’s wife, or sister or whatever she is, or was he not? You are trying my patience too far.”

“He was having an affair with Carvell himself,” Pitt replied quietly. “If
affair
is the right word. It seemed they have loved each other for over thirty years.”

Farnsworth was dumbfounded, then as the full meaning of what Pitt had said dawned on him, he was filled with anger and outrage.

“Good God, man, you’re talking about it as if—as if it were …”

Pitt said nothing, but stared at Farnsworth with cold eyes, his mind filled with the tortured face of Jerome Carvell.

Farnsworth stopped, the words dying on his lips without his knowing why.

“Well you’d better get on and arrest him!” he said, rising to his feet. “I don’t know what you’re doing sitting around here.”

“I can’t arrest him,” Pitt replied. “There’s no evidence that he killed Arledge, and none at all that he even knew Winthrop.”

“For God’s sake, man, he was having an illegal relationship with Arledge.” He leaned over the desk, glaring at Pitt. “What more do you want? They quarreled and this man—what’s his name—killed him. You can’t need me to remind you how many murders are domestic—or spring from lovers’ quarrels. You’ve got your man. Arrest him before he kills again.” He straightened up as if preparing to leave, the matter settled.

“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.”