Read Online The Hyde Park Headsman by Anne Perry - Free Book Online Page A

Have you got the weapon?”
    The satisfaction died in Tellman’s face, and his lips tightened.
    “Haven’t found the place yet. Could have been anywhere. We’ve looked for the weapon. We’ll drag the Serpentine tomorrow.” He lifted his head a little. “But we have found several witnesses. Couple of lovers were walking down the path at half past ten. He wasn’t there then. It was still light enough to see that much quite clearly. Cabby going along Knightsbridge towards Hyde Park corner at midnight empty, on his way home, and going pretty slow, saw two people walking along Rotten Row, and is certain both were men. He didn’t see anybody on the water then, although of course it was dark and he was some way from the Serpentine, but there was a good moon.”
    “And …” Pitt prompted.
    “And another gentleman came home in his own carriage at two in the morning and passed the same way, and saw what he took to be a boat drifting,” Tellman said, staring at Pitt.
    “Sober?” Pitt asked.
    “He says so.”
    “And your judgment?”
    “Well, he was certainly sober enough when I spoke to him.”
    “Did you find him, or did he come to you?”
    Tellman’s face tightened again. “He came to us. But he’s a gentleman. I meant the word exact. Banker in the City.”
    “Where had he been that he was away from home at two in the morning?”
    Tellman’s shoulders tightened.
    “I didn’t ask, sir. I gathered it was private business, an assignation maybe. It isn’t done to press gentlemen of that sort as to where they’ve been, Mr. Pitt. Gets their backs up to no purpose.”
    Pitt heard the insolence in his voice and saw the satisfaction of contempt in his face.
    “I suppose you did check that he is who he said he is?” he asked.
    “Can’t see that it matters,” Tellman replied. “He saw a boat on the water at two o’clock. It’s not police business if he gives us the right name or not—or where he’d been. If gentlemen go around bedding other gentlemen’s wives, that’s their way, and nothing to do with our case. He was a gentleman, that I know. You don’t have to be a detective to tell the difference.”
    “And of course a gentleman couldn’t have killed Captain the Honorable Oakley Winthrop!” Pitt said sarcastically. “If this informant of yours had a good voice, good manners and clean shoes, then it couldn’t have been he who committed murder….”
    Tellman’s face flushed a dull red. He glared at Pitt and remained silent.
    “We’ll assume it’s the truth unless we find otherwise,” Pitt said pleasantly. “That’s a step forward. What did you find in the boat?”
    “No blood, except the bit from the bleeding after he was dead.”
    “Any signs of another person there?”
    “Such as what? They’re pleasure boats. There could have been a hundred other people in it at one time or another. Even this last week!”
    “I am aware of that, Tellman. Maybe one of them killed Winthrop.”
    “Without leaving any blood, sir? The man’s head was cut off!”
    “What about over the side?”
    “What?”
    “What if he leaned over the side?” Pitt asked, his voice risingas the picture became clear in his mind. “What if they were in the boat together and the murderer dropped something in the water, drawing Winthrop’s attention to it. Winthrop leaned over, the murderer hit him over the head, then struck his head off—into the water? The blood would all go over the side!”
    “Possible,” Tellman said grudgingly, but there was a certain admiration in his voice, and a lift of excitement. “Could have been done like that!”
    “Was the hair wet? Think, man! You saw it!” Pitt said eagerly.
    “Difficult to tell, sir. Wasn’t much of it. Very thin, almost bald on top.”
    “Yes. I know that. But what there was of it. The sides—the whiskers?”
    “Yes—yes I think there were. But I’m not sure if there was water in the bottom of the boat—bilges …” He was reluctant yet to grasp the