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

body was laid out under a sheet, its form unfamiliar, inhuman without the bump where one looked for the head.“There y’are, Mr. Pitt, sir!” He whipped off the sheet with the air of a conjurer producing flowers from a hat.
    Pitt had seen many corpses before, and each time he tried to prepare himself, and as always, failed. He felt a sinking in his stomach and a strange, slightly dizzy sensation in his head and throat. The remains of Oakley Winthrop lay naked and very white on the marble slab of the table. Without a head, a face, he seemed without dignity, even without humanity.
    “What have you done with his head?” Pitt said involuntarily, then wished he had not. It exposed the rawness of his emotion.
    “Oh …” the attendant said absentmindedly. “I put it on the bench. I suppose I’d better put ’im all together.” He went to the bench in question and carefully picked up a large object covered with a cloth, unwrapped it dextrously and brought it over to Pitt. “There y’are, sir. That’s all of ’im.”
    Pitt swallowed. “Thank you.”
    He looked conscientiously, avoiding nothing, but he did not learn any more than he already knew from Tellman’s report, and what the coroner would have said in time. Oakley Winthrop had been a big man, broad shouldered, deep chested, muscular but now running to softness and the beginning of fat. He looked well fed, smooth, his hands very clean. There were no marks or bruises on him at all, except the lividity Pitt had expected from the natural settling of blood in a corpse when its heart no longer pumped. There was no other discoloration, no breaking of the skin. His hands were immaculate, nails unbroken.
    Then he looked at the head. The hair was sandy brown and clipped short. Across the top of the scalp there was hardly any at all. He did not try it, but he knew it would be impossible to pick it up that way. He turned to the features. They were unremarkable, and without expression or life it was hard to guess what character they had betrayed. He could not detect the marks of humor or imagination, but it was unfair to judge.
    Finally he forced himself to look at the wound, if one could call a complete severing such a thing. It was fairly clean, done by a simple, very powerful blow with some very sharp weapon, possibly designed for the purpose. It might have been a person of great strength, or alternatively someone perfectly balanced and striking from a considerable height, and using the force of weight and a long swing, as with a broadax.
    The smell of the place was catching in his throat, and he was very cold.
    “Thank you. That’s all, at least for now.”
    “Yes, Mr. Pitt. Want ter see ’is clothes? ’E were dressed very smart, like; naval captain, they say. Nice uniform. Pity about the blood. Never seen so much in all me life.”
    “Anything in his pockets?”
    “Only what yer’d expect, a little money, letter from ’is wine merchant, that’s ’ow we knew ’is name, I reckon. A few keys, reckon wine cupboard or desk or the like; domestic anyway. ’Andkerchief, couple o’ callin’ cards, cigar cutter. Nothing interestin’, no threatening letters.” He smiled sepulchrally. “Got another nasty one, Mr. Pitt. I reckon there’s a madman loose somewhere.”
    “Do you,” Pitt said dryly. “Well cover him up and let us know when the coroner has been.”
    “Yes sir. Good night sir!”
    “Good night.”
    Pitt arrived home tired and still unable to shake from himself the smell of the mortuary. He let himself in the door and took his boots off before going along to the warmth and light of the kitchen.
    Charlotte did not turn around immediately; she was busy stirring a steaming pan on the large black cooking range.
    “Hungry?” she asked without looking at him.
    He sat down wearily at the scrubbed wooden table, letting the warmth surround him and breathing in the odor of the clean linen, flour, cooking, the coal and heat of the range, the well-washed