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It was nearly ten on a summer night, the sky still too bright for stars, and Hyde Park was empty of its daylight crowds. In the twilight, the familiar meadows and broad avenues were washed of colour, painted in sweeps of slate and violet gray, lending the landscape a sinister aspect. Or perhaps that was simply Parker’s perceptions being warped by his purpose of the evening.
It was not an official outing, though his badge was tucked amulet-like in his inner pocket, as always. He was dressed in a heavy, shapeless coat, despite the lingering muggy heat, and a bad hat which was not his own, and so he could not claim it was entirely impulse to come. But he wanted to see for himself the patterns of the park at dusk, before half a dozen constables clomping about disrupted the delicate nighttime ecosystem.
The last families and nannies with prams had gone. There was one party of picnic-goers still drinking on the opposite bank of the canal. The sound of their laughter and Mayfair accents carried clearly across the water, somehow seeming to deepen the stillness elsewhere of the humid, stagnant air. Otherwise, the only people about were lone men like himself. As Parker cast covert glances at each from under the brim of the borrowed hat, trying to memorize faces and read expressions in the gloom, the men looked back.
Was this man who flicked his eyes away just a banker cutting through the park after a late meeting? Did the slouching youth have attentive parents at home awaiting his timely return? Did the workman in a flat cap hold Parker’s gaze a beat too long, or was that a trick of the light? Parker was accustomed to the way hunting for a suspect coloured every encounter with suspicion, but he was uncomfortably aware that the hour and place had transformed the surreptitious examination of a detective into a mutual evaluation.
It was not that the Metropolitan Police cared so very much about the fates of the nighttime denizens who traded favors and money in Hyde Park after dark, as they did in Hampstead and Piccadilly and elsewhere; one expected the occasional, largely unremarked homicide. But the bodies had become too frequent to ignore, and thus Parker was stalking down the darkening pathways of the park, across the meadows and along the Serpentine, with the shadows deepening all around him. The oak and sycamore trees stretched their long branches out from their thick, gnarled trunks, their summer foliage creating dark caverns beneath their reaching arms.
Movement in the shadows sharpened Parker’s attention, but it was only a fox, darting through the darkness, tail swishing. Ahead of him was the rose garden, where a man stood smoking under the trellised vines, the tip of his cigarette a warm star in the blue dark.
Tucking his head down, Parker chose a path through the rose bushes elliptical to the man's position, aware of his own ignorance of the arcane geometry of approach. The glowing coal moved as the man turned his head to follow Parker, and the back of his neck prickled. A sluggish breeze wafted the smoke and the scent of rose blossoms together on the night air, following him as he reached the edge of Carriage Drive and turned west. Beyond the trees he could hear the traffic around the circle at Hyde Park Corner, where Knightsbridge became Piccadilly, like the lights of a carousel beyond the oasis of dark companionship which was the Park.
The man began to stroll along parallel to Parker, separated by the full width of the rose beds, but the enormous crunch of each step on gravel made him sound nearer. He was smoking an expensive tobacco, and Parker thought suddenly of Lord Peter, whose flat was only five minutes brisk walk from where he stood, along Piccadilly Street. Lengthening his stride, Parker was gripped with a longing to be at his friend’s flat, in the familiar sanctuary of his library, among the serene luxury of books and paintings and carpets, where Parker was a guest but knew, at least, what welcome entailed.
Then, as if summoned by the thought, a lanky figure emerged from the shadows at the verge of the road by the wrought iron fence and the gate onto Knightsbridge, and crossed Carriage Drive with a familiar lolloping stride, making directly for the rose garden. Parker, freezing behind an azalea bush, told himself it was the associations of his imagination, for the man wore a hat shadowing his face and covering any hint of distinctive fair hair, and “his trot” was a distinguishing characteristic more suitable to beast than man. But even as Parker entertained this train of thought, he heard clearly in the still night air, Wimsey say “Evening,” in that unmistakable plummy voice.
Peering through the rose brambles, Parker saw Wimsey tip his hat to the smoker, who had retired to the rose trellises again in apparent confusion at the cheerful greeting. Parker could sympathize with that particular brand of Wimsey-induced befuddlement. It begged the question, does he not know or simply not care? Long familiarity had convinced Parker that there were very few things Wimsey did not know or could not grasp instantly, which raised a looming uncertainty in Parker’s mind.
Here was a man certainly not taking a shortcut home through the nighttime park, for his flat lay squarely behind him. If he were simply out for a constitutional, Green Park was closer, and would a man taking the fresh air walk with such purpose? It was too late for the theatre or for any reasonable dinner obligation. An insidious curiosity, which he could not fully attribute to the suspicious instincts of a policeman, compelled Parker to set off after him. A man hurrying after a friend might have called out, someone simply walking in the same direction would have no care if he was seen, but the damning detail was that Parker set his feet on the grassy verge of the path instead of the musical gravel which serenaded Wimsey’s progress ahead.
The day’s illumination was draining steadily from the sky, leaving only the indifferent light of a waxing gibbous moon, hovering low over the treetops in the west. Soon it would set behind London’s skyline, and there would be night, as true as city night could be. Wimsey walked briskly around the south side of the Serpentine, past a skeletal army of abandoned lawn chairs, and a boarded up concessionary shop, to where the manicured lawn of the playing field and the neatly planted trees along Rotten Row gave way to denser foliage, not forbidding in the daylight, but made impenetrable by night on either side of the path.
There was a man walking toward them along the treelined avenue, visible as no more than a shadow among shadows. Wimsey slowed to a halt as they came face to face, and they spoke softly, heads bent together. Parker, a hundred paces behind, could hear no words, nor make out any distinguishing features of the other man, who was nondescriptly dressed and carrying something like a small paintbox under one arm. A sense of unease leapt into a flare of what was almost alarm, when Wimsey and the man stepped off the path together and vanished into the arms of the whispering sycamore trees.
Parker stared into the darkness until the shadows began to form illusions in his vision. His heart was pounding as if he had run the distance from the rose garden, and the muggy heat of the evening seemed suddenly overpowering, sweat prickling up under his collar. He was abstractly aware of a certain insidious conclusion, and of his own resistance to it. After all, what had he seen? A friend taking a shortcut through the less-than-deserted park at dusk. Absurdly, he thought of a child, who, following a familiar skirt through a crowd, realises abruptly that the skirt does not belong to the beloved mother, but a stranger. The darkness all around seemed strange and hostile as foreign jungle. His head ached – he was straining his eyes and ears against the muffling night, but thankfully, Parker heard nothing but the breeze through the branches and the rush of his own urgent heartbeat.
Rallying his rationality, Parker asked himself sternly what he had hoped to accomplish, stalking Wimsey like a suspect. Easier to think of it like that, a lapse in his judgment, and he reminded himself of Galatians – so shall thou reap. He would leave, he resolved, go home as he should have done an hour ago, and return tomorrow evening with a formal task force, to seek the murderer, or, more likely, simply act as a deterrent to any nocturnal business. He turned to go.
Under the trees some distance off the path a light flickered on, shocking as a small sun in the darkness. It was the bright, bobbing bulb of an electric torch, casting about, screened by the lattice-work of branches into fractured chiaroscuro, details indistinguishable. Halted, Parker hovered at the edge of the path, an earthbound moth in heavy boots. A new suspicion crystalized comfortably, like an antidote. The looming trees and deserted avenue seemed once more familiar, just the domesticated darkness of a bit of London green space. Of course Wimsey was snooping around, it was practically his own back garden.
Footsteps on leaf mulch heralded the bobbing return of the torchlight to the path. The beam of light swept over Parker, and a familiar voice said, “What-ho! Parker, by God.”
Pushing back the brim of the borrowed cap, Parker raised a hand in greeting.
“ Well met by moonlight, old bird.” The torch snapped off, and after a moment’s dark-blindness, the two figures began to re-emerge from the after-image of light. “Beautiful evening for a stroll, what?”
“ A pleasant evening,” Parker agreed. As his eyes adjusted, he realised with a rush of satisfaction almost like relief that the second man was none other than Bunter, carrying his camera tucked under his arm.
“ You have a sense of timing like my great-aunt Marguerite,” Wimsey went on, tucking the torch away into his coat and setting off in the direction of Piccadilly at a leisurely promenade. It was natural to fall into step behind him with Bunter. “Now there was a woman who knew how to make an entrance. One could whisper her name into a cockle shell at noon and she would turn up for tea by two. What brings you out at this time of night? Out of uniform, I see, and not a bad job of it.” As always, Wimsey's monologue slid seamlessly into dialogue. “I wonder if we are here on the same business.” They emerged from under the trees onto the broad path beside the Serpentine, lined with manicured shrubs. The moonlight seemed suddenly bright, and Wimsey pierced Parker with one of his sharp glances, which were easy to miss if one was lulled by his blather and rather foolish-looking face. “This isn’t your usual walk home from the Yard.”
“ It’s not,” Parker agreed easily. “There’s been a bit of trouble lately.”
“ I’ll say. Don’t tell me the force has taken an interest. I’ll owe someone sixpence. Friend of a friend asked me to look into it. And look we have, haven’t we, Bunter? Three nights now, but I think we’ve got, as you fellows say, a hot lead.” He waved a hand in Bunter’s direction. “When we get these photographs developed we’ll have a better idea. Comparisons and whatnot. The old footprint routine is too trite, but our man seems to have inordinately large boots. A liability in a strangler, wouldn’t you say? But then I suppose he may also have inordinately large hands. We would need the mortician’s report to say for certain. What have the police got?”
“ A couple of bodies,” Parker said, “and not much else.” He found he was relaxed, almost weightless, drifting along in Wimsey’s wake with Bunter pacing silently beside them. “Come along to the station tomorrow and take a look at them if you like.”
“ I certainly shall,” said Wimsey. The rose garden lay ahead. The man smoking was gone, only the pale blossoms glowing in the dark. “Allow me to return the hospitality – come along for a nightcap?”
“ Oh, thank you...” Parker hesitated on the threshold of that foreign land, “but not tonight if it’s all the same. Early morning tomorrow.”
“ Certainly,” Wimsey agreed. “Another time. The industrious and moral soul seeks his bed at vespers’ toll. The straying man stays away and stumbles home at break of day, or what have you.” They had reached the wrought iron gate at Hyde Park Corner, and Wimsey trotted down the handful of stairs to the street level, where the haunted night of the park evaporated in the headlamps and horns of late traffic barreling around the Arch. Turning with the lights of the city behind him, he held out his hand. “We’ll see you in the morning. Get home safe, old friend.”
His palm was warm and soft against Parker’s and then it was gone. “Good night, Wimsey.”