The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel (35 page)

The door to the bustling exhibition room closed behind him, darkening the stairwell and bringing a quiet that had been sorely missing for the last five minutes. Hugo took a calming breath and moved slowly downward, aware of the cold air that pressed up to meet him.

The stairs were wide and made of stone, the walls slick blocks of granite like those of a medieval, Thames-side dungeon. The realism of his descent into the museum’s most gruesome display extended his earlier surreal feeling, the garish colors of the entertainment world supplanted by indistinct black-and-white images that flickered in the back of his mind, creating a schizoid and dichotomous eeriness that put him as either a soon-to-be victim in a Béla Lugosi horror flick or a doomed explorer in the real world.

He touched the cold wall to bring himself back into reality, sure that tiredness was helping play tricks with his mind.
It’s a museum, just a museum
.

His feet echoed softly on the steps and he tried not to scuff them. Halfway down, he paused, listening, glad to hear silence because it meant that the exhibit had emptied. Almost emptied, anyway. As he started forward, he heard a shuffling sound from the foot of the stairs, then the squeak of something metallic opening or closing. He kept going, now able to see the cobbled floor of the chamber, eerie glow from recessed lighting casting shadows in front of him.

As he reached the last step, he looked around for Walton, but his eyes were drawn to the men and woman who lay, or hung, dead and dying around him. A pair of ragged figures were strapped to suspended wheels, their frail bodies broken by the executioners’ rods. Gaunt figures, hard to discern whether men or women, hung around the little anteroom, imprisoned in rusting gibbets for the feasting eyes of the curious. Under his feet, Hugo noticed that the cobblestones had been laid in concentric circles, in rings that grew smaller and smaller, the last one encircling a grate in the floor that looked like it would welcome the blood of the tortured hanging from the walls.

The only figure not dressed in rags was the wax statue of a man, standing in a deep stone recess and wearing a dark suit and tie, his collar cinched high and tight in the style of the forties. A perfect mustache gave character to an otherwise weak face, a nose that was small and thin, an insignificant chin. Black eyes bored out from under a bowler hat, glaring at Hugo, as if daring him to inspect the rope that he held in his right hand, his thumb and forefinger gripping it just below the noose. In his left hand, the man carried what looked, to Hugo, to be a white silken bag. The man had been placed between two oak beams that stood erect, a crossbeam joining them, and a square hole in the ground was visible behind him. The trapdoor.

A gentle voice floated down from above Hugo’s head. “It’s my father. Do you see a resemblance?”

Hugo stepped back to the foot of the stairs and looked up. “Harry. Yes, I do. You look a lot like him.”

Walton sat on the cross beam, a rope looped around his own neck. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” said Hugo. “How about you come down and we talk about this?”

Walton smirked. “I’ll be down in a minute, don’t worry.”

Hugo looked around and saw the step ladder lying on its side, kicked over after Walton had pulled himself up to his drop spot. Beside it was Walton’s tote bag. Hugo sat on the lowest of the stone steps and stretched out his legs. “I’m not going to stop you Harry. You murdered a lot of people.”

“No!” Walton shouted the word. “I executed criminals. They are the murderers.”

“You’re full of crap, Harry. If you’re the great executioner, then what are you doing up there? If you were only carrying out justice, then you’re a hero, and no one hangs heroes. Not even in Texas.”

Walton shifted position and Hugo felt his gut tighten. But the old man just sat there, chewing his lip, watching Hugo with his coal-black eyes.

“Oh, I get it,” said Hugo. “Brian Drinker and Pendrith. They didn’t deserve to die, so you’re going to atone for killing them?”

“That’s right.”

“You even killed the wrong Stanton, didn’t you?”

“That wasn’t my fault,” Walton spat. “How was I even to know? She could have said something, told me.”

“You put a gag in her mouth, Harry,” Hugo said, his voice cold. “She
couldn’t
tell you. And what would you have done if she’d insisted she wasn’t June Stanton? You’d have hanged her anyway, just to be sure.”

“The price of justice is high. Are you telling me Texas never killed an innocent man?”

“No idea, Harry, but when we take someone’s life, we sure as hell know who it is we’re killing.” Hugo pointed to his father. “You think the old man would be proud of what you’ve been doing?”

“Of course he would. It’s what he did for a living. It’s what he wanted me to do.”

“Not exactly,” Hugo said. “So how would he feel, then, seeing his son hanging by his neck? Think that’s what the old man wants?”

“He knew about justice. And anyway this isn’t just about me, or him.”

“Sure it is. It’s why you came here, to be with him at the end. Come on, Harry, it’s pretty obvious even for a dumb Yank.”

Walton suddenly grinned. “Yeah, you figured me out, didn’t you?”

“I also figured out that you want the publicity. But look around, there’s no one here but you and me.”

A look of concern flitted across Walton’s face, and the old man turned his head to look through the high archway on his right, into the next part of the exhibit. “Where . . . where is everyone?”

“We couldn’t let people be around you, Harry. Too many end up dying that way. You know, in the cause of justice.”

Walton’s eyes flashed. “I didn’t come here to hurt anyone else, you know that. But I need them in here.”

“I know. But against all my instincts I’m supposed to persuade you not to do this thing, Harry. And it seems to me, without anyone here to watch, there’s no point.”

“Get them back in here!”

“No.”

“I have my gun—do what I say.”

“First of all, if you shoot me there’ll be no one to get your adoring crowds back in here. Second of all, I’m guessing your gun is in your bag, not on you. Your father would never let an armed man onto the gallows, would he?”

Walton laughed. “You called my bluff, very nice. The problem is, and I know this to be true, it’ll get out. Within minutes of me being executed, someone will tell the media and then you can bet there’ll be reporters crawling all over the place. An executioner’s son hanged in Madame Tussauds. It’s a beautiful story, one that will serve my purpose wonderfully.”

Hugo softened his tone. “We don’t do public executions anymore. They’re not coming back and, if you die today, I promise that I’ll just cut you down and say you tripped on the stairs. An old journalist falling down some stairs, even at Madame Tussauds, isn’t much of a story, is it?”

“You’d lie, Marston?” His voice had changed again and was lighter now, almost mocking. “You’d lie to the media, to the police? You’d lie under oath at an official inquest? Somehow I don’t think you would.”

Hugo returned the smile. “Calling my bluff now?”

“You’re a rule follower, you do it all by the book. You don’t get that sometimes to get to justice you have to tread on a few toes. Crack a few heads. Or necks.”

“It’s not going to happen, Harry. You’re not going to change anything, especially with this little stunt. Better you go to jail, preach from there. I’m betting you’d get more followers that way.”

“But that wouldn’t be justice, would it? That’d make me a hypocrite, that’s all.”

Hugo shrugged. “I’ll say it again. Hanging yourself isn’t justice and it won’t change anything out there.”

“Well,” said Walton quietly. “I’ll just do the best I can, and leave the rest to God.”

Hugo opened his mouth to speak but stopped when Walton shifted position again, putting both hands flat on the cross beam and looking down at his father below. Without another word Walton eased his weight forward and slid from his high perch on the beam, his body stiff and his arms by his sides, as if he were jumping into a lake on a hot summer day. Hugo started forward but didn’t get there in time, couldn’t have crossed the fifteen feet of cobbled ground in the second it took Walton to drop to the end of his rope, for the noose under the left side of his chin to jerk tight and snap his head back, severing his cervical cord as cleanly as if a surgeon’s knife had made the cut.

Harry Walton swung gently on the end of his own rope, his legs brushing against the waxen image of his father, the smartly dressed man who stared defiantly at Hugo as if daring him to cut his son down.

Hugo stood in front of them both for a moment, resisting the urge to speak to them. He shook his head and passed through the rest of the Chamber of Horrors, following the path a million tourists had taken before him to the exit where Bart Denum, four members of museum security, and a dozen armed police officers had no trouble reading the look on his face.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

T
hey watched the press conference at the Coachman pub on a television Al had recently installed so his customers could watch the weekend football games.

Chief Constable Dayna Blazey stood at the podium and spoke without breaking eye contact with the assorted journalists, telling them about her force’s role in tracking and cornering Harry Walton. Hugo sat beside Ambassador Cooper, glad for Blazey to take the credit if it meant the heat was turned down on everyone who had rubbed her the wrong way, including Upton and himself.

“Working in close proximity with agents from the American embassy,” she was saying, “and with officers from Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan police, as well as French authorities in Paris, we were able to discover . . .”

Cooper took a long drink from his early-evening beer. “Looks like Walton got his publicity after all.”

“I never doubted it,” Hugo said. His own beer was untouched—he was too intent on what Blazey was saying, hoping that his boss wouldn’t be maligned, that the memories of those killed would be properly recognized. For Hugo, that was the trouble with these operations; the exploits of the captured or dead murderer stole most of the show, and whatever was left got soaked up by those taking credit for the capture or kill. Which left nothing for those who’d suffered the most: the dead, and those who survived them.

The pub door opened and Hugo glanced over, then stood as the familiar face of Clive Upton peered in.

“I meant to tell you,” Cooper said, smiling wickedly, “a couple of friends are on their way.”

Upton, dressed in a tweed jacket and corduroy pants, stepped into the pub and Hugo grinned when he saw who was behind him. Merlyn stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips, shooting him her dirtiest look. Then she smiled and skipped past Upton, ignoring Hugo’s outstretched hand to give him a bear hug. When she finally released him, Merlyn stood on tiptoe and whispered into his ear. “Didn’t bother chasing me up to Edinburgh, huh? I’ll get you for that.”

Hugo smiled and directed her to the chair next to him. “I knew you were safe,” he said. “But I’ll buy you a drink to make up for it.”

“My round,” said a voice behind him. Hugo turned and saw Constable Agarwal in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, but still wearing the erect posture of the policeman on duty. Agarwal shook his hand. “Mr. Marston, how are you, sir?”

“It’s Hugo. And I’m fine, how’re you, Constable Agarwal?”

“You can call me Sandy now, sir.”

“Oh?” Hugo turned to Upton. “Someone get promoted to sergeant?”

Upton shook Hugo’s hand and grinned. “The chief constable couldn’t very well take all the credit for snagging Walton, she had to share a little.”

“Which means you’re now a superintendent?” Hugo asked.

“It means I got a pat on the back and wasn’t fired for letting you steal my car.”

Hugo and Agarwal swapped quick looks, then Agarwal excused himself and headed for the bar.

Hugo took his seat beside Merlyn, who reached into her bag and handed him a book. “I believe this is yours,” she said. “Clive told me you left it at the pub the other day when you were off chasing Walton. And not me.” She flashed her teeth to show she wasn’t really mad, and Hugo took the book. It was
Hidden Horror
, the book he’d bought from the bouquiniste named Max, in Paris.

“Thanks,” Hugo said, tapping the book with his fingertips. “I’d almost forgotten.”

“You don’t get enough of that in the real world?” Upton asked.

Cooper raised his glass. “Amen to that. The man is obsessive. Tell them about your little lady in the alley, off Gable Street.”

Hugo smiled and picked up the book. “I bought this because it may help me with that.”

“You have a new case?” Merlyn chipped in.

“No, an old one,” Hugo said. “Very old. A woman killed in that alley a hundred years ago, right about the time of the Ripper. But,” he held up a finger, “not killed by the Ripper. You know, in the back of my mind I wondered if there was a connection between her death, the Ripper, and a serial killer who stalked my hometown, Austin, at about the same time. Not that I was the first to theorize a connection, of course; other people have written about those deaths and how the killer might be one and the same.”

“The Servant Girl Annihilator, isn’t that what they called him?” asked Upton.

“Yes, you know about that case?” Hugo was surprised. “Anyway, over the years I’ve wondered about that connection and even looked to see if there was any evidence. I never found any, so I looked for other transatlantic possibilities but never came up with any of those, either. But I was always looking for serial killers, cases where there was some kind of overt sexual motive. Then Harry Walton came along and that made me wonder. Motives differ and some killers don’t get classified as serial killers, or didn’t in years gone by, if their motives were more concrete.”

“Like politics?” Upton asked.

“Right.” Hugo paused as Agarwal arrived with a tray of beers, apparently noticing the rapt expressions on the faces of Upton, Cooper, and Merlyn. He laid the tray on a neighboring table, sat down, and quietly passed out the pints. “Revenge, too,” Hugo said. He waved the book. “And then I was flicking through this and read about a mysterious killer known as the Axeman of New Orleans.”