Steps to the Gallows by Edward Marston

carefully. ‘I know you, I think. You work at the shooting gallery.’
    ‘That’s correct. Mr Ackford spoke to you last night, I’m told.’
    ‘He did, sir, and he was kind enough to buy my ale.’
    ‘You’ll have money to buy even more if you help me,’ said Paul, securing his attention instantly. ‘You described two men who were standing outside our gallery yesterday.’
    ‘I never forget a face,’ boasted the other.
    ‘Then let me show you a few sketches. When I do so, mark you, I want an honest answer. If you try to fob me off with a lie in order to get your reward, I’ll knock the daylights out of you and throw you in the river. One of the men you saw was involved in a vicious assault and a foul murder.’ He squeezed the man’s shoulder hard enough to make him wince. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’
    Quint yelped. ‘Yes, sir, I do.’
    ‘Then say nothing until you’re absolutely sure.’
    Paul opened the record book and flipped through the pages, stopping at one with three of Charlotte’s drawings on it. After staring at each one, Quint shook his head. Paul turned over the page and got the same result. He went patiently through some other examples of his sister-in-law’s art until he came to one showing a man with a misshapen nose in the middle of a flat face fringed with a ragged beard.
    Quint stared at it for a long time then shook his head. As Paul was about to turn the page, the fishmonger stopped him and took a second protracted look at the latest sketch. Paul could sense him hovering.
    ‘Don’t give me a wild guess,’ he warned. ‘I want certainty. Is that the man you saw lurking at the market yesterday?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Quint after a pause. ‘It’s those eyes of his that give him away. They’re too far apart. There’s room for a third between that pair. He was definitely one of the men I saw yesterday.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    Paul was elated. After pressing a few coins into the fishmonger’s hand, he walked back to the gallery with a spring in his step. They’d made progress.
    They had a name.

CHAPTER SIX
    Peter Skillen studied the five names on the list and wondered if the person they were after was not among them at all. The list was the fruit of the collective trawl that he, his wife and his brother had made through copies of Paige’s Chronicle . It had been a lengthy process because they kept breaking off to read out to each other passages that had made them laugh uncontrollably. The five people they’d isolated were those most regularly under attack in the newspaper and therefore the people most likely to want retribution. Peter had been the final arbiter since his knowledge of the political scene was comprehensive. He and Charlotte went through the list once more.
    ‘Sir Humphrey Coote must be the leading contender,’ he decided. ‘He was reviled in the Chronicle and in the Parliament of Foibles .’
    ‘Can he really be the rake that he’s portrayed?’
    ‘It’s common knowledge.’
    ‘Is there no Lady Coote to keep him under control?’
    ‘It’s difficult to subdue a goatish husband when you live in the depths of the Yorkshire countryside, my love, and Lady Coote rarely comes to London.’
    ‘His behaviour is outlandish.’
    ‘Sir Humphrey is a master of indiscretion, Charlotte. While most men try to hide their peccadilloes, he glories in them.’
    ‘Yet he takes offence when they’re voiced abroad in a newspaper.’
    ‘I suspect that the depiction of him hurt the most. He’s rather vain about his appearance but his physical shortcomings were exposed brilliantly by Virgo.’
    Charlotte was puzzled. ‘Who is the man, Peter?’
    ‘Perhaps you are asking the wrong question, my love.’
    ‘Oh? Please explain.’
    ‘What if the artist is a woman ?’
    ‘That’s impossible.’
    ‘I don’t think so. There are female artists. I married one, did I not?’
    ‘I could never draw anything as lewd as that,’ she said. ‘I lack both the skill and the