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
They 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 …”