The Hangman's Child Read online

  He led his prisoner down the area steps. At the bottom, Mrs Baker turned with hands under her apron as though she might weep into it on Infant's behalf.

  'But the poor, poor soul! He looks hurt so awful, Mr Verity!'

  'Yes, he do, don't he? You got the scullery pump handy a minute, Mrs B?'

  She led the way to the scullery with its iron-handled pump on a long suction-shaft and a stone water-trough under the spout.

  'Right, Infant,' said Verity, 'get them arms under that spout. Sharp's the word, an' quick's the motion!'

  There was a clang of the iron handle, the suction of a piston, and a gush of water over Infant's reluctantly extended arms.

  'Why,' said Mrs Baker softly, 'it's washing off!'

  "Course it is.' Verity directed Infant's right leg under the spout with his boot. 'Soap and vinegar. Soap the arm, spot the vinegar on top, leave it a minute and the lather comes up like running sores. Infant never done an honest day's work in the 'ole of his miserable life. Brave Jack Tar scalded when a boiler burst! Nearest he's ever been to sea is the tap-room of Paddy's Goose down Limehouse docks.'

  'Why's he Infant at his age?' she asked cautiously. 'Hasn't he got a proper name?'

  'If he has, he never said. Foundling orphan, sent down Mrs Rouncewell's, Elephant and Castle, among them fallen creatures and their out-of-wedlocks. Whenever anyone called him, him having no name that he knew, he was naturally called Infant. He been Infant ever since.'

  He let the pump-handle drop and turned to the offender.

  'Right, my son. The only reason you ain't down Bridewell already waiting for the birch to soak is you might be of use.'

  ‘I ain't useful,' sobbed the fat young man defensively.

  'Shut that noise!' Verity glowered at him. 'I'll decide what you'll be.' He led Infant back to the kitchen among stoves and hot closets, scrubbed pine tables and rows of copper pans. The housekeeper set an extra chair for the young man. Then she went to the oak corner-cupboard, returning with a dark bottle of wine cordial, three glasses, a jug of hot water and sugar lumps in a blue china bowl.

  Verity looked at the wine cordial and the sugar.

  'It's a consideration he don't deserve, Mrs B.'

  He took a first sip of sugared wine-and-water, savouring it.

  'Right, Infant. You got one chance: I find you're playing me up, and it's justices' sessions for you. Charges of impersonation, obstruction, threatening behaviour to ladies. That's six months of eating slum-gullion down the House of Correction. And the birch for threatening. See if you ain't got something to sing about then!'

  Infant looked at him helplessly, like a fat child.

  'I never threatened! Never!'

  'I was there, my son. At this moment I got a distinct recollection of threatening. If I was to lose that, it'd only be from the shock of you telling the truth. See?'

  The prisoner mumbled an ungracious surrender.

  'Right, then. I get the truth or you'll have more grief than a month o' funerals.'

  Infant sipped hungrily at his sugared cordial.

  'What you want, Mr Verity?'

  Verity looked at him, the round moustached face flushed with resolve.

  ‘I’ll tell you what, you idle monkey. You spent your life being unfortunate at street corners and poking down drains for coins. You ever been down Clerkenwell?'

  'Sometimes,' said the young man cautiously.

  'Oh dear, oh dear, Infant! You got a taste for slum-gullion and birch, ain't yer? 'Course you been down there! You been twice before the Clerkenwell bench, prosecuted by the society that suppresses mendacity. Don't play me up!'

  'I said, didn't I?' Infant wailed. 'I been there sometimes.'

  'Right. You ever find anything by poking about? With your head down a drain?'

  'Sometimes.'

  'Don't go on saying sometimes! Have you or haven't you?' 'Yes.'

  'That's better,' said Verity encouragingly. 'Now. You ever found anything down the drains off Saffron Hill? Had the gratings off when no one was about?'

  ‘In a manner o' speaking.'

  'So you got a fair idea how those drains lie? Which way they run? You'd know where's the best place to look for coins that fell down them from the street?'

  "Course!' Infant's pride was hurt by the suggestion that he might not know something so simple.

  'And when you was lucky, you might toast your luck in a taproom like the Golden Anchor up the hill in Hatton Wall?'

  'More 'n likely.'

  'Just suppose,' Verity suggested gently, 'you was unfortunate enough to drop a coin - or a silver spoon - down the grating by the Golden Anchor tap-room. You know where I mean?'

  ‘I suppose I might,' Infant said, his eyes evasive.

  'How long before it might fetch up at the grating down the slope in Saffron Hill?'

  Infant stared with a half-smile, suspecting a trick, yet relieved that the question was no worse.

  'It wouldn't,' he said at last. Verity felt his heart quicken for the first time since his humiliation by Lambeth Sue.

  'How d'you know it wouldn't? It's downhill, ain't it?'

  ‘I live off drains, when there's nothing better,' Infant said hopefully, 'so I pay attention to 'em, don't I? You got no cause to. Nor people that lives like toffs. But not a week go by I don't find something, if only a linen snotter what fell down a grating when someone did his nose. But I don't fish where I won't catch. Nothing comes to Saffron Hill from the Golden Anchor. It can't.'

  Verity's dark eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  'Why can't it? It's down the hill, ain't it? It's where anything'd be washed down in time from above?'

  'That's what you'd think,' said Infant contemptuously. 'What anyone'd think that don't live by finding. But nothing comes down to Saffron Hill from Hatton Wall. It goes the other way, through to Hatton Garden - not down Saffron Hill. Golden Anchor and Saffron Hill are separate drains. They both run separate into a main drain that connects with Farringdon Road. They don't run into each other.'

  Verity clenched his fists under the table.

  'So if you was unfortunate to drop a silver spoon down the grating outside the Golden Anchor, it'd never fetch up at Saffron Hill? It'd go into Hatton Garden?'

  'Supposing it went anywhere.' There was hope on Infant's face for the first time in their encounter. 'When they laid the drain for Hatton Wall, there wasn't one down Saffron Hill. Consequential, it went level into Hatton Garden.'

  Verity stared at the blubbery young man, as if seeing something far beyond him.

  'You know what, Infant? You are neat as a new tin soldier.'

  They finished their sugared cordial. At the top of the area steps, Infant turned pathetically.

  'What's going to happen to me, Mr Verity, sir?'

  'My advice to you, my son, is hook it! Hop the wag! Off my beat! I catch you being unfortunate round here again, my recollection will come back like greased lightning. See?'

  Infant gave a slight self-conscious grin. As Verity stamped his feet astride, taking up sentry-go with a soldier's timing, The Scaldrum Dodge sidled away down the pavement. On the verge of earshot, he permitted himself a small triumph.

  'Fucking jack!' he called back contemptuously.

  That evening, Verity, in shirt-sleeves, folded his plump arms on the kitchen table. Stringfellow whittled at a twig to test a newly sharpened blade.

  'You ain't going to let it rest?' he said apprehensively, at the end of his son-in-law's account.

  'No, Mr Stringfellow. Not when there's a villain like Flash Fowler making up evidence to see an innocent man hanged.'

  'A dodger like Infant could be telling you tales.'

  'No, Mr Stringfellow. I been to Clerkenwell tonight. When the sluices was open and drains running. I took slips of pink paper and dropped 'em in by the Golden Anchor. Must a-bin bloody simple-minded not to do it before. You know what?'

  'No,' said the old cabman patiently. 'How should I?'

  ‘I walked smart to Hatton Garden, an
d saw them pink slips go under the grating there. I tried some more and walked smart to Saffron Hill. Not one. Infant was right: Golden Anchor can't run into Saffron Hill, though it's down a slope.'

  'Flash Charley ain't stupid enough to put a knife where it couldn't be.'

  Verity sighed.

  'You think he'd know? Like you or me, he saw two gratings on a hill and thought the drain must run down from one to the other, which it don't. As it happens.'

  'You can't be sure he don't know.'

  Verity looked at the old man, the dark eyes glittering.

  'Mr Stringfellow, you lived twenty years in Sovereign Street. Flash Fowler been down 'H' Division eighteen months and Saffron Hill ain't even on his patch. You tell me which way the drains runs under Sovereign Street, 'cos I don't know.'

  Stringfellow stared at him in silence. Presently he said, 'It ain't proof he didn't know. Not proof as such.'

  'All right,' said Verity reasonably. 'Tell me where drains go anywhere on your routes this last twenty years. Not Paddington Green, then. Try Ludgate Hill, Blackfriars, Whitehall, Waterloo Road - where do any of them go?'

  'Who cares? Down to the river, I should think.'

  'You may think so, Mr Stringfellow! But you don't know, do you? No more does Flash Fowler, by the look of it. You don't know which grating is a main drain or a side drain. Do yer? Not after twenty years? That's how he made his mistake.'

  'Could be any knife he found. Don't mean it was put there.'

  'It's the stiletto Fowler swears killed Quinn. Not any knife. How many Italian knives get found down drains like that?'

  'Could be Bragg or Catskin Nash put it there for him to find.’

  ‘And him innocent.' Stringfellow hoisted himself to his feet.

  'No, Mr Stringfellow. He does them favours, not the other way round. And I asked Mr Samson. That poor dab Sloppy Dick had the knife pointed out to him down the drain by someone who told him to go to 'H' Division for a reward. Saffron Hill ain't in 'H' Division. But Flash Fowler had his hat on ready. So Sloppy Dick's a witness who found the knife and watched the grating took up. And Mr Fowler says he only went into another Division, being called urgent, seeing the knife might be washed away. Huh!'

  'What's Dick's reward?'

  Verity's mouth tightened.

  'Sloppy Dick been hired every day down the yard. Took on by a calling-clerk that owes his place to Bully Bragg.'

  Stringfellow paused with one hand on the stable-latch.

  'Don't prove nothing, though, do it? Could all be just as they say. If it was you been called, you'd have gone. And you wouldn't have waited, in case that knife was washed away.'

  Oil-light gleamed on Verity's black hair and moustaches.

  'If there's proof, Mr Stringfellow, I'll find it. I got two more duties outside Lord Tregarva's before rest day. I mean to see inside. See if that don't tell a tale!'

  16

  In Lord Tregarva's kitchen, Verity drained his mid-morning wine cordial.

  'Seems funny, Mrs B, Mr Fowler called all this way, him being 'H Division.'

  A look of concern clouded the housekeeper's face. She turned to the butler's pantry as its occupant came to the doorway. Kingdom's springy hair, long face and high collar gave him a naturally startled look.

  'On account of the calling-card, Mr Verity. The fellow we took for a reverend gentlemen left it. Miss Henrietta received the gent, she being one for good causes. Much taken with the house, the reverend was. Most knowledgeable about the ornaments. He never wanted money, only a patron for his mission in the docks. Lord Tregarva, being down Shadwell on business, thought to call on the mission. What it come to, Mr Verity, the address on the card was a public house!'

  'His lordship went to the police office down Shadwell, not Scotland Yard?'

  'If there was trickery, Shadwell was the heart. So Mr Fowler came enquiring. He found a dozen houses where this reverend person called. A joke, perhaps. No money asked. We never heard more.'

  Verity stared into his empty glass.

  'The fact nothing was taken, Mr Kingdom, don't mean you was

  never burgled after. His Lordship must have a lot that's under lock and key.'

  'And must remain so, Mr Verity,' said Kingdom firmly. Verity beamed at him.

  'All I'd like, is you to do a little dusting, Mr Kingdom. I know dusting ain't a job for a superior servant 'Dusting what?'

  'Locks, Mr Kingdom, where items of value or confidence might be. Nothing you need to blush at, if you was to tell His Lordship. What gets dusted anyway.'

  'But Mr Fowler been here.'

  'Great respects to him, Mr Kingdom, but haven't you thought that some mischief could have happened here since Mr Fowler's visit?'

  'Just dusting?' Kingdom asked cautiously.

  'Nothing more, Mr Kingdom. And only upper floors, at that.'

  The butler sat down opposite Verity at the pine table, the pale enamel of the hot-closets gleaming beyond his shoulder.

  ‘If Lord Tregarva's been burgled, Mr Kingdom, I'd lay my pension on how it was done. Even if nothing was took, why does a thief take nothing? Because he means to come back!'

  'I can't tell Lord Tregarva that, sir! Where's the evidence?'

  Verity polished his hat-brim on his sleeve.

  'Dust them locks and we'll see evidence, Mr Kingdom. If I'm wrong, you'll prove it in five minutes. Dust them locks!'

  Kingdom and Verity, with Mrs Baker in attendance, went up the broad stairway. To one side of the main gallery was an elegantly furnished sitting-room with curved chairs and sofas. Against the far wall stood a French walnut bureau. While Verity watched, Kingdom stooped and gently dusted the brass furniture of the lock. He turned and showed the dusting-cloth.

  'Nothing,' he said with relief. 'How should there be?'

  Verity took his notebook and tore a thin spill from the edge of a page.

  'Just try this in the lock, Mr Kingdom.' Kingdom inserted the paper and twisted it. He drew it out. 'That ain't been smoked,' Verity said thoughtfully. The next bureau was Miss Henrietta's, in a light and airy writing-room.

  'Nor that,' Verity said as Kingdom handed back another spill.

  A masculine dressing-room on the floor above was furnished with a small table of leather stud-boxes and ebony-backed brushes, the curve of a Carlton House desk under the window. Despite the summer warmth, a fire was laid to air the room.

  ‘It's as far as I go, Mr Verity,' Kingdom said, 'without Lord Tregarva and your superintendent. There's a safe and money-box that I wouldn't show nor touch.'

  Verity crossed to the Carlton House desk. He tore another spill. The long drawer was locked, its keyhole at one side, a more sophisticated mechanism. He slipped the spill into the keyhole and turned the paper slowly, testing the interior of the lock. He drew the paper out and looked at it. His plump face creased in a frown.

  'I'd say you was burgled, Mr Kingdom. Not long ago. This got carbon all over. Smell it! Someone smoked that lock. They've had the drawer open, I'll swear. A lock like this wouldn't stop them.'

  'Smoked?' Mrs Baker looked at the sergeant uncertainly.

  'Smoked the lock, Mrs B. They hold a steel probe in a flame till it's black with carbon. They ease it in, and turn it. Sounds easy but takes practice. They turn the probe so it passes the wards of the lock. They turn it, pull it out and the marks in the carbon shows where the levers are. Then they work two picks in a lock of that kind. Or screw metal steps on a key-shank to meet the levers, raise 'em, and free the bolt. They close it the same way. There's cracksmen could have this desk open in less time than it took me to tell you how it's done.'

  'Nothing was missed, however,' Kingdom insisted. 'No papers.'

  Verity looked at him,

  'Mr Kingdom, I know them. A man they called Pandy Quinn that's bebn dead a few months. Worked with Jack Rann and Soapy Samuel. But Rann would never leave carbon behind to tell a tale. Pandy Quinn wasn't as clean, but he'd have a lock like this open. And he could climb.' 'Climb?'


  'Oh, yes, Mr Kingdom. You was probably burgled through the roof. While His Lordship was at dinner and you and the others was busy downstairs.'

  Kingdom sat down on a narrow Egyptian settee, opposite the dressing- mirror.

  'What am I to tell Lord Tregarva?'

  'The full story, Mr Kingdom. There'd be a way to the roof, I suppose?

  'Mr Fowler went out on there,' Kingdom said, leading the way up the attic stairs.

  'Find anything, did he?' 'He said not.'

  The window of a lumber room opened with a little difficulty. Verity eased himself out and stood in a narrow gully. Beyond the parapet stretched London rooftops and chimney-pots from Marylebone to the river. The towers of Westminster stood tall across distant billows of green in the royal parks.

  Where Lord Tregarva's property ended, the gully was blocked by a low wall and a circle of sharpened metal spokes, rising six feet and curving out over the drop to the pavement below. Neither Jack Rann nor Pandy Quinn would attempt it, not out of respect for spiked metal, but rather for fear that the rusting device might crumble under a man's weight and throw him forty feet to the pavement.

  'Closed off between each house,' Kingdom said firmly, 'just because ol burglars.'

  'What ain't closed off, Mr Kingdom, is up there. The ridge of the roof. They come along there easy as crossing a street. You got a roof-ladder?'

  Kingdom handed out a short ladder, used to distribute the weight of a man and protect the slates. The incline was long but shallow, the climb to the ridge easy. "Watch them slates, Mr Verity!'

  "s all right, Mr Kingdom. This is the way they come.'

  He climbed the wooden rungs until his fingers touched the rougher ridge tiles. He pulled himself slowly above the roof-line. The fresh spring breeze at this height smacked into his face. He let go with one hand to snatch at his hat, which he had unwisely kept on to have both hands free. But he was too late. In dismay, Verity watched it lift and sail down over Portman Square towards old Tyburn Road.