The Hangman's Child Read online

  'My hat will be the death of me ... .'

  He recalled a story of attic thieves. The robbery was over and they were making their way back along the crest of the roof to an empty house which had given them access. In such areas, they were smartly dressed to avoid attracting notice. The wind caught a silk hat. It was found in a roof gully, identified by the hatter's number, and four men went to penal servitude for fourteen years. Perhaps Pandy had heard it too. 'My hat will be the death of me ... .'

  Verity sat astride the crest. There was nothing to prevent a man at this height from working his way along, clambering between the pots of the chimney stacks, from one end of Portman Square to the other. The darkness of a night in October or November would have given complete concealment.

  'Mr Fowler was up there, Mr Verity. Nothing to see!'

  Verity edged forward. There was debris galore on London rooftops, blown there, discarded, left to rot. The north of Portman Square had only long attic gullies on either side, easily kept clear. To the rear, across the mews of Portman Place were flat parapeted roofs fifteen feet lower. A natural trap for airborne litter. The rooftop wind caught in them and eddied, swirling paper, scraps of cloth, the broken form of a child's kite, skeletons of at least two hats, in a city where the loss of headgear on a windy day ran into hundreds of hats and bonnets. These two were not to be recovered.

  They could only be seen by looking down from fifteen feet above, over a gap of twenty feet. Verity came level as close as he could.

  One was a silk hat, not Pandy Quinn's, unless borrowed from Soapy Samuel's wardrobe. In any case, sun and rain had turned the black silk to a lichen-green, a lidless cylinder and a warped brim.

  The other was cheaper but tougher, a tall hat in fur and Saxony wool. Its fabric had weathered weeks of exposure better than silk would ever do, its animal fibres stiffened and waterproofed by a varnish of shellac. As usual, it was the crown that had cracked open. He could see that the interior lining had been repaired, from a small square label pasted inside. But the weather had rinsed and seared the letters or figures. Even the repairer's name had gone.

  Verity straightened up, easing his neck and eyes. He moved back level with Kingdom who was still below him in the gully.

  'Mr Kingdom! Miss Henrietta likes a good tune, I daresay. I'd be no end obliged if you was just to fetch me a pair of opera glasses for a minute.'

  He pondered the summer blue above the chimney-pots until the butler's return. Kingdom moved up the ladder, stretching to hand over the glasses.

  'Shan't be half a minute, Mr K.'

  Lowering himself on the far slope, he slithered into the opposite gully. The hat lay across the mews in the bundled litter of the flat roof below him. He tried the glasses. Even now, the repair label was blank. He made out only three consecutive letters of the maker's name on the lining of the broken crown.

  'L ... L ... E ....' He worked his way back up the slope. A slate cracked under his bulk. Treading back down the ladder, he stepped into Lord Tregarva's gully and brushed himself down with his hands. He returned the opera glasses.

  'Well, Mr Verity?'

  'I'd say you was burgled, Mr Kingdom. Pandy Quinn and Jack Rann. It got their trademark. Still Pandy's dead and Rann's intended to be hung. So I daresay you won't hear from him again.'

  'But why the glasses, Mr Verity?'

  'Hat, Mr Kingdom, on the other roof. Not much to be seen of it’

  'Mr Fowler never said about a hat. Blown there afterwards?' Verity assumed what he hoped was an expression of innocence. 'Afterwards, Mr Kingdom. That's how it must have been.'

  17

  Verity and Samson turned into St Paul's Churchyard, the old low-beamed shops of print-sellers and tailors marked by dark shadow and white sun. Facing the shops, the monumental flank of the cathedral with its green burial lawn closed the view. In dark frock-coats and trousers, tall hats and woollen gloves, the two sergeants marched instinctively in step.

  'Ask yerself, Mr Samson. Suppose you was to buy a hat.'

  'I've bought a hat. Lots of hats.'

  'Suppose the lining or something was to go. What'd you do?' 'Have it mended, of course. Unless it went too bad.' 'Yes,' said Verity reasonably, arms swinging. 'Who'd mend it?' Samson looked puzzled, suspecting a trick. 'Who I bought it off, I suppose. I'd 'spect him to put it right. Seeing as he sold it.'

  Verity's plump face glowed in appreciation. 'Exactly, Mr Samson.'

  'All right,' said Samson cautiously. 'Why Keller?'

  'L-L-E, Mr Samson, 's all I could read. Now, a hatter that has his name put in the crown of the lining like that isn't small fry. There's a livery company of hatmakers in the City of London. I been through the list. James Keller of St Paul's Churchyard. I couldn't read the repair label. But ten-to-one it's him, if he sold it.'

  Samson paused, anxious with self-interest behind the mutton-chop whiskers.

  'Oh, yes,' he said with heavy irony, 'clever story to tell Mr Croaker, I'm sure. That hat could belong to anybody.' 'One way to find out, Mr Samson.'

  They strode past the buildings of Tudor and Queen Anne brick in the rhythm of the soldiers they had once been. Samson spoke without looking aside at his companion.

  'You got any idea, have you, of the precious kick-up and row coming your way if you go and hand this to old Croaker? You mean to tell him how him and the Division got it wrong? How the red judges and jury got it wrong? And all this when that bugger Jack Rann hauls hisself out of Newgate and vanishes?'

  Verity's flushed forehead creased a little in perplexity. He seemed about to reply and then thought better of it. They skirted a purveyor of lemonade and sherbet, wheeling a huge block of ice surrounded by lemons, a man with a basket of lobsters, crying, 'Champions a bob!'

  The great cathedral dome spun above them in a rush of windblown cloud. A shop-bell on its spring rattled faintly as Verity pushed open the door of James Keller, Country and Travelling Hats. The window displayed several hats on polished wooden blocks, accompanied by umbrellas, fur cuffs, gauntlets, and livery capes. The dim interior was like an old-fashioned parlour, except for a counter to one side. A polished oak-table with several long-backed dining-chairs occupied the centre of the space. The mahogany tall-boy was stacked with the unmistakable shapes of brown hat-boxes, open shelves lined with plaster heads decked in silk top hats, velvet hunting hats, servants' livery hats, bridesmaids' hats, and ladies' hats for the promenade or the carriage.

  At the table, adjusting a round wooden band by which the heads of clients were measured, was a small stooping man in a waistcoat. He looked up, found his spectacles, and put them on his nose.

  'Mr Keller?' Verity asked hopefully.

  'Mr Keller ain't exactly here just now.' 'Likely to be back?' 'Not really.' 'Why's that, then?'

  'Gentleman passed away two days since. I'm Mr Manuel.' Samson stared, as if not believing. Verity intervened. 'You got no idea, Mr Manuel, how sorry I am to hear.' 'You come about a hat?'

  'To enquire about a hat, Mr Manuel, bought and repaired here.' The stooping man put down the wooden measuring band. 'You police?'

  'Verity and Samson, Mr Manuel. 'A' Division.' 'And what's the hat?'

  'A beaver, as they say, sir. Bought here and fetched back here, it seems, for repair. Property of the late William Arthur Quinn, also known as Pandy Quinn.'

  The stooping man pulled his jacket on over his waistcoat, as if he now felt cold.

  'What about it?'

  'Might you have repaired it, Mr Manuel?'

  Manuel drew a thumb over the corner of his mouth, perhaps feeling a stray crumb.

  'You know I did, don't you?'

  'How could I know that, Mr Manuel?'

  'Mr Keller told you. Not you, but one of you. The boy was sent to ask me.'

  'But Mr Keller's—'

  'Dead,' said Manuel with a small satisfaction. 'He sent the boy down to the basement, saying police wanted to know. There's just me and the boy. The boy boils the fur and does the varnish. I do the shapin
g and trimming.'

  'Who was the policeman?'

  Mr Manuel attempted a little laugh.

  'How should I know? The boy come and asked. I looked in the

  repair ledger. There's names and numbers. The ledger number matches the ticket in the hat.'

  Verity looked at Mr Manuel with something like affection.

  'And where might the ledger be, Mr Manuel?'

  'Gone,' said the stooping man.

  Affection turned to consternation.

  'You haven't got it?'

  Manuel stopped just short of a smile.

  'If it's gone, how can I have it? We keep ledgers for repairs, to see which numbers match which name. Repair done, we don't need to match it in the ledger. Quarter Day, we finishes the old ledger and starts the new. We keep the previous quarter, just for the overlap of hats coming in and going out mended. See? You got any idea how many repairs go through here? We'd have ledgers to sink an ironclad!'

  'Perhaps,' said Verity coldly, 'you'd have the goodness to show last quarter's ledger.'

  Manuel shrugged and fetched it. It was tall and narrow, bound in leather. It cracked as Verity opened it flat on the table. He ran his finger down the names.

  'He was in the ledger before that,' said Manuel helpfully, 'and the jack that came before you was a bit cleverer. He had the number of the repair. That's how we found the name.'

  'Quinn?'

  'If that's what it was. If that's who was wanted.'

  'And you'd remember all this?' Samson asked sceptically.

  Mr Manuel looked at him, unimpressed.

  'I'd remember one of our customers being asked for by police, wouldn't I? First and last time it's happened.'

  Verity closed the ledger as reverently as a hymn-book.

  'You would remember, Mr Samuel. Of course you would. And we shan't bother you further. Sorry you was troubled twice. And if you was to pass our condolences to Mrs Keller and the family, we'd be no end obliged.'

  Manuel emitted a high squittering laugh.

  'You'd need to be obliged, sir. He lived and died in the arms of ladies that's hired by distance, like hansom cabs. There's no Mrs Keller I ever heard of, only that strapping trollop Noreen that does tidy work in the big shop down Holborn. She's suited again already.'

  Verity turned with dignity to the door. Manuel called him. 'One thing! There ain't a reward in all this, I daresay?' Samson smiled. 'If there is, Mr Manuel, you shall be the first to hear of it.'

  Outside, as the May sunlight fell on the twisted timbers of ancient fronts, Samson turned to Verity.

  "appy now? Got everything you want?'

  Verity made a grimace of intellectual concentration.

  'Mr Samson, suppose you'd gone there and found that repair, what'd you have done?'

  'Clapped the cuffs on Pandy Quinn.'

  'But Flash Fowler never did.'

  'No,' said Samson humorously, 'but then I don't suppose Flash Charley thought a dead body was likely to run off very far.'

  'Mr Samson, you know anything about quarter days, do you? If Flash Fowler saw that entry in the ledger for the quarter before last, he must'a gone there before they changed at Christmas. Pandy Quinn wasn't coopered for another month!'

  'Not much odds,' Samson said with a sulky shrug.

  'It makes odds that, all those weeks, Pandy was never so much as asked a question about Lord Tregarva's roof. Quinn and Rann could have done the house inside out in that time!'

  Samson's scorn deepened.

  'Talk sense! Flash Charley would have passed it on to Mr Croaker and 'A' Division, Portman Square being their manor.'

  Verity's plump scowl relaxed, as if he suddenly saw the solution to a difficulty.

  'Yes,' he said brightly, more pleased than Samson had seen him all afternoon. 'Of course, Mr Samson. That's just how it would have been. Wouldn't it? I should'a seen it from the start. I'd say that just about does it!'

  Henry Croaker wagged Verity's memorandum in his fingers. A gleam in his narrowed porcine eyes might equally have been anger or triumph. From the oak swivel chair at his desk, he looked up at the hatless sergeant paraded before him. Verity stood at attention, chest out, chin up, facing his commander.

  Croaker wagged the paper again. The dry withered tones of the chief inspector's voice were finely adapted to the flights of official irony in which he lashed his subordinates.

  'Be assured, Sergeant,' he said quietly, 'the man that would box clever with me shall drink a bitter broth!'

  A slight frown of incomprehension clouded Verity's features.

  'Yessir,' he said uncertainly.

  'You would make fools of us all? You would make us a laughing stock in every other division?'

  'Not sure what you mean, sir. With respect, sir.'

  He did not need to look directly at the chief inspector. Henry Croaker, frock-coat buttoned up military-style to his leather stock, his face the colour of a fallen leaf, dark whiskers finely trimmed, was an enduring image in his mind.

  'Have no fear, Sergeant, you shall understand full well before I have done with you. Or it will be no fault of mine!'

  In his jubilation, Croaker seemed to sing the words to his victim. Verity waited. Above and behind the chief inspector's head, the panes of the window looked across the river below Westminster Bridge, busy little steamers with crowded decks and trails of smoke from thin stacks, barges with rust-brown sails. Verity took the continuing pause as an invitation to justify himself. 'With respect, sir—'

  'Silence!' sang Croaker. ‘I will have you at attention until you take root in my carpet, if I choose!' He sat back, savouring the moment.

  'Misemployment of police time, while on foot duty in Portman Square. Such misappropriation of time for which a man is paid is tantamount to the misappropriation of the money paid to him for his services. Eh?'

  'Yessir.' Verity again strove to sound humble.

  'Pray, explain your search of the property of Lord Tregarva without a warrant or authority, in His Lordship's absence!'

  Verity felt his face grow warm.

  'Not like that, sir. With respect, sir.'

  'Was it not, Sergeant? Tell me, then, what was it like?'

  'Only went with Mr Kingdom, sir, His Lordship's butler, to check the entrance from the roof as secure against intruders.'

  'And tried the locks on a bureau, cabinets and Carlton House table belonging to Lord Tregarva and Lady Henrietta?'

  Verity stared at him, astonished.

  'Nothing like that, sir. Mr Kingdom happened to do dusting on the way. When he touched a cloth to the brasswork on that table, it come away black. Natural enough, I remarked it was carbon. It being black, I mentioned thieves smoking a lock.'

  'And it did not occur to you, Sergeant, that the black was a simple deposit of soot, no doubt collected there through the slovenliness and dishonesty of servants in failing to clean their master's property?'

  'Not how it looked, sir. With respect, sir.'

  'To me,' said Croaker crisply, 'it looks like slovenliness and dishonesty. It looks so because Lord Tregarva's residence was visited by a detective officer after the suspicion of a theft and no such dust was found.'

  'Yessir,' said Verity, humble again, 'matter o' regret, sir.'

  'And it is also a matter of regret that you then passed yourself off as an investigating officer, upon your rest day, to question without authority an employee of the late James Keller, Esquire, Master-Hatter of St Paul's Churchyard? Are you not aware that, when not upon constabulary duty, your authority to visit and question is no greater than that of any other citizen?'

  'No, sir. With respect, sir.'

  In the late morning a faint digestive moan sounded from Chief Inspector Croaker's martyred entrails.

  'It is a nice point of law, Sergeant, whether your unauthorized visit to Mr Keller's, off duty, may not be charged as impersonation, contrary to the Police Act and triable as felony! I shall submit the decision to Superintendent Gowry.'

  Verity s
tood his ground.

  'Matter of the hat, sir, belonging to the late William Arthur Quinn . . ..'

  He looked at Croaker's face and stopped.

  'A broken hat upon a roof, Sergeant. Blown from God knows where, like a thousand other hats in this city! I know nothing of hats! I will hear nothing of hats! The man Quinn is dead. What can it matter?'

  'Yessir,' said Verity contritely. 'Just so, sir.'

  Croaker paused again, saving the best mouthful until the last.

  'Therefore, pending consideration of disciplinary proceedings, I shall recommend to Mr Gowry forfeiture of three days' money, in respect of improper use of paid hours in Portman Square.'

  'Yessir. Very good, sir.'

  Croaker looked up at him.

  'And now,' he said, 'dismiss! Get out!'

  Verity pulled himself up, stamped about, and strode to the door, arms swinging. He opened the door, went out, and closed it behind him. The sky was blue through the glass above the broad staircase. In his excitement, he quite forgot about the loss of three days' pay.

  That evening, Cabman Stringfellow spat aggressively on a harness brass.

  'Superior numbers, me old sojer. Them brutes lays a snare and you walks right into it. You don't never learn, do yer?'

  Verity stared at him across the littered supper table.

  'Don't I, Mr Stringfellow? When the Rifle Brigade was before Sebastopol, I seen snares laid by just one or two men. And I seen half a regiment cut to pieces in consequence.'

  'Still, this ain't Sebastopol, Verity, and you ain't the Rifle Brigade.'

  'No, Mr Stringfellow. But yesterday I laid a snare for superior numbers, and this morning Mr Croaker marched them slap-bang into the middle of it. Him being nothing but an artillery lieutenant!'

  Stringfellow picked a tooth with his useful nail.

  'How's that, then?'

  ‘I thought a lot before I wrote that memorandum to Mr Croaker. I knew what he'd do the minute he was told what I found at Portman Square and at Mr Keller's. Having finished with Pandy Quinn, he'd go on something dreadful about there being nothing more to it. That's the meanness of his nature.'