The Hangman's Child Read online

  'And what if he did?'

  'Mr Stringfellow, when a man goes on something dreadful, he's apt to let slip words that he never meant to say.' 'Such as?'

  'Remarking that the hat I'd seen on the roof at Portman Square didn't mean nothing about that lock being smoked. Mr Stringfellow, how can that hat have nothing to do with carbon in the lock, if it shows Quinn was up on Lord Tregarva's roof with Jack Rann? What's Mr Croaker think they were there for?'

  'But that's not to say there was murder, is it, Verity?'

  'Consequence enough for Flash Fowler to go asking round the hatmakers.'

  'But it don't prove nothing!' Stringfellow patted the table to add emphasis.

  'It proves, Mr Stringfellow, that Flash Fowler asked Mr Keller. And he must have done it while Pandy was still alive. His repair was only in last year's ledger. So Policeman Fowler saw it before Christmas was out. Pandy never died until a month after.'

  'And Flash Charley never did nor said nothing all that time?'

  Verity shook his head.

  'Mr Croaker thinks the hat's not important. Now, Mr Croaker may be a brute and a tyrant, but the only reason he can think that Pandy Quinn's hat ain't important, is that he never knew of it. He said to me in his very words this morning that he knows nothing about hats and doesn't care about 'em! But he doesn't know because Flash Fowler never told him of Quinn's hat on Lord Tregarva's roof and Quinn being in that house. Fowler never told anyone, excepting Bully Bragg and his friends.'

  Stringfellow shifted on the hard straw seat of his kitchen chair.

  'P'raps Fowler never thought it that important to mention to Mr Croaker.'

  Verity's dark eyes narrowed.

  'At the inquest, Fowler didn't say it wasn't important; he said he didn't know about it! Twice! Never heard of this hat - what in truth he'd been asking about!'

  'How d'you know? Inquests ain't written down. You wasn't there.'

  'But Jack Rann was there, in handcuffs. Baptist Babb saw him repeat Fowler word-for-word, to Orator Hawkins in Newgate.' 'What you saying exactly, sojer?'

  'Mr Stringfellow, Pandy Quinn's dying words were that his hat would be the death of him. As if them that killed him for his secret were talking to him about his hat. That's how they knew he and Rann was on Lord Tregarva's roof.'

  'Policeman Fowler never cut him?'

  'Fowler was the only one to know that hat was on the roof. But

  when Mr Kingdom, the butler, asked if he'd found anything, Fowler said there was nothing up there. And then he went off smart to the hat-shop and found the hat was Pandy Quinn's. At Keller's, they knew they'd repaired the hat but never knew why Fowler asked. And Fowler never told Mr Croaker nor anyone in the Division. "My hat'll be the death of me", Pandy said. And it was, poor devil.'

  'Was it?' Stringfellow asked doubtfully.

  'Mr Stringfellow, Mr Babb saw Rann repeat Pandy's words about his hat. If Bragg and Catskin Nash knew about it when they cut Pandy, the only person who could'a put them on to Pandy and the hat was Flash Fowler.'

  'And if Bragg nor Catskin was never told, then who cut Pandy?' Stringfellow's tongue ran expectantly on his lips.

  ‘If it happened that way,' Verity said simply, 'Fowler used the knife to make Pandy tell a tale. To get the knavery for himself and Bragg. When the knife slipped, there was perjured witnesses enough to get Rann hanged for killing Quinn. Perjured so as not to face the trial themselves! Either way, Flash Fowler thought he was so clever! But I got the brute, Mr Stringfellow! The inquest never knew he'd seen that hat at Portman Square nor gone asking Keller. How should they? And newspapers don't give two lines to the likes of Rann or Quinn. Mr Croaker couldn't know of the hat, without Fowler told him, which he never did.'

  'You going back to Mr Croaker?'

  Verity stared at the stable-door with a plump frown.

  'Mr Stringfellow, there's a man gone to the gallows by now on Fowler's evidence, but for climbing out of Newgate. First off, I mean to see that right, if I can.'

  19

  The plate-glass display windows of Trent's Mourning Fashions were dressed with swags of mauve and curtains of black velvet. Strong sunlight over the roofs of Cornhill was scarcely reflected in the dim theatre of funeral costumes. Samuel, smoothly shaven and clerically dressed, dismissed the attention of a shop-walker with a tired wave of his hand. At every enquiry, the pretext of Miss Jolly as a daughter on a fruitless search for a becoming funeral costume was easily acted out by Samuel as a grieving husband, Rann the sympathetic son-in-law.

  They took cover beyond a velvet board whose mourning jewellery showed how a curl from the head of the deceased might be encased in a black and silver brooch, bracelet or locket, even in a gold ear-ring, stud or cuff-link. Rann looked about to ensure that there was no one within earshot. He stood with Samuel by the display windows that looked across to the Cornhill Vaults.

  'Mr Trent got a private office over there - and rooms for a love-nest. Two floors above the vaults. There's mornings Mag can't hardly walk down all them stairs.'

  He looked about him again.

  'That's our way in.' He shrugged at the simplicity of it. 'Trent can't hardly wait with Miss Mag. He'll only hurt himself, though, going at it like that.'

  Samuel wanted to laugh but recalled that this was a temple of

  grief. He extinguished a smile in his grey cambric handkerchief and blew his nose.

  At this time of the evening, Cornhill was growing quiet. The banks and the vaults had closed, only the drapers and a few of the jewellers' shops were still open. It was Samuel's first view of the vaults in Rann's company. The building was a solid commercial block at the Leadenhall end of Cornhill, finished in white stucco. To its left was the arch of Sun Court and a glimpse of Tudor brickwork. The Cornhill Vaults occupied most of the ground floor in the main block. The floor above it and the ground floor to one side contained a tailor's workshop. These and the uppermost rooms were leased by Mr Trent.

  Leaving Miss Jolly in the fitting-room of the drapers, Rann and Samuel crossed between hansoms and twopenny buses. The windows of the strong-room that opened on Cornhill were protected by shutters of inch-thick steel, lowered when the firm closed for the day's business. But the shutter on Cornhill was pierced by two pairs of eye-holes. Day and night, the gas burnt inside. Far from hiding Milner's steel door to the vault, it was displayed to the world. Each policeman on the beat had orders to check at twenty-minute intervals that all was well. The eye-holes showed the interior of the strong-room with a large mirror on the rear wall.

  The glass framed a reflection of a flat steel door with a double keyhole and a wheel for retracting the bolts of the lock. The door was set in iron-plate running the length of the room. The main walls were also lined by iron-plate whose studs were plainly seen, regular as embroidery. Sheet-iron formed the floor.

  The pavement was empty now. Rann directed his comments quietly to Samuel.

  'Iron lining on the wall and steel door on the vault. Double Treasury lock. Other walls lined with plate-iron after Acutt's warehouse was burgled by breaking in from the next store. Iron plate on the floor. Can't say about the ceiling. P'raps they can't iron it because of the weight. So they put in the mirror. Anyone that dropped down is caught in the glass. You might run fast if you could get back through the walls or the floor, but you couldn't run off up through the ceiling. That's what Milner's must have told them.'

  'You never mean to spider down through the ceiling?'

  'No, Sammy. Even if it ain't iron-plated - and I'd swear it ain't -there'd be such damage. When I've done this job, it must look as if it never happened. At least for as long as it takes to cash the bills. Couple of weeks, any rate.'

  'You can't bust through iron plate.'

  'I never said I could, Sammy. I know I can't.'

  'Nor you can't bust up through an iron floor.'

  'I know that likewise, Sam.'

  'And you can't come down through the ceiling because, even if it ain't iron-plated, they'd see
the damage.' 'I know that too, Sam.' 'Drains? Chimneys?'

  'They'd have stops on the drains, Sammy. And flues in these places have iron plates that only open from inside. I been a sweep's boy, ain't I? I should know.'

  'Suffering God, Jack Rann,' said Samuel mournfully, 'even if you hadn't got to carry that little wriggler Jolly, this isn't a runner. Not even much of a starter!'

  'Oh, don't you worry about that, old Samuel Wilberforce. I'll do it all right. I got no option now. And them thinking it can't be done is no end useful. Look there! See how they put that steel vault-door and its locks on display. Look at the lock plate. A fool can read it from here. Milner's Double Treasury.'

  'How's that help you?'

  'Because, Samuel, if there's an article in this world Pandy knew a thing or two about, it's a Milner Double Treasury. Thanks to Pandy, I know what its inside looks like. Five levers must be lifted. But the key don't move a bolt, as you'd expect. Instead, it connects with a set of cog-wheels, which lift a steel arm and take pressure off the main bolt. You have to do it twice. Two keyholes. Different keys. Even then, the bolt don't move until you turn that wheel on the door beside the keyholes. It's connected to five other bolts that all draw back together, top to bottom of the door. No one can't jemmy a door with six bolts. See? It's a clever lock, is a Double Treasury.'

  ‘Is it?' asked Sammy hopefully.

  'Too clever,' Rann said quietly. 'So as to stop a man making a key to fit, they use keys that can be altered every day by changing the metal steps on the key's shank.'

  'But how's that help you?'

  'Sammy! Using a key-shank! Fitting steps to it until they'll lift the levers and open a lock! Ain't that my trade, Sam? Ain't it the very thing I was brought into the world to do?'

  For the first time, Samuel's sleek aquiline face began to reflect optimism.

  'Sammy! It's as if they tried to think of a lock to please Pandy Quinn and Jack Rann. And they went and made it - just for us. Now do you see, Sam? That's why Pandy chose the Cornhill Vaults. That's why it got to be here and nowhere else!'

  Samuel looked at his shoes and began to laugh downwards, so that the world should not see him chuckling in his black mourning suit. He shook his head and crowed a little with happy admiration.

  'Handsome Rann!' he murmured happily. 'Oh, Pandy Quinn and Handsome Rann!'

  Several days later, Canon Wilberforce spent an agreeable half-hour in conversation with Colonel Maidment, manager of Drummonds Bank in Pall Mall East. Accustomed only to the quietude of the cathedral close at St Asaph, the elderly clergyman's London visit concerned the financing of a joint stock company, which the canon's brother was promoting.

  By the end of the discussion, it had been arranged that Canon Wilberforce's secretary would bring a number of bills to be discounted, as soon as the canon had time to return to the close and bring the paper back to London. Bank of England bonds would be issued in their place, in the canon's name.

  Colonel Maidment hinted only the least doubt at the wisdom of the investment and the unique legal obligations assumed by investors in joint stock enterprises. That, however, was a matter for Canon Wilberforce. The manager contented himself with suggesting that advice might be sought from the family solicitor. The bank would, of course, charge its usual commission for the proposed transaction. Indeed, Canon Wilberforce, with the unworldly honesty of his cloth, mentioned this consideration himself before the manager could raise the matter.

  On the following day, the London and Westminster Bank in The Strand welcomed the auxiliary Bishop of Wellington during his furlough. He was shortly to return to New Zealand for the marriage of his daughter to the son of the provincial governor. The matter of exchanging individual bills for more generally negotiable bonds, to facilitate the marriage settlement, was almost lost in the manager's frank admiration of the animal attractions of the fair-haired young woman who accompanied her father. The manager might, indeed, have overlooked the question of the bank's fee, had not the moral rigour of the bishop raised it first.

  On the following day, a scattering of banks in the city and the suburbs arranged facilities by which a frail old guardian would encash bills to be replaced by Bank of England bonds. It was a matter of wardship. Those who saw the almond-eyed and golden-skinned young ward, could not help wishing that they might have had such a loving duty to discharge. They accepted the old man's instructions in a daydream of being part loving guardian and part guardian lover to such a provoking little creature.

  FOUR

  THE CLIMBING-BOY

  20

  Samuel watched from the bow-fronted little shops of the station arcade as Arthur Trent walked the length of the platform at London Bridge with the young woman on his arm. Trent's grey suiting was clean cut, his dark Mephistophelean whiskers freshly trimmed. The lines of carriages making up the evening departures were overarched by a vault of sooty glass. Italianate pillars of yellow brick at either side of the tracks enclosed the station offices like the side chapels of a vast cathedral. Maggie walked beside her admirer, blonde chignon stirring sensuously in a black silk bow. With quiet pride, Mr Trent led his prize to a dragon-green first-class carriage at the front of the train. The railway guard tolled a handbell, his five-minute warning of the train's departure.

  To an onlooker, it might seem that Samuel was relishing the self-confident swagger of Maggie Fashion's sturdy hips. But at a little distance from the carriage both her pale-grey gloves fell to the platform, a few feet apart, apparently unnoticed. A porter picked them up and hurried after Mr Trent, to be rewarded by a coin and a dark smile. Samuel turned away.

  He looked round once at the train. The doors of its green carriage were shut. A whistle split the air and the double-humped engine emitted a snort of steam and a tolling bell-note. Beyond the station canopy, low sunlight picked out the rusty sails of East India merchantmen on the river below and threw long shadows over the engine-sheds of the Greenwich Railway Company, across the dust heaps and market gardens of Bermondsey.

  Twenty minutes later, Samuel's cab was in the slow-moving traffic behind Nicholson's Wharf. Miss Jolly sat in the far corner, in a costume suited to breaking and entering. The dark hair was piled under a fur shako. She wore a short blue tunic and cherry-coloured riding-pants, tight enough to suggest the uniform of a stage drummer-boy at a Cremorne Gardens masquerade.

  At the Marquis of Granby, Jack Rann was there before them, in a high-walled booth of the saloon-bar. The Granby stood where the streets of banking houses and the coster markets converged. Porters sat at tables in a sawdust tap-room, their beer in pewter tankards, waiting for a night-call from sailing barques that came up to Tower Quay.

  Samuel pushed open the mullion-windowed door, staring through tobacco-fogged air. His clerical dress was covered by the old coat and long muffler of an ancient dock-office clerk. One or two drinkers glanced at Miss Jolly, in her ambiguous costume of cherry pants and drummer-jacket, the profile of a golden Nefertiti, a stray tendril of dark hair uncovered by the shako at her nape. But the old men returned to their conversation. Whether she was dressed for a caper or a fancy lech was nothing to them.

  Rann spoke softly as they slid into the booth on the far side of its narrow table.

  'Foreman from the tailor's last to leave. Twenty minutes ago. Building's empty.'

  'Trent's gone till Monday.' A smile tweaked Samuel's smooth face. 'Mag dropped both gloves. So she managed to leave the attic window unfastened as well.'

  'Good. Then we got all we need.'

  Samuel looked at him without expression.

  'We agreed, Jack: what I didn't know, I couldn't tell. No matter how bad they hurt us. That's over. I want to know the rest.' Rann shrugged and looked at the other drinkers.

  ‘I’ll get to the roof and through his attic, Sam. Trent got two keys on his fob. One opens his rooms and one opens the cutting-room on the floor below. Both open the street door. Mag pleasured him so hard but never could get her hands on those keys to press 'em in wax. Then,
he leaves the cutting-room key by accident in the mourning warehouse opposite. She sees him go to a safe in his rooms and take a spare set. See?'

  'You mean to bust his safe as well,' Samuel said uneasily.

  ‘I mean to have his keys, not waste time on a skeleton. I'll come down the stairs and open his door in Sun Court. It's dark and no one to see. You'll have missy here and the bag of tricks. When you hear me, walk smart under the arch and in.'

  A waiter in white apron over a black waistcoat took their orders. Rann paused and resumed.

  'Trent's private stairs go up past his cutting-room to his door at the top of the building. Walker's Vaults got a separate door on Sun Court. Brigade of Guards wouldn't break through that. Down through Trent's cutting-room it's to be.'

  He paused again as the waiter set down glasses and jug.

  'On Monday, Sam, there mustn't be a whisker out of place in the vaults. Supervisors look the place over first thing. If this blows up while we're still changing the bills, we're done for.'

  'You still taking young missy in with you, Jack?'

  'Only way, Sam. You wait in Trent's rooms. Watch the street. Policeman on his beat every twenty minutes. You'll have a bell, like a school bell. If you see anyone, ring it hard in the fireplace. It'll sound through the building that way but not outside. When it's clear again, ring single notes.'

  'And if there's trouble? Like someone coming for Trent?'

  Rann's heart sank at the worry in the smoothly barbered face. He smiled.

  'Any of that, Sam - take what you got and hook it. Down the stairs. Out the street door. It's a Yale lock, lets you out but not in. If you can, ring the doorbell on the vaults hard as you go by. But it won't come to that. Not now.'