The Hangman's Child Read online

  A clock chimed three. He drew his finger round the bevelled edge of the glass. The tortoiseshell frame overlapped it by quarter of an inch, holding it in place. With his thumb-nail, he tested this edging, trying to splinter it and work the mirror-glass free. There was a snick as it yielded a fraction and then snapped back into place. He listened but guessed that Hardwicke had heard nothing.

  He tried it again, drawing blood under his thumb-nail. He prised it a fraction. The lining cracked and yielded a splinter of thin shell. After that, it lifted more easily from the edge of the glass. With the side of his thumb, he snapped off an inch of narrow edging. By the time the clocks struck four, the smooth bevelled glass was fixed only by the glue holding it to the wooden base of the mirror.

  As he had hoped, the glue was dry and brittle. Cautiously, trying not to break the wooden backing, he took it in both hands. Then he lay and waited for an early market-cart in the street below. While the iron-rimmed wheels rattled on cobbles, he forced the glass away from the frame with a muffled crack of wood.

  Anxiously he slid his hands over the mirror-back. But the tortoiseshell was smooth and undamaged. Face-down, the mirror would look intact. He waited on the mattress as the summer dawn grew stronger beyond the barred window.

  Hardwicke and Atwell came in with bread and coffee. As he heard the door open, Rann got up and let them see him crossing to the little table, its surface hidden from them by his back. They would hardly expect him to work the trick while they were coming in. Hardwicke, burly in his red waistcoat, took him by the arm.

  'Get back over there, you lying little toad!'

  ‘I gotta brush my hair,' Rann said, with the woman's hairbrush in his hand. 'I gotta right to that as well.'

  Hardwicke spat into the coffee before handing it to him.

  'You gotta right to cry like a baby at the things I'll be doing to you, Jack Rann. That's all you got left now.'

  Atwell, thin, bald, and humorous, snatched the brush from him.

  'Gob in his drink again, Mr Hardwicke, less he should scald hisself!'

  But neither of them bothered to pick up the empty tortoiseshell frame of the mirror. It crossed Rann's mind that perhaps a man of Hardwicke's stupidity had no more idea of being photographed as he ravished or punished Joanne than any other dupe set up for blackmail at the introducing-house.

  ‘I ain't a liar,' he said quietly, ‘I seen them photographs. You got up in costume with a belt and whip and her tied up. I wasn't there when you did it to her but I can give you all the details. How d'you think I'd know if I hadn't seen pictures? There's a thing like an old pillar and her tied to face it. And now she's dead. S'pose the inquest finds some marks still there on her backside from what you done to her and puts it together? Your game won't be all brandy then, will it?'

  Hardwicke snarled at him, 'Get over your side of the room, you evil little monkey!'

  But, as with Bragg, a light went dead behind his eyes.

  Left to himself, there was nothing but the movements outside the door and the muffled clatter of wheels in the street. Rann walked over to the window, as if placing himself in full view from the keyhole and the crack. To those who observed him, he stood at the bars, the window several inches beyond them, his hands folded across his stomach, gazing wistfully down into Drury Lane, his back to the door.

  Between his fingers rested the circle of mirror-glass. Above the street, at the level of attic windows, eastern sun promised a hot June morning. Far below, the first lawyers and traders, stifling in black coats and hats, were walking from the trains and steamers towards the Inns of Court and Holborn. A gravely bearded clerk was about to cross from the far side of the street. Rann carefully caught the sun in the mirror-glass and angled it down. A circle of bright light caught the man's face and slipped away. He raised his hand, as if to brush off a fly.

  Rann gave him a moment, then trained the glass again. This time, the man looked round - and then looked up. That was all Rann needed to know. Lying awake in the hours before dawn, he had made up his mind. Today or the next day he would be put to death. Maggie and Samuel would go before him. Miss Jolly might be found at the Chinese Shades. The mirror-glass was the last hope. If he could catch the eyes of a policeman, trying every man who passed on the beat, one of them might have the curiosity to enquire. Failing that, any 'white tie' or 'uprighter' with an interest in fallen women might know the house for what it was and wonder if a respectable girl was not being held captive in its attics.

  Bragg and Fowler had counted on Jack Rann's fear of the law. But even if he was taken and hanged, Maggie and Samuel and Miss Jolly would be saved. In any case, Rann decided, he would as soon he hanged next week as cut to death by Hardwicke and Atwell next day.

  He watched for a beat officer on the far pavement, where the mirror would reflect the greatest light. A whiskered constable in his tall beaver hat and high-buttoned swallow-tail coat walked slowly past the houses and slum courts. The sun was in a sky of full blue, as the glass caught it. Rann brought the dazzling, dancing circle down. It touched the lower half of the policeman's face but the brim of the tall hat kept it from his eyes. He walked on and paid no attention.

  From time to time, Rann went back and sat on the solitary chair so that his interest in the window should not be too apparent. The morning passed. One or two of his targets glanced up but affected not to notice the mirror's brightness, as if scorning a joke.

  When the sun moved westward, it would be more difficult to catch it at an angle that carried into the traffic and crowds of the street. Already the girls from the streets north of The Strand were beginning their long hours of solicitation, each on her own stretch of pavement. Some had parades in Drury Lane itself. By evening, they would be jostling for territory. The afternoon trade was less competitive with only a few girls on view.

  One or two of the afternoon trade followed a circuit, along The Strand from Drury Lane to Wellington Street, up to Long Acre and Queen Street, down Drury Lane to The Strand again, walking casually, always approachable. Rann picked out several as they walked alone. He made no attempt to attract their attention. The policemen in this division might not be Flash Fowler's but the girls were usually Bully Bragg's. There was one with a veil, sometimes worn in full daylight to disguise the ravages of disease. To some men a veil was alluring and suggestive. The burgundy silk of the dress, in this case, showed a figure that was tall and firm, the rust-red gloss of her hair drawn into a bun.

  Jack Rann watched her as she drew level. She stopped. The veiled eyes under the merino hat made an upward survey of the windows, coming to rest on the attic level. Was she one of Bragg's girls, keeping watch on his window and those who waited under it? Or a rival's woman curious at a rumour of prisoners held in the attics?

  He knew that she was not Miss Jolly nor any other girl of his acquaintance. None of them had seen him taken by Bragg. If he had simply disappeared, even his penny-dancer would know that a sudden departure had always been part of his plan. Even if they suspected Bragg, he might still have been taken to any one of a dozen houses.

  The girl walked on. Rann angled the mirror at the next policeman on the beat but the sun was lower now and it was impossible to shine any part of its reflection under the brim of the tall beaver hat. In half an hour, the light from the sky would be beyond his reach.

  Twice more he tried, once with a gaitered clergyman and once with another constable. Then, at the far end of the street, he saw the veiled girl coming on her next circuit. She, at least, had shown some curiosity. He angled the mirror and trained the disc of white light full on her veil. She stopped, her hands to her eyes, shielding them. He let her walk on a little and then shone the disc again. She stopped again on the far pavement, looked up at the source of the annoyance, and lifted her veil. Jack Rann saw only the face of a stranger.

  All the same, he stretched his arms between the bars and pressed his palms against the window panes to show that someone was there. The girl continued to look. For good measure, he ca
ught the sun in the glass again and shone it about the casement in front of him, trying to illuminate the close-set iron bars.

  The girl walked on. The sun flared along the opposite roofs and vanished. All his cleverness had come to nothing. Even Maggie and Samuel were beyond his help. Only his dancer remained free.

  Rann went back to the chair and thought that he had one more chance. It was not a chance of life but a choice of how he would die. He could no longer save himself but, if luck was with him before the end, he might also destroy Bully Bragg, Flash Fowler, even Hardwicke, or Atwell. Even old Catskin Nash.

  30

  Sergeant William Clarence Verity, Private-Clothes Detail, 'A' Division, presents his compliments to Chief Inspector Henry Croaker. The following remarks are recorded for Mr Croaker's attention and will be forwarded to him in the event of Sergeant Verity's decease or disappearance. They will be held meantime by a person of confidence.

  Sergeant Verity regrets to inform Mr Croaker that a superior officer of the Metropolitan Police, Inspector Charles Foxe Fowler of 'H' Division, has apparently conspired with known criminals to pervert the course of public justice and has further committed wilful perjury on his own behalf.

  In December last, Mr Fowler visited the residence of Lord Seriol Tregarva in Portman Square, on suspicion of attempted burglary at those premises. Mr Fowler examined indoors evidence and inspected the roof. He assured Mr Isaac Kingdom, Lord Tregarva's man, that nothing was amiss. On 20 May last, Sergeant Verity inspected the roof and observed in an adjoining declivity the remains of a beaver hat beyond his reach. He was, however, able to identify this article as made by James Keller Esq., of St Paul's Churchyard, and as having been repaired.

  While assuring Mr Kingdom that there was nothing to be seen on the roof, Mr Fowler then visited Mr Keller's emporium, where he inquired after the repair of such a hat and established that it had belonged to a known housebreaker, William Arthur Quinn, familiarly known as Pandy Quinn. Mr Bertram Manuel of the hatters and his boy are witnesses to Mr Fowler's inquiry. Sergeant Verity respectfully encloses for Mr Croaker's attention records of Quinn's previous conviction and reputation as a garret-thief entering houses by their attics.

  Despite verifying the ownership of the hat on a roof adjacent to Portman Square, Mr Fowler made no attempt to detain or question Quinn in the following month during which the suspect was still alive. Nor did he report the matter of the hat to any other officer, either before or after Quinn's death.

  Following the murder of Quinn in the tap-room of the Golden Anchor, premises where Mr Fowler was then in another room, Mr Fowler attended the inquest at Clerkenwell Vestry. Evidence was given that after Quinn was stabbed he was heard to say 'My hat! My hat will be the death of me!' When Mr Fowler was questioned, he twice maintained that he could not say what the words might refer to and knew nothing of any hat. Sergeant Verity submits this as Mr Fowler's first act of perjury.

  At the moment of Quinn's death, Mr Fowler described himself as being in another room of the Golden Anchor interviewing a suspect in another matter. He was brought down by the noise and found William Bragg and another man holding James Patrick Rann on the body of the victim. Mr Fowler gave evidence to the inquest and to the Central Criminal Court upon this matter. In his account on oath, Mr Fowler informed the court that Quinn was bleeding copiously and that Rann's shirt was covered in blood from Quinn's wounds. Sergeant Verity begs to draw Mr Croaker's attention to a further enclosure, transcribed from Dr Hoffmann's Pathology. From these observations, it is plain that Rann could not have been covered in such an amount of blood from the wound alone if Quinn was stabbed with a stiletto blade. Sergeant Verity submits that such blood as was on Rann's clothing in contact with the deceased could only have come from some other person or animal, as well as wiped from the weapon used.

  Mr Fowler alleged that he had just previously heard some person, namely Rann, leave the tap-room, then unoccupied but for Quinn, as if to drop something down the drain on Hatton Wall. Three weeks since, a stiletto identified as that with which Quinn was murdered was retrieved by Inspector Fowler's intervention from the drain on Saffron Hill and named as Rann's weapon of murder. Sergeant Verity assures Mr Croaker that there is no means by which a knife dropped into the drain on Hatton Wall could be washed down to Saffron Hill.

  It is Sergeant Verity's painful duty to ask that an investigation be undertaken in respect of perjury, concealing evidence, conspiracy to pervert the course of public justice, and accessory after the fact in the murder of William Arthur Quinn.

  Sergeant Verity further requests that investigation be made into the death of a young person, Joanne Phillips, whose body was found just below high watermark at Wapping Reach on Saturday morning. This unfortunate was inmate of a house of ill-repute whose procurer by the name of Martileau is known to be in the pay of William Bragg.

  Sergeant Verity understands that evidence will be given to Shadwell Vestry of this young woman having made away with herself. He therefore respectfully requests to lay before Mr Croaker the following facts.

  There were no marks on the deceased consistent with having been washed against bridges or vessels nor through outfalls. The body wore no boots, nor impressions to show that any had been put on. Mr Croaker will know that in cases of this sort boots are not lost once the victim is in the water. Had she walked barefoot to the river or the great drain, the soles of the feet would have been marked. Sergeant Verity was able to see with his own eyes that this was not so. If she wore no boots, the state of her feet was consistent only with her having been carried to the place where she was found.

  The deceased was seen alive by Sergeant Verity and others in The Strand, after midnight on Friday, and was found at eight in the morning. Mr Croaker may confirm that the flood tide, which might carry her where she was found, had passed an hour before midnight and three hours before she was last seen alive. Though the body was high enough to have been carried down the great drain by the first opening of the sluices at the ebb, this had occurred at the time she was seen in The Strand and would not have been repeated before noon next day, four hours after the body was found.

  Sergeant Verity is therefore obliged to conclude that this unfortunate young person was drowned elsewhere, foully made away with on premises that might be those of William Bragg. He is in possession of photographs, which he encloses, displaying the young person naked, libidinously chastized at the hands of Bragg's man, Hardwicke. Her remains were deposited on the foreshore by darkness, those who destroyed her thinking she would be considered a found-drowned but never knowing the states of the tide nor the times of the sluices.

  Sergeant Verity believes that if Mr Croaker should have occasion to read these lines, it will be because the author of them is no longer to be found living. He begs Mr Croaker that further investigations be pursued against Charles Foxe Fowler, William Bragg and their associates. He also urges that justice be done in the case of James Patrick Rann, against whom the evidence cannot show murder, and that the condemned man's life shall be spared.

  In conclusion, Sergeant Verity takes his final leave of Mr Croaker in this world, hoping he has always been found every way honest and a friend to justice, commending Mrs Verity and his two infants to the friends of virtue and religion.

  W. Verity, Sgt., 8 June 1860

  31

  Albert Samson brushed the ginger growth of his mutton-chop whiskers and grinned at Verity across the sloping desk.

  'What I'd fancy,' he said fruitily, 'is a hiring job. For the summer, to a fine house in the country. Living like a superior servant in the kitchen. Same food and drink as the master but only light work and surveillance.'

  'Yes?' said Verity thoughtfully. 'And you know that ain't going to be offered to the likes of you, Mr Samson. But you might be happy instead to walk a beat through the town with yer nose caught in lady's tail.'

  Samson slid off his stool, chortled, and reached for his hat.

  'And me paired on the beat with a Methodist?'
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  Verity sanded an ink-blot and closed the ledger.

  'Methodists are human, Mr Samson. Sinners like the rest.'

  Samson now suspected a trap.

  'You got something special in mind, have you?'

  Verity shrugged.

  'I was only wondering, Mr Samson, supposing I could square it when I come to my diary, if you mightn't fancy an evening at the Chinese Shades. Company of a young person.'

  Samson chortled again.

  'I got to see this, my son. A Methodist in an 'ouse of sin.'

  'You got no idea, Mr Samson, how much time gets took up for a Methodist by sin. All this depending on favour-for-favour.' 'Such as what favour?'

  From his breast-pocket, Verity drew an envelope.

  'You'd favour me by keeping this for a week or two, as a man of confidence. If I was to get coopered in that time, or go missing without cause, you'd hand this unopened to Mr Croaker. If he shouldn't want it, then to Superintendent Gowry.'

  Samson grinned, accepted the envelope, and slid it into his pocket.

  'You don't half take the cake, my son!'

  Like down-at-heel clerks in their tall hats and frock coats, they joined the Monmouth Street crowd, pushing towards the penny gaff. The success of the Chinese Shades had brought such numbers that a uniformed policeman now kept order in the narrow street. A farmhouse kitchen-table on the pavement supported a band of flute, violin, and drum. The light streaming out as the curtain was pulled aside lit the faces of the crowd like a reflection of fire.

  The Chinese Shades now occupied most of the performance. There was a comic shadow-play, a patient on a surgeon's table. The victim was opened with a pair of large shears. An assortment of objects was extracted from his entrails: an alarm clock which rang upon removal, a string of sausages, a live rabbit, a rolling-pin, a kettle, and an umbrella. Several times he sat up, to be laid out again with the blow of an iron saucepan to his head. Finally, the surgeon's incision was sewn up with a monstrous needle and thick cord.