Gallows Thief

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘The Marquess didn’t! He didn’t!’

  ‘The Marquess didn’t?’ Sidmouth asked, utterly mystified now.

  ‘The Marquess of Skavadale, my lord,’ Sandman explained, ‘in whose house she was given shelter.’

  ‘He came after the murder,’ Meg, terrified of the mythical wasps, was desperate to explain now. ‘The Marquess came after she was dead. He often called on the house. And he was still there!’

  ‘Who was still there?’ Sidmouth enquired.

  ‘He was there!’

  ‘Corday was?’

  ‘No!’ Meg said, frowning. ‘Him!’ She paused, looked at Sandman then back to the Home Secretary whose face still showed puzzlement. ‘Her stepson,’ she said, ‘him what had been ploughing his father’s field for half a year.’

  Sidmouth grimaced with distaste. ‘Her stepson?’

  ‘Lord Christopher Carne, my lord,’ Sandman explained, ‘stepson to the Countess and heir to the Earldom.’

  ‘I saw him with the knife,’ Meg snarled, ‘and so did the Marquess. He was crying, he was. Lord Christopher! He hated her, see, but he couldn’t keep his scrawny paws off her neither. Oh, he killed her! It wasn’t that feeble painter!’

  There was a second’s pause in which a score of questions came to Sandman’s mind, but then Lord Sidmouth snapped at Witherspoon. ‘My compliments to the police office in Queen Square,’ that office was only a short walk away, ‘and I shall be obliged if they will provide four officers and six saddle horses instantly. But give me a pen first, Witherspoon, a pen and paper and wax and seal.’ He turned and looked at a clock on the mantel. ‘And let us hurry, man.’ His voice was sour as though he resented this extra work, but Sandman could not fault him. He was doing the right thing and doing it quickly. ‘Let us hurry,’ the Home Secretary said again.

  And hurry they did.

  ‘Foot on the block, boy! Don’t dally!’ the turnkey snapped at Charles Corday who gave a gulp, then put his right foot on the wooden block. The turnkey put the punch over the first rivet then hammered it out. Corday gasped with each blow, then whimpered when the manacle dropped away. Lord Alexander saw that the boy’s ankle was a welt of sores.

  ‘Other foot, boy,’ the turnkey ordered.

  The two bells tolled on and neither would stop now until both bodies were cut down. The Keeper’s guests were silent, just watching the prisoners’ faces as though some clue to the secrets of eternity might lie in those eyes that so soon would be seeing the other side.

  ‘Right, lad, go and see the hangman!’ the turnkey said, and Charles Corday gave a small cry of surprise as he took his first steps without leg irons. He stumbled, but managed to catch himself on a table.

  ‘I do not know,’ Lord Christopher Carne said, then stopped abruptly.

  ‘What, Kit?’ Lord Alexander asked considerately.

  Lord Christopher gave a start, unaware that he had even spoken, but then collected himself. ‘You say there are doubts about his guilt?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh indeed, yes, indeed.’ Lord Alexander paused to light a pipe. ‘Sandman was quite sure of the boy’s innocence, but I suppose it can’t be proven. Alas, alas.’

  ‘But if the real k-killer were to be found,’ Lord Christopher asked, his eyes fixed on Corday who was quivering as he stood before the hangman, ‘could that man then be convicted of the crime if Corday has already been found g-guilty of it and been hanged?’

  ‘A very nice question!’ Lord Alexander said enthusiastically. ‘And one to which I confess I do not know the answer. But I should imagine, would you not agree, that if the real killer is apprehended then a posthumous pardon must be granted to Corday and one can only hope that such a pardon will be recognised in heaven and the poor boy will be fetched up from the nether regions.’

  ‘Stand still, boy,’ Jemmy Botting growled at Corday. ‘Drink that if you want to. It helps.’ He pointed to a mug of brandy, but Corday shook his head. ‘Your choice, lad, your choice,’ Botting said, then he took one of the four cords and used it to lash Corday’s elbows, pulling them hard behind his back so that Corday was forced to throw out his chest.

  ‘Not too tight, Botting,’ the Keeper remonstrated.

  ‘In the old days,’ Botting grumbled, ‘the hangman had an assistant to do this. There was the Yeoman of the Halter and pinioning was his job. It ain’t mine.’ He had not been tipped anything by Corday, hence had made the first pinion so painful, but now he relaxed the cord’s tension a little before lashing Corday’s wrists in front of his body.

  ‘That’s for both of us,’ Reginald Venables, the second prisoner, big and bearded, slapped a coin on the table. ‘So slacken my friend’s lashings.’

  Botting looked at the coin, was impressed by the generosity, and so loosened Corday’s two cords before placing one of the noosed ropes round his neck. Corday flinched from the sisal’s touch and the Reverend Cotton stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘God is our refuge and strength, young man,’ the Ordinary said, ‘and a very present help in times of trouble. Call on the Lord and He will hear you. Do you repent of your foul sins, boy?’

  ‘I did nothing!’ Corday wailed.

  ‘Quiet, my son, quiet,’ Cotton urged him, ‘and reflect on your sins in decent silence.’

  ‘I did nothing!’ Corday screamed.

  ‘Charlie! Don’t give ’em the pleasure,’ Venables said. ‘Remember what I told you, go like a man!’ Venables sank a mug of brandy, then turned his back so that Botting could lash his elbows.

  ‘But surely,’ Lord Christopher said to Lord Alexander, ‘the very fact that a man already stands c-convicted and has been p-punished, would make the authorities most reluctant to reopen the case?’

  ‘Justice must be served,’ Lord Alexander said vaguely, ‘but I suppose you make a valid point. No one likes to admit that they were mistaken, least of all a politician, so doubtless the real murderer can feel a good deal safer once Corday is dead. Poor boy, poor boy. He is a sacrifice to our judicial incompetence, eh?’

  Botting placed the second rope about Venables’s shoulders, then the Reverend Cotton took a step back from the prisoners and let his prayer book fall open at the burial service. ‘“I am the resurrection and the life,”’ he intoned, ‘“he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”’

  ‘I did nothing!’ Corday shouted, and turned left and right as though he could see some way of escape.

  ‘Quiet, Charlie,’ Venables said softly, ‘quiet.’

  The Sheriff and Under-Sheriff, both in robes and both wearing chains of office and both carrying silver-tipped staves, and both evidently satisfied that the prisoners were properly prepared, went to the Keeper, who formally bowed to them before presenting the Sheriff with a sheet of paper. The Sheriff glanced at the paper, nodded in satisfaction and thrust it into a pocket of his fur-trimmed robe. Until now the two prisoners had been in the care of the Keeper of Newgate, but now they belonged to the Sheriff and he, in turn, would deliver them into the keeping of the devil. The Sheriff pulled aside his robe to find the watch in his fob pocket. He snapped open the lid and peered at the face. ‘It lacks a quarter of eight,’ he said, then turned to Botting. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Quite ready, your honour, and at your service,’ Botting said. He pulled on his hat, scooped up the two white cotton bags and thrust them into a pocket.

  The Sheriff closed his watch, let his robe fall and headed for the Press Yard. ‘We have an appointment at eight, gentlemen,’ he announced, ‘so let us go.’

  ‘Devilled kidneys!’ Lord Alexander said. ‘Dear God, I can smell them. Come, Kit!’

  They joined the procession.

  And the bells tolled on.

  It was not far. A quarter-mile up Whitehall, right into the Strand and three quarters of a mile to Temple Bar, and after that it was scarcely a third of a mile down Fleet Street, across the ditch and up Ludgate Hill before the left turn into Old Bailey. No distance at all, really, and certainly not after the po
lice office in Queen Square had brought some patrol officers’ horses. Sandman and Berrigan were both mounted, the Sergeant on a mare that a constable swore was placid and Sandman on a wall-eyed gelding that had more spirit. Witherspoon brought the reprieve out of the house and handed it up to Sandman. The wax of the seal was still warm. ‘God speed you, Captain,’ Witherspoon said.

  ‘See you in the ’sheaf, Sal!’ Berrigan shouted, then lurched back as his mare followed Sandman’s gelding towards Whitehall. Three patrolmen rode ahead, one blowing a whistle and the other two with drawn truncheons to clear a path through the carts, wagons and carriages. A crossing sweeper leapt out of the way with a shrill curse. Sandman thrust the precious document into his pocket and turned to see Berrigan making heavy weather of his mare. ‘Heels down, Sergeant! Heels down! Don’t snatch on the reins, just let her run! She’ll look after you!’

  They passed the royal stables, then took to the pavement in the Strand. They rode past Kidman’s the Apothecary, driving two pedestrians into its deep doorway, then past Carrington’s, a cutlery store where Sandman had purchased his first sword. It had broken, he remembered, in the assault on Badajoz. It had been nothing heroic, merely frustration at the army’s apparent failure to get into the French fortress and in his anger he had slashed the sword at a marooned ammunition cart and snapped the blade off at the hilt. Then they galloped past Sans Pareil, the theatre where Celia Collet, actress, had entranced the Earl of Avebury. An old fool marrying a sharp young greed and, when their undying love proved to be no more than unmatched lust, and after they had fallen out, she moved back to London where, to keep herself in the luxury she felt her due, she took back her old theatre servant, Margaret Hargood, to be her procuress. Thus had the Countess snared her men, she had blackmailed them and she had thrived, but then the fattest fly of all came to her web. Lord Christopher Carne, innocent and naïve, fell for his stepmother and she had seduced him and amazed him, she had made him moan and shudder, and then she had threatened to tell the trustees of the entailed estate, his father and the whole world if he did not pay her still more money from his generous allowance, and Lord Christopher, knowing that when he inherited the estate his stepmother would demand more and more until there would be nothing left but a husk, had killed her.

  All this Sandman had learnt as the Viscount Sidmouth scribbled the reprieve in his own handwriting. ‘The proper thing,’ the Home Secretary had said, ‘is for the Privy Council to issue this document.’

  ‘Hardly time, my lord,’ Sandman had pointed out.

  ‘I am aware of that, Captain,’ Sidmouth said acidly. The steel nib scratched and spattered tiny droplets of ink as he scrawled his signature. ‘You will present this,’ he said, sprinkling sand on the wet ink, ‘with my compliments, to the Sheriff of London or to one of his Under-Sheriffs, one of whom will certainly be upon the scaffold. They may enquire why such an order was not signed in council and then forwarded to them by the Recorder of London and you will explain that there was no time for the proper procedures to be followed. You will also be so kind as to pass me that candle and the stick of sealing wax?’

  Now Sandman and Berrigan rode, the seal on the reprieve still warm, and Sandman thought what guilt Lord Christopher must have endured, and how killing his stepmother would have brought him no relief for the Marquess of Skavadale had discovered him almost in the act of the murder and the Marquess, whose family was near penury, had seen his life’s problems solved at a stroke. Meg was the witness who could identify Lord Christopher as the murderer, and so long as Meg lived, and so long as she was under the Marquess’s protection, so long would Lord Christopher pay to keep her silent. And when Lord Christopher became Earl, and so gained the fortune of his grandfather, he would have been forced to pay all he had inherited. It would all have gone to Skavadale, while Meg, the lever by which that wealth would have been prised from the Avebury estate, would have been bribed with chickens.

  Sidmouth had sent messengers to the Channel ports, and to Harwich and to Bristol, warning officials there to keep a watch for Lord Christopher Carne. ‘And what of Skavadale?’ Sandman had asked.

  ‘We do not know if he has yet taken any monies by threat,’ Sidmouth said primly, ‘and if the girl speaks the truth then they did not plan to begin their depredations until after Lord Christopher had inherited the earldom. We might disapprove of their intentions, Captain, but we cannot punish them for a crime that is yet to be committed.’

  ‘Skavadale concealed the truth!’ Sandman said indignantly. ‘He sent for the constables and told them he didn’t recognise the murderer. He would have let an innocent man go to his death!’

  ‘And how do you prove that?’ Sidmouth asked curtly. ‘Just be content that you have identified the real killer.’

  ‘And earned the forty pound reward,’ Berrigan put in happily, earning a very dirty look from his lordship.

  As they rode, their horses’ shoes echoing from the walls of Saint Clement’s Church, Sandman saw a dozen reflections of himself distorted in the roundel panes of Clifton’s Chop House and he thought how good a pork chop and kidney would taste now. The Temple Bar was immediately ahead and the space under the arch was crowded with carts and pedestrians. The constables shouted for the carts to move, bullied their horses into the press and yelled at the drivers to use their whips. A wagon loaded with cut flowers was filling most of the archway and one of the constables started beating at it with his truncheon, scattering petals and leaves onto the cobbles. ‘Leave it!’ Sandman bellowed. ‘Leave it!’ He had seen a gap on the pavement and he drove his horse for it, knocking down a thin man in a tall hat. Berrigan followed him, then they were past the arch, Sandman was standing in the stirrups and his horse was plunging towards the Fleet Ditch, sparks flying where its shoes struck the cobbles.

  The first church bells began to strike eight and it seemed to Sandman that the whole city was filled with a cacophony of bells, hoofbeats, alarm and doom.

  He settled back in the saddle, slapped the horse’s rump, and rode like the wind.

  Lord Alexander, as he passed through the towering arch of the high Debtor’s Door, saw in front of him the dark hollow interior of the scaffold and he thought how much it resembled the underside of a theatre’s stage. From outside, where the audience gathered in the street, the gallows looked heavy, permanent and sombre with its black baize drapery, but from here Lord Alexander could see it was an illusion sustained by raw wooden beams. It was a stage set for a tragedy ending in death. Wooden stairs climbed to his right, going up into the shadows before turning sharply left to emerge in a roofed pavilion that formed the rear of the scaffold. The roofed pavilion was like the privileged stage boxes, offering the important guests the best view of the drama.

  Lord Alexander was first up the steps and a huge cheer greeted his appearance. No one cared who he was, but his arrival presaged the coming of the two doomed men and the crowd was bored with waiting. Lord Alexander, blinking in the sudden sunlight, took off his hat and bowed to the mob who, appreciative of the gesture, laughed and applauded. The crowd was not large, but it filled the street for a hundred yards southwards and quite blocked the junction with Newgate Street immediately to the north. Every window in the Magpie and Stump was taken and there was even a scatter of spectators on the tavern’s roof.

  ‘We were asked to take chairs at the back,’ Lord Christopher pointed out when Lord Alexander sat himself in the very front row.

  ‘We were requested to leave two front row places for the Sheriff,’ Lord Alexander corrected him, ‘and there they are. Sit down, Kit, do. What a delightful day! Do you think the weather will last? Budd on Saturday, eh?’

  ‘Budd on Saturday?’ Lord Christopher was jostled as the other guests pushed past to the rearmost chairs.

  ‘Cricket, dear boy! I’ve actually persuaded Budd to play a single-wicket match against Jack Lambert, and Lambert, good fellow that he is, has agreed to stand down if Rider Sandman will take his place! He told me so yesterday, after church.
Now that’s a match to dream of, eh? Budd against Sandman. You will come, won’t you?’

  A cheer drowned conversation on the scaffold as the sheriffs appeared in their breeches, silk stockings, silver-buckled shoes and fur-trimmed robes. Lord Christopher seemed oblivious of their arrival, gazing instead at the beam from which the prisoners would hang. He seemed disappointed that it was not bloodstained, then he looked down and flinched at the sight of the two unplaned coffins waiting for their burdens. ‘She was an evil woman,’ he said softly.

  ‘Of course you’ll come,’ Lord Alexander said, then frowned. ‘What did you say, my dear fellow?’

  ‘My stepmother. She was evil.’ Lord Christopher seemed to shiver, though it was not cold. ‘She and that maid of hers, they were like witches!’

  ‘Are you justifying her murder?’

  ‘She was evil,’ Lord Christopher said more emphatically, apparently not hearing his friend’s question. ‘She said she would make a claim on the estate, on the trustees, because I wrote her some letters. She lied, Alexander, she lied!’ He winced, remembering the long letters in which he had poured out his devotion to his stepmother. He had known no women until he had been taken to her bed and he had become besotted by her. He had begged her to run away to Paris with him and she had encouraged his madness until, one day, mocking him, she had snapped the trap closed. Give her money, she had insisted, or else she would make him the laughing stock of Paris, London and every other European capital. She threatened to have the letters copied and the copies distributed so everyone would see his shame, and so he had paid her money and she demanded more and he knew the blackmail would never end. And so he killed her.

  He had not believed himself capable of murder, but in her bedroom, begging her a final time to return him the letters, she had mocked him, called him puny, said he was a fumbling and stupid boy. He had pulled the knife from his belt. It was hardly a weapon, it was little more than an old blade he used to slit the pages of uncut books, but in his mad anger it sufficed. He had stabbed her, then hacked and slashed at her loathsome and beautiful skin, and afterwards he had rushed onto the landing and seen the Countess’s maid and a man staring up at him from the downstairs hall and he had recoiled back to the bedroom where he had whimpered in panic. He expected to hear feet on the stairs, but no one came, and he forced himself to be calm and to think. He had been on the landing for only a split second, hardly time to be recognised! He snatched a knife from the painter’s table and tossed it onto the red-laced body, then searched the dead woman’s bureau to find his letters that he had carried away down the back stairs and burnt at home. He had crouched in his lodgings, fearing arrest, then next day heard that the painter had been taken by the constables.