The Hangman's Secret

by Laura Joh Rowland

“I think we’d better call that quits,” Hugh says. “Not on account of Tristan or me, though. There’s still Inspector Reid.”

  “But we have to revive our detective agency,” I say. It’s our only hope of supporting ourselves, of maintaining our household together.

  “No, Sarah,” Hugh says, gentle but firm. “We can’t give Reid an excuse to keep gunning for your father.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Mick reluctantly agrees.

  “We can’t back down,” I protest. “Not while we believe that Jacob Aarons didn’t murder Harry Warbrick.” My reputation is far less important than rescuing the man whose only crime was the theft of a rope.

  “Sarah, I admire you for wanting to find the real killer,” Hugh says, “but you have to protect your father.”

  I’ve been protecting my father all my life, first by keeping quiet about him like my mother told me to and later by trying to prove his innocence. But I suddenly feel as if for twenty-four years I’ve been walking in a deep, narrow, circular trench that gets deeper and narrower with every footstep. Hugh decided not to spend his life running. Maybe I shouldn’t spend mine walking in the same circle. I love my father, but he may never come back to me no matter how much I protect him, no matter if he’s guilty or innocent.

  I look at my friends’ concerned, sympathetic faces. A radical notion seizes me: it’s time to start living fully in the present, for myself and for the people I love who are here now. I’ve lost Barrett; Hugh has lost Tristan; Mick has alienated Catherine. This investigation has cost us dearly, but my friends and I still have one another and our hope of bringing a killer to justice.

  I take a deep breath and say, “Reid be damned. We won’t give up.”

  If Hugh is courageous enough to fly in the face of danger, then so am I. Let the ills of the past catch up with me; I’ll greet them with open arms—and an ax in my hand, if necessary.

  We all I smile at one another, united by the same reckless bravado that spurred our hunt for Jack the Ripper. I feel as if I’ve levitated up from the trench, and the exhilarating freedom is also terrifying: I’ve been flung loose into the sky, with nothing to guide me or hold onto and no idea of where or how hard I’ll land.

  CHAPTER 22

  At six o’clock the next morning, Hugh, Mick, and I walk through the streets of Stepney, a mile east from Whitechapel. Daybreak is an hour away, and the lingering night is foggy and chill. “Ernie Leach won’t be happy to see us so bright and early.” Hugh yawns. “I could’ve used two more hours of shut-eye.”

  “We need to corner him before he goes to work,” I say.

  “You really think he’ll talk?” Mick asks.

  “I hope so.” His odd personality makes him an outsider among the witnesses to Amelia Carlisle’s execution and perhaps less tightly bound by the conspiracy of silence.

  “But you said he’s a stickler for rules,” Mick says. “Mum’s the word about hangings.”

  “We’ll see,” Hugh says.

  The fog grows thicker and bitter with smoke and the stench of gas, sulfur, and tar. We hold handkerchiefs over our noses and mouths. The sound of coughing from other people on the streets echoes. The sky glows a yellowish orange from the Stepney gasworks. I hear the roar of the furnaces that burn coal to make gas for lighting streets and buildings. Giant cylindrical gas storage containers loom high above the rooftops, amid clouds of steam. On White Horse Lane, we come upon a terrace of narrow, identical two-story houses, their front stoops flush with the sidewalk, their brick walls black with tar.

  “This is like hell on earth,” Hugh says, his voice muffled by his handkerchief.

  I can taste the tar through mine. The haloes of light around the street lamps are dense with ash particles. We locate number 45, the address on the card that Ernie Leach gave me at Harry Warbrick’s wake. It’s across the street from the public gardens, whose trees look permanently leafless, suffocated by the tainted air. The windows are dark, but lights shine in others along the row. I knock on the door and call Ernie Leach’s name. The house remains silent.

  “Either nobody’s home, they’re all asleep, or they don’t want to talk to us,” Hugh says.

  “I can get to ’em.” Mick runs to the end of the row, around the corner.

  “Mick, wait,” I call as Hugh and I follow. He means to break into the house, and we could end up in jail.

  The narrow alley behind the terrace is lit by the glow from the gasworks, lined with dustbins. Mick is standing at the bottom of the stairs that lead to the cellar of Ernie Leach’s house, by the open back door. “The lock’s broken,” he says. “I didn’t have to pick it.”

  Before I can warn him that a thief or other intruder who’s up to no good may be inside, he and Hugh have slipped through the door. I follow. If they’re in danger, there’s no use my staying safe. Beyond a basement kitchen, Mick and Hugh are climbing the stairs. I join them in a narrow passage from which another flight of stairs leads to the second floor. The parlor and dining room, on the right, are dimly lit by the street lamp, and empty.

  “I smell gas,” Mick whispers.

  I’ve been smelling gas for quite a while. “It’s coming from outside.”

  “No,” Mick says, “the gas is on in here. Don’t you hear it?”

  Now I do hear the hissing from gas jets, and the smell is poisonously strong. Hugh flings open the front door to let in air. We run about, groping along the walls, locating pipes, turning off the jets. We dare not light any lamps for fear of igniting the gas. We race up the stairs.

  “Mr. Leach!” I call, nauseated and half-asphyxiated.

  It no longer matters whether we get in trouble for entering his home without permission; his safety is paramount. The second-floor hall is completely dark. I fumble around, twist a doorknob, and pull. A flood of gas swamps me. I recoil backward, coughing. Light from a window in the room shines on two people in bed—a man and woman, gray-haired, elderly, their eyes closed.

  “Wake up!” I cry. “You have to get out.”

  They don’t move. The hiss of gas is the only noise. Hugh and Mick locate and turn off jets and open the window while I shake the couple. I can’t rouse them.

  “We have to see if there’s anybody else in the house,” Hugh says between coughs.

  Mick opens a door across the hall. “Two more in here!”

  It’s a younger couple asleep in bed. The man isn’t Ernie Leach. While Hugh tries to wake them and Mick turns off other gas jets and opens the window, I stumble up the stairs to the attic. “Mr. Leach! Are you there?” I totter into another room filled with gas.

  In a bed beneath the slanted ceiling, Ernie Leach lies on his back, silent, motionless, his mouth agape. His chest isn’t rising or falling; I don’t hear breaths. I fall to my knees, overcome by the fumes. Hugh and Mick come and support me down the stairs. I resist.

  “We have to save him!”

  “We can’t take all these people out by ourselves,” Hugh says. “We need to get help.”

  At the bottom of the lower flight of stairs, wheezing and retching, we charge toward the open front door. Hugh pushes me ahead of him. I trip off the stoop and reel into the street.

  An enormous bang erupts behind me, louder than the boiler explosion in the factory where my mother and I once worked. I scream as a blast of flaming-hot wind launches me off my feet. I fly through air filled with smoke and bricks. The world is on fire but silent; the bang has deafened me. Terrified for Hugh and Mick, I wail their names.

  A crash like a black wall slamming into me obliterates all senses and thoughts.

  * * *

  The sound of voices echoing, brisk footsteps, and wheels rattling penetrates my groggy consciousness. Pain throbs in my forehead. My mouth tastes sour, and when I lick my lips with my parched tongue, they’re chapped and scaly. The rough pillow against my cheek smells of bleach. My eyelids, gummed shut with sleep, crack open. Light sears my vision; my head throbs harder, the pain like knives jabbing my skull. A gray blanket covers my
body, and metal rails surround the bed in which I lie. I touch my head and feel a bandage wrapped around it. Panic jolts me alert. I don’t know where I am, and I’m lying wounded, at the mercy of strangers. I moan as I struggle to sit up.

  “Sarah!”

  Two dark figures loom over me, then they coalesce into one. It’s Sally. She’s crying, clasping my hands. “Thank God! I was afraid you weren’t going to wake up.”

  I’m relieved to see her, but confused. “Where am I?” My voice is a raspy croak.

  “In London Hospital.”

  My vision is still blurry, but now I see the long room where foggy daylight fills tall windows. My bed is one of many that are arranged in two rows against the walls. Nurses in gray uniforms tend women who occupy the other beds. Visitors sit beside the patients. In the aisle, tables display vases of flowers whose sweet scents mingle with the bitter odor of medicine.

  “Thirsty,” I mumble.

  Sally raises my head and holds a cup to my lips. I feel dizzy, and as I gulp the water, it dribbles down my chin. I lie back on the pillow and wait for the world to stop spinning. “How long have I been here?”

  “Since yesterday morning.” Sally wipes my face with a cloth.

  “What happened?”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  I shake my head, wincing at the pain. The last thing I remember is walking up to Ernie Leach’s house.

  “There was a gas explosion. It knocked you unconscious. That’s what Fitzmorris said the police told him. He told me you were here. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  My panic resurges. “Where are Hugh and Mick?”

  “They’re in the men’s ward,” Sally says. “Don’t worry—they weren’t seriously hurt.”

  “I want to see them.”

  A nurse approaches. “Not today. You’ve had a concussion. You need to rest.” She takes my pulse and my temperature, then departs.

  My thoughts are fuzzy, as if swaddled in cotton. I squint at Sally to bring her face into sharper focus. “Your mother wanted you to stay home.” I can’t remember why. “She’ll be angry.”

  “It’s all right. I want to be here.” Sally squeezes my hands. “I was so afraid I was going to lose you. The house you were in and the two adjacent ones were completely destroyed. The police think somebody left the gas on in that house, and somebody next door lit a fire that set off the explosion. Nine people were killed.”

  Memory comes seeping back. I picture Ernie Leach and the four other people in his house, unconscious in their beds. They must be among those who perished. I moan with horror.

  “These accidents are so terrible,” Sally says. “People ought to be more careful to make sure the gas is turned off before they go to sleep.”

  Barrett suddenly joins us. He’s in uniform, carrying a bouquet of red roses. He looks worried and tired, but I’m overjoyed to see him; he’s the most beautiful sight in the world. But he’s never bought me flowers before, and I remember that we parted ways. Is he a figment of my wounded brain? When he sees that I’m awake, a smile lights up his face. Then he notices Sally. “Hello.”

  Oh, God. Now I know this isn’t just a pleasant illusion. I knew I would have to introduce Barrett and Sally someday, and there couldn’t be a worse time. “Sally, this is Police Constable Thomas Barrett.”

  She smiles shyly and curtseys. “I’m so glad to meet you at last.”

  As Barrett raises his eyebrows at me, I take a deep breath, then say, “This is Sally Albert. She’s my sister.”

  Astonishment widens Barrett’s eyes. “You never told me you had a sister.”

  He must be thinking that he knew I had secrets, but this is one he never imagined. In the awkward silence, I twist the blankets with my trembling hands, afraid that this is the last straw, that when he leaves again, it will be the last time.

  “What beautiful roses,” Sally says to Barrett. “If you’ll give them to me, I’ll find a vase for them.”

  Barrett wordlessly hands her the roses. She bustles off, leaving us alone. He drops into the chair by my bed as if someone just clubbed him behind the knees.

  “I owe you an explanation.” My mind scrambles to figure out what to tell him and what to leave out. Because of the blow to my head, gathering my thoughts is like trying to pick up lint that’s been scattered into a river of treacle.

  “Never mind.” Barrett’s eyes brim with concern. “I was at the police station with the other constables for the morning report when we heard the explosion. We rushed over and saw a big, burning pile of rubble. There were bricks and boards and broken furniture all over the street, and people lying wounded and crying. The fire brigade was spraying water on the fire. We rescued two men who were buried under debris, and I almost died of shock—it was Hugh and Mick. I knew you must be there too. I ran around like a madman, shouting your name.” Vestiges of terror darken his gaze. “Then I saw you in an ambulance wagon. Your hair was full of blood. You were so pale and so still, I thought you were dead.”

  I try to say I’m sorry I scared him, but it takes extra time to translate thoughts into words.

  Barrett leans close to me and cups my feverish face in his strong, cool hand. He looks into my eyes and says, “I was angry at you about the contest and the secrecy and everything, but it doesn’t seem so important anymore. What’s important is you’re alive, and I love you.” He kisses my lips.

  It’s the first time we’ve kissed in public, and I blush with embarrassment, but a rush of happiness lifts me above the pain in my head.

  “I’m not going to ask you what you were doing at Ernie Leach’s house.” Barrett has apparently learned who lived there. “You also don’t have to explain about your sister. I’m not letting anything come between us again. Life’s too short.”

  I feel guilty because Barrett is more generous than I deserve. I haven’t forgotten my decision to brave the consequences of my past. “No, I want to tell you.” I begin with the address I found in my father’s police report last year, which turned out to be the Chelsea mansion where Sally and her mother work. I relate my discovery that my father had been living under the name “George Albert,” remarried, and had another daughter before he’d disappeared again in 1879.

  Barrett scowls.

  “I knew you’d be angry.” I’d hoped that in his generous state of mind he would be willing to forgive me. If he isn’t, this is a consequence I must accept.

  “I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at myself. Because I must have acted like such a bastard that you couldn’t trust me.”

  “That’s not it,” I say, eager to absolve him. “I kept quiet about Sally because of Inspector Reid. If he found out about her—” It’s too awful to imagine, let alone speak of, Reid tormenting Sally to satisfy his grudge against me. “I didn’t want to force you to choose between doing your duty by telling Reid and protecting Sally and me.”

  “Of course I’m not going to set Reid on Sally. I’m not a total bastard.” Barrett’s tone is fond, exasperated. “Besides, she hasn’t seen your father in eleven years. She can’t possibly have any clue to his whereabouts.”

  “But she has.”

  Barrett’s eyebrows lift.

  This is my chance to shut the barn door before all the horses are out, but I want to come clean. Barrett is right: life is short. I don’t want to spend it distrusting and lying to the man I love. I tell him about Lucas Zehnpfennig, my trip to Ely, and my shocking discovery about my family. Barrett, stunned, exhales a gust of breath. It must have been shocking enough for him to learn that I have a half-sister whose existence I kept secret, and now he knows I also have a half-brother who’s a pervert. I’m afraid he’ll recoil from me in disgust.

  Barrett lowers the rail on my bed, sits beside me, and takes me in his arms. “Oh, Sarah. I’m so sorry you had to bear it alone. I wish I’d been there with you.”

  His sympathy and understanding make me so happy that it’s worth almost dying in the explosion. Despite nurses and other patients watching, I lean
against Barrett, comforted by his embrace, relieved that my family history hasn’t put him off.

  “But this is good news, in a way!” Barrett says. “Lucas Zehnpfennig is a new suspect in Ellen Casey’s murder. You should let me tell Inspector Reid.”

  I struggle to articulate my reasons for not telling Reid. “I think that if Reid were to arrest him for the murder, Lucas would accuse my father and turn him in to protect himself.”

  “But Lucas needs to be found and questioned. I’ll help you look. I won’t tell Reid.”

  I underestimated Barrett; my fear of trusting him was unfounded. “Thank you.” Words can’t convey the enormity of my gratitude. But I’m compromising his duty, putting his career at risk. I remember that Ernie Leach is dead; he took whatever he knew about Amelia Carlisle’s hanging to the grave, and a man who’s probably innocent is in jail. “When can I go home?”

  “The doctor said you should stay here at least two more days.”

  “Two days! But I have to solve Harry Warbrick’s murder.” I remember what Sally and I were talking about when Barrett arrived. “And that’s not the only murder. Sally said Mr. Leach’s death was an accident, but it couldn’t have been.”

  “How do you know?” Barrett says, skeptical. “Did you see something when you were in his house?”

  “I don’t remember.” But my memory of events in the more distant past is crystal clear. “Mr. Leach worked for the gas company. He would have known better than to fall asleep with the gas on.”

  “Somebody else at the house could have forgotten to shut it off.”

  Another recollection surfaces in my mind like a thick bubble in a swamp. “All the gas jets were on, all over the house—not just one that somebody forgot. It had to be deliberate.”

  Barrett frowns, disturbed as well as interested. “Mick and Hugh didn’t mention that when I talked to them yesterday. Are you sure?”

  “Yes. We ran around shutting them off.”

  “One of the family could have done it to commit suicide and didn’t care if the others were killed.” Barrett sounds like he doesn’t believe his own theory.