The Hangman's Secret

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Both hangmen from Amelia Carlisle’s execution have died under dubious circumstances. It can’t be a coincidence.” I think the repercussions of whatever transpired at the hanging aren’t finished, and the past won’t stay safely in the past.

  Convinced at last, Barrett nods. “It couldn’t have been done by Jacob Aarons. He’s been locked in Newgate since his arrest. Not to mention, he allegedly killed Harry Warbrick during a fight over the rope. That’s not a motive for killing Ernie Leach or his parents or brother and sister-in-law.”

  “I still think the killer was one of the other witnesses to the execution,” I say. “While Inspector Reid and Malcolm Cross were patting themselves on the back, he’s killed again. I think he used gas because if the people in the houses smelled it, they would have thought it was coming from the gasworks.”

  Barrett looks as distressed as I am. “We got the wrong man.”

  The contest between the Daily World and the police seems a crime now that both sides have colluded to put the innocent Jacob Aarons behind bars and failed to prevent the murders of nine people.

  “I have to solve the murders before anyone else is killed!” This is no longer just about saving my reputation or detective agency. With an enormous effort, I push myself upright in bed. My whole body hurts. Dizziness whirls the room. Nausea turns my stomach, and I break out in a sweat, but I kick the blankets off me. I’m dressed in a long white flannel gown, which I pull down to cover my legs as I swing them over the side of the bed.

  “I don’t think you should get up,” Barrett says.

  “If Sheriff Hargreaves is the killer, he’s more ruthless than I thought. I have to warn Catherine.” My bare feet touch the cold floor. When I stand, black spots swarm into my vision. My legs crumple.

  “Sarah!” Barrett catches me.

  Nurses come running. As they put me back to bed and raise the rail that Barrett had lowered, they scold me for trying to get up too soon. One says to Barrett, “She needs peace and quiet. You’d better go.”

  CHAPTER 23

  I stayed three more days in the hospital. The nurses brought me soup and custard and medicine and gave me baths in bed while I listened to the other patients gossiping. Most of the time I slept. On the second day, the dizziness abated, I felt stronger, and the nurses walked me around the ward. On the third day, the doctor discharged me with strict orders to avoid excitement and strenuous physical activity.

  Barrett comes to take me home. Dressed in fresh clothes that Fitzmorris sent for me, carrying my pocketbook—which was miraculously rescued from the debris—I lean on Barrett’s arm as he escorts me to the men’s ward. We find Mick and Hugh in adjacent beds, surrounded by nurses, other patients, and visitors who are laughing at their jokes. Hugh lies on his stomach because his back and scalp are bandaged. When he and Mick hear Barrett and me approach, they look up with expectant smiles that fade just a bit as they recognize us. Hugh must be hoping for a visit from Tristan, Mick from Catherine. I feel sad for them because I gather that Tristan and Catherine haven’t shown up. But they greet me with a delight that warms my heart.

  Mick, his face marred with bruises and scrapes, yanks open his hospital robe to reveal the cloth tape wound around his chest. “Look, Miss Sarah—I got two broken ribs.”

  “My goose was almost cooked,” Hugh says, and his audience laughs.

  Barrett had told me that the explosion set Hugh’s clothes on fire. When I ask him and Mick how they’re feeling, Mick says, “It only hurts when I laugh.”

  “I’m not bad, but I’m going to need a wig,” Hugh says. “The hair was scorched off the back of my head.”

  They could have died! I’m angrier on their behalf than my own.

  “When we get outta here, we’re gonna catch the rotter who turned on the gas,” Mick says.

  “Unfortunately, the doctor said we have to stay for a few more days,” Hugh says.

  I don’t think our investigation can wait that long. If I want to find out who killed Ernie Leach and the eight other victims, I’ll have to carry on by myself. I’ve relied so much on Mick and Hugh for help with investigations that I feel bereft, forlorn.

  After Barrett and I leave the hospital, he hires a cab, and as we ride along Whitechapel Road, he says, “My squad of constables is hot on your father’s trail.” I experience a jolt of alarm, which Barrett’s sly smile quickly dispels. “I gave them a false lead. I said you’d told me your father had been sighted in Kensington three months ago.”

  “That was clever of you.” I’m grateful to Barrett but afraid he’ll get in trouble for misdirecting the police’s search.

  “That’s kept them busy while I looked for Lucas Zehnpfennig. No luck yet, though.” Barrett adds, “I’m also reinvestigating the Warbrick case. I found a streetwalker who saw a man go inside The Ropemaker’s Daughter after closing the night of the murder. It could have been the killer. I’ve been looking for other witnesses who can describe him. But I’m sure it wasn’t Jacob Aarons. He’s short; the man was tall.”

  So are Governor Piercy, Sheriff Hargreaves, Dr. Davies, and the Reverend Starling. Barrett has reestablished them as suspects—a big help. But he’s risking his career for my sake, again. “Inspector Reid won’t like it.” Neither would Barrett’s parents.

  “Tough,” Barrett says. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  I admire his principles, but I can’t let him suffer.

  At the studio, Barrett comes upstairs with me, helps me remove my coat, seats me on the chaise longue, and covers me with a lap robe. Fitzmorris brings the tea tray and asks Barrett, “Would you like a cup?”

  “No, thanks, I have to go to work.” Barrett pats my shoulder and says, “I’ll come back tonight.”

  After he leaves, I wait five minutes. Then I set aside my unfinished cup of tea and throw off the lap robe. Fitzmorris says, “Sarah, what are you doing?”

  “I’m going out.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’re not well yet.”

  But I can’t sit idle. Even though my head still aches and I’m unsteady, I don my coat and hat, grab my pocketbook, and falter outside. I start down Whitechapel Road and peer through the fog for a cab … and bump smack into Barrett.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he says.

  Surprised, I say, “How did you know—?”

  Exasperation tinges his triumphant smile. “I had a hunch that you wouldn’t stay put. Now answer my question.”

  “I’m going to investigate the gas explosion. I thought I’d ask the neighbors if they saw the person who broke into Ernie Leach’s house or anyone acting suspicious.” I won’t tell Barrett that I’m trying to find the real killer before he gets in trouble. If he thinks I’m trying to protect him, he’ll stop me.

  “Well, think again.” Barrett grasps my arm and propels me back to the studio.

  I drag my feet. “But the police won’t investigate; they think it was an accident.”

  “I will,” Barrett says. “Leave it to me.”

  “How will you have time while you’re looking for Lucas and investigating Harry Warbrick’s murder?”

  “I’ll make time.”

  “All right, I’ll stay home.” This time I’ll wait longer to make sure he’s gone.

  He reads my thoughts. “Oh no, you don’t.” Flinging up his hands in exasperation, he says, “What will it take to knock some sense into you? The gas explosion didn’t do it. What must I do to make you take care of yourself?”

  Urgency makes me cunning. “Help me get to Mrs. Fry.”

  Barrett grimaces, vexed because I’m trying to manipulate him. He points at me. “You stay away from those people. If you’re right and one of them murdered Harry Warbrick and Ernie Leach and the eight other victims of the gas explosion, he’s dangerous.”

  “That’s why I have to stop him. I still think he’s Governor Piercy or Sheriff Hargreaves, although Dr. Davies and the chaplain are possibilities.”

  “By now he’ll know tha
t you and Hugh and Mick were at Ernie Leach’s house, snooping around even though the Warbrick case is closed. He’ll know you survived the explosion, and he’ll come after you next.”

  I grip Barrett’s arm. “So if you care about me, you won’t wrap me in cotton wool—you’ll help me do whatever I can to catch him.”

  Barrett frowns, removes his helmet, and rakes his hand through his hair. “Why do you want to see Mrs. Fry?”

  I feel relieved because he’s capitulating, guilty because I’m enticing him to the wrong side of the law again. “I need to find out who put her up to the hoax. I’m certain that person is the killer.”

  After a long, pensive moment, Barrett says, “I promise to find a way to Mrs. Fry if you promise to rest today.”

  * * *

  By ten o’clock that night, I begin to suspect Barrett’s promise was naught but a ploy to keep me at home. Then the doorbell jangles. Minutes later, Barrett and I are walking toward Whitechapel Station.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” he asks.

  “I’m sure.” My head pounds in rhythm with my footsteps, and I shiver in the wind that blows sleet against my face.

  Riding together in the night train, I’m thankful that Barrett is with me, relieved that he’s stepped in to fill the gap left by Hugh and Mick’s absence. This venture is a new experience for us, the first time we’ve collaborated on an investigation. I don’t know how either of us is supposed to act, and we’ll have to play it by ear.

  Newgate Prison is grim enough by day, a vision of hell at night. Lights from within the black granite walls make the fog glow yellow, as if the prison is a cauldron of fire and brimstone. Two police constables waiting by a side door greet Barrett and let us in.

  “Thanks, mates,” he says.

  As they escort us through the prison, I try not to think about what could happen if we’re challenged. We reach the women’s quadrangle, where gas lamps turned down low illuminate the galleries. Moans and whimpers emanating from the cells sound unearthly, inhuman; the odor of urine seems more intense. Images of alien beasts in caves come to mind so vividly that goose bumps prickle my skin. I wonder if I’m experiencing after-effects from my head injury. It’s so dark that I can barely see the iron staircase that we climb single-file. My inability to see what’s below me is worse than seeing how high up I am. On the top gallery, one of the constables bangs on Mrs. Fry’s door.

  “Who is it?” Mrs. Fry’s gruff, sleepy voice says.

  “Police. We’ve got a new prisoner for you.”

  I hear rustling inside. Light shines under the door, the lock rattles, and Mrs. Fry appears in a quilted brown dressing gown and a white nightcap. When she sees me, the annoyance on her puffy face turns to dismay. “You.”

  She tries to close the door, but Barrett and his friends and I push our way into the room. A single flame burns in a sconce on the wall near the rumpled bed; the rest of the room is in shadow, the cold air fusty with the smell of sleep.

  “Get out,” Mrs. Fry says.

  The constables lock the door and stand in front of it. Mrs. Fry grabs a small object from a table—it’s a whistle. Before she can put it to her lips, I snatch it. She gasps, her usual stoic calm turned to fear. “What do you want?”

  “You know what I want,” I say. Barrett looks surprised; he must have assumed I would let him do the talking. “Why did you lie to me about Amelia?”

  Defiance gleams through the fear in Mrs. Fry’s eyes. “I was just pullin’ your leg. And you fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”

  I ignore the taunt, refuse to let her distract me. “Who put you up to it?”

  Her eyes shift, and I can see that I’ve hit the target, but she pretends not to hear the question. “Got fired from the newspaper, didn’t you? That’ll teach you to believe everything you’re told.”

  Anger boils under my civil manner. Barrett doesn’t intervene, but he’s watching me nervously. “Was it Sheriff Hargreaves?”

  Mrs. Fry laughs, disdainful. “You want to think it was a big, important man that hoodwinked you, not just little me.”

  It’s true. I not only believe that Piercy or Hargreaves is behind every attempt to sabotage the investigation into Harry Warbrick’s murder, but I want the person who made a shambles of my life to be someone of greater stature than Mrs. Fry. “Or was it Governor Piercy?”

  “You can stuff your questions up your behind and go.”

  I glance at Barrett, who shrugs. Either he has no idea how to wring the information from Mrs. Fry, or he thinks that since I started the interrogation, I can finish it by myself.

  “Don’t look at your boyfriend. He’s as stupid as you are,” Mrs. Fry says.

  Enraged by the insult to Barrett, scared that I won’t be able to coerce Mrs. Fry, I look around the room for inspiration. My gaze lights on the framed photographs on the windowsill, and I snatch up the wedding picture of Mrs. Fry and her husband. I don’t know what I intend to do with it, but Mrs. Fry reacts as if I’ve struck her in her most vulnerable spot.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She grabs the picture and tries to wrest it from my hands.

  The wooden frame comes apart at the joints. Picture and glass fall to the floor. The glass breaks; fragments scatter. Mrs. Fry moans and drops to her knees. When she tries to rescue the picture, I clomp my foot down on it. I’m ashamed of myself for damaging someone’s precious possession, but I believe she’s shielding a murderer; I’m furious, and I pity her not at all.

  “Sarah—” Astonishment rings in Barrett’s voice; he’s never seen me in full dudgeon.

  “You bitch!” Mrs. Fry lunges up at me.

  A spear of glass protrudes from the piece of frame in my gloved hand. I thrust it at Mrs. Fry, defending myself. The constables shout. Mrs. Fry recoils. She must have seen countless fights in Newgate and thwarted attacks from bigger, stronger women than I, but terror blanches her face. I’ve never seen myself in a mirror when I lose my temper, but I’ve gathered, from other people’s reactions, that I’m more than a little menacing. Mrs. Fry reaches under the bed and picks up a truncheon. As she swings it at me, the constables grab her from behind. Barrett grabs me and twists my wrist.

  “Sarah, that’s enough!”

  I drop my weapon, and when he turns me to face him, there’s horror in his eyes—but also desire. The heat in my blood has heated his, and his desire enflames mine. We stare at each other, disturbed as well as thrilled by our mutual reaction. His grip on my arms tightens, then relaxes, then tightens again, as if he’s reluctant to let me go, afraid of what I’ll do next.

  The constables seize the truncheon from the red-faced, huffing Mrs. Fry. As Barrett pushes me toward the door, she yells at me, “If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you!”

  Now I’m appalled at my own loss of control. This is the last time Barrett will help me with an inquiry, and I’ve learned nothing. I retort, “You’ll be lucky to live long enough to see me again, Mrs. Fry. Ernie Leach was murdered. You could be next.”

  Shock wipes the outrage off Mrs. Fry’s face. “What? But they said it was an accident.”

  I resist Barrett’s effort to get me out before I cause more trouble. “ ‘They’ weren’t there. I was. Someone turned on all the gas jets in Ernie’s house while he was asleep.” I remember how he looked, acknowledge what I didn’t want to believe at the time. “He was dead before the explosion.”

  “I don’t believe you.” But her eyes shine with new fear.

  “He was killed by the same person who killed Harry Warbrick, and it wasn’t the curio dealer. Whoever it was wanted to make sure neither hangman talked about Amelia’s hanging.”

  Mrs. Fry manages a poor semblance of her usual calm self-possession. “Everybody knows I’m no snitch.”

  “Don’t think you’re safe,” Barrett interjects. “All I have to do is spread a rumor that the police are reopening the case and you’re cooperating with our inquiries, and you’ll have a target painted on your back.”
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  “You wouldn’t.”

  “The killer will think you’re talking whether you are or not,” Barrett says.

  Mrs. Fry crumbles. “Oh, God.”

  “The only way to protect yourself is to finger the killer,” Barrett says. “Tell us who put you up to the hoax.”

  As she shakes her head, I say, “Which was it, Governor Piercy or Sheriff Hargreaves?”

  “You got it all wrong.” Mrs. Fry’s face takes on the reckless, triumphant expression that I once saw on a pickpocket who jumped off a bridge to escape the police. “It wasn’t the guv or the sheriff. It was Mr. Cross, the reporter.”

  I’m flabbergasted. “Malcolm Cross?” Barrett gapes, stunned too.

  “Yeah,” Mrs. Fry says, gratified by our reaction.

  I sense she’s telling the truth, but while Piercy or Hargreaves could have coerced her by threatening to fire her, I don’t see what leverage Cross had. “How did he make you do it?”

  She looks at Barrett and the other constables, then says to me, “I’ll talk to you. Alone.”

  “Forget it,” Barrett says. He doesn’t want to leave me alone with her; he doesn’t trust us to behave ourselves.

  I need to hear what she has to say. “It’s all right. Go.”

  Barrett exchanges glances with his friends, then says, “We’ll be right outside.”

  When the door is closed behind them, Mrs. Fry and I sit in opposite chairs at the table, cautious and watchful, like rival queens negotiating a truce. She speaks in a low, hesitant voice. “Mr. Cross chatted up a warden who works for me. Took her out to a pub, got her drunk, and asked her questions about me.”

  So although Cross thought Harry Warbrick’s murder had nothing to do with Amelia Carlisle’s hanging, he’d investigated the witnesses anyway, hedging his bet.

  “When she drinks, she can’t keep her mouth shut. Otherwise, she never would’ve told. We’re friends. That’s why I’m not gonna tell you who she is. We go way back.”

  “Way back where?”

  Mrs. Fry sighs and looks at the floor. “I started after my husband died and left me with nothing. It was that or the poorhouse. You know what them places are like—filthy with rats and lice and sickness, and they feed you garbage and work you to death. I was desperate. So I went to work at … another kind of house. That’s where I know her from. Do I need to spell it out?”