The Hangman's Secret

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Comprehension dawns. Mrs. Fry was once a prostitute in a brothel, and so was her friend the warden, who told Malcolm Cross about her past.

  “I made up my mind I was gonna do better for myself,” she says. “When I heard that Newgate was hiring female wardens, we both applied. They took us. Now …” She gestures around the room, proof of her success at the job.

  Her lie about Amelia Carlisle cost my friends and me our jobs, but I can’t help sympathizing with her. Whenever my own finances are precarious, I fear that I’ll end up selling myself. Mrs. Fry sank to those depths and fought her way up from them. I’m not sure I would have the will or strength to do the same.

  “Mr. Cross told me that if I fed you that tip about Amelia Carlisle, he wouldn’t tell Governor Piercy about me.” Mrs. Fry says, “When I applied to be a warden, I told the guv I was a respectable widow. If he found out the truth, he would fire me.”

  She gave in to blackmail because she didn’t want to lose the security and respectability she’d regained. “I see why you didn’t want the police to hear why you went along with Malcolm Cross.”

  “You can tell ’em if you want.” Mrs. Fry’s sly smile says she bets I won’t.

  “I won’t if you tell me what happened at Amelia’s hanging.”

  She folds her arms across her bosom and keeps mum.

  Frustrated, I say, “I’m not leaving empty-handed. You have to give me something. Tell me what Amelia did and said and what happened to her here before she was hanged. That’s not covered by the Official Secrets Act.”

  Mrs. Fry ponders, then seems to decide that granting my request can’t hurt. “She asked me to bring her liquor. It’s against the rules, and I wasn’t gonna break ’em for her. She complained about the food and the bedbugs and the cold. They all do. She said she was being unfairly singled out for punishment, and she wanted me to help her get the mothers who gave her the babies she murdered arrested.”

  This is much the same information I heard from the Reverend Starling. I’m glad to know that Malcolm Cross is behind the hoax—and I intend to make good use of the information—but Mrs. Fry’s account of Amelia’s life at Newgate has cast no light on the crucial two minutes and fifty seconds in the execution shed.

  “She only had one visitor, other than reporters and photographers and folks that paid three pence to see her like she was a freak at a carnival,” Mrs. Fry says. “It was her daughter. Jane Carlisle. She came to say goodbye.”

  My interest quickens. The Reverend Starling had mentioned Jane, a mysterious figure in the Amelia Carlisle case, arrested with her mother at the house they shared but released soon afterward. The official statement from the police said she wasn’t a party to her mother’s crimes. No picture of her ever has appeared in the papers, and she disappeared before Amelia’s death. Earlier I’d discarded the idea of looking for her, but now she seems my last chance of a clue.

  “Do you know where Jane is now?” I say.

  “She’s in the Imbeciles Asylum at Leavesden,” Mrs. Fry says.

  * * *

  On the way home from Newgate, Barrett doesn’t say a word. At the studio, he silently follows me upstairs. Fitzmorris has already gone to bed, and the house feels empty and strange without Hugh and Mick. I pour whisky into two glasses. Barrett and I drink sitting on the sofa, a chaste distance between us.

  “You scared the bejesus out of me,” Barrett says.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, sheepish as well as contrite. Tonight’s collaboration has helped him get to know me better, perhaps too well.

  Barrett scrutinizes me warily. “Are you sure your head is all right?”

  He thinks the blow made me crazy and violent. I don’t want to confess that I had a temper before the explosion and probably always will. “It’s fine. I just got carried away.”

  Barrett narrows his eyes, unconvinced. “So what did Mrs. Fry tell you?”

  “Malcolm Cross has something personal on her. It has nothing to do with Amelia Carlisle’s execution or Harry Warbrick’s murder.”

  “And you’re not going to tell me what it is?”

  “I can’t.” I feel guilty about withholding the information from Barrett after he did me the favor of getting me inside Newgate.

  Barrett frowns and purses his lips as if he can’t believe he heard me correctly.

  “Oh, God, I’m doing it again—keeping secrets from you after you’ve been generous enough to forgive me.”

  “Keeping secrets for a suspect in a murder case,” Barrett points out. He seems resigned rather than angry. “But it’s all right.”

  He must be remembering our conversation in the hospital, and he means to stand by his declaration that love is more important than complete honesty. I smile to express my gratitude and love.

  “It’s all right this time.” His smile verges on sardonic. “My generosity’s not a bottomless well.”

  I raise my eyebrows, surprised to discover that he’s setting limits beyond which my secrecy won’t be tolerated. He must have decided that his love for me won’t make him a pushover, and his will is stronger than I thought. To my further surprise, I like it.

  His gaze turns serious, intense. The arousal that flared between us in Newgate rekindles. I want him more than ever, and I’m thrilled to see that he wants me just as badly. If only we were alone in the house.

  Barrett looks away from me and clears his throat. “Does this mean we went through all that at Newgate for nothing?”

  “I did learn something.” I tell him about Jane Carlisle, glad to have one piece of information I can share.

  “The Imbeciles Asylum.” Surprise lifts Barrett’s eyebrows. “So that’s where she is.”

  “I’m going to visit her tomorrow.”

  “Maybe that’s not such a good idea.”

  “Why not? Maybe Amelia told her something that’s a clue to what happened at the hanging.”

  “Maybe that blow to your head damaged your memory. Have you forgotten what happened tonight?”

  “This is different,” I say. “How could I possibly get in trouble at the asylum?”

  Barrett chuckles glumly. “Oh, I think you could.”

  “Think whatever you like. I’m going.”

  “You just got out of the hospital,” Barrett says. “You’re supposed to rest.”

  I belatedly realize how exhausted I am. The headache is worse than this morning, and a touch of the vertigo has returned. “I’ll be fine.”

  Barrett sighs with resignation. “Well, if I can’t talk you out of it, I’m going with you.”

  I wouldn’t mind his company, but I mustn’t involve him further. “That’s not necessary.”

  He groans and lowers his head into his hands for a moment. “If my mates and I hadn’t broken up the fight you started with Mrs. Fry, one of you might have been killed.”

  I’m crestfallen because I needed his help and might need it again. “Don’t you have to work tomorrow?”

  Barrett pulls a wry grin. “Inspector Reid thinks I’m busy scouring London for your father. I can sneak a holiday and he’ll never know.” Then he looks hurt. “Are you making excuses because you don’t want me?”

  “That’s not why,” I hasten to say. “If there is trouble, you could be caught up in it.”

  Barrett waves away my protest. “If I am, I can handle it.”

  “Very well.” I’m too tired to argue, glad to give in.

  We walk downstairs to the dark, cold studio. Before I can open the door, he turns to me. Then we’re kissing, his mouth hard against mine. I’m backed against the wall, our bodies pressed together. He breaks away from me, gasping.

  I reach for him, but he opens the door and says in a hoarse voice, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 24

  The cab we hired at the Abbots Langley station after we arrived this morning carries Barrett and me past cottages and fields, toward the village of Leavesden. Snow is falling; the scene is tranquil. Fifteen miles northwest of London, the air is c
leaner, the snow white instead of gray, and we’ve escaped the fog. Traffic consists of a few farm wagons. Barrett and I smile at each other, sharing a sense of adventure. This is the first time we’ve been this far from the city together.

  “Are you cold?” Barrett asks.

  Bundled in my wool coat, hat, frock, flannel petticoats, and fur-lined gloves and boots, I’m warm enough, but I say, “A little.”

  He puts his arm around me. The driver can’t see us, and there’s nobody else nearby to look askance at us.

  The Imbeciles Asylum comes into view—many buildings, a village unto itself, enclosed by an iron fence. I glimpse the cylindrical tanks of a gasworks, and suddenly I flash back to that early morning in Stepney. I see the fiery glow in the sky, smell the gas; I’m in Ernie Leach’s house, finding him dead in his bed. The memory is as immediate and terrible as if I’m experiencing the actual event, as if the injury to my head has torn the veil between the past and the present. I force myself to sit still and calm until the vision fades minutes later.

  The cab stops, and we unload my photography equipment. Barrett asks the driver to wait for us. We enter the gate and walk through the falling snow, along a semicircular driveway. Pine trees exude a green, fresh, pungent scent. Ahead looms a massive three-story brick building like a castle, with a turret above the main entrance and ivy covering the walls. Rows of plainer brick buildings on both sides extend toward the back of the compound. The tinkle of laughter brightens the cold air as some dozen people run onto the snow-covered lawn beside the driveway. They chase one another, throwing snowballs. At first I think they’re children, but they’re men. One of them, stout with small, shifty eyes, approaches me, uttering gibberish.

  I halt, unnerved. Another man, dressed in a dark blue overcoat with brass buttons and a matching cap, who looks to be an attendant, calls, “Don’t worry, ma’am—he’s harmless. All of ’em here are. The dangerous ones are in Bedlam.”

  Here, far from London, the inmates might be safe from harm or ridicule, but it seems to me that they’re quarantined as if they have a contagious disease.

  “Are you here to visit an inmate?” the attendant asks.

  When Barrett and I say yes, he tells us to go inside the administration building and points to the castle. Entering, we find a hall where a porter directs us to a waiting room furnished like a parlor. The only people about are a female attendant in a gray frock and white apron and cap and a man sweeping the floor. The attendant asks us who we’ve come to see, beckons the man, and says, “Robert will take you to the ward.”

  Robert leaves his broom and dustpan and scuttles up to us. Perhaps forty years old, small and wiry as a boy, with bright blue eyes and close-cropped yellow hair, he wears a corduroy jacket and trousers and wool neckerchief. As he leads us down a long corridor, he talks in a rapid monotone without looking at us. “The Imbeciles Asylum opened in eighteen seventy. It cost eighty-five thousand pounds to build. There are one thousand five hundred sixty inmates—that’s eight hundred sixty females, seven hundred males.”

  With his penchant for numbers and details, he reminds me of Ernie Leach. I suppose I’ll be seeing shades of the assistant hangman from now on. He has joined Polly Nichols, Liz Stride, Annie Chapman, Kate Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly—Jack the Ripper’s victims—in the ranks of the people I didn’t know well when they were alive but whose deaths will haunt me forever.

  As Robert rattles off statistics about how much food is consumed daily at the asylum, I notice similarly dressed men lugging coal scuttles and realize that they and Robert are inmates. I suppose they benefit from working for their keep rather than sitting idle. They may be harmless, but they remind me of odd folks I see on the streets, whose behavior is unpredictable and disturbing. In a passage that connects with the wards, Robert opens a door, and a female attendant greets Barrett and me. As she leads us into the ward, Robert calls after us, “Two thousand pieces of laundry are washed every day.”

  The large room has walls painted a cheerful light green, a high ceiling, and tall windows. It’s cold despite the fire in the hearth, populated with women of all ages clad in drab woolen dresses, shawls, and white bonnets. Some of the women sit in chairs near the fire or at long tables decorated with vases of artificial flowers, some reading books or playing cards or checkers. Everyone seems well behaved, everything clean and neat. But for the inmates who yelp like animals, those who wander about with blank looks on their faces, and the middle-aged women playing with dolls, this could be a charitable community club. Attendants rove, keeping order. The attendant with us asks Barrett who we are. He gives her our names, explaining that he’s a police constable from London and I’m his friend.

  “If you were reporters, I would ask you to leave,” she says. “We’ve tried to shield Jane from the publicity about her mother. The poor girl has enough troubles.”

  Today I’m glad I lost my job at the Daily World. “May I photograph her?”

  “If she doesn’t mind.” The attendant leads us to a table where a small, slim young woman dressed in a dark blue frock, lighter blue shawl, and white bonnet sits alone. As we approach, I hear her whispering to herself.

  “Jane, you have visitors,” the attendant says.

  Jane, in her early twenties, is a young, disconcerting version of her mother, Amelia. She has the same black hair parted in the middle, the same slanted dark brows. But her skin is smooth and pale, her lips delicate and rosy, and she’s as lovely as a porcelain doll. She ignores us and keeps whispering.

  “Good luck,” the attendant says, and departs.

  Barrett and I look at each other in dismay while we set my photography equipment on the floor. If Jane is unable to communicate, then our investigation has met a dead end. Barrett moves closer to Jane and bends so that his face is level with hers.

  “Hello?”

  She goes silent and looks up. Her eyes are aquamarine blue, fringed with black lashes. She surveys us with suspicion. “Who are you?” Her voice is high, little-girlish.

  “I’m Thomas. This is Sarah,” he says, as if he’s decided that first names would be friendlier. “May we sit with you?”

  She sizes him up with the bold frankness of a child. When she nods. Barrett pulls out the empty chair to her right for me, then sits in the one to her left.

  “Don’t sit on Friday Willie!” she shrieks.

  Startled, Barrett bolts up from the chair. “Who’s Friday Willie?”

  “My friend,” Jane says, as if it should be obvious.

  An imaginary friend, I realize, to whom she’d been speaking when we arrived.

  “I have lots of friends,” Jane says happily.

  “That’s nice,” Barrett says as he seats himself in the chair beside the invisible Friday Willie’s. “Who are the others?”

  “Well, there’s Powell and Green Boy. But they aren’t here.” Jane turns away from Barrett and speaks to Friday Willie.

  I can’t understand the words, and they don’t sound like any foreign language I’ve heard; I wonder if she made them up. I can understand why the police decided that Jane Carlisle wasn’t involved in her mother’s crimes. In an attempt to regain her attention, I open my satchel and pull out the box of chocolates I brought.

  “Jane, would you and your friend like some candy?”

  She appears not to hear. When Barrett sets the open box in front of her, she pops a chocolate into her mouth and says while she chews, “Friday Willie doesn’t want any.”

  “Why not, Jane?” Barrett says.

  She gives him a condescending look. “Because he’s a cat. Cats don’t like sweets.”

  After an interview of this sort, the police probably decided that her mother could have killed those babies right under her nose while she was living in her own world.

  Jane’s lips are smeared with chocolate, and she wipes it off with the back of her hand. “Don’t call me Jane.”

  “I’m sorry,” Barrett says, chagrined because we’ve treated her like the child she seems r
ather than the grown woman she is. “Miss Carlisle.”

  Just as he got to know me better last night, I’m getting to know him better now, seeing a new side of him. He’s good at drawing people out—a talented policeman who deserves the promotion that he might have achieved if not for me.

  “Green Boy and Powell are here now.” Jane plucks two chocolates from the box and sets them on the table by two empty chairs. “Why do you think I’m Jane Carlisle? I’m not.”

  “Then who are you?” Barrett asks.

  “I’m Maria Thirty-nine Kemp,” she says.

  Barrett wrinkles his forehead, as baffled as I am. Seeing a gray-haired attendant who has an air of authority, I beckon to her and say, “We came to see Jane Carlisle, but this doesn’t seem to be her. Can you direct us to Jane?”

  “That’s her all right. If she says otherwise, don’t listen. She’s always playing games.” The attendant hurries off to help an old lady who’s fallen.

  Jane chats with her invisible companions. Barrett rolls his eyes at me to signal that he thinks we’re here on a fool’s errand, but he doesn’t give up. “Why is there the number thirty-nine in your name?” he asks Jane.

  “I can’t tell you,” she says.

  “Why not?” Barrett asks.

  She puts her finger to her lips and smiles mischievously. “Shh, it’s a secret.”

  Although frustrated, I feel sorry for her; she can never lead a normal life. For the first time, I pity Amelia Carlisle. There’s no justification for her crimes, but having a child like Jane must have been a woeful ordeal. Our inquiries have reached a dead end, but at least I can document the experience.

  “Maria, may I take your photograph?” I say.

  “Oh yes,” she says with delight. After I’ve set my camera on the tripod and filled the flash lamp with powder, she says, “My friends want to be in the picture.” She curves her arms around their imaginary presences and smiles while I take the photograph.