The Hangman's Secret

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Shall I come up?” he asks.

  I’m not ready for us to separate, but I’m still exhausted and not ready to have my friends see me with Barrett after what happened between us last night. “No, thank you, I’m going straight to bed.”

  “Oh. Well. I should stop by the station and find out what’s happened since I’ve been gone.” He puts my baggage inside the door and kisses me. I cling to him, and desire rekindles. He gently disengages from me and caresses my cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  When I’m inside, I lock the door, leave my photography equipment in the studio, and trudge upstairs with my suitcase, satchel, and pocketbook, calling, “Mick? Hugh?”

  In the parlor, Fitzmorris lies asleep on the chaise longue. Wakening at the sound of my footsteps, he says, “Sarah. Thank goodness you’re back.”

  “What’s happened?” Dreadful premonition seizes my heart, and I drop my belongings. “Where are they?”

  “They came home from the hospital about an hour ago. After they received this letter. It was left there for them.” Fitzmorris picks up a white envelope from the table and hands it to me.

  The address, printed neatly, reads, “Lord Hugh Staunton and Mick O’Reilly, care of the London Hospital.” I remove and unfold the single sheet of plain white paper. I read the message written in script as careful as a penmanship exercise but spattered with inkblots when the author’s hand shook.

  Dear Lord Hugh and Mr. O’Reilly,

  My conscience will no longer allow me to remain silent. I must make a clean breast, with you and God as my witnesses. I beg you to come to me at Newgate Prison tonight and help me walk the difficult path to atonement for my sins.

  Sincerely yours,

  The Reverend Timothy Starling

  I crumple into a chair, breathless with astonishment and confusion. This letter could mean that the chaplain merely wishes to divulge information about Amelia Carlisle’s hanging, but it appears to be his confession that he murdered Harry Warbrick and Ernie Leach. If the latter, then Barrett and I are wrong about Sheriff Hargreaves, and the time we spent piecing together Amelia Carlisle’s past was wasted. But I can’t believe that everything we learned in Leeds led us to a false conclusion!

  “They wanted you to go with them,” Fitzmorris says, “but it got late, and we thought you’d decided to stay in Leeds another night. They were afraid the Reverend Starling would change his mind if they waited until tomorrow.” He looks at the clock on the mantel. “They left about twenty minutes ago.”

  This development has taken me so much by surprise that a moment passes before I begin to wonder if it’s too good to be true. I reread the letter, examine the handwriting, but can’t tell if it’s genuine or whether the letter is indeed a confession.

  “They said that if you came back in time, I should tell you what happened, and you should meet them at Newgate,” Fitzmorris says.

  Sir Gerald said I have good instincts, and now I think I smell a rat. “This could be a trap.” I grab my pocketbook, head for the stairs.

  Fitzmorris hurries after me, snatches his coat from the rack. “I’m going with you. We have to stop them.”

  “No. It’s too dangerous.” I can’t let him risk harm. A thought occurs to me. I run to the desk and open the drawer. The gun isn’t there. “They have the gun. They’re not defenseless. You stay here, and if we’re not back by midnight, go to Mariner House and tell Sir Gerald we’re in trouble at Newgate. Ask him for help.” I’m making this up as I run down the stairs.

  Fitzmorris, close on my heels, says, “By then it could be too late.”

  And I don’t even know if Sir Gerald would exert himself to save us. “I’ll go to the police barracks first and get Barrett to come with me.”

  Fitzmorris hovers in the studio while I open the front door. “Well, all right.”

  But I’m not going to get Barrett; it would take too long. My best hope of protecting Hugh and Mick is catching them before they get to Newgate. The chance of a confession from the Reverend Starling isn’t worth risking their lives.

  CHAPTER 28

  The fog cloaks me in icy swirls as I run toward Whitechapel Station, my head throbbing with my every footstep. Inside the station, laborers wait for the underground train to take them to night shifts at the factories. I ask the ticket seller, “Have you seen a tall blond man and a red-haired boy?”

  “Lady, I see all kinds. How do you expect me to remember any of ’em?”

  “When is the next train?”

  “When it comes.”

  I pace the platform, waiting fifteen long minutes. Once in the train, I sit on the edge of my seat, willing it to go faster. From St. Paul’s station, I run to Newgate. I stop, gasp for breath, and will the pain in my head to diminish. The fog, stirred by the wind, creates the illusion that the black granite structure of the prison is moving, escaping the bounds of gravity and rigid stone, and growing like a cancer to infinite, monstrous proportions. There’s no sign of Hugh and Mick. I trudge toward the prison’s main entrance, where a shadowy, three-headed figure stands.

  My heart thumps. I freeze in my tracks. It’s Cerberus at the gates of hell.

  The figure separates into three men, prison wardens. My fancies must be the product of exhaustion and the blow to my head, but the instincts that Sir Gerald praised are telling me to run away as fast as I can. Disregarding them, I walk up to the entrance.

  “Who goes there?” calls a warden.

  This is the time to escape, but I say, “My name is Sarah Bain. I’m looking for Lord Hugh Staunton and Mick O’Reilly. Did they go inside to see the Reverend Starling?”

  “A few minutes ago.”

  My heart sinks.

  “They said that if you came, to bring you in.” The warden opens the door.

  Exuding sulfurous light into the fog, it’s like the entrance to the labyrinth where the Minotaur waits for live meat. I walk in. There’s no point in my being safe if Hugh and Mick aren’t. The door slams behind me like the lid of a coffin. The warden escorts me along a passage and up a flight of stairs I remember from my first visit. The familiarity seems an illusion meant to fool me while the prison rearranges itself into uncharted tunnels from which I can never escape. If this isn’t a trap, why else would it be so easy for my friends and me to get in after Governor Piercy banned us from Newgate? Maybe it’s Piercy who set the trap. If only I hadn’t let Barrett leave me. Still, I’m not sorry I came. I feel a familiar sensation—the rush of energy I’ve experienced during other crises, the reckless determination to do whatever is necessary despite fear.

  The warden leaves me at the chapel, which is dark except for the orange glow from the iron stove in the middle of the floor and the faint light from street lamps outside the barred windows. Crossing the threshold, I hear low voices echoing in the cold, cavernous space. Hugh, Mick, and the chaplain are seated in chairs by the stove. The husky Reverend Starling, clad in a black coat with a cape over the shoulders, gestures with his hands. Above his white clerical collar, his face is woeful; Hugh and Mick lean toward him, their expressions vivid with fascination. They look like figures in a medieval religious painting—disciples witnessing the martyrdom of a young saint. Neither they nor the chaplain seem to notice me. Relieved to see Hugh and Mick unharmed, I want to run to them, but intuition warns me to conceal my presence. I keep to the shadows near the bars behind which the male prisoners sit during sermons. The chaplain’s image wavers, and I think it’s an effect of the firelight, but as I draw closer, I see that he’s trembling.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmurs between gasps.

  “It’s all right,” Hugh says in a gentle voice.

  “Why don’t we talk someplace else?” Mick says. I’m not the only one who thinks it’s not safe here.

  Hugh pats the air to silence Mick. “Take your time,” he tells Starling. “Breathe.”

  Starling’s breaths snag on sobs. “I’ve done such a terrible thing. I’ve compromised my principles and sinned against God.
”

  It sounds like a bona fide confession. Maybe this isn’t a trap after all, but I’m still too wary to come out of hiding.

  “This is your chance to make things right.” Hugh’s face is pale, drawn. He sits stiffly, as if in pain from his injuries. I see the bandage on the back of his head. “Tell us what happened.”

  Starling gathers his cape around him as if to pull himself together. “We were in the execution shed. Governor Piercy, Dr. Davies, Sheriff Hargreaves, and the two hangmen and me. Mrs. Fry brought Amelia Carlisle in.” His wet, shining eyes are unfocused, watching the scene unfold in his memory. “Ernie Leach put the straps around her. Harry Warbrick put the noose over her head. Amelia stood there as if it were happening to someone else.”

  My mind works a strange magic on time, space, and geography. The chapel dissolves and rematerializes into a small room with brick walls, a plank floor, and a gallows—the execution shed. I’m standing among the somber, silent witnesses, invisible to them, the illusion so real that I can smell Governor Piercy’s foul breath. Amelia, stoic in her gray prison frock, doesn’t resist while Leach fastens the buckles on the straps that immobilize her and Warbrick tightens the rope around her neck. My heart races with excitement because I’m finally going to learn what happened during those two minutes and fifty seconds.

  “Then she turned to us. I’ll never forget the look in her eyes.” Starling’s voice quavers. “I think she wanted to kill us all.”

  Amelia pivots on the trap door. Her eyes are blue, icy pools of hatred.

  “Then she smiled,” Starling says.

  I watch her lips curve with ugly contempt.

  “She said to me, ‘Hey, I know you.’ ” Starling’s voice becomes hers, coarse but feminine, then shifts back to his own. “I was puzzled. Of course she knew me—I’d visited her while she was in prison. But she said it as though she’d suddenly recognized me from somewhere else.”

  Surprise jolts me. After Barrett and I discovered the connection between Hargreaves and Amelia, I’d been sure that whatever happened at the execution must have involved the two of them. Now it seems that Amelia also had a history with the Reverend Starling.

  “Then Sheriff Hargreaves said, ‘You’re mistaken.’ He was standing behind me. Amelia was talking to him.”

  My interpretation of the scene in the execution shed reverses. Amelia had recognized Sheriff Hargreaves, just as I’d speculated. Her connection had been with him alone.

  “Like hell I’m mistaken.” Amelia speaks through the chaplain as though he’s a medium who’s summoned her spirit from hell. “You’re that copper from Leeds. You came to my house after the doctor told the police I was killing babies.” Starling, Governor Piercy, Dr. Davies, Mrs. Fry, and the two hangmen stare at her, bewildered; they think she’s talking nonsense. But I, the invisible trespasser, understand. The scenario that Barrett and I imagined really occurred.

  “We all turned and looked at Sheriff Hargreaves,” Starling says, his disembodied voice narrating the scene from across time and space. “He looked as if he’d seen a ghost.”

  In the execution shed, the man who was once Leonard Hargrove beholds the woman who was once Violet Kemp. His eyes widen with horror because his past has caught up with him.

  “He recognized Amelia. What she’d said was true. We all saw it,” Starling says.

  The other witnesses gape in astonishment at Sheriff Hargreaves as Amelia says, “You knew I killed those babies. You found the bodies in the cellar where I hid them. But you let me get away with it. We made a deal.”

  There’s apparently more to the story of their encounter in Leeds than Barrett and I guessed. The events at the execution take on such a vivid reality that for me it’s as if they’re happening now.

  “She’s lying.” Sheriff Hargreaves says. The panic in his eyes contradicts his words. He says to Harry Warbrick, “It’s time.”

  Warbrick stands unmoving, the white hood in his hands. “What deal?” he asks Amelia.

  “Go ahead,” Hargreaves orders.

  I will her to answer the question before she dies. Amelia says, “His mistress was with child. He didn’t want it, and he didn’t want her. Because he wanted to marry some other girl who was somebody important, and she wouldn’t have him if she knew about them. He said that if I took them in, he wouldn’t tell on me.” She faces Hargreaves, her blue eyes bright with gleeful accusation. “You wanted me to make them go away, and that’s what I did. When the baby was born, I smothered it. Then I let the woman bleed to death.”

  I’m choking on incredulous horror. This is so much worse than if Hargreaves had been merely a negligent or incompetent policeman. I also feel a sense of inevitability, as if I’ve been watching a ball circle and circle the rim of a hole and finally drop in. I’ve thought all along that the motive for the murder of witnesses to Amelia’s execution must be something extreme. I only wish Barrett were here to listen.

  Sheriff Hargreaves shouts at Warbrick, “Hang her now, or I swear to God, I’ll do it myself!”

  Warbrick puts the white hood over Amelia’s head. She struggles and screams at Hargreaves, ‘It’s not fair! Why should I be the only one to die?” She’d wanted to punish the mothers who gave their babies to her, and Faith Ingham, who’d reported her to the police. Now she wants Hargreaves to share her death sentence. “If I’m going down, so should you!”

  Warbrick pulls the lever. The trap doors bang open, Amelia drops through them, and her neck breaks with a loud snap. The witnesses silently gaze at the pit where her limp, hooded body dangles from the taut rope. My heart feels like a battering-ram inside my chest. Harry Warbrick looks at his watch. Dr. Davies opens the small trapdoor beside the pit and climbs down the ladder. He checks Amelia’s pulse, climbs back up, and nods to confirm that she’s dead. Governor Piercy, the Reverend Starling, and Sheriff Hargreaves sign the document that states that the condemned prisoner has been executed. Hargreaves gives each hangman a sealed envelope that contains his pay. This all seems a callous response to the ending of a human life, a mundane prelude to the hangmen’s murders, which I’m now sure resulted from the scene at Amelia’s execution.

  Sheriff Hargreaves turns to the other witnesses. “Not a word about this.” Now that Amelia is dead, they’re the sole repositories of the ugly secret from his past.

  Governor Piercy blurts, “It’s true, isn’t it?’ ”

  “We won’t discuss it.” The sheriff’s statement is a command.

  “If she killed babies in Leeds, shouldn’t the police there be informed?” Dr. Davies says.

  Sheriff Hargreaves’s expression deems the question absurd. “Why would they care? She’s dead.”

  “That was some deal you made with her.” Harry Warbrick’s tone blends disgust with admiration for Hargreaves’s ingenuity. “What would your wife think if she knew?”

  His wife, the daughter of the owner of the theater troupe in which former police constable Leonard Hargrove had risen to fame as Sir Lionel Hargreaves. Lady Anne, the honorary chairwoman of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. She wouldn’t stand by him if she learned he’d had his own child and its mother murdered by the Baby Butcher so that he could marry her and make his fortune. And if the public knew, his fall would be as steep as his rise.

  The sheriff puts his finger to his lips. “I’ll remind everyone that the Official Secrets Act prohibits us from divulging what happened here.”

  “Then we went our separate ways,” the Reverend Starling says.

  His words are the magic spell that dissolves my illusion. I find myself with him and Hugh and Mick in the chapel again.

  “See? I was right,” Mick says triumphantly to Hugh. “It had to be the sheriff.”

  And I was right when I told Sir Gerald that Leonard Hargrove was Lionel Hargreaves.

  “A pat on the back for you, my boy.” Hugh suits action to words, then asks Starling, “Did you ever discuss it with the others?”

  “No.” Starling bows his
head in shame. “I was afraid that if I brought it up, I would have to do something about it.”

  “So why are you talkin’ now?” Mick asks.

  “Because too many people have been killed. First Harry Warbrick. Then Ernie Leach. I don’t believe the explosion was an accident. I’m afraid I’ll be next.” The Reverend Starling explains, “Governor Piercy, Dr. Davies, and Mrs. Fry are beholden to Sheriff Hargreaves for their jobs. Harry and Ernie weren’t. And I serve the Church.”

  It’s just as I thought: Hargreaves is eliminating the witnesses he couldn’t trust. Starling is the next weak link.

  “When I read your letter, I thought you were going to confess to the murders,” Hugh says. “It reeked of guilt.”

  “I am guilty—of protecting a murderer and letting innocent people die.”

  “So why’re you tellin’ us?” Mick asks.

  “I was hoping you could take me to Sir Gerald,” Starling says.

  I once saw a sheep fall off a boat into the Thames. It bleated wildly, treading water, until the sailors rescued it. Starling’s face has the same expression as the sheep’s.

  “The police won’t believe Sheriff Hargreaves conspired with Amelia or murdered Harry Warbrick and Ernie Leach,” Starling says. “Maybe Sir Gerald will. Maybe he can protect me from Hargreaves and see that I’m not punished for violating the Official Secrets Act.”

  It’s as though Sir Gerald is a higher authority than the court itself. I’ve seen him use his money and power to bend the government to his will before.

  “Good idea,” Hugh says. “Let’s go to Sir Gerald.” He and Mick stand, eager to leave Newgate.

  This isn’t the time to tell them I’ve spoken with Sir Gerald and that he wants evidence before he’ll publish a newspaper story, let alone grind Sheriff Hargreaves under the wheels of justice. The chaplain’s testimony without corroboration may not be good enough.

  Starling remains seated. His eyes shine with sudden apprehension. Hunching his broad shoulders, he pulls the sleeves of his coat over his hands as if he wants to disappear inside it.