The Sign of the Gallows

by Susanna Calkins

  Bertha raised her eyebrows. ‘This way, if you would,’ she said, leading them unceremoniously out.

  ‘I don’t think she was telling the truth, do you?’ Lucy asked Duncan after they had moved down the street. The whole exchange with Mrs Corbyn had been puzzling. ‘The way her servant treated her! That would never have happened at the Hargraves’. Or at Aubrey’s, for that matter.’

  ‘No, there’s something odd going on,’ Duncan agreed. ‘In my experience, family members will do anything they can to convince authorities, both church and court alike, that their loved one’s suicide was accidental or stemmed from natural causes. When pressed, they might even claim a suicide to be murder, since the stigma around self-murder can be brutal. Why, then, is Mrs Corbyn persisting in her claim that her husband killed himself, when it causes her such distress?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that, too,’ Lucy replied. ‘She seemed eager to convince us that he did kill himself. Does she not care that her husband will be buried in unconsecrated ground? Did you see all the sermons and godly works that had been pasted to the walls? I think she has a deep faith and she cares deeply.’

  ‘Why was she so eager to let us believe that his death was a suicide? Why not seize on the idea that he had been murdered?’ Duncan asked. ‘It just doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘He might have been involved with something troublesome, and she knew it. Maybe she knows who murdered him and is too afraid to say,’ Lucy said. ‘Perhaps she’s afraid that they will come after her, too.’

  ‘So stubborn!’ Duncan replied. ‘We might be able to help her.’

  ‘Unless exposing her secret will do her more harm than good.’ Then another thought occurred to her. ‘Maybe she had something to do with his death and doesn’t want us to investigate!’

  They stared at each other. ‘I will find out where she was at the time of his death,’ Duncan replied, looking a bit chagrined. ‘I should have done so already! After all, when a man is murdered, it is almost always by his wife.’

  ‘Here you go, brother,’ Lucy said, setting a second bowl of stew in front of Will, before scraping out the last bit for herself. The rest of the day had passed easily enough. When Lucy had returned home, she continued to pore over the Babington tract, to see if there were any more clues to be found. Alas, nothing new had emerged.

  Will grunted his thanks. ‘What’s the latest? Figured out who the murderer is yet?’

  ‘No, but the dead’s man wife, Mrs Corbyn, was quite insistent that her husband had committed suicide. Even though she’d been quite tearful at the prospect of him being buried in unconsecrated ground. He’ll be buried in a potter’s field, for certain, with none but her own prayers said for his soul.’

  Master Aubrey sopped some bread into his stew before stuffing it in his mouth. ‘You said before that the physicians are fairly certain that it was not self-murder,’ he said as he chewed.

  ‘Yes, that is so. She’s choosing not to accept that fact.’ Lucy set down her own spoon and looked around the table eagerly. ‘You know what else is odd?’

  ‘Even more odd than someone insisting someone’s death was suicide when it was murder?’ Lach asked. ‘Besides an odd ring around his neck? Besides a coded message being found on his body? Besides being hanged when he may already have been dead? Tell us, Lucy, what else is odd?’

  ‘Oh, Lach,’ Lucy said, clapping her hands. ‘You’ve been paying attention.’

  ‘Out with it,’ the apprentice said, nearly growling. ‘You’ve told us everything else. Don’t hold back now.’

  ‘Adam thought the corpse looked familiar,’ Lucy said. ‘When we viewed it earlier in the week. He was quite troubled by it.’

  ‘You viewed the corpse?’ Lach’s face took on a pinched look, making his freckles stand out. ‘Why in heaven’s name did you do that?’

  ‘You said he was a merchant,’ Master Aubrey said, swatting absent-mindedly at Lach. ‘I assume Master Adam would have met him through trade.’

  ‘Mr Corbyn was a mercer of household objects. Pots, pans and the like. Adam said he hasn’t bought anything of that nature,’ Lucy replied. ‘However, Doctor Larimer showed us a tattoo on the man’s upper left arm. It was the image of a sea serpent. Quite fanciful and ornate, if you ask me.’

  ‘A sea serpent?’ Will dropped his spoon into his bowl. ‘No! It can’t be.’

  Lucy stared at him. ‘Will, what is it? What’s wrong?’

  Will’s face had nearly drained of colour. ‘Dark curly hair, you say?’ he asked, his tone suddenly hoarse. ‘Slim, wiry build? A misshapen nose?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lucy whispered. ‘That’s right. Will, what’s wrong? Who was this man?’

  Everyone stared at her brother, waiting for him to explain. His cheeks had started to regain their usual ruddy colour, although there was something pained in his expression. Moreover, his body was starting to shake.

  ‘I think …’ Will stopped and started again. ‘I think he may have been a guard at Newgate Prison.’ He stood up, abruptly pushing his chair back, near toppling it to the floor. ‘Pardon me, I need some air.’ Her brother lurched away, and she could hear him being sick outside the shop in the dark recesses of the street.

  ‘A Newgate guard?’ Lucy repeated, as a groggy, sickly sensation came over her. Just thinking about the dreadful prison might have made him unwell. She remembered, when her brother had been imprisoned, how anxious she had been, how sickly the sights she’d witnessed. The rats, the rotting corpses, the hopelessness of the men there. It was only by the grace of God, and Adam’s help, that her brother had been freed from near certain death.

  No wonder Adam had recognized the man but couldn’t place him. Like the others, he’d probably tried to push images of that godforsaken place from his mind.

  A few minutes later, Will stepped back inside. Wordlessly, Lucy poured him some mead from the pitcher on the table, which he drank quickly.

  ‘Fetch the lad some ale, Lucy,’ Master Aubrey said, clapping Will on the back. ‘You’ll be all right, lad. That’s your past. None of that can harm you now.’

  Lucy ran to pour her brother some ale, putting it in front of him. They all watched him as he took a few gulps. Finally, he wiped his mouth against the back of his hand. ‘Usually, the guard’s tattoo was covered, of course,’ he muttered, staring down at the cup. ‘There was this one day, though, when someone threw a pot of piss on him, and he tore off his shirt. That’s when I saw it.’ He took another sip. ‘I’ve wondered sometimes what happened to all the inmates and guards of Newgate Prison during the fire. I guess some fled.’

  Lucy nodded. She’d wondered herself. She’d heard some prisoners had been evacuated as the fire had spread and sent to other jails. There’d been no stories that they’d succumbed to the flames. Quite the opposite, in fact. The miracle of the Great Fire was that only a handful of people had died in the blaze outright. The fire had moved slowly over three days, before turning back on itself, and most inhabitants had been able to flee with whatever movables they could carry. ‘What did you say the man’s name was?’

  ‘Paul Corbyn.’

  ‘I don’t remember any guard with that name.’

  ‘He must have changed it,’ Master Aubrey supplied.

  Lucy snapped her fingers. ‘He didn’t just give himself a new name. He stole the merchant’s identity. He and his wife.’

  Certainly, after the Great Fire there were many who forged new identities, many through less than legal means. There were cases of servants who had stolen their deceased master’s trades and tools, and effectively their livelihoods.

  ‘Being a merchant has to be much better than a Newgate guard,’ Lach commented.

  ‘So how would that happen?’ Lucy continued to ponder, as she tore apart a bit of bread into increasingly smaller pieces. She glanced over at her brother. Thankfully, Will seemed to have returned to his usual colour, and his appetite, she was glad to see, once again appeared hearty. She placed the crust of bread on his plate. ‘Eat
.’ She turned back to the others. ‘How could he have taken the merchant’s identity and no one be any the wiser?’

  ‘Perhaps he managed to find the original merchant’s papers. Maybe he didn’t bother – so many records and papers were lost during the fire. Easy enough to forge a new life for yourself, given the upheaval all around.’ Master Aubrey took a deep swallow of his ale and then continued. ‘Those days, just after the fire. So many of us had lost so much. During the plague, so many people died. People I’ve known for years, gone with a single stroke of the good Lord’s judgement.’

  His last words were spoken with a notable bitterness. Not for the first time, Lucy wondered who Master Aubrey may have lost in those terrible years of plague and fire. She suspected sometimes that was why he was rather lax about his godly duty to his apprentice and household. She knew he never sang with the rest of the congregation during the service, and only muttered the occasional response when the preacher might be looking at him. Not a heretic or an apostate certainly, but not a man who exalted in the presence of the Lord.

  ‘He would have had to know that the Corbyns were gone and their house was empty,’ Lach said. ‘Or had to ensure it was available.’ Here he wagged his red eyebrows in an exaggerated way.

  ‘Just so,’ Lucy mused. ‘What about servants?’ She remembered the unpleasant woman who’d opened the door and led her to the dead man’s widow. ‘I only saw one woman, although I suppose others might have been tending the kitchen or laundry.’

  ‘Maybe the others died,’ Will said. ‘Or maybe the Corbyns bullied them.’

  Lucy nodded. The servant she’d seen had not seemed particularly grief-stricken, or even slightly moved by her late master’s passing. If anything, she’d been insubordinate. Which made sense if she had something on the Corbyns, assuming she knew that they were not who they claimed to be.

  What could have happened to the real Corbyns? Why would the servant allow someone to live in her master’s home? Or, perhaps, she had also taken the opportunity that the plague and fire had provided. Perhaps she’d never been a member of the Corbyn household either.

  She thought about the portraits on the walls – how someone had pasted the penny press alongside them. She’d never seen any among the Hargraves’ acquaintance do such a thing. That’s what it would look like if you moved into someone else’s home, and their movables and furnishings were still intact. She remembered too how Mrs Corbyn had sounded. ‘I remember thinking she was like a fishmonger’s wife,’ Lucy said. ‘Not the wife of a rich merchant.’ She frowned. ‘So why kill a Newgate guard at the hanging tree at a crossroads? What does that mean?’

  ‘The real question is,’ Master Aubrey said, rubbing his hands together, ‘was Corbyn’s murderer someone from his past or someone from his present?’

  TWELVE

  ‘You again,’ Mrs Corbyn said, glaring at Duncan and Lucy, standing at her front door, positioned as if to physically bar them from her home. Like yesterday, the house was silent, forlorn and empty of mourners. The rushes had been removed from the street, and the black crêpe had been taken down from the windows. ‘I’ve told you everything I need to about my husband’s suicide. Please leave me to mourn in peace. It’s time to let the dead rest.’

  ‘Is the real Paul Corbyn resting in peace somewhere?’ Lucy blurted out before she could restrain herself.

  Mrs Corbyn stared at her, her face draining of all colour. ‘W–what do you mean?’

  ‘Your husband was not born Paul Corbyn, was he? He was, in fact, born with a different name, and had a different occupation before the Great Fire – is that not so?’ Duncan asked, taking a step closer. ‘Indeed, was he not a guard at Newgate Prison, and not a mercer at all?’

  Mrs Corbyn stared at her. ‘Why would you say that?’ she whispered, glancing around, no doubt to see if the servant was listening. She stepped out of the house, shutting the door behind her. ‘Who told you this fanciful tale?’

  Duncan waved his hand. ‘Never mind how we know it. Don’t bother denying it, either. We know it to be true. Why don’t you simply tell us about it?’

  The widow pursed her lips tightly shut.

  ‘Well, at the moment I cannot press you to explain; that is so,’ he stated. ‘However, I can certainly arrest you for stealing someone’s identity. Then you can tell me all about it, in your jail cell.’

  Mrs Corbyn swayed a bit on her feet but steadied herself against the wall. ‘I knew this day would come,’ she whispered, tears gathering in her eyes. ‘I knew that there’d be a reckoning.’

  ‘Can you tell us about it?’ Lucy asked. As the woman fell into a defiant and stony silence, she pressed more. ‘Is that why you clung to the lie, claiming his death was a suicide? Because if you acknowledged his death to be a murder, you were afraid that it would not take long for the authorities to realize that you two were not who you claimed to be, and you’d see everything taken away?’ Hearing Mrs Corbyn moan, Lucy pressed on. ‘Don’t you want your husband’s murderer caught and brought to justice? Don’t you want your husband buried in hallowed ground?’

  ‘Too late for that! I’ll lose everything.’

  ‘You’ll lose everything anyway if the relatives of the real Corbyns come forward.’

  ‘Small chance of that. They’re all dead.’

  ‘Tell us.’

  ‘You have to understand that my husband was a good God-fearing man. He worked every day at that hell-hole at Newgate, dealing with halfwits and other lowlifes. Every day, he’d come home with stories of the terrible things he’d witnessed and heard. Until he stopped. I could tell it was all eating away at his soul. He wasn’t like those other guards. Those terrible men.’

  ‘What was your husband’s given name?’ Duncan asked. ‘We know he was not Paul Corbyn, which was the identity he stole. Tell me now, and I may not arrest you today for theft.’

  ‘Jack Campbell,’ she whispered. ‘I’m Mariah.’ A brief smile flittered over her face, and her eyes glistened with tears. ‘I have not been able to call him by his given name for over a year. It is indeed quite tragic that he will not be buried in a proper grave with a proper headstone. May the good Lord forgive us both for this lie.’

  ‘Could you tell us what happened?’ Lucy pressed.

  ‘Jack led those men out of the Newgate Prison during the Great Fire. The mayor had said to abandon them, but he couldn’t. He unlocked them and led them out. His intention was to bring them to one of the other jails, but in the chaos he was not sure where to go. He told me that they pleaded with him to be set free. So, God bless him, he did. He let those men free. Cut-throat murderers all.’ Mrs Corbyn sat down, disregarding her fine skirts.

  After exchanging a quick glance, Lucy and Duncan sank down beside her, crouching on either side of the woman who was now weeping into her hands. ‘What’s going to become of me?’ she wailed. She was no longer the haughty woman she’d been.

  ‘I will let the magistrate know that you have cooperated with this investigation,’ Duncan replied. ‘Assuming, of course, that you continue to answer our questions. How did you come upon this particular identity?’

  Mrs Corbyn sniffed. ‘We saw what happened after the fire. We knew the merchant who lived here had died during the plague, and even after the fire, it was still vacant. So it was not so hard for him to unearth the merchant’s records. At first his customers were suspicious of the change, but he just claimed to be a cousin of Mr Corbyn. Over time, he just started using Mr Corbyn’s given name as well. Then we were able to take everything over.’

  ‘What about your servant? Did she know that her employers were frauds?’ Duncan asked.

  ‘Bertha is a servant we picked up after the fire. As far as I know, she never knew the Corbyns personally, although I believe at some point she figured out our deception. She became less loyal after that, and she clearly felt she had something on us.’ She began to weep softly. ‘Every day, I was so fearful of being discovered. I pleaded with Jack to leave, start a new life again, but as th
e Campbells we once were. He wouldn’t have it. Said that he enjoyed being a mercer, enjoyed being in trade.’

  ‘Mrs Corbyn,’ Lucy said, leaning forward. ‘As Constable Duncan said the other day, your husband did not kill himself. Surely you know that to be true. Why do you persist in saying that he did?’

  Mrs Corbyn murmured a small prayer and began to rock back and forth. She suddenly looked desperate and alone. ‘It’s the reckoning. We have to pay.’

  A shiver ran up and down Lucy’s spine. ‘Do you know who killed your husband?’ Lucy prodded. ‘Please, if you do, say something. Could it have been someone who knew the true Paul Corbyn? Someone who resented that you’d taken over his identity and trade? Now’s the time to tell us what you know. Let justice be done.’

  Mrs Corbyn muttered something that Lucy didn’t quite catch. ‘What was that?’ Lucy asked. ‘I didn’t hear you.’

  This time the woman spoke louder. ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’ Tears began to slip down her cheeks and her words turned into a wail. ‘No good deed goes unpunished!’

  Before Lucy or Duncan could say anything else, Mrs Corbyn ducked back into the house, slamming the door behind her. They could hear the key turn in the lock, so there was no following her back inside. Beyond the wood door, they could hear the woman’s rising hysterical tears. When Lucy glanced back, she could see the servant standing at the glass window, staring with a knowing smile on her face.

  The sun disappeared into the rising fog, and Lucy shivered. She tugged on Duncan’s sleeve. ‘What are you going to do about Mrs Corbyn?’

  He sighed. ‘To be honest, Lucy, I truly do not know. I think these cases are everywhere. She should be arrested and brought to trial. Imprisoned for this deed of impersonating the Corbyns. I know that to be true. Yet such cases have been hard to prove, unless one of the Corbyns’ relatives learns of this and sues them. It sounds as if they are all dead. It would be different, of course, if it turns out she was involved in the murder.’