The Hanging Women

by John Mead

  “This would be ‘Blackstaff Chandlery and Warehousing’?” Jack connected the name, as the reverend spoke, with the dilapidated sign over the door of the derelict warehouse.

  Jack had asked to be dropped at the Gripmans near Washington and Wabash, despite their passing his home he preferred to eat out. As the road became crowded and they approached Rush Bridge the cabman became involved in an altercation with another driver, even the horse seemed to join in with loud whinny’s and clattering of hooves, in the end the sergeant dismounted and got them moving again. Jack took the opportunity to show Cage the notebook he had found.

  “You have taken this without permission?” the inspector stated, though Jack could not tell if he joked or not.

  “I believe it is Philomena’s diary,” Jack explained, “it was hidden in the piano stool under a pile of old music sheets, so I doubt it will be missed. The pages are dated and contain musical notations but also written observations.”

  “Yet you thought to steal it from the grieving parents,” Cage admonished, then scowled as Jack plucked it from his hands and replaced it in his jacket pocket as the sergeant regained his seat in the cramped carriage.

  “Take the cab, Sergeant,” O’Leary told his assistant as the cab pulled over. “It was a late night yesterday and you should not further neglect that young family of yours. I will dine with Mr Stevens, but we shall meet at the station early tomorrow to plan our day.” The sergeant readily agreed and the cab was off the moment Jack had closed the door behind him. “I’ll meet you inside, order me a steak and trimmings with pie to follow and a beer, I’m going to report back to the precinct station that I am here if I need be reached.” Jack watched as the inspector walked up the street to the police emergency telephone before going into the diner thinking that Cage’s rank obviously came with a degree of privilege in how he conducted himself.

  The Gripmans Bar and Diner was a narrow but long establishment with kitchens to the rear, both drinks and food were ordered from the waiters who were happy to recite the menu and drinks available from memory if required. The place was crowded, though less than half the clientele were cable car workers the remainder were the usual mix of office workers, with their wives or sweethearts, and the occasional group of men. The place had a vibrant atmosphere, neither too quite nor too loud for Jack’s liking and he quickly found Boat in his usual booth at the rear.

  “No Banjo?” Jack asked, seeing his old war buddy eating alone, giving his order to the waiter as he took his seat opposite.

  “He cried off, chasing after some woman as usual.” Boat, Hugh Phillip Partkis, to everyone else, except Jack and Banjo, was in his late forties, medium build with a square face, dark eyes black hair and a moustache of considerable thickness which he trimmed daily. Born in New York of Polish parentage, he had served in the Sharpshooters alongside Jack during the war. When mustered out he and Banjo had taken the train from Washington to NYC, but on meeting a pair of strawberry blond sisters travelling with their parents to Chicago had diverted to follow them. Boat, named partly because of the way he walked hunched forward like the bow of a boat breaking through water and partly because his rapid and accurate rate of fire, even for the sharpshooters, was likened to that of a gun boat, had married ‘his’ strawberry blond with whom he had two daughter’s and a son and was proud to be a gripman driving the cablecars on the Chicago City Railway.

  “You know Inspector Uriah Micajah O’Leary,” Jack introduced Cage as he joined them. “This is an old friend of mine, Hugh Partkis, the best shot I have ever met.”

  “I have read about you, sir.” Hugh extended his broad, strong hand for the inspector to shake. “Your arrest of the Post Office Raiders was most entertaining.”

  “As I’m off duty call me ‘Cage’,” the inspector smiled, remembering the extremely inept gang that had attempted to rob the Post Office and Customs House and he had ‘single handedly’ arrested. “Now Jack, the diary you purloined.” Cage read through the notebook, skipping pages of the musical notes, as he slowly ate, whilst Jack demolished his chops, wolfed a double helping of pie, finished two beers and started on a bottle of whiskey whilst catching up with Boat on the week’s events.

  “Your wife and family are well?” Stevens asked with a full mouth.

  “Mother is as hearty as ever, and busy enough for two now our youngest daughter is to be married,” Boat smiled at the thought of how lucky he had been in his life; a son apprenticed as an engineer on the cablecars, his eldest daughter the personal maid of Mrs O’Shea and now his youngest, who had certificates to attest to her ability in the use of a typewriting machine as well as for her spelling, grammar and general mathematics, was engaged to be married to an up-and-coming young clerk who worked for DeWert Holdings.

  “That reminds me,” Jack smiled back, raising his glass, “I checked with my son about the young man in question and it seems he is an asset to the company and is due a promotion.”

  “Your good health, Sergeant Major,” Boat clinked his friend’s glass, knowing Jack had pulled a few strings but such things are expected of old comrades and Boat would ensure the debt did not go unpaid. “Here is to their future happiness, may it follow the path of your own daughter who has been much blessed.” Boat was careful not to mention Jack’s son, Andrew, who was married five years but with no sign of a child.

  “Over the last two months or so there has been increasingly frequent mentions of an ‘MW’,” the inspector muttered, cutting through the others conversation.

  “She first mentions him at a Knights meeting where her father is giving a lecture, she remarks on how she asks who MW is, having observed MW’s enthusiastic and passionate agreement with her father’s words, and how MW states, ‘The Knight’s political views are so clearly endorsed by the Bible, God’s own words’,” Jack remarked, then continuing. “It would seem that shy Philomena then attended more meetings, without her father’s knowledge, and regularly commented on MW’s passion for the cause, MW’s drive and commanding ways, how MW speaks to her of a great future opening up and so on. The young woman seems quite taken with this MW and you should note her final entry is ‘MW 4 o’clock GPH’, which I assume is the Grand Pacific Hotel.”

  “You took in a great deal, given how little time you had to study the diary,” Cage commented, making a mental note not to underestimate the elderly reprobate, whose face was often puffy and grey eyes bleary from drink. “A pity though she does not describe the excellent MW, but as a frequent attendee at Knights gatherings the list of possible candidates should not be excessive.”

  “If she has kept her feelings secret it might be because she thinks her family would disapprove,” Jack speculated, sipping his whiskey.

  “Knights, you say,” Boat interrupted, “I’ll have nothing to do with them. The rail company treats us well and I’ll not have trouble stirred up where none is needed.”

  “The are many honest workers, both men and women, particularly amongst the Germans and Irish but coloreds also, who feel differently on the matter and not without reason,” Cage disagreed. “Managers and factory owners across the city much abuse their power and demand a great deal for little in return from their workforce.”

  “I see you are a convert,” Jack laughed, offering to top up their beers with a drop from his whiskey bottle. “It’s possible that MW is a lowly labourer, below the status of the prosperous Blackstaffs, or perhaps he is white?”

  “That is a possibility as the reverend, though an advocate of equality and peaceful coexistence,” Cage returned his thoughts to the case, “is an equally vocal opponent of any mixing of the races. Though I do not see how her admiration for MW, white or colored, leads to the scene we witnessed earlier nor how it would include the other woman?”

  “Speculation at this stage would be somewhat pointless,” Jack observed. “Perhaps find MW first.”

  “At least we can rule out robbery, as we found both their p
urses and Philomena still had a locket around her neck, entangled with the garrotte.”

  “It’s an awful day you have both had by the sound of it,” Boat commented, frowning at the implications of what he heard.

  Both his companions nodded despondently in agreement reflecting on all that had occurred that day before Jack, rather obscurely, stated, “There is something strange in this I can’t quite fathom.” Then, in a more cheery fashion asked Boat, “Do you remember seeing me yesterday?”

  “It was the afternoon of the day before yesterday,” Boat reminded him grinning, “we had lunch here with Banjo. Is the drink addling your mind so much you mix one day with another?’

  “It seems so,” Jack laughed, downing another glass and topping everyone up again. An hour later Boat had departed for the comfort of his home and Cage had wished Jack a good night and was donning his overcoat when Pinky and Pug barged into the Gripmans.

  “Inspector, your precinct captain said we would find you hear.” Pinky, or more formally Lucius Nathaniel Morgan O’Gail, a long serving Pinkerton, was a small man of Irish descent with slicked down hair, a thin moustache and missing the little finger on his right hand.

  “O’Gail,” the inspector stated without warmth, he was tired and dreaded this unexpected meeting would delay him further from his much needed rest, “I hope it isn’t me you’re wanting as I’m off to my bed.”

  “I’m afraid you will not get your wish just yet.” Benjamin Elijah Raymond Burke, more commonly known as Pug, who was of Scottish descent, clean shaven, as tall as a tree and brawny as an ox and as quietly spoken as Pinky was loud, his trademark bowler hat in his hand as his large frame blocked the aisle behind his partner. “You should read this,” he stated for explanation handing Cage a folded piece of paper.

  “Stevens, you drunken bum, you need to beat it,” Pinky commanded Jack, emptying Jack’s bottle of its last mouthful and signalling a waiter for a replacement.

  “Hello Jack,” Pug said evenly, with a smile, hoping to quieten the sudden storm that flashed across Jack’s face, as he pushed into the booth next to his partner. “Ignore this foolhardy soul, he means nothing by what he says. Though we will need some privacy to speak with Inspector O’Leary.”

  “Try the alleyway at the rear,” the unsmiling Jack told them, taking possession of the whiskey the waiter delivered with a look that dared any man to try and take it from him.

  “Jack, I am sorry but they are right,” Cage told him. “This missive is from the chief himself telling me to treat with the greatest secrecy all this pair have to tell me and, worse still, I am to cooperate and work in partnership with them in solving the murder of the two women discovered this morning.”

  “The pair I found,” Jack calmly stated, making no effort to move and pouring whiskey into everyones glass, which Cage wearily took as a signal to sit. “And, in which I remain a suspect.”

  “I remember that trading post where you cornered the Baynard brothers,” Pug informed them all, as much to cover Pinky’s cursing the day he had met Jack as for any other reason. “You sat down at their table and offered them whiskey, from the bottle you’d just bought, in celebration of something or other, then you gut shot the pair the moment they raised their glasses.” The two Pinkertons had known each other since growing up in neighbouring streets in New York and had enlisted together in the final year of the civil war in an infantry regiment. They saw little action but their sergeant was a Pinkerton and took them back to Chicago with him and had them enrolled as detectives. Over the years they had worked across much of the midwest, meeting and teaming up with Jack in the Black Hills, for a share of the proceeds they traced those with a bounty and sent Jack to ‘retrieve’ the quarry. It had proven a lucrative partnership until they returned to Chicago and Jack had left them still unable to face his family. Misunderstanding Jack’s wishes they had told Martha that Jack was dead, something she had never forgiven them for.

  “OK,” Cage was too tired to play games, “he obviously isn’t going to move so you pair have five minutes to tell me what is of such importance it can’t wait until the morning.”

  “Well,” Pug lowered his voice to a point where the others had to lean forward to hear him, “we have been informed that you found two women, a colored and a blond, we have this from our boss, WP himself, who got to hear of your find. Seems he was keeping close tabs on the blond and, not having heard from her at a prearranged time, is worried about her whereabouts. Putting two and two together, he sent us to find you with this photograph,” the Pinkerton handed Cage the picture.

  “I can’t tell from that,” Jack stated looking over the inspector’s shoulder, “but she was a blond in her late twenty’s, attractive, at least she would have been.”

  “I think this is her,” Cage stated wondering what twist this brought to the case. “Certainly her general features are a match, though given the state she was in I can’t be positive.”

  “Let’s take it as a likeness until we learn otherwise,” Pug had little doubt they were one and the same woman from what he had been told earlier in the day. “Her name is Mary Patricia Walsh and she worked for the Pinkertons, reporting direct to WP,” Pug paused hoping for a reaction but Cage was too tired and Jack too drunk to register much in their facial expressions. “In fact he had hired her himself and was the only one, except his brother, who knew of her. She was working undercover to infiltrate the Order of the Knights of Labour, the agency had not had much luck in getting into the inner circle who run the show. We monitor their meetings easily enough but none, until Mary Walsh, have gotten beyond being a general member.”

  “As she was a woman,” Pinky interrupted, “I expect they weren’t as suspicious, plus she had played the long game, it seems, and had worked in a sweat shop for a couple of months and let them approach her. She gradually became an enthusiastic and active supporter, and was trusted more and more. Recently she had made friends with and was being helped by the daughter of Reverend Blackstaff, who ‘certified her credentials’, as they say.”

  “In her last reports,” Pug went on as Pinky lit his pipe, “she was growing suspicious of the connection between the Knights and a newcomer, a man known only as ‘Chicago Joe’, who claimed he could get them protection from the street gangs.”

  “It’s not a name I recognise,” the inspector told them, his forehead furrowed, though he sensed his case would be solved in the next few sentences. “Though why should the Knights need to be protected from the street gangs?”

  “It’s true their membership has large numbers of Irish and Germans, as well as many coloreds, inevitably a number have connections with various gangs particularly the Dead Hands, Kings and Black Hawks and, for a relatively small fee, the local gangs stop any trouble happening at their meetings. However, this Chicago Joe seems to have suggested he could bring over entire gangs and whole districts of workers, starting with the Black Hawks. It would not only further swell their numbers but give them a militia that would stop violence at any meeting or march,” Pug took a mouthful of whiskey, and peered meaningfully at his companions.

  “In other words,” the inspector elaborated, “a force large and violent enough to take on the police should they decide to intervene in a rally.”

  “Exactly so,” Pinky confirmed, puffing smoke as he spoke, “relations with the constabulary not being so good recently.”

  “It’s true,” Cage, sadly confirmed. “Though many an ordinary policeman live side by side with members of the Knights and may in their hearts wish them luck against the bosses, we have had orders from the very top not to tolerate large gatherings and to be most vigilant, even excessively so, in upholding the law when dealing with them.”

  “Well,” Pug took up the baton, “at her last report Mary, said she was looking more closely at this Chicago Joe and was deeply concerned about the man, his connections and what he was up to. She had a plan to get close to him and his o
rganisation but did not want to say more until she had spoken with her friend, Miss Blackstaff, as she would need her help for her plans to succeed.”

  “Getting them both killed in the process,” Cage concluded. “Your boss is an idiot beyond measure for involving a woman in such work, the dangers are too great as circumstances now show.”

  “You have no disagreement from us,” Pinky told them, exhaling a large cloud of smoke as he did to emphasise the enormity of the error as he saw it. “Although WP said she was the most skilled operative he had ever seen who could even have put his father to shame. Believe me the father was as a god to the two sons, so it is not light praise he gave.”

  “We have evidence that Miss Blackstaff had befriended an MW whilst attending meetings of the Knights, we thought it might be a man but is obviously your Mary Walsh,” the inspector informed the two Pinkertons, glancing at Jack who appeared to be asleep in the corner of the booth. “I take it that is not her real name but the one she used for cover.”

  “Yes,” Pug stated, wondering what possessed a woman, an attractive one at that, to take up such a calling. “WP would not give us her name until all is confirmed and he has spoken with the family, which he gave us to believe he knew well.”

  “It is late,” Cage told them, standing, “and my bed beckons me. I will meet you both at the police station at seven o’clock, we will confer there with my sergeant as how best to proceed so we track down this Chicago Joe. Good night Gentleman.”