The Hanging Women

by John Mead

  “Why?” Kitty was annoyed at being let down, since moving away from the influence of her brother, which had taken a great deal of perseverance and determination on her part, she felt like a girl again; like the princess once locked in the tower who had gained her freedom.

  “Mrs O’Shea said ‘her godson was missing his sister’ and that she intended to, ‘keep the matter in her sights’,” Jack explained.

  “She dotes on him as if he were her actual son,” Kitty scowled, she knew exactly what the old bat meant by, ‘keeping her in her sights’, she intended to make Kitty’s life difficult and force her to move back home where she could be kept under lock and key.

  “What troubles me is why Nina choose to tell me this,” Jack puzzled. “If she had the slightest suspicion we are seeing each other she would have told Hank or caused mischief by now.”

  “She might suspect I am seeing someone, why else would I want my privacy?” Kitty stated sarcastically, then maliciously added, “though you would think she would have thought I had made the acquaintance of a younger and more handsome man.”

  “A younger man would indulge your whims and fancies to the extent that you would loose your reputation,” Jack smiled, though he was only half serious; although he was pleased that a pretty widow like Kitty showed any interest in him, he knew her tendency to rush head-long into adventures would bring about her downfall unless some care was taken.

  “Really? Perhaps I should try one or two, as I now have free time on my hands.” Her smile gave no hint as to whether she spoke in jest or as a warning. “Of course you could send a note to the inspector’s precinct and escort me home, under your watchful eye I can hardly get into trouble. Although I might do something rash when we are alone.”

  4

  Ruby’s

  With the aid of five dollars, left absent-mindedly beside the desk sergeant at Inspector O’Leary’s precinct house, Stevens discovered that Cage was dining with Mr Benjamin Burke, the Pinkerton detective. Given that the two Pinkertons often had long periods of absence from the city it was unexpected to find that Pug had been happily married for twelve years to a petite, blue eyed, redhead who was still pretty, despite having given birth to four children. Whilst it was no surprise to discover that Pinky led a bachelor life. If the Burke’s were surprised at Stevens’ gatecrashing none expressed it and Mrs Benjamin Burke was particularly pleased at his coming as he brought candy for her and the children. The plump frame of each of the five showing her and her brood to have a sweet tooth.

  “We considered it safe to meet here, in private, so as to be able to share confidential information without being overheard by unwanted ears,” Pinky expressed his mild annoyance at Jack turning up unasked. Pinky had, eventually, forgiven Jack for once saving his life with a shot that passed within an inch of his head, but the diminutive Pinkerton had gained the habit of being unpleasant to Stevens and continued the practice with enthusiasm.

  “I have only come to gloat at your collective floundering,” Jack informed them with a smile whilst taking a seat, that Pug had brought him from another room, at the table. “Though I would never pass up on the opportunity of eating a plate of Mrs Burke’s excellent roast.”

  “It’s pork, Mr Stevens,” Mrs Burke informed him smiling at the compliment. They all regularly dined at Jack’s twice a year, along with Mr Hugh Partkis and his wife, and she was always made to feel comfortable and most welcome, though she still remained a little in awe of the grand surroundings, more so if the DeWerts or Mr Stevens’ son was present, “and Nantucket Cranberry pie for dessert.”

  “To sum up,” Jack said, after the meal they had moved to the small, neat parlour, for cigars and whiskey, “you have found nothing of Chicago Joe nor any other connections with the Knights of Labour. To be precise you are no further forward.”

  “There is one thing,” Cage informed him, he was not worried at their lack of progress as he knew it was the way of some cases and detectives, above all else, needed patience, “as you have now owned up to being the owner of the flask it does make your finding of the bodies suspicious, especially as you cannot account for your movements of the previous day.”

  Jack turned the flask, Cage handed him, over noting that it was engraved with a coil of rope surrounding a well executed two-masted ship, “I expect it does,’ he stated with a smile, handing Cage Miss Blackstaff’s notebook which he still carried with him. Inwardly he was surprised the flask was not his; the one his son had bought him for his fiftieth birthday was solid silver rather than ‘silvered’ and engraved with crossed rifles beneath a triumphal wreath and the legend: ‘To my father, who taught me the value of a True Aim in Life.’ He pocketed it all the same, having checked that it smelt of rum rather than whiskey, a fact he thought Cage should have noticed. Though all the while the inspector watched him, wondering why Stevens did not state that the flask was not his.

  “I take it from your tone, Jack,” Pug surmised, “that you do have something.”

  “Only to report that the name Chicago Joe, means little to anyone I have asked, except being a smalltime whore-monger and gunrunner who has dropped out of sight for sometime,” Jack explained with a shrug.

  “We have heard the same,” Pinky snorted derisively at the non-new news.

  “Oh, and that he may be associated in some way with Ruby’s, as the two woman were overheard talking about a visit to Ruby’s in order to get more information about Chicago Joe,” the silence which followed rather lessened Jack’s pleasure in revealing what he had learned.

  “There are many Ruby’s in Chicago, and an equally large number of names for which it is a shortened version, so it could be any number of women they intended to visit,” Cage informed him, between puffs on one of Pug’s cigars. “Though as a possible name of a wife or girlfriend of Joe’s it might be of help.”

  “No,” Jack told them, annoyed at their missing the point, “Joe is reputed a whore-monger, Ruby’s is not a woman called Ruby but the brothel that the women intended to visit to find out more about Joe. You see the link surely?” Even as he spoke he realised how thin his own reasoning was, but he had not expected the others to laugh at the idea; Pinky perhaps but not the embarrassed smiles of Pug and Cage.

  “I have heard many a tale about the bawdy behaviour of many a minster’s daughter,” Pinky chuckled, “but, in reality, would two respectable young woman contemplate such a thing?”

  “Joe’s reputation was as a low class pimp north of the stockyard whilst Ruby’s is a far more depraved house than any other in the city, and the perversions it reputedly offers come at a high price to an exclusive clientele,” Pug informed them, “it is one heck of a jump to connect the two.”

  “It’s a very thin lead,” Cage added, his tone conciliatory given Jack’s scowling expression, “though admittedly the only one we have.”

  “You seem to forget that Mary Walsh,” Jack decided he should flesh out his thinking for the others, “was an undercover operative for the Pinkertons, one you two described as very skilful. Such a woman might not baulk at going to Ruby’s to follow up a lead and from what I have learned of Philomena Blackstaff she might be willing to follow her friend just about anywhere. Whilst most brothels would not admit a non-house female, Ruby’s is more than likely to do so if they can afford the entrance fee.”

  “The fee, at least, would not be an issue,” Pug interrupted. “Miss Walsh had money of her own to run her operation and spend as she saw fit, so the fee would be no obstacle.”

  “Perhaps they went there to bribe someone who was an acquaintance of Chicago Joe’s,” even Jack felt he was clutching at straws on this.

  “I know little about the place or its staff and clientele,” Cage admitted. “They seem to know the face of every cop in the city, whether on their payroll or not. They know of any raid that is planned in advance and have shut down their operation before we start. Unofficially, we haven’t been a
ble to touch them as they pay too many officials to keep them safe.”

  “It is true of the Pinkertons as well, though only in the sense that no one has ever wanted to pay us to look into the place and the agency has been threatened with having contracts cut with state and city government if a lead has ever taken us near the place,” Pinky told them, as Pug nodded in agreement, filling the room with cigar smoke as he angrily huffed out smoke.

  “I could go there, a man of my age and wealth would hardly be out of place,” Jack smiled, raising his eyebrows as he raised his glass in mock salute to the others.

  “It is $120 to get in, that is without the expenses incurred inside,” Cage informed him. “I’d want a firmer lead than you have offered before I laid out such sums, even if I had them to hand.”

  “Who runs the place?” Jack asked.

  Pinky and Pug both shrugged.

  Cage pausing before answering, “Rumour has it that Black Rube does, he took it over about five years ago when the Black Hawks first expanded north.”

  “Black Hawks,” Jack’s smile grew, “and Chicago Joe offered their services to the Knights. Another possible link in the chain.”

  “Isn’t he a Wop?” Pinky pointed out. “Don’t they have their own gangs these days?”

  “Some of the earliest Italian families to settle here fitted in where they could, with Catholic Germans and Irish mostly,” Cage informed them, “but now they keep to themselves and these days the Black Hawks are exclusively colored, though they will do business with anyone.”

  “So they might do business with Joe,” Jack theorised.

  “Or Joe doesn’t just have Italian heritage,” Pug pointed out insightfully. “There are plenty of white men who have sired bastards with a colored woman.”

  “Whatever,” Jack concluded, thinking the reverse of Pug’s suggestion was also true. “But it’s worth me having a look round to see what I can find out.”

  “I’ll continue with my own enquiries,” Cage told them enigmatically, then nodded at the Pinkertons and added, “Whilst you two need to find out more about who Mary Walsh really was, she may have been killed for a reason to do with her real persona.”

  Day Four – Friday April 18th 1886

  Jack’s first reaction on seeing Kit enter the River Bar was a disbelieving double-take. Kitty, dressed in a brown check suit, with her hair in a series of tight knots hidden under a cap pulled down over her left eye, was a passably handsome man who walked with the slight swagger of a typical young gent about town and whose only faintly feminine trait was the softness of ‘his’ countertenor voice. Jack’s second reaction was anger, barely concealed as he called Kit to the seat beside him.

  “I thought we agreed after last time you would not repeat this charade in public,” Jack hissed into Kitty’s ear, taking care not to draw attention to himself and his companion. “To dress like this in private is one thing but you risk too much to do so in public.”

  “You told me but I did not agree to abide by your instructions,” Kitty informed him, she had artfully applied her make up so that it looked as if her chin had a light stumble on it. “Given how drunk you were last time it is a wonder you remember anything of meeting Mr Christopher Houston.” Jack’s face turned thunderous as a memory suddenly resurfaced at her words, reading his thoughts Kitty turned pale beneath her makeup and she pulled away from him, into the corner of the small booth in which they sat.

  “You can strike me if you want, I can little defend myself,” she stated fearfully, “but you will never see me again if you do.”

  “Hitting you is the last thing on my mind,” Jack told her, pulling her back so they could talk privately, “but I do not rule out putting a bullet hole in your head to let a little sense in. Now, the truth, it was the night before my missing day when I last saw you dressed as Kit, wasn’t it?” Kit nodded but kept ‘his’ silence.

  “You scared me,” Kitty eventually confessed as Jack glared at her, his anger not abating. “I know you will not hurt me, not intentionally, but on that night you were so drunk and in such a rage it scared me. It reminded me of when I was a girl and my father would come home drunk and beat my mother. Hank hid me behind himself but he was too small to stop my father’s anger from reaching me.”

  “You say I beat you?” Jack was aghast at the thought, remembering his own unaccountable anger at Martha from the morning he had woken on the sofa.

  “No, not much,” Kitty confessed. “At first you dragged me from here saying if I’m to be a man I must piss as one, you took me to the rear and demonstrated how to do it. Then from there you took me to the alleyway behind and insisted we box like men, you made me put my fists up and told me to strike you. When I didn’t, you hit me on my arms and it hurt, then you said, ‘I snivelled like a girl, not a boy at all’. You sounded like my father when he beat poor Hank, who was just a child,” Kitty paused, struggling to control herself as her voice rose and she clenched and unclenched her fists. “None, could prove it was my father that did for my mother but all knew he was to blame. Had he not taken a drunkards tumble into the river shortly after I dread to think what would have been our fate.”

  “Then the O’Shea’s took you in and raised you as their own,” Jack finished the story for her as she fought against her tears, screwing up her eyes to stop them.

  “Hank was the favoured godson,” she went on once in control of herself again. “I was just an inconvenience but a useful drudge for Mrs O’Shea, never Mother as Hank was privileged to use. Though Hank was always a good brother to me.”

  “What do you know of the day that followed your entrance as Kit?” Jack asked quietly, his anger gone now just curious.

  “I tried to get away from you, but you followed me, raving. Then saying you’d teach me to shoot, as every man should be able to use a gun. You put your flask on a wall and tried to take aim at it, this was on Clark, and though the hour was late there were still people and carriages about.” Despite herself she couldn’t help smiling at the memory of it. “You were a damn fool, waving the gun about, staggering and ordering the shadows from the street light to get out of the way.”

  “I shot my flask?” Jack asked still having no memory of the events.

  “No, you dropped your whiskey bottle, which you held in your left hand, then your gun and fell in a heap trying to pick up both,’ she almost laughed. “As for the flask I have no idea, it stands on the wall where you left it still for all I know.”

  “I doubt that. A silver flask would not be overlooked by passers by,” Jack stated, annoyed he had lost his son’s present in such a ridiculous way. “However, this doesn’t account for the following day.”

  “I could barely lift you,” Kitty explained, with a shrug. “I hailed a cab and for a dollar the driver helped get you aboard, swearing he would kick you off if you were sick inside. I could not take you to our little hideaway, it is up two flights of stairs, so I took you home. Even so you made enough noise getting you up the front steps and into my door, fortunately the couple who live opposite are old and would be asleep and the only other occupant, the little Russian man who lives above, has a lady friend of his own. They make enough noise to wake the dead when she visits, so he could hardly complain. You would not think it from her looks, so well dressed and a wealthy looking matron. His exertions must more than compensate her for what she must pay him, for there is nothing else about the pair that they can have in common.”

  “So, I slept at your place, but what happened the next day?” Jack brought her back to the matter in hand.

  “You slept through the morning and I had to go out to an appointment I could not miss,” Kitty began to look shame-faced. “I didn’t want you waking up still half-drunk and making a noise whilst I was out that would raise questions with the neighbours.”

  “And so?” Jack demanded as she grew silent.

  “So I gave you some of the medicine the
doctor had prescribed to me, after my daughter passed away, to help me sleep,” she guiltily stated.

  “That must have been years old, it could have poisoned me,” Jack was incredulous.

  “Obliviously it did nothing of the sort,” Kitty stated in her defence. “Though you were still asleep when I returned and continued to snore through the evening and night. Past midnight you started too come to and eventually I was able to get you to stand, though you still didn’t seem to know yourself or where you were. That is how I got you home, in another cab, and put you on your step,” she concluded and, seeing Jack’s look, further added in her defence, “What else could I do? Your family would have been worried and on the verge of calling the police.”

  “I don’t believe they were,” he scowled. “Did you go attired as Kit?”

  “Yes,” she admitted, “in case we were seen I thought it better you were accompanied by a man.”

  “Well at least that accounts for my whereabouts and my missing flask should Inspector O’Leary ever want to know,” though Jack doubted Kitty would corroborate the story which would ruin her reputation. Then having a thought which caused him to smile said to her, “Though if you want to know what it is like to be a man, I have just the place to take you.”

  Jack had been in many saloons and bars where the favours of a dance hall girl could be bought, if so desired, but he had never been in a brothel. Ruby’s was much as he expected such a high class establishment would be in terms of its plush decor, however, in all other respects it was unique. The unassuming entrance, a heavy, wooden door reinforced with iron bars, was off a dark, back alley somewhere between East 21st and 22nd streets not far from South State Street. In the reception area, guarded by members of the Black Hawk gang, he had handed over his guns and paid the entrance fee for himself and Kit. And, although he had brought a large sum with him, on paying for the drinks, he realised it would barely be enough if he were making a night of it.