The Hangman's Child

by Francis Selwyn

  With Lupus and Babb following him, Jessup leading the way, Rann walked in shuffling steps. At every movement the iron anklet scraped the skin of his bony leg. He clenched his teeth. Now, of all times, he must give no pretext for cancelling the visit.

  The low-vaulted prison corridor ran to the centre of the great building. There it was crossed by another, like the nave of a cathedral meeting its transepts. The space where the two stone-paved corridors crossed was a square of four low arches. Joined by wooded panels to waist-height, glass-paned above, they formed the consulting-room.

  Prisoner and adviser were divided by a broad oak table, the full width of the room, with chairs on either side. The warders stood several yards outside, respecting the privilege due to a lawyer with his client or a clergyman comforting a sinner. The respect did not extend to turning away their eyes. Nothing would pass from one hand to another, over or under the broad table.

  Rann looked towards the glassed-in space and swore to himself. Two figures stood on the far side of the table. Any man with pretensions to charity might offer himself as a workhouse missioner one day and vanish the next. If such a visitor chose to bring a prisoner's child to see him on a magistrate's authority, it was nothing the law could prevent.

  Rann knew this missioner as 'Orator' Hawkins, an attorney's clerk dismissed over a probate embezzlement. It was not brought to court for the sake of the firm's name. Hawkins had been Bully Bragg's mouthpiece for the past two years. Rann wondered what a lord of the Swell Mob like Bragg could want with him now.

  The visit would not have been difficult to arrange. Bragg boasted of two or three justices among the clients of his 'French Introducing House' off Drury Lane. No magistrate would doubt the good offices of such a figure as Hawkins. The close cut of dark hair, the precise lines of formal suit and pearl-grey choker, the kid gloves, gave him the air of a fashionable preacher from a Kensington or Marylebone chapel. The broad forehead diminished to a narrow trimly bearded chin, the small and high-pointed ears were like architectural features. At closer range, the light-blue eyes were hooded and dead. They held steady while the 'Orator' read a man his sentence of execution on Bully Bragg's behalf.

  The 'Little Girl' was a figure of dark but rather sullen good looks who appeared by her dress to be about sixteen. A slim and agile figure, she was costumed in a plain mourning-gown of black merino wool. The dark hair usually worn down her back was entirely contained in the lining of a black hood. Her cheap gown and bonnet resembled the uniform of an orphanage or workhouse. No doubt she had snatched at sixpence or a shilling from Bragg to act the part of a snivelling child.

  Rann knew this vision of hardened prettiness and dispassionate brown eyes as Suzanne Berry or 'Lambeth Sue', one of the mudlarks who scavenged at low tide between Westminster and Southwark. Boys and girls collected coal, wood, bottles, bones and rags for the 'dust contractors'. By dark they stole from the barges moored at wharves above London Bridge. Most girls with Suzanne's prettiness were soon apprenticed to an adult pickpocket or sold themselves for their 'fancy-men' to sailors or dockers in the raucous streets of Wapping or Shadwell. Someone had soaped and scrubbed her well for her present appearance.

  Prisoner and escort entered the glassed-in space, where Hawkins dry-washed his hands, anxious to proceed with his duty.

  As the warders went out and Jessup closed the door, Hawkins raised his right hand, two fingers together in an ambiguous sign of greeting or benediction. He thought better of the gesture and lowered his arm. Suzanne glanced quickly at Rann, then lowered her face and sobbed a little into a folded handkerchief. Rann guessed it was fright at the place she found herself in. He scowled at Hawkins.

  'So what does Bragg want? If I was to see anyone, I'd as soon have had Mag Fashion or Miss Jolly. I was to have one visit. What use are you to me?'

  Hawkins dropped his voice. 'Don't shout! They may hear you through the glass.'

  Rann shifted his chains and stood awkwardly at his side of the table. Hawkins sat opposite. Suzanne kept her profile hidden in the dark hood. Yet her brown eyes watched the man who was to die, staring as if at a fairground freak.

  'Let them hear,' said Rann with soft contempt. 'You think I'd help Bragg? Or you? Bragg's voice is all you are, my son. When he talks from his backside.'

  Hawkins' face changed as little as if Rann had not spoken. The insults were like blows deflected or received with meek indifference. He looked at the prisoner like a head clerk surveying a bankrupt tradesman.

  'Mr Bragg is sorry for the situation in which you find yourself, Mr Rann. Truly so. But he has a proposition which may be to your advantage.'

  Rann stared at him. He spoke slowly, as though to the feebleminded.

  'Eight days from now, I'm to be stretched. You think Bragg knows different?'

  Hawkins' bony nose tightened, as if catching some prison odour. 'Mr Bragg can do nothing about that.'

  'Do nothing!' Rann hoped the warders could hear him but he

  doubted it. 'Bragg's the reason I'm here! Him and Policeman Fowler swore my life away. I want to know why. Even if I'm to be stretched, I've a right to know why. I didn't put a knife in Pandy Quinn. I couldn't a-done. I'd nothing to cut him with.'

  'Jury thought otherwise,' said Hawkins suavely. 'End of the case.'

  The fetters jangled as Rann shifted forward a little.

  'You listen,' he said. ‘I got a message at the Three Tuns in Hatton Garden. Come to the Golden Anchor in Hatton Wall, off Saffron Hill, quick-sharp. Pandy in a tap-room fight. When I went in, Pandy was bleeding on the floor. Someone cut him, well before that. All they needed was me. Bragg and his boy, Moonbeam, jumped me from behind a door. That old bastard Catskin Nash wipes me with blood off something. They pushed me down on Pandy. Held me till Flash Fowler come from upstairs, where he so conveniently happened to be with one of Bragg's girls. Now you tell me why.'

  Hawkins looked quickly aside at the warders, who assumed expressions of indifference, and then back at Rann.

  'Now you sit down and listen, Handsome Rann. Your brief had his say down the sessions. No one believed you then, no one believes you now. As for no knife, that's where you're wrong. Since yesterday, my friend, you're trussed tighter than a sirloin for the skewer. They found the knife you say you never had.'

  The impossibility briefly knocked the fight from him. He sat down awkwardly and glanced warily at Hawkins and the girl, dark eyes flicking side to side.

  'How could it be found?'

  'By looking,' said Hawkins calmly. 'Policeman Fowler was called by the man that found it. Yesterday morning. Down a drain on Saffron Hill. Just below Hatton Wall and the Golden Anchor. Where you run out and dropped it the minute after you cut Quinn. Mr Fowler never stopped looking for it, being anxious to see justice done to all concerned. Hurtful things having been said in court about Mr Bragg and Moonbeam and poor old Mr Nash. Hurtful allegations about the police too. But Charley Fowler found your Italian cutter down a drain on Saffron Hill. Twenty yards from the Golden Anchor, where the slop must've carried it.'

  'Then he put it there himself!' said Rann furiously.

  'Whether he did or not, Handsome Rann, he's believed, and you're not. And Mr Bragg and Moonbeam, and their witness Mr Nash, are believed now, for all your slanders. And it's certain-sure what'll happen to you. You'll be confirmed for the rope in a day or two. So, you want to hear Mr Bragg's proposition or not?'

  Rann said nothing. For the first time since his trial, he felt sick with fear. It was not the promise of the rope - he had always expected that - it was the care taken by his enemies to destroy him that took his strength away. Hawkins drew a gold hunter from his pocket and checked the time.

  'Bragg and Flash Fowler swore my life away,' Rann said helplessly.

  For a moment he feared he might weep. Hawkins' mouth tightened.

  'You had Pandy's blood all down your shirt.'

  'Course I had. How should I help it? Me held down on him by Bragg and Moonbeam, while Catskin Nash wiped it everyw
here!'

  'And before he died, Pandy told Policeman Fowler you stabbed him,' Hawkins said firmly. 'After that you were bound to swing.'

  'Gammon!' said Rann in quiet anger. 'All Pandy Quinn said when I was standing there was, "My hat! Oh, my hat!" like he was surprised at something. Then he said, "My hat'll be the death of me!" And that was all.'

  'His hat?' Hawkins looked up at him, impatient no longer. 'What about his hat?'

  'How should I know? Even Policeman Fowler didn't know at the inquest. Twice that useless brief of mine asked him, and he didn't know. I was Pandy's friend. He wouldn't say I stabbed him when I never did.'

  The 'Orator' shot his crisp white cuffs, his interest in the hat at

  an end.

  'Mr Bragg is concerned about your legacy.' 'What legacy?'

  Hawkins' mouth extended in a muscular spasm that might have been taken for a grin in a better-natured man.

  'First off, there's your young women. Miss Jolly and Maggie Fashion. Mr Bragg got no special use for 'em, but they can't be left. Who's to protect them?'

  'Protect them from what?'

  Hawkins cleared his throat and dropped his voice.

  'There was some scheme you and Pandy was working on. Something rich. Six houses you entered on dark evenings last October, Soapy Samuel first acting as a parson collecting charity subscriptions. To spy out the land.'

  'Gammon,' said Rann miserably. 'Ask Soapy Sam, if it interests you so much.'

  'We would,' said Hawkins evenly, 'if he could be found. He'd be asked in such a manner as he'd never forget.'

  Rann said nothing. He guessed what was coming next.

  'Thing is, Jack Rann, not one house ever complained of being burgled.'

  'So they was never entered, or there was nothing taken.'

  Hawkins sat back, stuck his thumbs under his lapels and drew a deep breath at the hopelessness of it all.

  'West End,' he said patiently. 'Two in Portman Square, one in Audley Street, one off Park Lane. One in Belgrave Square. A furrier's rooms in Regent Street. Nothing worth taking? Don't play games with me, Jack! You and Pandy was after something bigger than pictures on their walls or jools in the safes. You were investing time - and money. And it ain't come to the boil yet, has it? I want to hear about it. Then we'll see about protecting your young women.'

  Maggie Fashion and Miss Jolly were to be the sacrifice. He stared at Hawkins and knew he was done for. The Orator eased one soft hand with the other.

  'Trouble is, Handsome Jack, you and Pandy were up to some lark you never should have been. Hunting other men's game.'

  'Hunting?'

  'Call it poaching. You must have known you were working where no one works without Mr Bragg or Mr Nash allow. So Mr Bragg and Mr Nash want to know two things, as your side of our bargain: what's the lark and who's the putter-up?'

  'There's no lark and no putter-up!' said Rann grimly. 'Houses ain't apt to complain when they lose something they shouldn't have had in the first place.'

  Hawkins nodded as if he understood.

  'So the Bishop of London's hiding stolen goods, is he? And old Lady Mancart's got a collection of saucy paintings, has she?'

  'You might put it the other way round,' said Rann hopefully.

  Hawkins flicked dust from his cuff and glanced at Rann with ineffable contempt.

  'Don't fuck me about, Jack. You're time's up, one way or t'other. But when you step off, the job you and Quinn planned won't be forgotten. If you won't tell, others must. Mr Bragg's a gentleman, always has been, but others is less refined. When you've swung, we'll ask Mag and Miss Jolly, for a start. Much the same as they might have asked Pandy, if he'd been fortunate enough to live a bit longer.'

  'Those girls got nothing to do with it.'

  'Won't stop Mr Bragg asking. Them not knowing, if that's true, would be most unfortunate for them and a bit of a pleasure for him. I daresay you'd recall Mr Mulligan that's called "Strap?" Old Strap might think Christmas comes early if the sorrowful task was given him. But you let us take all the care about this business of yours and you'd save those young persons a world of grief when you depart.'

  Hawkins broke off and made a gesture, as if the possibilities were limitless. Rann sat up and stared at him, but it was Hawkins who broke the silence.

  'And here's the little bit of a bonus, Mr Jack. Little bit of a bonus, eh? Of course, Mr Bragg can't save you being turned off. No one can. But you might have better living the next week or so than you'll otherwise get. Every comfort might attend your remaining days.'

  'I'm in here, aren't I?' He felt again that he might weep in front of Hawkins and the girl with the new intensity of despair.

  'And will remain,' said Hawkins reasonably, 'but you may eat the best, brought in from the London Coffee House, instead of slum-gullion for the cells. And a man may visit a female relative if she happens to be on the women's side of the prison. You could remember a young cousin, I daresay. Several might claim that right with you.'

  'You never were in Newgate,' Rann said. 'Things like that can't be done in here. Not by you, nor by Bully Bragg!'

  Hawkins examined his perfectly clipped fingernails.

  'Not by me nor Mr Bragg,' he agreed reasonably, 'but for a pocketful of chinkers, you could not begin to imagine what Mr Lupus might do.'

  'Warder Lupus?' Rann stared into the dead blue eyes. 'He's the brute of them all!'

  'And who more likely to take gold for favours than the brute of them all?' Hawkins sat back with a self-satisfied smile. 'Therefore of greatest use and value.'

  Rann stared at him again.

  'So when I'm gone, Bragg and Catskin Nash and the rest are going to protect Mag Fashion and Miss Jolly if I tell you a story now?'

  'Why should they not?'

  'And Soapy Samuel? He's to be protected, is he?' Hawkins almost checked himself, but for the slightest movement of the eyes.

  'No!' said Rann, his whisper little more than a hiss. 'He's dead and at the bottom of the river, I suppose! A knife slipped, like it did when Bragg was asking Pandy! And Mag Fashion and Miss Jolly'd go the same way, once he had his answers. You think I'd trust a man that put me here? Him and Flash Fowler?'

  But Hawkins had regained his poise and looked again at the gold hunter-watch. Rann struggled to his feet.

  'Bloody crawling Judas! You can't help me and never meant to! You go back to Policeman Fowler and Bully Bragg! I'd sooner see them and you in Hell!'

  Hawkins favoured him with a wry, wan smile.

  'But you'll be there first, Jack Rann. Next week, as it happens. Still, if you got further to say, I'll be back to say a prayer with you. Easy, now they know me. You might have a week so agreeable you'd hardly concern yourself with what was to come at the end. Respited even for a week more till sessions ends and they have the last gallows. You got to swing. That's the law. But next week might turn into the week after if you slipped down the list. So long as you're hung this sessions. You got no business to be around after that. Until then, sweet and savoury. Glass of wine of an evening; muzzle cocked by a young lady on the other side with an arse like a marchioness. You don't have to suffer now and hang prompt, do you, Jack?'

  But Rann turned to the door and waved the turnkeys towards him.

  'You always were a stupid little squirt, Handsome Rann,' Hawkins said, moving his lips in a mimicry of benediction. 'Never anything but a fool to yourself.'

  He turned away and took the girl by her arm. Rann thought he saw a significant glance exchanged between Hawkins and Lupus, at a distance through the glass. The 'Orator' looked back as the warders began to move.

  'One other thing Mr Bragg'd have to know. Where's your box of tricks? Bars and wedges. Steel picks. And Pandy let on about a Jack-in-the-Box to bust any safe. And Mr Bragg would want the micrometer Pandy put together. Especially that. They reckon it opens a lock soft as a spring breeze passing. All that'd be part of the bargain, Mr Bragg says. You think about it, Handsome Rann.'

  Jessup came in on the priso
ner's side. He slid his hands into Rann's pockets and patted him down. Anger and despair teased the Hangman's Child as he shuffled back to the bleakly furnished cell. They took his shackles off and the cuffs from his wrists. Lupus was alone with him, standing beside him, last to leave. William Lupus had understood Hawkins' final glance.

  'You ain't half a caution, 'andsome Jack,' he said bitterly, driving his fist hard into the narrow back above the right kidney.

  James Babb, known familiarly as 'Baptist' Babb, had kept watch with his colleagues on the glass square of the prisoners' consulting-room. Like the others, he stood back to respect the privacy of a man's last sight of his child. Through the glass, the exchanges between Rann and his visitors were so much dumb-show.

  Unlike his colleagues, Babb had spent some time as a policeman until an infection of the lungs reduced him to the role of turnkey. And among his legacies from childhood, with a deaf cabinetmaker for a father, was a knack of reading lips. In his short career as a constable, it was admired and envied for the use it might be.

  He had caught a little of what passed between Rann and Hawkins. It was enough to trouble him. It troubled him the more for its hints at corruption among his colleagues. To speak of that among them now was impossible: to keep silent would be to condone it. And what if, after all, the accusation proved untrue?

  That evening, he sat alone at the stained table in his Newgate lodging. The remains of a veal and ham pie with a glass of water half-drunk stood to one side. He was a solitary man, unlikely to be visited at this hour. As the white gaslight bubbled and flared in the corner-bracket above him, he took an 'ink-and-dip'. In his mind he saw a man who might be broken but would never bow, stubborn and valiant, faithful to justice. Dipping the steel nib in the evil-smelling ink, Baptist Babb adjusted his cuff and addressed himself to Sergeant William Clarence Verity of the Private-Clothes Detail, 'A' Division Metropolitan Police, Scotland Yard.

  Sergeant William Clarence Verity of the Private-Clothes Detail, Detective Division, Whitehall Place, presents his compliments to Chief Inspector Henry Croaker. Sergeant Verity begs leave to bring to Mr Croaker's attention certain facts respecting the case of James Patrick Rann, alias 'Handsome Jack' Rann, now under sentence of death in Her Majesty's Prison at Newgate for the murder of a confederate, William Arthur Quinn, commonly known as 'Pandy' Quinn.