The Hangman's Child

by Francis Selwyn

  28

  In private-clothes, Verity turned into The Strand at the end of a blazing summer day. The wide pavements were afloat with crinolines, bonnets, muslin dresses, organdies and brilliantes. Young men, hands in the pockets of peg-top trousers, lounged at the counters of cigar divans. Others watched the passing crowds from doorways whose signboards offered shaving and hair-cutting.

  Across the river, tenements on the southern shore sprawled along narrow streets. Authority had imposed a penny toll on Waterloo Bridge to deter Southwark from infesting The Strand. But the woman Verity wanted had crossed at dusk for thirty or forty years. She would appear as the white lamps came on, high on their swan's necks of cast-iron pillars, shining down the broad boulevard in a chain of pearls. 'Old Stock' would be there every night until she hid among the tenements to die.

  The sky above Trafalgar Square turned from vermilion flame to plum-coloured twilight. He looked for her beyond the 'aristocracy' from clubs and night-houses, in silk hats and embroidered waistcoats. She would be among girls who paraded their stretches of pavement, twirling their parasols, holding up the train of skirts from the foul moisture condensing on the pavement in the cooler air of night.

  Old Stock worked the little streets near the Adelphi, where the homeless slept under riverside arches. It was an enclave of painted cheeks and brandy-sparkling eyes, the stench of bad tobacco, raucous horse-laughs and shrieked obscenities.

  "ello, Ma!' he said at last. ‘I hoped you might be waiting.'

  Among the crinolines, she was conspicuous in a dirty cotton dress, her straw bonnet trimmed by faded ribbon. Grey hair and worn face, like the gin on her breath, marked her for what she was. Old Stock was employed to watch 'dress lodgers', girls dressed by their keepers to fetch high prices. She saw to it that her protegees did not run off to pawn the clothes or take men to rival houses.

  'Mr Verity!' She gave him a faded smile. 'They give you Adelphi as a beat?'

  'No, Mrs Stock, it's you I come to see. Hoping you might have something.'

  The old woman grinned at him.

  'I'm too cracky to have much for anyone now, sir. I watches that Miss Cat from the Wych Street house. She took three men back already. Almost caught a white choker that been psalm-singing at Exeter Hall, but he turned leery. Still, more 'n two pounds so far. Her being young, if a sour little bitch. I shall get a bit of it later. I don't do as well that way as I did. Still, I sweeps up too. They gives me grub for that. Very fair they is, to me.'

  She was standing outside a gunsmith's shop, its small square panes displaying rifles with their grain polished to liquid perfection, brass and filigree, steel barrels sleek as satin.

  'But you lost your best girl, Ma,' he said quietly. 'Your Joanne that worked with you a year back. Like a daughter she must have been after so long.'

  The smile, and the energy, went from her face, like a player's mask. She nodded.

  'They kept her indoors for special work lately. Now they say she wasn't right in the head. She never drowned herself, Mr Verity. I won't have it. Accident, p'raps. I'll go to the inquest down Shadwell Vestry. But what can I say and who'd listen? It's young Chaffey you want to see, that used to take Pretty Jo out a bit.'

  'She had to do with Chaffey? Him that dresses for the surgeons down the Royal Free Hospital? I hoped as much.'

  'He never had so much to do with her as he'd have liked, Mr Verity! She had to have five-shilling sweethearts. Chaffey's a larky young bloke, but often can't pay so much, 'cos he got no money. Never fortunate enough to pass his examinations to be a proper medical. But he helps at dressings and inquests.'

  'Including Miss Joanne's?'

  The old woman touched a handkerchief to the corner of her eye.

  'I can't say it's square, sir. But the surgeon thinking otherwise, and Mr Fowler agreeing, I have to bite my tongue. But if Chaffey thinks it ain't square either, that's another thing. Suicide while the balance of her mind was disturbed? She wouldn't know the meaning.'

  Verity's heart rose.

  'P'raps, Mrs Stock, you'd do me the honour to take a glass o' summat hot and short with Chaffey, s'pose he was to be found. And supposing this little bit was for now.'

  He drew a coin from his trouser-pocket and pressed it into her hand. At the pavement's edge, the brass lamps of a carriage cast tawny pools of oil-light on reddish tresses and the sharp line of Cat's young profile. Old Stock bared her gums in appreciation.

  'I'll find you Mr Chaffey, sir, but I can't leave Cat. Thieving slut, and worse. She and Hoxton Liz had a barney last night. Nails and maulers. Consequence o' that, Miss Cat is going to wish she was wearing someone else's ears and backside when Ma Martileau reckons up the damage to Liz.'

  She crossed the pavement and spoke to the girl. They set off, Verity and Old Stock together, Cat following several feet behind. In the streets by the river, an Irish fiddle in one bar competed for coppers with a mandolin across the alley.

  The old woman looked round quickly and turned to a spacious public house near the steamer-landing of the Adelphi Stairs, its windows covered with white applique lettering for cigars, billiards, pyramid, and pool. Inside the Wine Promenade, the floor was carpeted. A bar of polished mahogany ran the full length of it, a stout woman and a tall man in a sailor's cap serving 'Mexico'. 'Crank', 'Sky Blue', and other combinations of gin. Old Stock spoke to the plump woman and led the way to a booth at the far end.

  Chaffey sat at a drink-stained oak table, staring at the varnished pine of the partition in a distant reverie. He was a tall, pale young man with a dark love curl and black clothes. Old Stock looked about for the vixen-faced Cat, failed to see her, and said, 'Oh, bugger the slut!' She scratched herself, and sat down. Chaffey came out of his contemplation.

  "ello, Ma! 'ello, Mr Verity!'

  A waiter came to them.

  'You'll take something, Mrs Stock?' Verity asked hastily. 'And Mr Chaffey?'

  'Flare-Up, hot,' Ma Stock said firmly.

  'Same as Ma,' Chaffey said. 'You come for me, Mr Verity?'

  'Just information, Mr Chaffey. You got thoughts on the business of Miss Joanne?'

  Chaffey looked quickly and reproachfully at Old Stock.

  " ‘s all right, sweetness,' the old woman said, 'I told Mr Verity my mind.'

  Chaffey rubbed the side of his face as an aid to thought. 'I was her friend,' he said pathetically. 'They got no right to make her out a suicide, Mr Verity.' Verity's face glowed encouragingly. ‘I wouldn't argue 'gainst that, Mr Chaffey.' Chaffey leant forward confidentially. 'What you want to know, Mr Verity?'

  Verity watched the waiter set down gin and a jug of hot water. 'First off, Mr Chaffey, there was her boots.' Chaffey stared at him over the steamy brim of a glass. 'What about her boots?'

  'I was there soon after they found her, Mr Chaffey. She hadn't got her boots.'

  Chaffey continued to stare at him with the apologetic look of one who has missed the point.

  'Mr Chaffey,' said Verity generously, 'take a young gentleman of your considerable medical experience. You ever hear of a young person found drowned that had lost her boots?'

  'They don't necessary wear boots, Mr V

  Verity shook his head with a tolerant smile.

  'I know that, Mr Chaffey. What I asked was, had you ever known an unfortunate found drowned that had lost her boots? Started with 'em, finished without 'em? Or a well-dressed young person, like Miss Joanne, that took her boots off special before walking to the river to throw herself in?'

  Chaffey looked at him more intently.

  'If she'd walked barefoot, Mr Verity, there'd be marks on the feet, which no one says there was. But a body that's drowned don't lose its boots, sir. First thing that swells is the feet. Boots fit tighter in the water. Most times, you have to cut the boots off. Any case, whatever a body's wearing leaves a red impression. Boots most of all. If the boots was lost, you'd still see where they'd been.'

  'She had no mark of boots. I saw that for myself.'

  Chaffey
was mystified, brow furrowed, eye bright with a tear.

  'Then,' said Verity gently, 'if someone said her boots were lost by her being in the water, or knocking against bridges or outfalls, they'd be wrong?'

  "Course they would!' Chaffey said with sudden animation. 'Who's saying that? Never the doctor?'

  'Mr Inspector Fowler,' said Verity grimly. 'Now Mr Chaffey, I ain't no wish to offend nor distress. However, a body that's knocked in the outfall or the river, might it be marked?'

  Chaffey seemed to fear some revelation.

  'There's always damage, Mr V. Bruising. Consequential on being washed through tunnels or against bridges and ships.'

  'So it'll be some comfort to you to know, Chaffey, that your sweetheart had hardly a mark. One that might have been a belt worn round the hip. There couldn't be marks that faded?'

  'Marks is apt to deepen in colour after death, Mr Verity, not fade.'

  'What I thought, Mr Chaffey. Then she got nothing to speak of.' Chaffey drained his glass, professional pride overcoming private mournfulness.

  'Mr Verity, when ladies drowns, it shrinks them here, in the tips of the bosoms.'

  Verity shook his head.

  ‘I never saw. Nor had no wish to.'

  Chaffey stared at the long mahogany bar through the smoke-fogged air.

  'You saying she never drowned, sir?' Verity sighed.

  'No, Mr Chaffey. She drowned all right, water in her lungs.' 'But not where she was found?'

  The sergeant's face seemed rounder and redder in the heat of the bar, while Old Stock's eyes flicked from one partner in the conversation to the other. He wiped a gleam of perspiration from a pointed end of his waxed moustaches.

  'Mr Chaffey, I knew before I went there she couldn't drown where she was found. Matter of fact, that's why I went.'

  Old Stock gave him an interrogatory leer.

  'What you saying exactly, Mr Verity?'

  'Simple, Ma.' Verity patted the old woman's hand. 'Flood tide that night was eleven. Your Joanne was high enough on the mud for the outfall to wash her there but too high for the river to take her there on the ebb. But the outfall couldn't have washed her there neither. She was seen alive at two in the morning and the sluices that might have washed her there weren't open again before she was found. I saw her in The Strand at two - in the same black dress and with her boots on.'

  'What you saying, sir?' the old woman persisted.

  'I'd say, Mrs Stock, she drowned somewhere private. And she was got rid of quick by someone who never bothered over tides nor sluices. Nor boots nor marks.'

  Chaffey gave a small sob.

  'I was her sweetheart when I had a sov in hand. She got no right to finish like that.'

  'Still, you being sweet on her, Mr Chaffey, might count against your evidence.'

  Chaffey wiped an eye with the corner of a spotted handkerchief.

  'She was a found-drowned, Mr V. Hundreds every year. That's what counts against. A vestry give half a crown to the finders and not much for the inquest. Unless she'd had her throat cut as well, Dr Pargiter's paid just to confirm drowning. If Mr Fowler and the police got nothing to say, there's an end.'

  'You think she met foul play, Mr Chaffey?'

  The young man looked at him closely.

  'You ever known, Mr Verity, a young person that could bear to stoop over a sink with her head in the water until she gave up the ghost? Without someone holding her under? Either holding her under in one go - or bringing her up time to time?'

  He slid his legs out from the table and pushed into the crowd of drinkers. Verity polished his hat-brim on his sleeve, staring at the young man who was now out of earshot.

  'That's much what I thought, Mr Chaffey,' he said to himself. He turned to Old Stock. 'You'd oblige me, Ma, by not mentioning this to anyone else just yet.'

  He got up and went after Chaffey, leading him back.

  'You got no notion, Mr Chaffey, how obliged I am. If you and Mrs Stock was able to join me in a further nip of Holland, I shan't distress you. Just a matter I'd like to put to a man of your learning and experience.'

  They sat down and watched the aproned waiter refill the glasses. Verity gazed at the young medical assistant.

  'How's it look, Mr Chaffey, when a man's run through by a stiletto blade?' Chaffey frowned.

  'I seen one or two, Mr V. Not a usual knife. Hard to tell it's been done. Symmetrical wound. Wedge shape that you'd hardly see. That's how us that practises the medical arts knows it can't be a knife with a back but sharp all round, stiletto.'

  He reached thankfully for his hot gin.

  'But why wouldn't you see it, Mr Chaffey?'

  'With something like a stiletto, the wound closes up as the knife comes out, Mr V, skin being elastic. Hardly a mark to be seen with a blade so narrow. It's damage to internal organs that finishes a chap.'

  Verity took his hat off and mopped his face with his red handkerchief. Chaffey shifted a little on the tall oak bench.

  'Then there's the hands, Mr Chaffey. You ever know a poor devil attacked by a knife and didn't try to push it off?'

  Chaffey shook his head, happy to be an authority consulted by the law. He brushed back his love curl.

  'Cuts to the hands is usual, sir.'

  'They are,' Verity said enthusiastically. 'Why, Mr Chaffey, all that time I was before Sebastopol, you no idea how many of my poor friends was coopered by sabres and bayonets. I never knew one, when he come to the end, didn't fight steel with his hands if he had nothing else. Instinct for life, Mr Chaffey, is what it is.'

  Chaffey looked at him uneasily.

  'That stiletto blade now, Mr Chaffey. Much blood from it?' 'Skin closes up on withdrawal, Mr V. Don't really bleed then.' Verity shook his head, marvelling at medical investigation. 'And yet, Mr Chaffey, when Handsome Rann coopered Pandy Quinn, Rann had blood all down his shirt.'

  Chaffey's dark eyes went wide and he looked alarmed. 'Blood from the knife, Mr V,' he said quickly. Verity nodded.

  'Must be, Mr Chaffey. Handsome Jack coopered Pandy, then wiped the knife all down his shirt special, so's he could be arrested. Still, I expect the inquest was told all about the cuts that Pandy had on his hands?'

  The young man swallowed.

  'Not as such. Couldn't use his hands, p'raps.'

  'Tied behind his back, I daresay?'

  'That'll be it!' Chaffey snatched at the opportunity.

  'Then I daresay Dr Pargiter must have told the inquest about rope marks on Pandy's wrists.'

  Chaffey made a sound that was just short of speech.

  'He didn't,' said Verity helpfully, 'did he? The marks Pandy had were bruises that might come from holding a man down. Now, Mr Chaffey, you ever hear of two men rolling round the floor fighting and one of them - with no help from anyone else - holding the other down and tying him up?'

  Chaffey said nothing but Old Stock intervened.

  'Play fair, Mr Verity! Chaffey put you straight on Pretty Jo. Ain't that enough?'

  Verity's face flushed with resolve. He picked up his hat.

  'He might speak for Miss Joanne, bringing the house down on them that murdered the poor little soul. Say nothing, Ma. I'll be back when I know the rest.'

  He got up, pushing his way to the cooler air of the summer night. Cat Clare was at one of the tables. She slanted a look of contempt at her natural enemy, thin lips pursed and blue eyes narrowed. Verity paid no attention. He wondered what formalities were required in arresting an officer of a rank superior to his own.

  29

  'Stand where you're seen, Handsome Rann!'

  It was Atwell's voice on the far side of the door, then two of them murmuring together. They could see him through the keyhole or the crack of the door which would show a wedge-shaped section of the room, widening to include the window and far wall. The chair and the mattress were in this section. Only the table with hand-mirror and hairbrush, long strands of a woman's hair twined in its bristles, was beyond surveillance.

  He had
expected his interrogation to begin at once. Instead, he was left all night, hearing only intermittent movements in the passageway. Perhaps they had left him alone to soften him up. More likely, Brass was asking Policeman Fowler for permission before beginning his lethal work. Fowler might require the silencing of Miss Jolly to make the destruction of the others safer.

  That night, half-formed plans for escape filled Rann's mind, each examined and rejected. The room would hold him fast. Next day or the day after, they would choose Maggie or Samuel or Miss Jolly and the screaming would begin, ending each time in death. Even if Maggie or Samuel told all that they knew, the interrogators could not be certain until the final cut.

  He could scarcely move from the uneven mattress. Every board in the attic room seemed to creak. Somewhere after midnight he moved softly to the window.

  'Back in yer pit, Handsome Rann. I have to come in, you get a smacked head to keep you dancing for a week!' It was Hardwicke.

  ‘I gotta use the necessary closet,' Rann said brusquely. ‘I got the right to that!'

  The door was unlocked. He was taken to an evil-smelling drain at the end of the passageway. They brought him back and left him in the dark. The boards creaked as he settled on the mattress again. A ray of light shone through the crevice of the door as they checked that he was there and nowhere else. Then the door was locked and it was dark.

  From under his huddled shape, he took the tortoiseshell hand-mirror which he had purloined from the small table, beyond the view of the door, as they shut him in the darkness. In the gloom, he had swayed aside a little and pushed the mirror under his jacket as he passed. It was a simple design, a wooden handle and frame, a thin sheath of tortoiseshell, a round glass six inches across.