The Hangman's Secret

by Laura Joh Rowland

  As I vacillate, two women dressed in black come out of the mansion. One is elderly, with a dowager’s hump. She leans on the arm of the thin younger woman as they walk down the steps and path.

  “Good day,” I call. “Are you Mrs. Zehnpfennig?”

  The women lift their gazes to me. Similar double chins and downturned mouths mark them as mother and daughter. The daughter is some dozen years my senior. The mother, who must be over seventy, answers in a withered voice, “Yes?” She clutches her throat and stares.

  “I’m looking for Lucas Zehnpfennig. Does he live here?”

  She hobbles back into the house. The younger woman follows, glaring over her shoulder as if I’ve committed some atrocity, and the door slams behind them. Startled, I let myself in the gate and knock on the door, but they don’t answer. I’ve traveled seventy miles to meet an impenetrable wall of silence.

  A voice calls, “I’ve never seen Ada Zehnpfennig move so fast. What did you say to her?”

  I turn to see a woman standing in the doorway of the mansion across the street. “I asked for Lucas Zehnpfennig.”

  “No wonder.” The woman is perhaps sixty years old, top-heavy with a florid face and hair colored ginger with henna and done up in rolls. She smiles in sly amusement and puts a finger to her lips. “It’s forbidden to speak that name in Ada’s hearing.”

  I thought Ada Zehnpfennig seemed stunned even before I said Lucas’s name, but maybe this trip isn’t a waste of time after all. I cross the street. “Why is it forbidden?”

  “Who are you?” the woman asks, curious.

  I offer the same false identity I used in Clerkenwell. “I’m Catherine Staunton, a newspaper reporter for the Daily World in London.” I bring the notebook and pencil out of my tapestry bag. “May I have your name?”

  Her red nose quivers as she smells good gossip. Her eyes are like brown marbles, shiny with anticipation. “I’m Edith Maxwell.” There’s no ring on her finger, and her common manner suggests that she’s a servant rather than the lady of the house. “What’s a reporter from London want with Lucas Zehnpfennig?”

  “He’s wanted for a murder in London,” I improvise.

  “You don’t say!”

  “My paper received an anonymous tip that he’s originally from Ely. I came to see if his family is harboring him here.”

  “Someone’s set you on a wild goose chase,” Miss Maxwell says in a pitying tone. “The Zehnpfennigs wouldn’t take him in if he was starving and on his hands and knees begging. He’s been gone more than thirty years. He knows better than to show his face in Ely.”

  Finding Lucas so fast would have been a miracle, but his past may provide clues to his present whereabouts. “Why wouldn’t they take him in?”

  “It’s a long story.” Miss Maxwell licks her lips, salivating with her eagerness to tell it. “Come in for a cup of tea.”

  “Thank you.” As I enter the house, I glance across the street and see the curtains in Mrs. Zehnpfennig’s window twitch.

  The parlor to which Miss Maxwell ushers me is oddly arranged, with velvet settees, brass lamps, mahogany tables, cabinets of knickknacks, and decorative screens pushed against the walls. Then I see an old, white-haired lady in a wheelchair by the front window. She wears a wool housecoat; a quilt covers her lap. The furniture is arranged for maneuvering her chair. Beside it is an armchair where Miss Maxwell presumably sits so they can look outside together.

  “How do you do?” I say to the old lady. Instead of replying, she beholds me with a vacant stare.

  “That’s Mrs. Howard,” Miss Maxwell says. “I’m her companion. It’s all right to talk in front of her—she’s senile, poor dear.” She positions a chair for me next to hers, invites me to sit, and fetches a tea tray that she sets on a table between us.

  Now there are three snoopy biddies spying out the window, but there’s no sign of life at the house across the street. I prop my notebook on my knee and hold my pencil ready. “Is Ada Zehnpfennig Lucas’s mother?”

  “Not anymore,” Miss Maxwell says, pouring tea. “And she wasn’t to begin with.” She smiles at my confusion. “His real mother was Ada’s younger sister, Mary. Ada and Mary’s father owned a hotel on the High Street. When Mary was fourteen, she got with child. She would never say who the father was, but everyone thinks it was a railroad inspector who stayed at the hotel. Ada was married to Herman Zehnpfennig—he was from Germany, and he built a sugar factory outside town. He’s dead now. When Lucas was born, Ada and her husband adopted him. But Mary couldn’t let him go. She was over there every day. When he was old enough to walk, he would follow her wherever she went, like a pet dog.”

  I’m scribbling notes to quell my impatience. I don’t want to hear Lucas’s entire life story, I only want to know where he is now, but if I interrupt her, she might think me rude and change her mind about talking to me.

  “They were so close, it wasn’t healthy. When Lucas misbehaved, Mary always made excuses for him. She never gave Ada a chance to be his mother. I once heard them arguing about it. But Ada had her own child a few years later, a girl, Josephine—that was her you saw; she still lives with her mother—she never married. So Ada let Mary take care of Lucas. And then one day, when Lucas was twelve”—Miss Maxwell pauses for dramatic effect—“Ada caught Lucas with Josephine—if you know what I mean.”

  My interest perks up because I think I understand, but I want details. “No, I don’t know what you mean.”

  Miss Maxell speaks in a loud whisper even though there’s nobody except her senile mistress to overhear. “Josephine was lying on her bed with her skirts up, and Lucas was on top of her with his pants down.”

  Now I’m writing as fast as I can. This statement is evidence that Lucas has molested at least one young girl and indication that he’s guilty of raping and killing Ellen Casey. “How do you know?”

  “My sister worked for the Zehnpfennigs. She overheard the whole uproar.”

  “What happened to Lucas?”

  “They sent him to a boarding school. I remember the day. Mary cried and screamed and clung to him. Ada and Mr. Zehnpfennig had to pull her off. She had a nervous breakdown, and they sent her to the madhouse. She was there for six months. But Lucas didn’t learn his lesson. Two years later, one of his classmates invited him home for Christmas, and he was caught with the boy’s little sister. He was expelled. Ada and her husband refused to have him in their house, even though Mary begged them to take him back. Mr. Zehnpfennig found work for him on a ship that was sailing to the West Indies. Mary had another breakdown and went to the madhouse again, for a whole year. When she came home, she was a different person—always cross and sad. She never got over losing her son. But life has to go on, doesn’t it? She went to work at the hotel, and she eventually married a man she met there—a photographer. He came to Ely to take pictures, and he was staying at the hotel.”

  My heart gives a mighty thump; my hand stops writing. “A photographer?” Disbelief makes my voice shrill.

  “Yes,” Miss Maxwell says, puzzled by my reaction. “He took a liking to Mary. After the wedding—”

  I clear my throat and interrupt, “Who was he?”

  “A Mr. Bain. I don’t remember his first name. He was far from rich, but Mary’s family thought marriage would cure what ailed her, and she couldn’t expect anyone better. And Mr. Bain was a nice, kind man.”

  My mind careens between so many thoughts that it can’t fix on one long enough to examine it, let alone determine which is the most significant or shocking.

  Mary was my mother!

  Here’s a secret from the past that I never imagined, that’s completely taken me by surprise. I feel as if I’ve been digging for coal in a mine and excavated a hole down which I’ve fallen a thousand feet into the strange light of a different world. The story I’ve been impatiently listening to is about my mother’s life before she met my father! ‘Mary’ is such a common name; I didn’t realize that my mother and the girl Miss Maxwell is speaking of are on
e and the same.

  And Lucas Zehnpfennig is my half-brother!

  It was astonishing enough to learn about Sally, and now to find out that my father wasn’t the only one of my parents to have a child whose existence I never suspected. I gaze out the window, dumbfounded because the old woman who lives across the street is my aunt. My resemblance to my mother must be the reason she was so stunned to see me. And the younger woman—Josephine, the relative that Lucas molested—is my cousin.

  “After the wedding, Mr. Bain took Mary to London,” Miss Maxwell says. “He was going to open a photography shop there. They never returned to Ely, and they didn’t keep in contact with Mary’s family. I’ve always wondered what became of them, and Lucas.”

  It was my half-brother who raped and murdered Ellen Casey! Now I’m wondering if my father was aware of my mother’s past. “Did Mr. Bain know about Lucas?”

  “Oh yes. There was no hiding it from him; everybody in town knew.” Miss Maxwell says, “Moving to London was a fresh start for Mary. I like to think she was happy with Mr. Bain.”

  I piece together the sequel to her story. When Lucas returned to England, he must have looked up his mother. That’s how he came to be in Clerkenwell.

  “You said Lucas is wanted for a murder,” Miss Maxwell says, eager for news in exchange for her old gossip. “Whose murder?”

  I’m so upset that my voice falters as I say, “A young girl named Ellen Casey.”

  “How did she die?”

  “She was …” Unable to voice the ugly, obscene word, I say, “She was interfered with and strangled.”

  “Dear me.” Mrs. Maxwell’s eyes shine with thrilled horror. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. I hope they find him before he hurts anybody else.”

  “Do you know where he could be?”

  “Haven’t the slightest idea. I didn’t know he came back to England. Neither does anybody else in town, or I’d have heard. But I can tell you this: the one person in the world who loved Lucas was his mother. I’ll wager that if you find Mary, you’ll find Lucas too.”

  CHAPTER 20

  My mother had an illegitimate child.

  Lucas Zehnpfennig is my half-brother.

  The revelations pound in my mind like a deafening drumbeat as I ride the train back to London. My father is a mystery, but I never suspected that my mother had a secret. My discoveries cast a new, transforming light on my whole life, including the day I met Lucas. The quarrel between my mother and father must have arisen because she had let Lucas fondle me. And my perception of Ellen Casey’s murder changes drastically. My parents must have suspected that Lucas killed Ellen, but my father’s police file contained not a word about Lucas and no statement from my mother.

  I think she was forced to choose between her son and her husband, and she chose her son. And my father and I aren’t the only ones who’ve suffered because of her choice.

  I dread telling Sally. I can’t even soften the blow with new information regarding our father’s whereabouts. All I’ve brought from Ely are more questions. Why did Lucas write to Benjamin Bain instead of his mother—my mother? After her death, I found no letters among her belongings, but she and Lucas could have been in touch while I was away at boarding school. I’ll never know. Even if she knew where Lucas went, she can never tell; she took her secrets to her grave. And I can never tell her that I know what she did or how devastated I am by her betrayal.

  When I arrive home, in dire need of comfort, I hear raised voices in the parlor. “You little sneak!” The shrill, angry voice belongs to Catherine Price. “How could you do this to me?”

  I find Catherine and Mick standing in the middle of the room, she with her hands on her hips, her chin thrust at Mick. She wears her blonde hair in an elaborate confection of ringlets and has on a low-necked red satin gown whose full skirts are puffed out by petticoats. She must have come straight from the stage. Her face is bright with rouge, her sapphire eyes ablaze with anger.

  “It was for your own good,” Mick says.

  Hugh and Fitzmorris are sitting on the sofa, an intimidated captive audience. Catherine whirls to face me. “Did he tell you?” She points at Mick, whose expression blends the same defiance and guilt that I used to see when he was a street urchin, when he confessed to stealing food in order to survive. “Today he went behind my back and talked to my friends, trying to prove that Lionel wasn’t with me the night the hangman was murdered.”

  So Mick hasn’t given up trying to pin the murder on Sheriff Hargreaves. “I did prove it,” he says to me. “After the show, Catherine went to a tavern with some other folks. They say she went home by herself. Her landlady says she were alone in her room ’til the next morning.”

  I’m impressed by his detective work. He’s poked big holes in the alibi that Catherine had provided for Hargreaves.

  “My landlady is half-blind and deaf, and she sleeps like a log,” Catherine says. “She doesn’t know I went out late that night to meet Lionel, and I came back before she woke up.” But Catherine’s voice rings false.

  I’m grieved to see her stand by her lover despite evidence that he could be guilty of murder. “Catherine, don’t.”

  “You’re lyin’.” Affection gentles Mick’s rebuke. “Lyin’ for him. Lyin’ to yourself too.”

  “Don’t protect him, Catherine,” Hugh urges. “He’s not worth it.”

  Catherine ignores Hugh and jabs her finger at Mick. “You’re jealous. That’s why you’re trying to get Lionel in trouble. Because—”

  Mick suddenly looks cornered, frightened. We all know that Catherine knows how he feels about her, but she’s never said so.

  “That’s enough,” Hugh snaps.

  She’s too angry and reckless to desist. “You think that if you can get rid of Lionel, then you can have me.” She tosses her blond ringlets. “Well, you’re a fool. I’ll never—”

  Hugh, Fitzmorris, and I shout, “Catherine!”

  She sputters into silence, too late. Mick cringes as if he wants to drop through a hole in the floor.

  Now Catherine has the grace to be ashamed. “Mick, I’m sorry.” She knows that she owes her life to him, that he risked his own to save her; she doesn’t really want to repay him with cruelty. She reaches out her hand to him. “I didn’t mean—”

  His humiliation turns to anger. “You’re more a fool than me. Hargreaves don’t care about you.”

  “Yes, he does!” Catherine’s indignation can’t hide the doubt that flickers across her face. “We’re in love. We’re engaged.”

  “You think he’s gonna dump his wife to marry you? Hah! He’s just havin’ fun with you and usin’ you for an alibi.”

  “He promised.” Catherine sounds like a little girl trying to convince herself that her dreams of becoming a princess will come true.

  “You oughta run from that guy as fast and far as you can,” Mick says, determined to protect her even though she’s rejected and mocked him. “Before he hurts you.”

  “He’s right,” I say, reluctant yet obligated to make Catherine face reality.

  Catherine turns to Hugh, whose masculine judgment she trusts. Hugh nods sadly.

  “You’re all wrong. I’m going to marry Lionel,” Catherine declares. “Just wait and see!” Head high, she exits the room in a swish of red satin.

  My mother chose Lucas Zehnpfennig over her husband; I chose my father over Barrett; and now Catherine has chosen Sheriff Hargreaves over Mick. Choices can have serious repercussions, but they have to be made, no matter if they set in motion a steamroller of consequences that will crush us into dust someday.

  Mick gazes unhappily after Catherine, then flops onto the chaise longue. He blinks, trying not to cry. Hugh, Fitzmorris, and I tactfully avert our eyes. Fitzmorris says, “I think we could all use some hot cocoa,” and goes to the kitchen.

  In a gallant attempt to pretend that the scene with Catherine never happened, Hugh says, “Sarah, welcome home. What happened in Ely?”

  I relate my disco
veries. Hugh, flabbergasted, whistles. Mick, distracted from his woes, says, “Crikey!”

  Something occurs to me that failed to earlier. “The conspiracy of silence between the witnesses to Amelia Carlisle’s hanging isn’t the only one. There was another, between my parents and Lucas Zehnpfennig.”

  “They covered up the truth about Ellen Casey’s murder.” Hugh shakes his head, regretful. “That was noble of your father, keeping quiet for the sake of his wife and stepson.”

  I smile despite my outrage at the situation. Hugh would find the most charitable way to view it. But I’m still furious at my mother because she chose Lucas over my father—and, in effect, over me, her second child. That I was less beloved than the first is apparent from the harsh way she treated me. These ideas are like a chest of serpents that I don’t want to open.

  Fitzmorris brings cups of steaming cocoa on a tray. I sip mine, and the sweet, milky chocolate soothes my spirits. I ask Hugh, “What did you do today?”

  “I sat in pubs near Newgate, bought drinks for the regulars, and chatted them up. It appears that Governor Piercy wasn’t telling the truth when he said he was in his residence the whole night of Harry Warbrick’s murder. I spoke to the cab driver who picked him up outside Newgate at eleven thirty. He knows Piercy; he’s driven him before.”

  I’m interested to learn that Sheriff Hargreaves isn’t the only suspect whose alibi has evaporated. “Where did he take Governor Piercy?”

  “He dropped him off at Spitalfields Market.”

  “That’s not far from The Ropemaker’s Daughter.”

  “It weren’t Piercy.” Mick lies on the chaise longue with his arms crossed over his face. “Hargreaves done it.”

  “Governor Piercy had the opportunity to kill Harry Warbrick,” Hugh points out.