The Hanging Women

by John Mead

  “Your meaning?” Blackstaff started up, momentarily alert like a fox run to ground hearing the bugle horn.

  “We are men of the world here,” O’Leary said in a mild tone of comradeship, “single or married, younger men have their needs, do they not? You went and sought out what you desired at Ruby’s”

  Blackstaff hung his head, he could not deny the facts the others already knew but whether this caused him shame or frustration from being found out the others could not tell. “Yes,” he finally admitted, “I went there at times, not often. After each visit I told myself it would be the last, but what I saw invaded my dreams, even my waking thoughts, and eventually drove me back to view more.”

  “To observe, rather than participate, seems less of a sin,” the inspector hoped to make the path towards a confession a smooth one, “little more than the shadow of a sin.”

  “At first I thought so as well,” Blackstaff admitted, “but as time went on and I thought more and more of taking part, of the unnatural lusts those sights aroused in me; then I realised how far along the road to damnation I was.”

  “Then you saw the one thing you could never have imagined seeing,” O’Leary took Blackstaff a step closer to the admission he looked for, “your own sister, performing those lewd, unnatural acts herself, giving the lie to her innocence. Perhaps you felt responsible in some way, had opened up the path to hell along which she had travelled so much further than yourself.”

  “Yes,” the word was barely audible, carried on the slightest of breaths, as John Wesley struggled to hold himself in control, to hold what plagued and harried him, inside himself.

  “No doubt you thought at first only to punish her, to drive out the lusty devil that had gained entry and taken over the innocent soul. Unfortunately things went further than you expected, she was after all a traitor: to you, your parents, her sex, even to the Knights of Labour. To the very things you both believed in, so you thought to make an example of her?”

  “What?” Blackstaff was shaking his head, his expression one of confusion and bafflement at the words. “No, I was horrified by what I saw, I could not believe it was her, not at first. By the time I was convinced of her identity I was already gripped by lust. Her flesh, the smoothness of her skin, her thighs and buttocks, the roundness of her breasts. How she touched the other woman, their caresses and kisses had already inflamed me, engulfed me like the fires of hell.” The three watched, stupefied and embarrassed, as Blackstaff writhed before them, fighting to remain in control of himself.

  “You took them, dragged them to that out of way place where none could see, hung them with tackle from your own shop, beat them and strangled the life out of them,” the inspector, angrily told the ‘guilty’ man, demanding a confession in the face of overwhelming motive and evidence, but only meeting an incredulous shaking of Blackstaff’s head in denial. “You left them naked and obscenely tied as a message, based on your own superstitious beliefs handed down to you by your grandfather, from you to the world of sinners. Isn’t that the case?”

  “No!”

  “Or was the message for you sister only, to carry to hell with her? She also knew of the tarot cards, she had been shown them as a child, seen them on your wall. She would understand the evil you had seen her commit, would know the sign you made of her.”

  “You speak madness… ”

  “It must have been hard work, perhaps you needed to fortify yourself or steady your resolve with a drop of rum but you dropped your flask and left it as testimony to your responsibility for those foul actions,” Inspector O’Leary had risen and now towered over John Wesley, leaning with both his hands on the desk, his eyes staring the other man into submission.

  “No! No, it is not so. It was I who sinned! I who lusted after her! I who should be punished!” Blackstaff intoned, his voice pleading not for mercy nor for understanding but for recognition of his guilt; not murder but lust for his sister’s flesh. The two men stared at each other, both breathing hard, Blackstaff cowering in an agony of shame whilst O’Leary looked on in revulsion.

  “When did you leave Ruby’s?” Sergeant Magnuson asked in a quiet voice, yet causing Blackstaff to jerk his head round almost as if he had been slapped, whilst O’Leary continued to stare watching every facial tick that passed on the black man’s face.

  “I don’t know the exact hour, but not long after midnight?” despite a slight hoarseness in his throat, Blackstaff’s voice was oddly clear, his answer concise.

  “When did your sister leave?”

  “I do not know, she had finished sometime before, I had a drink or so before going.”

  “You stayed to watch other performances?” Jack asked, remembering the token system the club operated. Blackstaff nodded, almost imperceptibly, not looking at Jack or the others.

  “You are lying! This is all pretence!” Inspector O’Leary bellowed, the force of his voice causing Blackstaff to push back in his chair, cringing in fear.

  “No, I swear, upon the bible, I swear,” Blackstaff suddenly gathered himself and pulled open a draw on his desk, pulling out a bible and placing his right hand on it, stated, “I solemnly swear as God is my witness on this bible, His holy word, that I speak the truth. I, John Wesley Blackstaff, am a sinner. I lusted after my sister’s flesh, I undertook foul, lustful acts but I have not murdered, not taken any life.” O’Leary’s eyes never left the other man’s, who in turned held his eyes steady, for a seeming eternity they held each others gaze, the room growing darker around them.

  “Did you go straight home?” Magnuson’s quite voice eventually broke the silence.

  “I did not,” Blackstaff broke from the inspector’s gaze and looked at the sergeant, his voice calm as his sworn confession had seemingly given him ease. “I returned here, I often work late and sometimes stay over night at a nearby house. I was not alone.”

  “Who were you with?”

  “A woman, I arrived there about 1 o’clock, and was with her for the night. A young colored woman by the name of Matilda Devine. Others in the house will have seen me.”

  “You saw nothing more of your sister?”

  “Nothing until she was in her coffin, I swear… ”

  “Enough,” O’Leary barked, “we will check your story whilst you remain here with Mr Stevens, you need not sully the good book further with you polluted touch.”

  Jack sat studying the tarot cards framed on the office wall with just half an eye on Blackstaff, who sat unmoving and silent his eyes closed in prayer or self-recrimination. Jack neither knew nor cared as his thoughts were on another who’d been in the room, had seen the tarot cards and, no doubt, had pocketed unseen a hip flask which he would have later filled with rum. The pair of capuchins finally had their silence broken by the return of the two police officers.

  “It seems they know you well at that disorderly house,” the inspector said, his tone mocking Blackstaff. “They consider you quite the gully, charging you ten times the value of the canes you pay Matilda to break across your back. She, and others, remember you that night and confirmed you stayed until dawn. They also said that you have been there since, wanting punishment for your sins, when it would have been better to seek repentance from God.”

  “I try… ”

  “Give me none of that, your weak-willed tries count for nothing with me,” O’Leary was in a cold rage and both Jack and Magnuson watched him lest he finally broke and went for Blackstaff with his fists. “I watch you from now on, I will set eyes upon you around the clock. If it were not for your parents I would arrest you now but it would be a death sentence for them both to learn of your disgusting behaviour. Your slate is wiped clean but should you put any mark on it from this hour forward I will know it and will have you before a judge and publicly condemned. Do you understand me, you damned rogue?”

  “Yes, yes I understand,” Blackstaff almost fell to his knees at this reprieve, but s
tood instead as if to shake the inspector’s hand. The sergeant already had O’Leary by the arm to stop a blow that would have come in response to the outstretched hand.

  “Remember the inspector’s words well,” Jack told Blackstaff, also ignoring the man’s outstretched hand and helping Magnus quietly usher O’Leary out the room, “or arrest and public shame will be the least of your worries.”

  “I thought him on the verge of a confession,” O’Leary muttered once again. Jack had insisted they accompany him home for a nightcap, the police constable who drove the carriage was sent to the kitchen for a supper whilst Jack, Cage and Magnuson had whiskey in the parlour.

  “I expected the same,” Jack sympathised, “but I don’t think he lied, though it wasn’t his putting his profane hand on the bible that convinced me but the decanter of brandy in his office, no rum at all.”

  “The inspector raised hell at the brothel house,” the sergeant confirmed his superior’s thoroughness, “and put the fear of God and the Chicago police force into every man jack of ’em. Though they stuck to their story in support of Blackstaff being there. It wasn’t until then that I was convinced.”

  “It still leaves the question of who is responsible, if not Blackstaff,” Jack mused, emptying his glass and topping everyone up.

  “We know they went to Ruby’s to find out more about Chicago Joe,” Cage revived, having downed his glass and waited for a refill. “Their ruse to take the part of participants gave them entry and a degree of safety, but either Joseph Mannheim or Ruben grew suspicious. With Ruben dead that leaves only Joe as our quarry and we seek him in any case.”

  “It is our most likely path,” Jack agreed, “though the flask and the manner of the women’s death still troubles me.” The sergeant was about to ask why when there was a clattering at the front door, Jack beat Gideon to opening it and found a tipsy Martha, who he had assumed already retired for the night, and an embarrassed Fellows on the step.

  “Hello, dear Jack,” Martha greeted her husband with a smile and a wave. “I stayed behind to help clear up after the wake. Fellows here was a marvel, he cleared and tided the place in a flash while I washed the glasses and plates, Mr and Mrs Partkis were most taken with our mutual skills in the household way of things…” her words petered out as she spied the inspector and sergeant, though not for long as she took up another line of thought. “Why, if the Pinkertons were here we’d have quite the set of detecting nitwits.” Jack smiled indulgently, Fellows bid them all a “Hale goodnight,” and the inspector and sergeant beat a hasty retreat. “I grow more like you everyday,” Martha stated, pushing past Jack, “coming home drunk and ill-tempered appears to be catching.”

  Martha was determined to prove her witticism at the detectives expense correct, insisting she and Jack go over every aspect of all the deaths that had occurred since the two hanging women had been found. With little grace and much ill-temper, she criticised the many dead ends the police and Pinkertons had explored. Then wondered why, if they all believed Black Rube responsible for Minsky’s death, the killer had not been brought to justice.

  Jack weathered the storm at anchor, the gales and icy blasts leaving him unmoved; his only comment was, “These things take time, whilst the others scour the streets for sightings and information I will go to Hank, it is time he took things in hand and brought his influence to bear in resolving this.”

  “It is odd,” Martha wearily said, as they fell asleep, “that there should be so much love at the centre of all these horrific acts.”

  “What?” Jack asked, suddenly wakeful again at Martha’s thought but she already slept.

  Day Fifteen – Tuesday April 29th 1886

  “Let me guess, Jack, you are here to persuade me to put my grief behind me and take up the mantle that Brandon’s death has placed at my feet,” Hank smiled across the desk in his study.

  “Yes, though not in such prosaic terms,” Jack replied. Martha had insisted on coming with him to Hank’s smart Rush Street home and was upstairs with the other womenfolk viewing the newborn babe, “I take it I am not the first.”

  “A relay of senior members of the clan have been in and out already this morning, the last being that jumped-up little turd, Jaunty.”

  “No doubt he presumed on his close blood relationship to you,” Jack assumed, Hank seemed unexpectedly calm, a man who had already decided on his plan of action.

  “He did, and no doubt expects a considerable reward for his troubles,” Hank went on, “though he might be disappointed on that score. It surprises me that you are here on the same mission, you not even being a blood relation.”

  “Nor Irish or Catholic, God save me from the shame of both,” Jack said, just earnestly enough for it to sound insulting. “Is that Jaunty’s glass? On the tray by the decanters there?”

  “Yes it is,” Hank laughed, Jack cared for no man in this world but himself and Hank rather admired that in the old-timer, “he helped himself, much as you did, though to the rum rather than the whiskey.”

  “I was beginning to think him a rum drinker,” Jack mused, swirling his whiskey in his glass, to watch the legs drain down the side.

  “He is that, for many a year,” Hank said, puzzled at Jack’s twisting conversation. “The only answer I can give you is the same as I gave him and all the others, is that I will not do anything until Brandon is in his grave, two days from now.”

  “Only it won’t be what any of them expect,” Jack concluded. “You are at a crossroads and I think you have chosen your path, but it isn’t the one you have been raised to take.”

  “No, though you’ll do me the honour of keeping this to yourself.”

  “Of course,” Jack shrugged as if saying there could be no other way, “you are a straight dealer and I respect that.”

  “In a very short while I and my immediate family, that is my wife, child and mother-in-law, all leave for the west coast,” Hank stated, leaning back in his chair, his tone almost daring Jack to put forward arguments to counter him.

  “This does not sound a recent decision,” for some reason Jack felt relieved, glad that Hank had chosen a different course for his life.

  “A year ago I sent my nephew, Kitty’s son, west to buy properties on my behalf. He has done well and I move out there to lead a quieter life as a legitimate business man on my own account. I will keep him on as general manager if he wishes it.”

  “You have managed to keep this secret? Even from your godparents and sister?” Jack could see there had been much intriguing going on in the O’Shea household.

  “Some while ago I realised Brandon had been converting many of his personal assets, including a quantity of the diamonds that were presumed stolen, to buy into legitimate businesses such as DeWert Holdings and to purchase political capital for Chester DeWert. Your son-in-law, as I am certain you know, is the coming man and Brandon wanted to be certain he had his ear. His intention was to create a financial empire for me to inherit so that I could shake off the need for the Dead Hands.”

  “Is that so different from your own plan?” Jack asked, helping himself to another glass and offering Hank one, which was turned down.

  “Severing links with the Dead Hands, with the Tipwells and my kin, would be no easy thing for me, despite what Brandon thought. Do you think that any of my clan would give up their old ways simply to give me an easier time of it?” Hank was almost arguing his case to Brandon, taking the opportunity to do now what he did not have the chance to do whilst his godfather lived, “I will not have my son grow up in the shadow of the likes of Jaunty, and there are a good few of my clan as bad as my cousin.”

  “So you will move away and leave your clan to find a new chieftain?” Jack asked, though seeing Hank’s resolve clearly showing in his face.

  “Jaunty brought me a package this morning,” Hank said in way of an answer, reaching into a draw and putting an open box on his desk, Jack
could see the glittering diamonds it contained. “About two thirds of the diamonds that were actually stolen, a third of the originals having already been sold by Brandon and replaced with paste ones.”

  “That’s about about $300,000 or so,” Jack calculated, noting that Jaunty had been the delivery boy.

  “I have no idea, probably a great deal less as they are without the settings and depending on how and where they are sold. Though it is more than enough to live in luxury,” Hank seemed almost scornful of the thought, glancing at the box and its contents as if he looked on some piece of excrement.

  “They are from your Godmother, Nina?” Jack felt the ground growing firm beneath his feet as he saw a path that could lead to finding her.

  “Who else? She hated Brandon for many years, the humiliation of his many affairs, the parade of fancy girls and floozies. Worse still he had by-blows enough, some say me included,” Hank glanced up, realising he had said more than he meant but seeing no judgement, not even surprise, in Jack’s eyes. “Well, she could not have children of her own, so I became her son. My sister, being older and more independent fought off the affection offered her and the pair never were at ease. But, I was happy to gain such love again.

  “My father and Brandon were close cousins and grew up friends, they both fell in love with the same woman. But Brandon was destined for the leadership of the clan, following on his uncle as chieftain, as such he was expected to marry with the interests of the clan in mind. The choice was Josephine Patricia O’Brione, plain and shy but daughter of the family which led the dock, river and rail workers, men on whose shoulders Chicago’s wealth is carried. It was a powerful alliance.”

  “Until the Knights of Labour came along,” Jack realised, putting another piece in place.

  “The Knights did not need to take power from Nina’s family, they made converts of them and her family gave it all to the cause,” Hank, sighed at the fragility of human nature and how good intentions could lead to bad outcomes. “It left my godmother, Nina, with nothing to hold over Brandon.”