The walls, too, were covered in drawings, warrants, newspaper articles and curling advertisements, haphazardly arranged but all the more striking as a result. Amid the hideous catalogue of death, Colbeck noticed prints of prizefighters – one of them was the Bargeman – but the overwhelming impression was of a black museum in which Jacob Guttridge had gloried with almost necrophiliac pleasure. Had the law permitted it, the detective mused, the hangman would have parboiled the heads of his victims and had them dangling from the ceiling like so many Chinese lanterns. Guttridge had relished his work.
Below in the front room, Louise Guttridge was being distracted by Madeleine, sublimely unaware of the essential character of the man with whom she had slept for so many years in the shadow of a crucifix. The house that bore her clear imprint was really a facade behind which she could hide as Mrs Bransby. It was the back bedroom that told the truth about the building and its owner. Colbeck resolved that the wife should not be subjected to the discovery that he had just made. Even with the aid of Father Cleary, he was not sure that she would survive the ordeal.
He began a slow, methodical search, first stripping the walls and sorting the various items into piles. Some of the fading newspaper cuttings referred to executions that he had carried out years before. Any periodical in which Guttridge had been mentioned had been saved, even if the comments about him were unfavourable. Under a collection of death warrants on the table, Colbeck found the hangman's invoice book. Each page was neatly printed in italics with spaces left for him to fill in the date, his current address and details of the execution that he was agreeing to undertake. Sent to the High Sheriff of the relevant county, it was signed: 'Your obedient Servant, Jacob Guttridge.'
The hangman had been ubiquitous. Colbeck found a record of his work in places as far apart as Aberdeen, Bodmin, Lancaster, Cambridge, Taunton, Glasgow, Swansea, Bury St Edmunds and Ireland. A tattered account book listed his various fees, copied out laboriously in a spidery hand. There was also a series of squiggly notes about the technique of hanging, complete with rough sketches that showed comparative lengths of the drop, relative to the weight of the condemned person. But it was the last discovery that excited Colbeck the most and made his search worthwhile. Concealed under a ballad about the execution of a man in Devizes was something that Guttridge had not put on display. It was a note, scribbled on a piece of brown paper in bold capitals.
N IS INERCENT. IF YOU HANGS HIM, WEEL KILL YOU.
The warning message was unsigned.
'What took you so long up there, Robert?' asked Madeleine Andrews.
'There was a lot to see in that room.'
'You seem to have brought most of it with you.'
She indicated the bundle that lay between his feet. The two of them were in a cab, on their way back to Camden via the local police station, and they had taken some cargo on board. With the permission of Louise Guttridge, Colbeck had gathered up everything that he felt would distress her and wrapped it all in a cloak that had once belonged to a certain Eleanor Fawcett, hanged at Ipswich the previous summer for poisoning both her husband and her lover. Colbeck could only guess at the impulse that had made the hangman keep it as a treasured souvenir. He was grateful that the widow would never know just how depraved her husband had been. When the two of them had knelt before their Maker, they were sending their supplications in opposite directions.
'What exactly is in there?' said Madeleine.
'Evidence.'
'Of what sort?'
'That's confidential,' he said, not wishing to upset her with details of what he had found upstairs. 'But I haven't thanked you properly yet, Madeleine,' he continued, touching her arm. 'Because of you, I have some vital new information. I'm deeply grateful.'
'I was only too glad to help.'
'I'm sorry to have placed such a burden on you.'
'That was not how I saw it, Robert.'
'Good. What did you make of Mrs Guttridge?'
'I felt sorry for her,' said Madeleine with a sigh. 'She's in such desperate straits. Yet you would hardly have known it from the way that she was bearing up. When my mother died, I was helpless with grief for weeks and Father was even worse. We walked around in a complete daze. That's not what Mrs Guttridge is doing and her husband didn't die of natural causes, as Mother did. He was murdered only a few days ago.'
'She's a very unusual woman.'
'I've never met anyone like her, Robert. Somehow, she's managing to keep everything bottled up inside her.'
'Mrs Guttridge has been doing that since her husband first took on the job as a public hangman. She convinced herself that she should support his choice of occupation yet it cost her both her identity and her peace of mind. It also meant that she had no real friends.'
'Her life was snatched away from her.'
'Yes, Madeleine,' he noted, sadly. 'In a sense, she was another of his victims. That rope of his effectively destroyed Louise Guttridge by turning her into someone she did not really wish to be.'
'Perhaps that's why she's unable to mourn him properly.'
'It was a strange marriage, that much is apparent.'
'What will happen to her?'
'Who knows? All that I can do is to offer her some protection by making sure that her street is patrolled regularly. The one thing that will be of real benefit for her, of course, is the arrest and conviction of the man who committed this crime.'
'And you say that you found new evidence?'
'Yes, Madeleine.'
'So my visit was not a waste of time.'
'I could not have achieved any progress without you.'
'Does that mean you'll ask your Superintendent to take me on?'
Colbeck grinned. 'Even I would not be brave enough to do that,' he confessed. 'No, your sterling assistance must go unreported but by no means unappreciated.' He squeezed her hand. 'Thank you again.'
'Call on me any time, Robert. It was exciting.'
'It's one of the reasons that I became a policeman. There's nothing quite as stimulating as taking a giant step forward in an investigation,' he said, smiling, 'and that's what I feel we did this morning.'
Still smarting from the rebuke he had received on his arrival, Victor Leeming spent the whole morning at Scotland Yard trying to finish the work that Colbeck had started and assimilate the mass of material that had been assembled. As well as a list of executions carried out by Guttridge over the past two years, Leeming had also found descriptions of the man's career in back copies of various London newspapers. One even contained an artist's impression of the execution of a woman in Chelmsford who, too weak to stand, had been strapped into a chair before being hanged. Leeming felt his stomach lurch. He moved quickly on to the next case he had listed.
Brisk footsteps could be heard in the corridor outside and he steeled himself for yet another abrasive encounter with Superintendent Tallis. Instead, it was Inspector Colbeck who came in through the door with a large bundle under his arm. Leeming got to his feet with relief.
'I'm so glad to see you, Inspector,' he said.
'It's always pleasing to receive a cordial welcome.'
'I've been studying Jacob Guttridge's work and it does not make happy reading.' He shuffled some sheets of paper. 'I know that you made a start on all this but I've more or less finished it off.'
'Well done, Victor,' said Colbeck, dropping the bundle on his desk.
'What have you got there, sir?'
'The contents of a private museum. Most of it, anyway. I had to leave the bottles of brandy that were hidden under the bed. The fact that her husband was a secret drinker is one shock that I can't keep from Mrs Guttridge. The items in here, however,' he said, undoing the knot in the cloak so that it fell open to display its contents, 'would have caused her a lot of unnecessary suffering.'
'Why?'
'Judge for yourself, Victor.'
'What are all these things?'
'Trophies.'
'Saints preserve us!' exclaimed Leeming as he saw
the lengths of rope that had been used in various executions and tagged accordingly. 'There's everything here but the dead bodies themselves.'
'Wait until you come to the religious tracts and the poems.'
'Poems?'
'Written by Jacob Guttridge.'
While the Sergeant sifted his way through the relics, Colbeck told him about the visit to Hoxton, omitting only the fact that Madeleine Andrews had been with him. He then showed him the threatening note that he had found at the house.
Leeming studied it. 'Who is N, sir?'
'That's what we have to determine.'
'It could be Noonan,' said the other, snapping his fingers. 'I was looking at the case just before you came in. Sean Noonan was hanged for murder in Dublin a year ago.'
'Then he's unlikely to be our man.'
'N stands for Noonan, doesn't it?'
'Yes,' agreed Colbeck, 'but it's unlikely that a surname would be used. In all probability, that note was sent to Mr Guttridge by a family member or by a close friend of the condemned man, and they would surely refer to him by his Christian name. We should be looking for a Neil, Nigel or Norman.'
'None of those spring to mind, sir.'
'Where's that list?'
'Wait!' said Leeming. 'There was a Nairn McCracken from Perth.'
'Too long ago,' decided Colbeck, picking up the paper from the table and studying it. 'I'm convinced that we want a more recent case. According to this, McCracken was executed in 1849. I don't think that someone would wait three years to wreak revenge on his behalf.'
'Maybe they'd already had two attempts. Doctor Keyworth told us that there were scars on the body of the deceased.'
'Put there in separate incidents, that much is clear. According to the post-mortem, the stomach wound was several years old, inflicted long before Guttridge went anywhere near Perth.' He tapped the list. 'Now this is much more promising.'
'Who is he, sir?'
'Nathan Hawkshaw. Executed less than a month ago.'
'I remember him. It was in Maidstone.'
'What do we know about the case?'
'Precious little. He murdered someone called Joseph Dykes. That's all I can tell you, Inspector. I could find no details.'
'Then I'll have to go in search of them.'
'To Kent?'
'It's not far by train.' He smiled as Leeming pulled a face. 'Yes, I know that you hate rail travel, Victor, so I won't subject you to the ordeal just yet. I've a more attractive assignment for you.'
'I won't find searching through this lot very attractive,' complained Leeming, gazing down at the items in the cloak. 'What sort of man would want to keep things like this?'
'One with a rather macabre outlook on life – and on death, for that matter. Have no fear. We'll lock all this away for the time being.' He tied the cloak into a knot again. 'What I need you to do for me is to find the answer to something that's puzzled me from the start.'
'And what's that, sir?'
'How did the killer know that Jacob Guttridge would be on that excursion train and in that particular carriage?'
'He must have followed him.'
'Granted,' said Colbeck, 'but how did he find him in the first place? You've seen the lengths that Guttridge went to in order to preserve his anonymity. He changed his name, moved house often and never got too friendly with his neighbours.'
'So?'
'Whoever tracked him down went to enormous trouble.'
'Then bided his time until Guttridge caught that excursion train.'
'No, Victor. The killer could not possibly have watched that house in Hoxton day and night. It's dangerous enough for those who live there. A stranger would be taking serious risks if he lurked in those streets.'
'What's the explanation then?'
'I'm not sure,' said Colbeck, removing his hat and running a hand through his dark, wavy hair. 'At least, not entirely sure.'
'But you have a theory, I can tell.'
'Perhaps.'
'Come on, sir. I know that look in your eye.'
'The Superintendent calls my theories misbegotten brainstorms.'
'Who cares what he calls them? They usually turn out to be right in the long run. You have a gift for putting yourself into the mind of the criminal and Mr Tallis can't understand that. Neither can I, if truth be told,' he said, cheerfully. 'What's your theory, sir?'
'Most of Jacob Guttridge's time was spent at home, working as a cobbler in his shed. His wife confirms that. Now, what would get him out of the house?'
'An execution.'
'What else?'
'Going to Mass every Sunday. We know that he was devout.'
'In every way,' observed Colbeck with a glance at the bundle on his desk. 'He worshipped at more than one altar. But where else might he have gone, Victor?'
'I don't know.'
'Yes, you do. Think. Where was he killed?'
'On an excursion train.'
'Why was he there?'
'He was on his way to a prizefight.'
'Then that may be how he was tracked.'
'Was it, sir?'
'Mr Guttridge was one of the Fancy. He idolised those bareknuckle boxers and couldn't miss an opportunity to see a championship contest.'
'But a fight like that comes around once in a blue moon.'
'A public contest might,' said Colbeck, 'but there are exhibition bouts being staged all the time for real followers of the sport. And I can guess where Mr Guttridge went to watch them.'
'Where?'
'Bethnal Green. His hero was Bill Hignett.'
'The Bargeman? How do you know that, sir?'
'Because there was a signed print of him at the house. If he wanted to see Hignett in action, all that he had to do was to go to the Seven Stars in Bethnal Green and watch him spar. There's a room at the back of the inn where the Bargeman trains and passes on his skills to a lot of younger boxers.'
'And you think that Mr Guttridge went there?'
'Almost certainly. It allowed him to do two things that were very important to him – enjoy some milling and drink his fill.'
'He could get his beer much closer to home than that.'
'Not in Hoxton,' reasoned Colbeck. 'That was on his doorstep and he was careful to keep his neighbours at arm's length in case he let slip his guilty secret. He'd feel safer in Bethnal Green as part of a crowd that cheered on Bill Hignett.'
'How does the killer fit into your theory?'
'Rather hazily at the moment,' admitted Colbeck, thinking it through. 'Somehow, he discovered that Mr Guttridge had a passion for boxing, followed him to Bethnal Green and established that he would be going to the fight near Twyford on that day. All that he had to do then,' he concluded, taking a handkerchief from his pocket by way of demonstration, 'was to wait at Paddington station until his victim arrived, stay on his heels and get into the same second-class carriage. When the excursion train stopped at Twyford and the hordes charged off,' he went on, using the handkerchief like a garrotte, 'he choked the life out of his victim.'
Leeming fingered his throat uneasily. 'Put that away, sir.'
'I was just trying to illustrate a point.'
'So what do you wish me to do?'
'Go to the Seven Stars and mix with the regular patrons. Ask if any of them recall a Jake Bransby – don't use his real name because we can be certain that he didn't do so. And be discreet, Victor. Someone may have realised that Bransby was really Jacob Guttridge, the hangman. Choose your words carefully.'
'I will.'
'You may even get a chance to meet the Bargeman, if he's recovered from the fight.'
'What about the killer?'
'If he did trail Mr Guttridge there,' said Colbeck, tucking his handkerchief into his pocket, 'it should be possible to find out. Only the true disciples of pugilism would stand for ages around that boxing ring in Bethnal Green. A stranger would be noticed immediately. Make your way there, Victor. See if any outsider drifted into the Seven Stars in recent weeks. If at all po
ssible, get a description of him.'
'Right, sir,' said Leeming, pleased with his instructions. 'If nothing else, this will get me out from under the Superintendent's big feet. I'll go immediately. What about you, sir?'
'I'll be on a train to Maidstone,' replied Colbeck, taking a copy of Bradshaw's Guide from his desk drawer. 'I want to find out if N really does stand for Nathan Hawkshaw.'
The county town of Kent lay at the heart of what was popularly known as the Garden of England. Rich soil and a temperate climate combined to make it a haven for fruitgrowers and the hops were reckoned to be the finest in the kingdom, spreading satisfaction and drunken stupor far and wide among the nation's beer drinkers. A parliamentary and municipal borough, Maidstone was an assize town with a long and varied history, its earlier ecclesiastical dominance reflected in the ancient, but expertly restored, Pilgrims' Chapel, its ruined priory, its noble palace, formerly belonging to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and its imposing churches.
It was situated at a well-chosen point on the River Medway, a wide and sometimes turbulent waterway, the main artery of the town for centuries. From the wharves that lined the river, large quantities of local stone, corn, fruit, sand and other goods were shipped, and over fifty barges traded there regularly, giving employment to hundreds of people. The Medway was crossed by a stone bridge with five arches, and plundered assiduously by the local anglers. Occasional flooding was deemed to be an acceptable price to pay for the convenience of living beside such an important river.
Robert Colbeck reached the town by courtesy of the South Eastern Railway, the journey a continuous pleasure to someone who enjoyed travelling by train as much as he did. Since there was no direct line from London to Maidstone, he was obliged to change at Paddock Wood and eventually came into the station at the end of Hart Street on the western side of the town. It was market day and, though he did not get there until mid-afternoon, hundreds of customers still haggled beside the stalls, booths and carts that lined High Street, Week Street and King Street. Someone rang a hand bell, the last of the livestock complained noisily in their pens and the din was compounded by the incessant clucking of poultry in their baskets and by the competing cries of the vendors.
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