The Incendiary's Trail

by James McCreet

  ‘I would respond,’ said Noah to Mr Williamson, ‘but I’d wager most of them will be dead or on the scaffold themselves in a few years.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Have you attended many executions, Sergeant?’

  ‘I have been obliged to, but I would not voluntarily do so. They are bestial.’

  ‘I, too, have seen my share. More than my share.’

  ‘It is almost time.’ Mr Williamson looked at his pocket watch. ‘When the prisoner ascends, we will ascend with him and cast our eyes about the crowd. Nobody will give us a second glance when Mr Bradford steps on to the trap, but our observation may prove productive.’

  ‘So you still imagine that he will attend?’

  ‘We will see.’

  At that moment, the bell of the gaol began to toll eight.

  A galvanic ripple went through the crowd: terror, awe and fascination equally mixed. As one, they removed their hats or bonnets and gazed fixedly upon the small door of the gaol. Where before there had been a rumbling murmur of voices, silence now settled. Tens of thousands of gazes settled on that exit. The door opened and the prisoner emerged, followed by his attendants.

  Mr Coggins stood up on his toes to see the man who had killed his Eliza-Beth. In the mêlée, his peruke had been knocked askew and his face shone with the exertion of trying to maintain his place. Yes, that was the murderer! The facial scar was quite visible.

  ‘Murderer!’ screamed Mr Coggins. ‘Evil cur, you will burn in Hell, you d— —! You will swing for it now. Oh yes!’

  Others around him looked askance at this bewigged vision of loathing and addressed him with the respect he deserved:

  ‘Show some restraint, sir. A man is to die here today.’

  ‘Quiet there! He might give some last words.’

  To which the impresario answered with his usual delicacy: ‘I will not be quiet! That man killed my girl! He deprived me of my livelihood! I will shout if I—’

  His words were halted by a vice-like grip on his upper arm that seemed to close around the very bone. Turning, he saw a tall man with familiar eyes whose lower face was partially covered with a scarf, perhaps because of the early morning chill. On closer inspection, however, Mr Coggins recognized the man who had come to visit the house in Lambeth.

  ‘Why, Dr Cole! Fancy meeting you here. I heard you were in Edinburgh. Come down for the hanging, have you? I see you are wearing your scarf against the bad air. There is much of it about, eh?’

  ‘Hush, Mr Coggins. We are drawing attention from the show,’ replied the man.

  So many people! Bully Bradford blinked, flinched and stepped back at the vision of mass humanity before him. He felt himself weakening under the relentless stares. He stumbled into the clergyman, who held his elbow in support. Fear stiffened his limbs and he felt his face freezing into an absurd rictus of embarrassment. His legs would not move.

  Someone took his other elbow and they walked him somnambulistically to the steps leaned against the scaffold. Like an automaton, he climbed. His hands clasped and unclasped within their bonds. Up on the platform, a veritable ocean of faces gazed upon him. He was vaguely aware of others there with him – Mr Calcraft, the clergyman, two policemen – but it was the restless masses that mesmerized him. Under the weight of their relentless eyes, he felt himself stripped naked and reduced to nothing – no longer a man, but a spectacle. His name, his history, his friendships and his voice were nothing to them. He tried to speak, to say that he had not meant to kill the girl, but his throat was constricted and dry. Only a rasp emerged. And now Mr Calcraft was holding the hood.

  Mr Williamson had been quite correct. Though the two of them stood upon the platform, they might have as well been invisible. All eyes were upon the bully and Mr Calcraft, the only two performers. Even Mr Bradford was oblivious to their presence, being understandably distracted.

  Noah reflected on the impossibility of their task. Ten faces might allow a degree of individual recognition; twenty would be more difficult – but here were thirty thousand or more. They merged into one indistinguishable blur. As soon as he looked at one, it seemed to be absorbed by the others. Only a bald head or a flash of white hair provided any point of focus. Boyle could have been standing within yards of them and remained unseen. It seemed hopeless.

  Noah turned to look at the prisoner, who was now wearing the hood. It fitted quite tightly over his face so that the nose and chin pressed the material outwards. He was positioned beneath the beam and Mr Calcraft was attaching the rope to the chain already in place there. Short, percussive breaths emanated through the black hood and the prisoner’s hands held each other, perhaps in prayer.

  ‘Pay attention to the crowd, Mr Dyson,’ warned the sergeant.

  And the people stared back, unblinking lest they miss the moment. An impossible quiet had stilled them – an eerie, unearthly silence from such a huge audience. Indeed, Mr Bradford’s breathing seemed the loudest sound within that amphitheatre of expectation. He stood, unmoving, knees slightly bent in anticipation.

  The mechanism was pulled free and the trap dropped. A soundless wave of attention fluttered through the tens of thousands, punctuated only by a single, distant shriek. Mr Coggins’s eyes telescoped upon the hooded figure as it fell, hands still clasped in prayer or terror. The body jerked to a halt, neck twisted, and hung – a dead weight. Time stopped. The legs gave a reflexive twitch and were still. Mr Calcraft’s infamous ‘short drop’ had been long enough to do its job.

  The voice of Mr Coggins, raucous and gin-laden, fractured the moment:

  ‘Good — riddance!’

  Both Noah and Sergeant Williamson looked instinctively in the direction of the lone voice. The latter squinted over the rows of heads and pinpointed the ludicrous blond peruke of Mr Coggins as the source of the cry. Other people, too, were looking towards the source of the disrespectful yell. The spectacle they had come to see was over and yet their hunger to see a show was as yet unsated. Some turned away from the scaffold and looked towards Mr Coggins.

  And Noah felt the jolt of recognition. Beside the risible figure of ‘Dr Zwigoff’ was a man wearing a scarf about his lower face. As if drawn by magnetism, the be-scarfed man caught the glare of his nemesis, noticing this anonymous ‘policeman’s’ face for the first time. Their stares met. Boyle’s smoke-grey eyes widened at the same instant that Noah’s arm raised and pointed across the crowd:

  ‘Seize that man!’

  Sergeant Williamson looked confusedly at Noah and then again at the focus of his gaze, perceiving for the first time the man with the scarf. His recognition of Mr Coggins had blinded him to the peripheral faces. In a burst of uncharacteristic excitement, he shouted to a constable standing on duty just a few yards from Coggins and Boyle:

  ‘You there! Yes, you, constable! Seize the man in the scarf beside the bewigged blond man. Take him – now!’

  A phrensy of sensation animated the crowd and all eyes sought the new show. Murmurs and shouts transmitted the news to distant fringes where people could not see. A space began to form around Coggins and Boyle as the constable shouldered his way through towards them.

  Mr Coggins blinked in bewilderment at the sudden turn of events and dimly perceived that the focus of the attention was not he but ‘Dr Cole’, whom the police were attempting to arrest. His prime instinct – the prospect of financial gain – pierced the dull alcohol fug of his mind and he turned to grasp Boyle’s arm:

  ‘If you are a criminal, I apprehend you in the name of the law.’

  At this, Boyle struck Mr Coggins in the stomach with a formidable blow, but the drunken impresario was too stubborn to fall. They struggled with a flurry of arms and the scarf was pulled free, revealing Boyle’s empurpled jaw. A collective exclamation went up from the surrounding observers. Consternation showed in the whites of the incendiary’s eyes.

  From the platform, Noah watched in frustration. Even if he had wanted to, he could not have penetrated the density of people to reach the fight
ing pair before the constable. The object of his sleepless, ceaseless searches stood before him now, inaccessible even within sight.

  The constable had almost reached them when Boyle reached left-handed into the folds of his coat and – unperceived by his assailant – produced a dark-handled pistol with a short barrel. He pressed it into the soft skin under Mr Coggins’s jaw.

  The muffled explosion was heard only by those closest, but everyone within sight saw the peruke leap vertically from the blond man’s head and the geyser of thick red matter that erupted forth immediately thereafter. The pistol was withdrawn as the impresario collapsed, and the circle around the two men widened suddenly at the sight of the weapon, people pushing maniacally backwards to flee danger. A woman wailed and a strangled cry of ‘Murder!’ went up. The news spread like fire through the vast congregation, a murmur erupting outwards to those who could not see.

  Lucius Boyle brandished the weapon at the constable arriving out of breath at the edge of that horrifyingly silent circumference. Its single shot was spent, but a gun is a gun to the non-military man and its lethality infinite. Was not Mr Coggins proof of that, lying there with a spreading pool of coagulate about his splintered scull?

  ‘Seize him! The weapon is empty!’ shouted Noah from the platform, but his words were dissipated like smoke amid the growing clamour. Sergeant Williamson shouted orders to the constables around the platform who could see little of what was happening.

  The constable looked at the pistol and at the demoniacal countenance of the man who held it. He looked at the prone body of Mr Coggins and felt the circle receding behind him so that he faced the gunman alone within it.

  ‘I will kill you with as little compunction as I would kill a fly,’ said the red-jawed man with cold imperiousness. And he began to back away from the policeman, who stood frozen to the spot. The crowd parted around Boyle, transfixed by the gun and by the man. As he moved, they parted silently before him and closed around him again so that he walked as in a bubble. Any one of them could have struck him, but his status as a murderer seemed almost supernatural to them. Murders happened in the dark, unseen – not in plain sight amid a crowd of thousands on a Monday morning at Newgate. The enormity of it was too much to conceive. The space around him was as uncrossable as a castle moat, a force that emanated from him. This man was not a mortal. This occurrence could not be real. His fearsome appearance struck terror into the witnesses as if he were the very Devil himself, turning and turning again within his circle to touch all with his baleful glare.

  And as Noah watched futilely from his balcony seat, Boyle moved spectrally unmolested through the buzzing crowds towards the alleys north of Paternoster-row, the distance between them stretching and stretching until the receding figure passed suddenly out of sight and down into those narrow passages. Constables from different parts of the crowd pushed in multiple paths towards that spot, but too late. Too late. Before they arrived there, Lucius Boyle had become – out of sight – just another body on the city streets, his gun, jaw and identity once again concealed.

  The throng seemed to exhale, and a swelling cacophony began to reverberate between the buildings. Noah stamped ferociously on the boards of the scaffold and let forth a bestial, spittle-flecked profanity that attracted the startled looks of many.

  The body of Mr Bradford hung motionless for a further hour before being cut down and taken within the gaol.

  SIXTEEN

  Detective Sergeant Williamson

  I apprehend that your pursuit has begun in earnest. I congratulate your intuition in standing sentinel at the scaffold on the slim chance that I would materialize before you. Simultaneously, I curse my own foolish curiosity in playing the hand you expected. That will not occur again.

  I also applaud your coercing (for I believe it cannot be otherwise) of my erstwhile companion Mr Noah Dyson into your scheme. Few others could recognize me, and no other could thirst for my capture with such keenness, except perhaps your hapless superior. In truth, I thought him long dead. The sight of him there, across that field of bared heads, was a shock even to me. Now we know the stakes of our game.

  Naturally, I will have to go to ground and disappear. That is most inconvenient. You came close to me. That was laxity on my part. Soon, all other connections will be broken and your hounds will lose the scent. Much as I respect you, you will be humiliated – and I will be free.

  Regards

  Lucius Boyle

  Commissioner Sir Richard Mayne pounded the letter against the broad tabletop with the flat of his hand. Also arrayed there were a selection of newspaper reports on the astonishing events of the previous day’s hanging.

  Sitting around that same table were Inspector Newsome and Superintendent Wilberforce, who had first approached Sir Richard with their scheme; those three men were now joined by Mr Williamson and Noah. The commissioner’s anger seemed to hang in the cigar smoke above the table. Nobody but Sir Richard dared speak.

  ‘This man Boyle murdered another in plain sight of thirty thousand citizens as hundreds of policemen looked on! At this solemn exhibition of the price of crime, a criminal is bold enough to scorn the Metropolitan Police by murdering a man even as the prisoner Bradford is dropping through the trap! It is an insult, gentlemen. And now this letter . . .’

  His exasperation strangled the words once more. The other men looked down at the table, willing another to speak first.

  ‘What are we to do, gentlemen? What do we know? I want to hear everything and I want to hear how we are going to catch this man with the rapidity with which Mr Bradford was brought to justice. Do you know that the Queen has been asking questions about this? It has gone that far.’

  ‘With all respect, Sir Richard,’ began Superintendent Wilberforce, ‘there was no way we could have foreseen or prevented the occurrence with Mr Boyle. Any man could have taken a pistol to the execution. There are often numerous crimes at a hanging: pockets picked, petty violence, theft from shops, burglaries—’

  ‘But murder! Do not tell me that that is common. There were hundreds of policeman within feet of the man.’

  ‘The crowd was unprecedented, sir,’ added Mr Newsome. ‘More even than with Courvoisier.’

  ‘You should have foreseen that, especially since you tell me that Sergeant Williamson had an intuition that this Boyle would attend. Did you not make plans for this?’

  ‘If I may speak, Sir Richard . . .’

  ‘You are the man who had me sign my name to a letter of exculpation, yes? The cracksman who captured Mr Bradford – Noah Dyson? I will say now that I experience great unease entertaining you at this table, sir. This is a police matter – you would be advised to keep your silence.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ continued Noah, unconcerned, ‘the situation was not remotely typical or predictable. The facial appearance of Boyle, the unique character of the occasion and the choice of murder weapon all combined to create a climate where he was able to escape. Nobody here is at fault.’

  Sir Richard seethed with a barely contained fury at the head of the table. Had this common thief just disregarded his order to remain silent? Not only disregarded it, but with an air of disdain at the gravity of the situation and a complete lack of respect for the commissioner of police. He looked from Mr Wilberforce to Mr Newsome, then he stood, and without a word, left the room.

  The others stood, too late, as he exited the room with a formidable slam of the door. A humiliated Mr Newsome jabbed a finger at Mr Williamson and Noah:

  ‘Find Boyle. Do whatever you must do. We cannot have any more murders by this man. The newspapers are intoxicated with it, and now this . . . this letter of his. The very Queen herself is asking questions! I hold both of you responsible. And let us agree that the name of Lucius Boyle will go no further than this table, do I make myself clear? We don’t want the papers to get hold of it or we’ll be inundated with letters from a thousand Lucius Boyles!’

  And then he and Mr Wilberforce hastily left the room to placate Sir R
ichard.

  Noah and Mr Williamson sat once more, facing each other across the table. The air of the room was charged with lingering anger and accusation. Cigar smoke hung in a grey-blue pall above them.

  ‘It was foolish of you to speak like that to the commissioner,’ said Mr Williamson.

  ‘It was foolish of the police to utilize me in the first instance. I am not bound by any oath.’

  ‘You are melancholic because Boyle slipped through our fingers yesterday. I understand that. His escape and the murder of Mr Coggins is as much an injury to me, I can promise you.’

  ‘I think not.’

  The detective reached across to the letter and placed it between them. It was written in black ink, most likely with a steel pen, on standard writing paper. It had been handed to a beat constable on Westminster-bridge by a street boy who had vanished into the traffic just as quickly as he had appeared. The letter was addressed to ‘Sergeant George Williamson of the Detective Force, 4 Whitehall Place’.

  ‘The physical letter can tell us little. The handwriting is copperplate with good spelling and grammar, but we already know he is intelligent. I have looked over its entirety with a magnifying glass and found nothing that can help us. That leaves us only with the content . . . Noah? Are you listening?’

  ‘We will never see him again. You are wasting your time in any further investigation.’

  ‘You are being melodramatic – and you are wrong. You will see Boyle again, because he will not rest until you are dead. He knows that you are working with the police – that is why he has revealed his name to us. He knows that we know him; he knows that you, more than most men, can identify him; he knows that you are alive when he once thought you – or wished you – dead . . . I see from your expression that the latter is the more correct.’

  ‘Why would he kill me?’

  ‘I am beginning to think that he has determined to kill everyone connected with this case – however tangentially – just as he seems to kill everyone who has seen him or who can implicate him. First was Mary Chatterton, then Mr Coggins—’