by Will Thomas
After it had been quenched, I sat down on the grass beside Harm. He was alternately licking his paw and sniffing at his tail. He was very proud of that tail, and now he looked more like a rat. At least one pail of water had been thrown on him. He was panting, and possibly in pain, but he was the savior of the hour, and I think he knew it.
“Thomas!” a voice bellowed from within the house. Mac and I turned.
“We forgot the Guv,” we both said at once.
A good deal occurred within the next half hour. Having completed their work, and assured themselves by the small plaque by our front door that we were insured by them, the firemen were able to fill their tank again with a hose stretching all the way to our stream. A group of constables arrived, led by an inspector I had never seen before. We answered questions truthfully. It was always easiest to tell the truth.
A blanket had been thrown over the smoldering corpse, which was then rolled into it before being placed in the Black Maria. I didn’t know how the constables would get back to the station. However, there were more important and immediate things to do, such as placating my employer, so I left them to work out the conundrum for themselves. I carried my employer’s dog, still smoldering and reeking of singed hair, into the house.
The Guv does explode every now and again, over a boneheaded mistake I have made, but once or twice I had seen him in the very worst of situations adopt a patient, Buddha-like calm which I found unnerving. I almost wanted him to scream about his home nearly burning down and his dog catching fire.
“What’s happened to you, laddie?” Barker asked, taking the wet and stinking Pekingese onto his lap and patting his head. “Och, they’ve ruined your pretty tail, haven’t they?”
Harm is not above theatrics. He snuggled closer to Barker and shivered, all the while casting glances at me with those goggly eyes of his, as if I were the offending party.
“How is the roof?” the Guv asked.
“The front edge shall need to be reshingled and we’ll need a new shutter on one side of the southeast window. The brick will have to be scrubbed.”
“Did I hear you say Perrine’s name?”
“Jacques Perrine, yes, sir,” I answered. “He finally came after you. The man must have hated you. He blew up our offices, he stole money from your account, and then he tried to burn down your house. What raised such ire in one man?”
“I stopped his plan to assassinate all the royalty of Europe. He didn’t know I was working with the Sûreté.”
“He certainly had reason to hate you, then,” I said.
“Aye, but the Cox and Co. business wasn’t his method. For one thing, the man could not have been the one to impersonate me. Perrine was a short man.”
“Yes,” I said, looking out the window behind my employer’s head at Caleb talking to a fireman. “But Jack Hobson wasn’t.”
“You think the two were working together?”
“It is one possible theory. He could have joined forces with him to destroy you.”
“I’ll agree that it is possible, but I doubt they would work well together. Both are lone wolves, and have a tendency to snap.”
“Well, then why did Hobson’s gang attack Rebecca’s and Philippa’s homes, if Perrine is the one who bombed the offices?”
“We can’t ask either one,” the Guv intoned. “They’re both dead.”
The Black Maria rolled off with Perrine’s body. The firemen took their leave, as well. Scotland Yard questioned us thoroughly about the incident. I was not impressed by the newly minted inspector they sent. At length, the constables finished their investigation, hailed cabs, and took themselves off.
I looked up to see Mac muttering over the sorry state of affairs of his house and garden. The lawn was trampled. The roof had been burned. The brick front was blackened, the hall had been marked by firemen in hobnailed boots. It was more than one highly strung Jewish factotum could stand. Then I noticed Caleb was missing.
“Sir,” I said to Barker. “Your brother seems to have slipped off again.”
“That does not surprise me.”
“He is not a very social fellow, is he?” I asked.
“You have a gift for understatement, Thomas.”
“Shall I make a telephone call to have Harm looked after?”
Bok Fu Ying, Barker’s ward, generally arrived once a week to groom and bathe the prized Pekingese. She would know best how to care for him in his injured state.
“You do that, lad. Poor wee dog. He’s miserable.”
I looked at the “wee dog.” I’d never seen him so sad-looking, nor so filthy. He was getting soot all over the Guv’s bedding.
“He acquitted himself well, sir, I have to admit. He really does have no fear. I think he’d attack a bear if it came lumbering down the street.”
I sat on a chair near the bed and retrieved the notebook from my pocket, thinking about what had happened.
“Obviously, it was Perrine,” I said to the Guv. “He couldn’t get his bombs from Saint Petersburg, so he filled bottles with kerosene to try to burn down the house. But as you said, he doesn’t match the description of the man who stole the money from your bank account.”
“A paltry five thousand pounds.”
“Spoken like a rich man, sir. It’s far more than some people shall earn in their entire lives.” I pulled my handkerchief from my pocket to rub the soot from my face. “There can’t be a connection, but Hobson was an unlikely candidate to go to the bank. It would have been a man like Strathmore who would have known the limit at which the bank would question a withdrawal.”
The Guv snorted. “I would expect a man like Strathmore to withdraw the entire deposit, with aid from his financial associates. Also, he’d have to find a man meeting my general description. Wait.”
“What, sir?”
“Did you investigate all my other accounts?”
“I did.”
My employer looked relieved.
“Sir, it might be in your best interests to visit your banking institutions once in a while, and make yourself visible to the clerks. I don’t think the man who stole your money needed to resemble you very closely.”
Barker put down Harm, and then tried unsuccessfully to brush away the mud and dampness from his linens.
“You’re thinking of my brother,” he said.
“All the man would require was a pair of dark spectacles.”
Barker leaned back into his pillows and frowned. “I don’t disagree. But what would be his motive?”
“Who can say?” I answered, closing the notebook. “A badge does not prove that your brother is a Pinkerton agent. We have no idea what he has done all these years, whom his associates were, or whether or not he had been in trouble with the law. It could all be bluff. I’m sure lying comes easily to him.”
“It always has,” the Guv answered. “The man’s a rascal, no mistake. But he’s my brother. What can one do?”
“He seems to feel the same about you, which I suppose is a good sign. At least I certainly hope it is.”
“Perhaps, but one cannot rely upon it. He’s reserved. He will not reveal his plans to anyone whom he does not trust, and he trusts very few.”
“Not unlike you, sir,” I said.
He grunted. It was all the response I would receive.
“Is he merely secretive,” I went on, “or does he have something to be secretive about?”
“Who can say?”
Barker crossed his arms and continued. “Don’t try to best him as far as thinking is concerned. I suspect he is very canny. However, don’t let him hamper you as you go about your business. The important thing is finding who is coming after us.”
“Do you suppose that Camille Archer is the killer? We have gentle opinions of women, but really, they are no less capable of killing than a man.”
“That is true, Thomas.”
He reached for his heavily carved meerschaum pipe, and opened the sealskin pouch full of tobacco. Then he recalled that Phi
lippa had restricted its use.
“Blast,” he muttered to himself, tossing both onto the table by his bed, a fine way to treat a work of art.
I didn’t imagine that the next two or three weeks would be easy in this household, between him and Mac.
“Sir, if I may say it, you are not being very helpful in winnowing suspects.”
“Mr. Llewelyn,” he said, switching to the more formal and somewhat colder address, “do you require help?”
It would have been easier to admit it and ask, but I understood if I did I would not have assured him that I knew what I was about. Let us face it, I had been in his employ for six years, and should have been able to solve such matters on my own.
I was not going to fail in front of Cyrus Barker and make a fool of myself. The man had put a roof over my head, and it would all be for naught if I could not bring one criminal to justice. I could not hold my head up in front of Mac or Jenkins, or any of our watchers who provided us with information. Miss Fletcher’s words about the circumstances of my employment cut sharply. Worse, if I failed, what did that say to Rebecca’s relatives about me, or for that matter, to Rebecca herself?
“No, sir,” I told my employer. “I do not require help at all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
From time to time I wake in the morning with the feeling that something will happen that day, but it takes a minute or two for the mind to work out exactly what. My brain sifted through the case for a good minute or two before it bubbled to the surface like a bloated corpse: today was to be the hanging of Joseph Keller.
As I recalled, the hanging was to occur late that afternoon at Newgate Prison. My first order of business was to telegraph the prison in Barker’s name to inform them he was sending a person to represent him. I was willing to set out on my journey with no acknowledgment or response to my telegraph, thus putting the burden upon their shoulders.
At our chambers, Caleb Barker was buzzing about like a bluebottle trapped in the room, bouncing off windows with little to do. He was free to disappear at a moment’s notice, stay out all day, and return without an explanation, but heaven help us if we should inconvenience him. I began to pity the late Mrs. Barker for having not one but two exasperating sons. They became two men absolutely certain that they are correct, with little or no proof, or need for it. Somehow, I was the one to fill the slack between them, despite the fact that each had gotten along without the other for twenty years. Agree or disagree, but do not expect me to play counselor or alienist.
“Would you care to attend a hanging?” I asked Caleb.
He squinted his steely gray eyes. “I’ve seen plenty of them. They don’t bother me, but they aren’t my favorite form of entertainment. What poor soul will breathe his last day today?”
“Joseph Keller. He’s one of the fellows whom your brother caught and turned over to CID. He vowed vengeance on the Guv. He killed his family and he has shown remorse, but he’s still dangerous, although I’m not convinced he was involved in the bombing. He asked me to attend.”
“It isn’t a public hanging, is it?”
“No, they’ve done away with that years ago. No speeches on the wages of sin, no broadsheets, no one selling tea and pasties.”
“Seen one in Fort Smith once. They hanged four men on one platform. People brought their children like it was a fair. Hotels were full, saloons full, and the hangman practiced with feed bags the day before. It was ghoulish, but I reckon towns have the right to engage in commerce as best they can.”
“Are you coming? My request for attendance was for your brother and myself. You are a Barker.”
“Do you think he is involved? Did he hire someone to kill Cyrus? How does he have any connection to that madwoman? I just don’t see it.”
“Nor do I, but I can’t leave this stone unturned, being the man’s last breath. He might confess. Asking him tomorrow won’t do us much good.”
“True.”
* * *
Once we arrived at Newgate, we entered through the large wooden gates at the front and explained to the guard our identity and purpose for being there. Caleb gave his real name, but accepted the name Cyrus on his clipboard as a clerical error. Inside, the rough stone blocks and flagstones were worn smooth and shiny underfoot by a million treads. It was impossible to come inside and not feel as if one were a prisoner. The sense of oppression was palpable.
“I’d rather be hanged than to be here for any length of time,” Caleb muttered, and I nodded in agreement. “What did this fellow do again to get himself hanged?”
“He killed his wife and children with an axe.”
“That would do it.”
“Keller was being cuckolded by his wife. He discovered too late the children were not his own. He butchered them and then simply disappeared. Barker finally tracked him to a garret in Poplar and I worked alongside him to get evidence against him.”
“So, why did he ask you to attend?”
“Because his whole family was dead. He wanted someone to stand there.”
We approached a knot of guards and officials in a hallway and introduced ourselves. We milled about for a while, waiting to be ushered inside the chamber.
“How long has this Keller fellow been waiting to have his neck stretched?”
“Three weeks since the judge found him guilty.”
“And they’re hanging him already? What about the appeal? Even Hanging Judge Parker didn’t hang them that fast.”
“The solicitor has three weeks to find suitable evidence to justify an appeal. It’s considered cruel to keep a man month after month, knowing he is to be executed.”
“Very civilized, I’m sure, but if I ever get in such a situation I hope the government will give me plenty of time. I’ll need to write my memoirs.”
“How long would that take?”
“No more than four or five years. You cannot rush the muse.”
The door opened and we were ushered into a small room and lined up along the wall like an identity parade. The room was spartan, and there was a raised dais with a long noose. Below it, I noticed the trap door and a handle near the wall, much like the brake handle on a steam engine.
“What’s with the noose?” Caleb said. “It looks strange. There’s no knot.”
“That’s a Marwood ring,” I explained. “He was an executioner a few decades ago. He’d had too many prisoners asphyxiate and kick, thanks to a short rope. He came up with a longer one and that metal ring that the rope is threaded though.”
“Let me guess. More humane.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but it breaks their neck every time.”
“Efficient. I notice the chamber is in the middle of the prison. No chance his pals can break in with some pistols, and rescue him.”
I tried to imagine such a thing happening in England. It was possible in the days of Dick Turpin, I supposed, but not now.
“None.”
“Aww, you don’t even give the poor man a chance.”
I shrugged my shoulders. I wasn’t responsible for the form of punishment Her Majesty’s government meted out.
“I suppose…”
There was a clang overhead, like the ringing of bells in a tower. A door immediately opened in the wall behind the dais, presenting the tableau of two guards doing their very best to clap darbies and leg irons on a struggling prisoner. That is, on Joseph Keller.
He was spitting and snarling, his face red from the exertion. The bell continued to toll overhead as he was shuffled forward in his chains, protesting all the while. Beside me a man began to quote scripture, but I was too mesmerized by the struggling man in front of me to listen to what verses he quoted. Barker would know if he were here. The other one, at least.
Five bells. They dragged him to the position over the trap. A third guard fitted a small black cloth bag over his head, barely coming to his chin. The man’s screams and curses were muffled.
Six bells. The same guard, whom I assumed was the executioner
, settled the rope around Keller’s neck, and adjusted the ring up behind his left ear.
Seven bells. The guards holding him let go and jumped back. The executioner crossed quickly, and without preamble pulled on the lever.
Eight bells. Keller’s body fell through the trap. There was a sound like laundry being snapped in the breeze, and then a second one, like a bass cello being plucked, as the rope went taut. Slowly, the rope swung to and fro.
“Jesus!” Caleb nearly bellowed, drawing all eyes to him.
He pushed his way to the door and beat on it until a guard outside unlocked it. I followed him out into the hall.
Caleb leaned against a window, hands on either side of the glass, breathing like a thoroughbred.
“Humane, my arse!” he growled.
“The Marwood method,” I explained. “Eight seconds from when the prisoner discovers he’s about to be hanged until his final breath.”
“No chance to say anything? No confession? No last words for his ma or his sweetheart?”
“Eight seconds.”
“You can keep your so-called British justice system and your goddamned Marwood ring! Even the worst vigilante hanging I ever saw took place on the back of a horse. The man had a chance to get out some final words!”
“I wished he had,” I admitted. “Perhaps he would have said something to incriminate himself in the bombing. I had to come in the off chance he said something.”
“When? What can you say in just eight seconds? Get me out of here, Mr. Llewelyn. I need whiskey, and lots of it!”
As little ceremony as there had been on entry, there was none upon leaving. The hanging was over and nearly forgotten. As we left, a clerk ticked our name on a list. Within five minutes Caleb was pouring whiskey from a bottle into a tumbler in the same public house we’d visited that Sunday.
“You might have warned me.”
“You said you’d seen hangings before.”
He poured the entire contents of the glass down his throat and poured another. “How many of these things have you witnessed?”