by Granger, Ann
‘Yes,’ I said reluctantly.
‘Well, then, how – tonight – would you answer those questions with regard to Mills, the murderer? Is he credible?’
‘I understand the argument you make, sir,’ I told him. ‘Perhaps I should be reluctant to take his word. But I cannot disregard any witness telling me of a murder.’
‘And I cannot trouble the home secretary at this time of the evening with this!’ He brandished the statement at me. ‘It is the fantasy of a desperate man. Your wish to be thorough does you credit, Inspector Ross. But I have experience of dealing with men about to go to the gallows. Of course, they panic. They are like a drowning man. They flail about, grasping at any fragile scrap of flotsam to help them stay afloat and alive. Believe me, my dear Ross, there is nothing to be done and no crime to investigate.’
Perhaps he saw I was still unconvinced. The governor leaned forward and went on earnestly, ‘Mills is a clever fellow. I got to know him a little over the past weeks and he is an intriguing character; the very last man, you might have thought, to find himself in his present fix. You, also, Ross got to know him during your investigation into his crime and his trial. But here’s the thing.’ The governor raised a finger. ‘So did he get to know you!’
This was true. I felt myself redden. The governor leaned back to expound on his theory, making a gesture in the air with his right hand as a conjuror might. ‘“Ross is a conscientious fellow,” Mills says to himself as he sits in the condemned cell. “If I give him this cock-and-bull story, well dressed up to sound plausible, he will feel duty-bound to do something about it and seek to delay my execution.” And he was right. You have done something about it. You have brought this work of fiction to me. I, in turn, have done my duty and read it. Is that not so?’
I had felt my face burn even more and hoped he’d put it down to the fire in his hearth. But he would know he was right, of course. Many a clever crook – or murderer – has sought to find a weakness in the investigating officer that can be exploited. My confidence was ebbing fast. I began to feel I’d been foolish. I should know better than to believe Mills. Of course he sought to delay the horror of what awaited him on the morrow. ‘I am sorry to have troubled you with it, sir,’ I said stiffly.
‘Come, come, my dear Inspector, you did the right thing. Your conscience can be clear.’
Silence fell between us, only the fire crackled. I watched conflicting emotions play across the governor’s ruddy features as he peered at the statement still in his hand.
His conscience might not trouble him but concern for his future career was disturbing him. After all, he had just made a splendid speech telling an officer of the law to disregard a report of murder. It was the sort of grand decision that might possibly come back to bite him.
In a more conciliatory tone, he continued. ‘Well, well, on second thoughts, now that you have told me, I feel I am obliged to take some action. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I will write to the home secretary in the morning, enclosing this document, and send it to him by hand, instructing my messenger that it must be delivered personally. Then you and I will both have done all in our power and can forget about it.’
And the home secretary will order it filed; or toss it into the fire, I thought, but did not say. Then, having much else on his mind, he will forget about the whole thing. Even if he does take it seriously, it will be too late, for Mills will already be dead.
I thanked the governor again for hearing me out; and rose to take my leave. At the door of the room I turned and asked him, ‘The executioner will be Calcraft, I suppose?’
For a moment the governor looked embarrassed and avoided my eye as he replied, ‘Yes, yes, Calcraft. He is the Newgate hangman.’
‘He is a bungler, either through incompetence or by design,’ I said. ‘He ought to be sacked. This is my personal opinion.’
‘He is nearing retirement, certainly,’ replied the governor curtly, ‘but he has served Newgate and other prisons well for many years, doing a task not everyone would wish to do. You, William Calcraft, and I, we all in our several ways serve justice in this country. Our individual personal opinions are of no account. Duty! That is what guides us! Goodnight, Inspector Ross.’
As the butler closed the street door behind me, I caught a snatch of male laughter from the direction of the dining room. The governor had rejoined his guests and probably forgotten Mills already.
I began to walk slowly homeward, still turning over what I should do. Should I let the matter go? I’d done as Mills had asked and reported it. I’d been promised action – even if that action would come too late. What else? Take it directly to a senior police officer? There is a hierarchy within the police force and I could not by-pass it. This meant I would have to disturb Superintendent Dunn, who would be at home now in Camden, and beg him, in turn, to by-pass anyone immediately his senior in order directly to disturb the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
It would take me time to get to Dunn’s home, even if I took a cab. Dunn was a fair man and a good officer, but also impatient; and by nature respectful of those his senior. I would have to inform him the governor of Newgate had promised to contact the home secretary in the morning. That would alarm Dunn enough. It would also count against his troubling Sir Richard Mayne, the commissioner. Sir Richard was a distinguished man. But it was well known that he did not enjoy a good relationship with the office of the home secretary. (This was due to some confusion during the police investigation into the Clerkenwell bombing carried out by Barrett: that same Barrett whose execution had been the last to be carried out before a cheering crowd; and had been overheard by Mills in his cell.) In short, I did not have to visit Dunn to know that the superintendent would no more take the matter to Sir Richard than he would run and knock on the home secretary’s door in person.
I could do no more than I had done. Besides, it was quite possible all this was what is popularly termed a ‘mare’s nest’. Mills had spun me a fantasy of murder unsolved in order to delay his own merited execution. ‘Yes,’ I said aloud to myself, ‘that is it!’
My voice echoed in the empty air. I had reached the embankment and been strolling alongside the river. I was just passing by the arches supporting the brick walls of Waterloo Station. The tide was high and the river lapped at the stone and concrete corset confining it only feet away. I could smell its acrid tang above the smoke from the great engines on the other side of the station’s walls. There was no one around that I could see and I expected no response to my words. But my ear caught the faintest sound from beneath one of the arches. It was a woman’s voice, I was sure of that. I couldn’t catch the words. They were spoken too quietly and, I fancied, not addressed to me. Not a prostitute, then, patrolling the riverside and who thought she spotted in me a possible customer. This was someone else.
The arches were a known refuge for homeless souls. Had the voice been male, I would have put it down as belonging to one of them, and not inquired further. But this was a female voice, and now, to add to my curiosity – and some dismay – I heard a small child give a little cry, as a restless child will when sleep is fitful. I approached the arch and peered into the darkness.
Something moved, no doubt startled at my appearance. I heard the rustle of clothing. The child squeaked again.
‘Who is there?’ I asked.
There was no reply, other than the sound of rapid breathing. I took a box of lucifers from my pocket and struck one. In its flickering light I saw a woman’s terrified face. She was huddled on the ground, wrapped in some kind of cloak or blanket. Before the lucifer’s brief flame was extinguished, I saw the covering move and a small bare foot emerge.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ I urged her. ‘I am a police officer – not in uniform – but an officer of the law, none the less. I am Inspector Ross of Scotland Yard.’
‘I am not begging, sir,’ she whispered in reply.
‘I know that. You are only sheltering here but that is still classed as vagrancy. Ther
e are places you can go if you have no other shelter. You should apply to a casual ward at a workhouse for a night’s bed.’
‘Have you seen those places?’ she whispered in reply. ‘You have not, sir, or you wouldn’t suggest it.’
I had never had cause to enter a women’s ward. But, as a younger officer, I had had occasion to search through a men’s ward seeking a wanted man. I remembered it as a dreadful place, airless, stinking, crammed with drunken, diseased and desperate men, young and old. I had even had to throw open the door of the privy in the corner, to see if my fugitive was in there, and shall not forget the open pit, brimming with human excrement.
‘But you have a child with you,’ I argued, none the less. ‘You cannot stay here.’
‘We are safe here,’ she replied obstinately.
‘What has brought you to this state?’ I asked next, as sympathetically as I could.
Almost inaudibly, as if shamed by the admission, she whispered, ‘My husband left us. I do not know where he has gone. I had no money to pay the rent and buy food . . . We had to leave the place where we lodged.’
‘Then apply to the parish!’ I exclaimed.
‘They will send us to the workhouse. They will take my child from me.’ She wrapped her arms around the bundle beneath the shawl. ‘Please, Inspector Ross, don’t arrest me for vagrancy. I do no harm here.’
‘But it is not suitable—’ I broke off. Neither was a casual ward a suitable place for a child. ‘I will leave you here tonight,’ I said. ‘But tomorrow, come to Scotland Yard and ask for me or for Sergeant Morris. We will see you are put in touch with a suitable charity.’
I could rely on Morris, whom I would forewarn, but I hoped Superintendent Dunn never learned I was taking on the work of charities from my office at the Yard.
‘What is your name?’
Reluctantly she answered, ‘Jane Stephens, sir.’
‘Have you no family?’ I asked. ‘Other than your absconded husband?’
‘They’re a long way from here, sir.’
‘Well, well . . . come to the Yard in the morning. Remember, Inspector Ross or Sergeant Morris.’ I delved into my pocket and extracted the few coins there. I held them out to her. ‘Take it. It is not a trick. I shan’t accuse you of begging. Buy something warm for breakfast for yourself and the child.’
She whispered her thanks and took the money. Her fingers, brushing my palm, were soft. This was not a working woman with roughened hands. ‘See here,’ I told her, ‘for your husband to have abandoned you and fail to support his child is an offence and you can report it.’
Even as I spoke, I realised this was the reason she had not gone to the parish authorities and claimed relief under the Poor Law. She had a child and would be required to name the father so that he could be found and made to reimburse any money the parish spent on his family. But she did not want him found, that was it! I began to doubt the accuracy of her story, such as it was. Possibly even the name she’d given me was false. At any rate, the man had not left her. She had run away from him. She feared any authority would force her back to him. He must be a brute, that she chose this archway as a better and safer place for them both.
I went on my way. There were many who would have told me she would buy alcohol with the money, but I believed she would buy food for the child, if not for herself.
I completed my journey home, feeling unaccustomedly useless. I couldn’t help the woman, other than leave her in the shelter she’d found and hope she’d come to the Yard the next day. (I doubted she would. She would be too frightened.) Nor could I do anything about Mills’s testimony, with the result that a murderess remained free out there somewhere. London was full of wrongs and any police officer who thought he could right even half of them would be a fool.
But he could still try.
The house was quiet. The parlour clock told me it was nearly midnight. Lizzie was already abed and so was our maid-of-all-work, Bessie. I went into the kitchen and found a large plate of cold sliced beef, carefully covered over to protect from mice, and a jar of pickled onions. I didn’t fancy either. But the kitchen was warm and comfortable and I sat for a while by the range and thought over what had happened. I would go to Dunn in the morning and report it. I had no hope of there being any action, but it must be officially recorded.
I heard a sound at the door into the kitchen from the hall, and there stood Lizzie in her nightgown and a shawl, with her long dark hair braided into a single plait, and holding up a guttering candle. The dancing flame chased shadows across her face. She was in her early thirties now but, to me, still looked a young girl. She had been a very young girl when I had first set eyes on her, back home in Derbyshire. We had been children, she the doctor’s daughter and me the grimy lad who worked down in the mine. Her father’s generosity had taken me from that life and seen to it I had an education. I doubted he meant I would reward him by marrying his daughter.
‘You found the beef?’ she asked. That meant, why hadn’t I eaten any of it?
‘I am not hungry,’ I defended myself. ‘I’m sorry if I wakened you.’
‘I wasn’t asleep, only dozing.’ She sat down before the range in a chair facing mine. ‘What happened at Newgate? Mills must be very distressed. One has to pity him.’
So I told her the whole thing from beginning to end. She listened without interruption. Then, when I fell silent, she said firmly: ‘You could have done nothing else. You had to go to the governor.’
‘Perhaps he was right and Mills was making a fool of me.’
‘Of course, he might have been doing that!’ she retorted. ‘But you don’t know.’
‘I’ll never know,’ I said wryly.
After a moment, she stretched out her hand and placed it on my arm. ‘You did the right thing,’ she said. ‘You have done all you could.’
I wished I believed her.
Chapter Three
Elizabeth Martin Ross
I HAD been awaiting Ben’s return from Newgate all evening. I had gone upstairs to bed, but not to sleep.
We had been about to sit down to our supper earlier when the message came that he was required there. A condemned man had made it his last request that he speak to the arresting officer in his case. That had been Ben. He had stood up from the table, made a brief apology, and left at once. I had not attempted to delay him or suggest he dine first. But I had known he would not only be hungry when he returned, he would be in mental turmoil.
Any visit to Newgate has a depressing effect on Ben’s spirits, as it would on any sane person’s. I have never been inside the fortress-like walls of that dreadful place, although I have occasionally shopped in the market that thrives in the street just outside it. The market stallholders and other shoppers seem never to give it a second look. For me, its castle-keep-like appearance, blind windows and the stone frieze of entwined manacles and chains above the main entrance send a shudder down my spine.
Now, on this occasion, Ben’s visit had been made much more difficult by Mills’s strange allegation. Could it be true? I wondered. Or was it just the invention of a desperate man about to climb the steps to the gallows? Even the thought of what must happen in the morning made me shiver.
Ben believed Mills’s tale; that was the problem. Because he believed it, he would not be able to leave it alone. The idea of an uninvestigated murder would continue to prey on his mind; above all if he were unable to persuade anyone else to take it seriously.
There was nothing more I could have said to him that would have made things easier. I had offered the obvious words of comfort. I urged that he had done his best in going to the governor, that it was not his fault if the governor had dismissed the claim made. Mills should have spoken out earlier. After all, he had had sixteen years to do so, if his strange tale were true. In the end we had agreed to discuss it no more, as it was now in the early hours.
Ben slept badly and I hardly at all as he tossed and turned beside me. It began to prey on my mind, too. If Mills h
ad given an honest account, then what had led to the awful scene he’d witnessed that fateful day on Putney Heath? What hatred had built up in the heart of an apparently respectable young woman and why? I knew already that I could no more leave the question unanswered than Ben could. That is to say, he could do little more than file a report in the morning at Scotland Yard. As for me, I could only lie awake here with images of the wretched Mills in his cell, dancing in the darkness before me.
Eventually I fell asleep to be awakened by a rattle of fire irons in the kitchen range beneath my feet. Bessie was up and about and encouraging the range to heat up and boil the kettle for hot water. I slipped out of bed, picked up the empty jug on the washstand, and went downstairs to help her.
It is not possible to keep much from our intrepid maid-of-all-work.
‘The inspector came home very late from Newgate, missis,’ she observed, hauling the kettle from the range and splashing most of the contents into the jug. As she was preparing to lug it upstairs, she added casually, ‘Did he go and see that murderer?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘It makes my blood run cold,’ declared Bessie with so much relish I suspected the thought of the wretched Mills in the condemned cell had quite the opposite effect. She then added, with a glance at the clock ticking above the hearth, ‘They’re probably leading him out to the scaffold this very minute!’
‘That’s enough, Bessie!’ I told her sharply. ‘Take up the water or it will go cold again and the inspector not be able to shave.’
Bessie had previously worked in the household of my Aunt Parry. In those days she had called me ‘Miss Martin’. Now, I am afraid, she called me ‘missis’ and there was nothing I could do to change this. Ben was always called by her ‘the inspector’ and I, when talking to her, had to do the same.