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  THE HANGMAN’S SECRET

  A VICTORIAN MYSTERY

  Laura Joh Rowland

  To Marty

  CHAPTER 1

  London, January 1890

  A loud rapping on my window awakens me. Groggy and disoriented, I sit up in bed. A yellow glow from the street lamp penetrates the curtains. The clock says 6:35. I crawl from beneath the quilts and totter, shivering in the icy cold, to the window as the long cane raps insistently on the glass. I fling back the curtains and open the window. The air is so thick with fog, smoke, and swirling snowflakes that I can barely see the man who stands in the street four stories below my attic room.

  “Miss Sarah Bain?” he calls.

  “Yes,” I reply. “Where is it?”

  “Fashion Street, number forty.”

  I shut the window; dress in corset, flannel chemise, drawers, and petticoats, and woolen frock; and splash water from the washbasin on my face. As I braid my hair into a crown around my head, my reflection in the mirror is tense with anxiety. I hurry down the stairs and meet Mick O’Reilly on the landing. He always hears the rapping before I do. A boy who’s spent most of his fourteen years as a street urchin sleeps lightly by force of habit, ever alert for danger.

  “I woke Hugh,” Mick says. His red hair stands up in cowlicks. His coat and trousers are too short; he outgrows his clothes so fast. His freckled face and blue eyes are bright with excitement. “He’s coming.”

  Downstairs, in my photography studio, my equipment is already packed. I check the large camera in its wooden case; the trunk that contains the T-shaped metal flash lamp, folding tripod, and light stand; and my leather satchel filled with glass negative plates and tins of flash powder. I spare a moment to glance around the studio, and smile. Furnished like an elegant parlor, with carved furniture, a gas chandelier, a Turkish carpet, a cabinet full of props, rolled backdrops on a stand, and a gallery of my photographs framed on one wall, it’s much better than my first studio, which I operated for ten years before I was evicted.

  Hugh comes in, yawning as he buttons his coat. His blond hair is damp from hasty combing, and whisker stubble glints on his jaws, but even while bleary-eyed and dozy, Lord Hugh Staunton ranks among the handsomest men on earth.

  “Third time this week, and it’s only Tuesday,” he mutters. “Business is booming.”

  Fitzmorris joins us, clad in pajamas and slippers, carrying a plate of buttered bread. The thin, solemn, gray-haired man is officially Hugh’s valet, in reality also our cook, housekeeper, accountant, and manager. Mick grabs a slice of bread and wolfs it down; he’s always ravenous. Hugh and I never eat before these expeditions.

  “Hurry,” Mick says, flinging our overcoats at Hugh and me, jamming his arms into his own.

  “Hugh and I can manage,” I say. “You have to go to school.”

  “I’m done with school. I knows enough already.”

  This is an ongoing argument: I want Mick to get an education; he hates sitting still in a classroom, being treated like a child. His life on the streets, as well as the experiences that he and Hugh and I have shared, have made him precociously mature. But there’s no time to argue now. Bundled in coats, hats, and mufflers, we lug my equipment out the front door.

  Carriages and wagons are already rolling down Whitechapel High Street. Snowflakes dance in the yellow haloes around the gas lamps. Coal smoke rising from chimneys mixes with the fog, the chemical fumes from the factories, and the stench from nearby slaughterhouses. People emerge like gray ghosts from the murky atmosphere that obscures my view of the street beyond twenty feet in either direction. As I lock the door, machinery clangs. A train rumbles into Aldgate East Station down the block; even in early morning, the East End of London is never silent. Although we’re in a hurry, I pause to admire the studio.

  It’s in a row of the oldest buildings on the street, which date from the past century. Their three-story whitewashed stucco fronts and attics set in gables rise above the ground floors. Ours, located between a watchmaker and a jeweler, has “S. Bain Photographer & Co.” painted in gold letters over the door and display window. This part of Whitechapel is the sprucest, most prosperous and respectable. To look at it, one would never know that it’s surrounded by some of London’s worst slums. I still can’t believe my good fortune. I only wish I had time to use the studio and build up a clientele. The kind of work I’m doing today keeps me too busy.

  “Come on, Sarah!” Mick calls.

  Laden with my equipment, we hurry up the street, then down Brick Lane, entering the neighborhood of Spitalfields. The brick tenements look dispirited in the snow, smoky fog, and gas light. A layer of cold grime coats my face; I can feel my tongue turning black.

  “At least this one’s close,” Hugh says.

  They’re always close. Whitechapel has an overabundance of violent deaths. Our house is conveniently situated. Trudging between Hugh and Mick, I can hardly believe I didn’t know them until about two years ago, and now they’re my dearest friends with whom I live and work. I glance at Hugh. Despite his looks and the fact that we’re both single, our relationship is happily platonic. He’s not interested in women, and my affections are engaged elsewhere.

  Four blocks later, we turn left on Fashion Street, whose narrow, cobblestoned length divides terraces of three-story brick buildings. A small crowd is gathered outside the second from the corner. The people appear to be local tradesmen and housewives; dressed in dark winter garb, they resemble vultures huddled around carrion. The building is a public house, tall and narrow, with a door on the left, a large, mullioned window on the right, and a pair of smaller windows on each upper floor. The woodwork is painted dark red. Gold letters mounted across the front read, “The Ropemaker’s Daughter.” From a pole at the roofline hangs a flag illustrated with a picture of a red-haired girl in a white dress, holding a coiled rope. A young police constable with rosy cheeks is stationed outside the pub. Snow frosts his tall helmet and blue uniform. He rubs his gloved hands and stomps his booted feet to keep warm.

  I swallow my fear of the law, which I’ve had since childhood and still plagues me even though my job puts me in daily contact with the police.

  “We’re not too late,” Mick says happily. “There oughta be somethin’ worth seein’.”

  Dread grips my stomach. Hugh says, “God, I hope it isn’t too awful.”

  The constable sees us approaching the door. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Good morning, Constable,” Hugh says with his most charming smile. “We’re from the Daily World newspaper. We’re here to take photographs.”

  The constable plants his feet wide and his hands on his hips. “This here’s a crime scene. You can’t go in.”

  “Then we’ll just take photographs outside,” Hugh says. “Would you like to be in one?”

  “Well, all right.” The constable seems pleased, flattered.

  “What’s your name?” Hugh asks.

  “Mitchell, sir.”

  “If you’ll just stand over there, Mr. Mitchell?” Hugh gestures away from the door.

  Hugh’s aristocratic bearing and accent command respect. The constable moves. “The wife would be tickled to see me in the papers.” Then he sees Mick sneaking into the pub. “Hey! Stop!”

  The crowd cheers. Hugh and I grab my equipment and scramble after Mick, but Constable Mitchell blocks our way. From within the pub, Mick exclaims, “Gorblimey!”

  Another constable steps out of the pub. He has unruly dark hair, a slender but strong build, and an irate expression. Mitchell says, “Sorry, Barrett. They tricked me.”

  “It’s all right,” Barrett says. “Let them in.”

  Even though we’re courting, when I see Barrett in uniform,
I see the uniform first, and my fear of the law resurges. Then my heart flip-flops like it does every time we meet, despite the fact that we’ve been lovers for almost a year. I’m so smitten with him that I smile even though he doesn’t.

  “Fancy meeting you here.” His carefully proper speech disguises his humble East End origins. Wry tenderness underlies the disapproval in his crystal-clear gray eyes.

  This is the first time he’s been at a death scene when Hugh, Mick, and I showed up. It’s his duty to keep the public away from the scenes and protect evidence, but he’s accommodating my friends and me because he loves me. I smile apologetically, knowing he doesn’t like my job. He thinks it’s unsuitable for a woman and only tolerates it because it’s my livelihood. It’s one reason our relationship is rocky.

  “How did you hear about this so fast?” Barrett adds, “I only just got here myself.”

  “The Daily World has informants all over town.” At every hour of the day, they hang around police stations and taverns in every neighborhood, ready to gather and pass on information about crimes and other newsworthy events. They include the man who woke me up this morning. They alert the photographers and reporters who cover the stories for the paper.

  “It’s good to have friends in the right places.” Hugh claps Barrett on the back and starts to enter the pub.

  “Don’t come in, Hugh,” Mick calls. “You don’t wanna see this.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” Hugh retreats.

  He has a weak stomach. I’m afraid mine will fail me; that’s why I didn’t eat breakfast. I’ve endured viewing many terrible crime scenes, both before and after I began photographing them last October, but someday there will be one I can’t take. This could be it.

  “It’s bad, Sarah. Maybe you’d better skip it too,” Barrett says, trying to discourage me.

  “I’ll be all right.” I avoid Barrett’s gaze as he helps me carry my equipment through the door. I don’t want to see his ambivalence; nor do I want him to see me struggle to muster my nerve.

  When I step into the dim passage, the smell of blood and ordure hits me like the foul wind from a slaughterhouse. A wave of nausea churns sour bile up from my stomach. I drop my camera case at the threshold and clap my hand over my nose and mouth—too late to keep out the taste of iron and salt, meat and feces. The dark wooden wainscoting and white walls swim dizzyingly around me. At the end of the passage, beside a steep staircase, blood is spattered like a thick red sunburst across the black-and-white tile floor. In the middle lies the large, crumpled, bloodstained body of a man dressed in a white shirt, black trousers, and black shoes. Instead of a head, he has only a ragged, gory stump.

  I’ve seen the corpses of four of Jack the Ripper’s victims, who were brutally stabbed and mutilated. This is just as terrible. I’m glad it’s so cold in here; otherwise, the smell would be even worse.

  Mick, standing near me, says, “The bloke was hanged!” His voice is shrill with horror and excitement.

  I look up and see the thick rope that dangles from the railing on the second-story landing. Caught inside the loop at its end is the dead man’s head, suspended about ten feet from the floor.

  “His head came off!” Mick says.

  The man’s eyes are bulging, his mouth slack, and his cheeks bloated and purple. His short, smooth gray hair and beard look incongruously neat. Torn flesh under his chin oozes stringy red clots. I gag. It takes all my willpower not to vomit.

  “I didn’t know that could happen.” Mick sounds awed.

  Neither did I. Criminals are routinely hanged for offenses that include but aren’t limited to murder. Stories about executions feature regularly in the newspapers, but I’ve never heard of anyone’s head coming off.

  Barrett peers up at the railing. He looks a little green. He’s been on the police force for eleven years, patrolling beats in London’s roughest neighborhoods, but the terrible things he’s seen haven’t prepared him for this. “He dropped at least ten feet before the rope pulled tight. The force on his neck must have been so great that it decapitated him.”

  I want to run away and forget I ever saw this—but I’ll never forget, and I’ve a job to do. My hands shake as I set up my tripod and camera as close to the body as I can while avoiding the blood spatters. Working always calms me. My stomach settles enough for me to speak.

  “Who is he?” I say.

  “His name is Harry Warbrick,” Barrett says.

  “What happened?” Hugh calls from outside.

  Mick runs to the door and tells him, sparing no details. I hear exclamations from the crowd as I load a negative plate into my camera and fill the flash lamp with powder.

  “I’ve not had time to investigate yet, but this was probably a suicide,” Barrett says. “So there’s no need for you to take pictures.”

  I know from experience that things are sometimes far from what they seem on the surface. “Why do you think so?”

  Barrett frowns; he doesn’t like me challenging his professional judgment—or the sense of competition between us. Nor does he like the fact that Hugh and Mick and I, untrained amateurs who started a private inquiry service last year, have already solved two major cases. One was Jack the Ripper. Barrett is among a very few people in the world who know that we succeeded while the police failed, and he can’t help taking the failure personally.

  “It would have been difficult to hang a man as big as Mr. Warbrick,” Barrett says.

  “That’s a good point.” And it’s hard for me to believe anyone would inflict such a violent death on himself. But he probably didn’t know he would be decapitated. “Who found him?”

  “The charwoman, when she came to clean this morning,” Barrett explains. “The front door was locked. She has a key. There was no sign of forced entry.”

  “What about the back door?” I see it at the end of the passage, beyond Warbrick’s body.

  Barrett compresses his lips; his patience is wearing thin. “I was on my way to check when I was rudely interrupted.”

  I don’t want to argue with him, but my experience with crimes has sharpened my instincts, and I sense something in the atmosphere—a lingering trace of malevolence? If I’m right, and this death proves to be murder, I’ll live to regret leaving the scene empty-handed. I put my head under the black drape that covers the back of my camera, aim the lens, and focus. Holding up the flash lamp, I snap the shutter. Flash powder explodes, lighting up Mr. Warbrick’s corpse. Sulfurous smoke overlays the reek of blood and death.

  “It’s not right for Sir Gerald to make you do this,” Barrett says.

  My friends and I work for Sir Gerald Mariner. One of the richest men in England, Sir Gerald made his first fortune in shipping, his second in banking, and ventured into the newspaper business when he bought the Daily World. I bristle at Barrett’s insinuation that Sir Gerald has bought me.

  “I chose to accept the job.” But it’s true that I’m at Sir Gerald’s beck and call twenty-four hours of the day. That’s the reason my studio sits unused while I photograph crime scenes.

  “Working for him is dangerous.”

  I wince at the reminder as I emerge from the black drape, take the exposed negative plate out of my camera, and insert a fresh one. Last April, Sir Gerald hired Hugh, Mick, and me to find his kidnapped baby son. The investigation almost cost us our lives, although it earned us Sir Gerald’s respect and further employment. “I just take photographs. Hugh or Mick or both of them are always with me. What could happen?”

  “All sorts of bad things have happened to you three.” Barrett’s expression darkens; I know he’s remembering the night in a slaughterhouse in 1888. “I’m only trying to protect you. And Sir Gerald is a monster.”

  I can’t disagree; the kidnapping investigation had shown me the worst about my employer. I also know Barrett is protective of me because he loves me. “Sir Gerald pays well.”

  Barrett lowers his voice. “You wouldn’t need his money if we got married.”

  R
esistance flares in me even though I love him and want to be with him forever. I busy myself with adjusting the settings on my camera and taking more photographs. I can’t explain to him why I’m reluctant to marry him. My reasons are so personal, so complicated.

  “We’re supposed to have dinner with my parents on Thursday,” Barrett says. A crime scene isn’t the best place for personal conversation, but we may not have another chance to talk later. “Do you think you can make it this time?”

  I’ve canceled twice, on short notice, because of my work. I know Barrett is hurt, and it’s another reason he dislikes Sir Gerald—my job has kept us apart, our future in limbo. But I was actually glad for an excuse to avoid the dinner. I’m shy, and I’m afraid his parents won’t like me. I’m plain, thirty-three years old—two years his senior; he could get a younger, prettier, more charming woman. And meeting them is a step closer to marriage. “Yes. I promise.”

  Barrett smiles, but there’s doubt in his eyes.

  “I say, Barrett,” Hugh calls from outside the pub, “do you know who Harry Warbrick was?”

  “The pub’s owner,” Barrett says.

  “He was also a hangman. That’s what these good folks out here tell me.” Hugh has a talent for striking up conversations and making friends wherever he goes. “Mr. Warbrick has hanged hundreds of criminals all over England. He’s reputedly the best in the business.”

  “Well,” Barrett says, disconcerted because Hugh has learned something that he himself hasn’t had time to find out.

  I’m interested to hear that a hangman has met the same end that he inflicted on others. It’s as if his past has caught up with him, and fate has exacted justice.

  “That’s why his pub is called The Ropemaker’s Daughter,” Hugh says. “It’s a polite name for the gallows.”

  It’s said that when a man is hanged, he marries the ropemaker’s daughter. I imagine hands that have tied nooses pouring me a drink, and I shiver. “Why was Mr. Warbrick running a pub?” I call.

  “Hangings pay ten pounds apiece,” says a woman outside. “Not enough to live on.”