The Hangman's Secret Read online

  Barrett turns the conversation to Amelia Carlisle. “Let’s talk about your mother. Can you tell us about the last time you saw her?”

  As I remove the exposed negative plate from my camera, I fear that the memory of visiting her mother in prison will upset Jane.

  However, Jane seems unruffled. “I went to visit Mama at the black dungeon.” That must be her fanciful perception of Newgate. “A witch put a spell on her, and she was locked in a cage.”

  Amelia must have played make-believe with Jane to shield her from harsh reality.

  “What did you and your mama talk about?” Barrett says.

  “She told me to be a good girl and do as I’m told so the people here will be nice to me.”

  Perhaps Amelia had loved her daughter even though she’d killed other children.

  “That’s good advice,” Barrett says. “What else did she say?”

  “She said that she’s going to break the spell. Then she’ll come get me. She said it might take a long time, but I should be patient and wait.”

  Barrett and I look at each other, disconcerted. Jane doesn’t know her mother is dead! “Do you know why, uh, the witch put a spell on your mama?” Barrett asks cautiously.

  Jane answers with blithe nonchalance. “She was jealous because Mama and I are more beautiful than she is.”

  Amelia must have borrowed a leaf from “Snow White.” It seems cruel to deceive Jane, but perhaps a lie was kinder than the truth about what Amelia did and what really became of her.

  “When Mama comes, we’ll go away together,” Jane says.

  “Go away where?” Barrett’s downcast expression says he’s given up hoping for any useful information. “Back to London?”

  Jane compresses her lips and shakes her head, as emphatic as a child who’s been offered a spoonful of cod liver oil. “Not London. We don’t like London. That’s where the witches live. We’re going to Leeds.”

  “Why Leeds?” Barrett glances at the clock on the wall. It’s ten thirty, and if we leave soon, we can catch the return train at twelve.

  “Because that’s where our castle is. Mama was the queen, and I was the princess, and when we get there, we’ll rule over our kingdom again.” Jane flashes her mischievous smile again, puts her finger to her lips, and whispers, “Shh. It’s a secret.”

  * * *

  In London, Barrett and I part ways at the studio. He has to check on the men he sent chasing a false tip about my father, and I’m exhausted, my head pounding. I lie down for a nap, wake at five o’clock feeling better, and go to the hospital to visit Hugh and Mick.

  In the ward, nurses are distributing dinner trays from wheeled carts. I find Mick devouring beef tea, custard, chicken stew, and rice pudding. Hugh lies propped on his side to eat. When he sees me, he smiles, but his eyes are sad, which I take to mean that Tristan hasn’t deigned to visit. I sit in the chair between their beds and tell my friends what’s happened since I last saw them, starting with my confrontation with Mrs. Fry.

  “So it was Cross who put her up to the hoax,” Mick says as he licks his pudding dish. “The bastard!”

  “Well, that’s one loose end tied up,” Hugh says. “Are you going to tell Sir Gerald?”

  “Not yet.” I explain, “Mrs. Fry won’t confirm it. She doesn’t want her past to come out. It would be my word against Mr. Cross’s, and my stock with Sir Gerald is so low that he probably wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Yeah,” Mick agrees reluctantly, “but I can’t wait for Cross to get his comeuppance.”

  “First we’d better find out who killed Harry Warbrick and Ernie Leach and prove that Cross was wrong when he fingered the curio dealer,” Hugh says. “Then Sir Gerald will be likelier to believe you, Sarah.”

  When I describe what happened at the Imbeciles Asylum, Mick says, “Jane Carlisle sounds like a real nut.”

  I can’t disagree. “Even if she heard anything that relates to her mother’s execution or Harry Warbrick’s murder, it probably went over her head. But Barrett doesn’t think our visit to her was a waste of time.” I relate what Barrett said during our trip home. “There could be a clue in something she said.”

  Mick snorts. “You mean, the evil witch who put a spell on her ma killed Harry Warbrick?”

  “Scoff if you like,” Hugh says, “but our PC Barrett has a good head on his shoulders. If he says ‘clue,’ then I believe clue.”

  I want to believe it too. As Mick starts to protest, Hugh says, “Bear with me for a minute. Suppose there’s a grain of truth in Jane’s fancies.”

  It’s just what Barrett suggested, but I’m having a hard time making sense out of nonsense. “Friday Willie the invisible cat? Or the Queen and the Princess of Leeds?”

  “Well, maybe not him, and I doubt that Amelia and Jane are royalty,” Hugh says, “but Leeds is a real place.”

  “Amelia musta been playin’ games with Jane, and she needed the name of a city, so she pulled Leeds outta her behind,” Mick says.

  “Not necessarily,” Hugh says. “What if they really did live in Leeds at one time?”

  “The newspapers didn’t mention it,” I say.

  Shh, it’s a secret.

  “I wonder if there’s a reason Amelia didn’t tell anyone she was from Leeds,” Hugh says. “It might be worth a trip up there to find out why. I think there’s more to the story of Amelia Carlisle than we know.”

  CHAPTER 25

  The journey from London to Leeds, which was supposed to take five hours, actually takes seven because of a stalled train on the track. By the time Barrett and I near our destination, it’s three o’clock in the afternoon. We watch from the window as our train leaves the sunny countryside and thunders into a dark fog that begins at the outskirts of Leeds and grows thicker as we pass factories whose chimneys belch smoke.

  “Those must be the wool mills,” Barrett says, his spirits high despite the tedious trip and the fact that the scenery isn’t at all beautiful. “I’ve always wanted to see someplace besides London.” He’s never been this far from home. Enjoying our impromptu holiday, he smiles at me. “Aren’t you excited?”

  I am, but although he’s half-convinced me that finding the origins of Jane Carlisle’s stories could help us solve the murders, this could be a wild goose chase. Moreover, Leeds is some two hundred miles from London, far enough that we must stay for at least one night. The expense troubles me, and so does traveling with Barrett, which is improper because we’re not married.

  The train shudders to a halt inside the station. We and other passengers descend amid steam and smoke to a cold platform where we claim our trunks and my photography equipment. The people rushing to and fro speak with a Northern accent so thick that it sounds like a foreign language. When we venture outside the station, we discover that it is elevated high above ground level, the surrounding streets built atop stone arches that contain shops or businesses. The city is all but lost in dense gray fog. Street lamps wear auras of soot. The freezing wind reeks of sewers, coal smoke, and tar.

  Barrett coughs. “It’s no worse than London on a bad day.” He looks as uncertain as I feel. Leeds is alien territory, and all we have to guide us are figments of Jane Carlisle’s insane mind.

  A line of cabs and horses waits in the street. A driver calls to us. It takes me a moment to translate his words: “Need a ride?”

  “Yes,” Barrett says.

  The driver is a burly man in his forties with a swarthy complexion, dressed in a tweed overcoat and cap. A red wool muffler wraps his neck up to his dark-bearded chin. When he smiles, his eyes crease into slits. I’ve heard that Northerners are friendly, and he seems so. We climb in the cab, and he secures our baggage on top.

  “Where to?” he says.

  We look at each other.

  “From London, are you? Need a hotel?”

  “Shall we start with that?” Barrett asks me, and I nod, glad to address practical, simple concerns.

  “I know a good one,” the driver says. “Me cousin’
s a clerk there.”

  Even as we acquiesce, I wonder if the hotel will be too expensive or too squalid. The streets along which we’re travelling don’t calm my trepidation. Factories emit the roar of furnaces, steam from boilers, and the racket of machinery; the people I glimpse are faceless wraiths in the fog. The sewer smell grows so strong that I hold my handkerchief over my nose and mouth.

  Barrett pulls his muffler over his. “God, what a stink! It’s worse than the Thames.”

  We join the heavy traffic that clatters across an iron bridge. The river is black and glutinous, its banks lined with factories. Boats and barges float amid debris, foamy scum, and iridescent oil slicks. On its opposite bank, we pass terraced houses whose red bricks are grimy with soot. The cab stops outside a large, two-story, triangular brick building whose sign reads, “Swan Hotel.” The three-way junction of streets is too noisy with wagons, cabs, and omnibuses, but the hotel looks respectable, and lights shine invitingly from its arched windows. The driver escorts us inside and carries our baggage. The bright foyer smells of furniture polish. A doorway leads to a taproom; the Swan is a public house as well as a hotel.

  The clerk at the desk greets our driver. “Hullo, Frank.”

  “Hullo, Jimmy. Brought you some customers.”

  The two men are so much alike that Barrett and I smile, but I’m nervous because I know what’s coming next.

  The clerk asks Barrett his name, then says, “Would you and the missus like a room with one bed or two?”

  “Uh, we need two rooms,” Barrett says.

  “I understand.” The clerk lowers his voice. “We’re very discreet here.”

  Now he thinks we’re illicit lovers. I blush and look at the floor while he tells Barrett the price, which is fortunately modest. Frank, our driver, hovers by the door, and Barrett asks him to wait because we’ll be going out. The bellhop carries our baggage to the second floor and lets us into our adjacent rooms. Mine is clean and comfortably furnished, with striped wallpaper, a wool rug, an upholstered armchair, and a mahogany dressing table; the double bed has a thick mattress covered by a white counterpane. While I relieve myself in the bathroom, I hear Barrett doing the same next door. It’s not that we’ve never attended to our bodily functions when we’ve been together at my home, but here is embarrassingly different. When we meet in the hall outside our rooms, we’re oddly shy. Photography equipment in hand, we go downstairs and meet Frank.

  “Where to now?” he asks.

  I tell him that I want to look up some old friends—Jane Carlisle and Maria Kemp.

  “Don’t know anyone named Carlisle or Kemp.”

  I’m disappointed, but not surprised; Leeds is a big city. Barrett says, “Do any of these names sound familiar? Friday Willie, Powell, or Green Boy?”

  “There’s a Powell Street.”

  I’m glad of the slightest link between Leeds and Jane Carlisle’s fancies. “Let’s try there.”

  The ride takes only minutes. Less than a mile from our hotel, Powell Street is one among many occupied by rows of identical red-brick terraced houses built back to back. Women are standing on stools, hanging wet laundry on lines strung high across the road, while noisy children play ball around mud puddles. It’s as poor as any slum in Whitechapel, but it gives the same impression of people making the best of hardships, and I feel at home. However, nothing I see has any apparent connection to Amelia and Jane Carlisle.

  “Can we drive up and down the street?” I call to Frank.

  He obliges. After a few moments, Barrett shouts, “Stop!” and points to a sign hanging from a pole mounted on a building. The sign reads “The Robin Hood.” The building contains a public house on the ground floor. As our cab halts, I discern the painting on the sign—a boyish figure with a bow and arrow, dressed in green.

  “Green Boy,” Barrett says, proud because he’s found a further grain of truth in Jane’s stories. “He must be Jane’s imaginary friend.”

  I set up my camera outside the pub and photograph the sign. When Barrett and I are back in the cab, I remember Jane’s childish voice saying, “Maria Thirty-nine Kemp.” I call to Frank, “Take us to Number 39 Powell Street.”

  We smile at each other, excited to be unraveling mysteries together, beginning a journey into the past that Amelia Carlisle left behind. I gain faith that the journey will lead us to the more recent past and the truth about the murders.

  “There it is!” Barrett points to black iron numbers mounted on a house at the end of a terrace. We jump out of the cab. While I photograph the house, Barrett knocks on the door—repeatedly, in vain.

  The door of the adjacent house opens; a woman appears and calls, “It’s empty.” She looks to be in her thirties, her sleeves rolled up, her apron soiled. Two children cling to her skirts.

  “We’re looking for Maria Kemp, who used to live there,” I say. “Did you know her?”

  “Must’ve been before I moved in. The name ain’t familiar.”

  “Is there anyone who’s been around longer?” I say.

  “Try the doc. His surgery’s at number twenty-seven Waterloo Road.”

  Frank drives us back to the busy main street on which our hotel is located. There, drab brick buildings house shops of all kinds. Pedestrians throng the sidewalks and dodge wagons loaded with goods and machinery in the street. The surgery occupies a storefront between a barber and a confectioner.

  “Look at the sign!” I exclaim. “ ‘William Friday, Physician.’ ”

  “He’s ‘Friday Willie.’ Jane named her imaginary cat after him.” Barrett grins, as thrilled by the new clue as I am.

  When we go up to the surgery, we find the door locked, and when we ring the bell, nobody answers. The sign says it’s open from nine AM to six PM, Monday through Saturday. Today is Sunday. As I take pictures of the surgery, a wave of faintness sways me off balance.

  Barrett steadies me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” But the painful throbbing in my head has begun again.

  “You shouldn’t have left the hospital so soon. We shouldn’t have come here,” Barrett says as he helps me pack up my photography equipment and get into the cab.

  My stomach growls; we haven’t eaten since our early lunch of sandwiches and tea on the train. “I’m just hungry.”

  “Let’s go to the hotel,” Barrett says. “We’ll come back here tomorrow.”

  * * *

  The dining room at the Swan Hotel is the nicest place that Barrett and I have ever eaten at together. It has gold-tasseled maroon curtains, a brass chandelier, oil paintings on the walls, and friendly waiters. Laughter issues from the taproom across the hall. Seated at a table set with candles and a white cloth, near the fire, we smile at each other. The thought of a whole night to ourselves makes my heart beat faster. Still, I’m uncomfortable among the other diners, who look to be businessmen. They glance at Barrett and me, and I blush to think they know we’re lovers.

  Barrett orders red wine to accompany our roast beef, potatoes, peas, and lemon tart. After the waiter fills our glasses and departs, Barrett raises his, smiles, and says, “A toast?”

  “To the success of our investigation.” As we drink, I blush hotter, for it feels as if we’re celebrating something more personal.

  “Three clues means we’re on the right track,” Barrett says.

  “The right track to what? We’ve deciphered Jane’s fantasies, but we’re no closer to the truth about Harry Warbrick’s and Ernie Leach’s murders.”

  “Tomorrow will tell,” Barrett says, confident.

  When our food arrives, we don’t talk except to comment on how good it tastes; we’re both ravenous. I know we’re both thinking the same thing: We could spend the night together. In London, we could have gone to a hotel, but how would I have explained my absence to my housemates? They would have guessed that Barrett and I had been having relations, and the constables at the police barracks would know he’d been with me. And I’ve always relied on the risk of being interrupted to ke
ep us from going too far. We linger in the dining room until everyone else has left. Upstairs, we hesitate outside the doors to our rooms. Barrett raises his eyebrows at me with a hopeful smile. A tug-of-war wages inside me—desire versus fear.

  Averting my gaze, I search in my pocketbook for my key.

  “Well,” Barrett says. The single word conveys his disappointment, his kind acceptance of what’s best for me. “Good night, then.”

  “Good night.”

  Locked inside my room, I hear Barrett moving around inside his. I feel relieved, safe, but also disappointed and lonely. The room is cold, and I light the fire before I disrobe, bathe, and put on my white flannel nightdress. Combing out my hair, I glare at my reflection in the mirror, angry at myself for wasting our chance for a night together. I turn off the lamp and climb into bed, listen to the clock tick and the muted noise from factory machinery. There’s no sound from Barrett, who’s probably asleep. I feel a desire so strong that I toss and turn as if I’m trying to dislodge a wild animal that’s preying on me. Five days ago, I was almost killed. I could have gone to my grave without ever having known Barrett fully. I want him so much that I can’t bear it any longer. I jump out of bed and tiptoe to the door, quietly open it and peer up and down the hall to see if anyone is about.

  There is Barrett, doing the same thing I am.

  We smile sheepishly. Then our smiles fall away. I let Barrett in my room, lock the door, and turn to him. He’s wearing a dark blue wool robe over blue pajamas. I’ve never seen him in his pajamas. I’m naked under my nightdress, and he’s never seen me entirely without clothes. This is different from other times we’ve been together, and it feels dangerous.

  “Are you sure?” Barrett says, as if he’s afraid I’ll change my mind.

  “Yes.” I’ve never been so sure I’m asking for trouble.

  Barrett offers me his hand. It’s as cold and tense as mine. We walk to the bed and pause. Should we disrobe first? That would be so awkward. My heart is beating so hard that he must feel it in my fingers. I could still change my mind. Barrett peels back the covers. I clamber into the bed and lie stiff and flat on my back, trembling with fear and longing. Barrett climbs in and pulls the blankets over us.