The Excursion Train

'Oh, I remember Nathan Hawkshaw,' he said in a lilting voice that was deeper and more melodious than anything Colbeck had ever heard coming from a human mouth before. 'Distressing case. Very distressing. One of my rare failures as a chaplain. Is that not so, Governor?'

'You did your best.'

'I wrestled with him for days on end but I could find no way to awaken his conscience. Hawkshaw was adamant. Kept insisting that he was not responsible for the killing, thereby adding the crime of deceit to the charge of murder.'

'The chaplain even had to overpower the man,' recalled Ferriday.

'Yes,' said Jones, piqued by the memory. 'The prisoner was so incensed with anger that he dared to strike at me and – what was far worse in my eyes – he had the audacity to take the Lord's name in vain as he did so. I felled him with a punch – God help me!'

'After that, we had to keep him under restraint.'

'From what the governor has been telling me,' said Colbeck to the muscular priest, 'this Nathan Hawkshaw was not the only person convinced of his innocence. He had a group of supporters, I believe.'

'A disorderly rabble from Ashford,' said Jones with a loud sniff. 'Thirty or more in number. They even tried to rescue Hawkshaw from the prison but the attempt was easily foiled. Instead, they chose to disrupt the execution.'

'Fortunately,' added Ferriday, 'we had advance warning that there might be trouble. Extra constables were on duty to keep the crowd under control and they were certainly needed.'

'That was largely Mr Guttridge's fault. He stirred them up to the very edge of mutiny. I've never seen such incompetence on a scaffold.'

'What happened?' asked Colbeck.

'The hangman made a few mistakes,' said Ferriday, mildly.

'A few?' boomed Jones. 'Let us be brutally frank, Governor. The fellow made nothing but mistakes. To begin with, he tried to take over my job and offer the prisoner spiritual sustenance. That was unforgivable.' He checked himself and spoke with more control. 'I know that one should not speak ill of the dead – especially if they die by violence – but I find it hard to think of Mr Guttridge without feeling a surge of anger. Giving the prisoner a religious tract, indeed! Reading a ridiculous poem at him! And that was not the sum of his imperfections. As soon as he arrived here, we could smell the brandy on his breath.'

'Most executioners need a drink to steady their hand,' remarked Colbeck, tolerantly. 'Mr Cathcart is noted for his fondness for the bottle.'

'I had a drink myself beforehand,' confessed Ferriday.

'That may be, Governor,' said Jones, tossing his hair back, 'but you did not let it interfere with the discharge of your duties. That was not the case with Mr Guttridge. He tripped on the steps as he went up on to the platform.'

'Nervousness. The baying of that huge crowd upset him.'

'It did not upset me and many of them were abusing me by name.'

'You were an example to us all, Narcissus.'

'With the exception of the hangman.'

'What exactly did he do wrong?' inquired Colbeck.

'Everything, Inspector,' the Welshman told him. 'I thought that Hawkshaw was a benighted heathen but, to his credit, at the very last, he showed a glimmering of Christian feeling. When he saw there was no escape from his fate, he finally began to pray. And what does that fool of an executioner do, Inspector?'

'Tell me.'

'He pulled the bolt before the prayers were over.'

'It was most regrettable,' commented Ferriday.

'Mr Guttridge lost his nerve,' accused Jones, 'and fled from the scene without even checking that he had done his job properly.'

'I take it that he hadn't,' said Colbeck.

'No, Inspector. When the trap sprang open, Hawkshaw somehow contrived to get his heels on the edge so that he did not fall through it. You can imagine how that inflamed the crowd. The mood was riotous.'

'What did you do?'

'The only thing that we could do,' said Ferriday, flicking a glance behind him to check for eavesdroppers. 'I had Mr Guttridge brought out again and ordered him to dispatch the prisoner quickly. But, when he tried to push Hawkshaw's feet away from the trap, the man kicked out violently at him and – the sight will stay for me forever – his supporters urged him on with manic cries as they fought to get at us. Truly, I feared for my own life.'

'In the end,' said Jones, taking up the story, 'Mr Guttridge beat his legs away and he dropped through the trap, but the fall did not break his neck. He was jerking wildly around in the air. Everyone could see the rope twisting and turning. That really made passions rage.'

'I sent Guttridge below to pull on his legs,' said Ferriday, swallowing hard, 'but he could not even do that properly. One of the warders had to assist him. Nathan Hawkshaw was left hanging there, in agony, for well over five minutes. It was an abomination.'

'And Mr Guttridge was to blame?' said Colbeck.

'Regrettably, he was.'

'If all this took place in front of his loved ones, it must have fired some of them up to seek revenge against him.'

'Death threats were shouted from all sides.'

'I deplore those threats,' said Jones, 'but I sympathise with the impulse to make them. If I'm honest – and honesty is the essence of my character – I could have called for Mr Guttridge's head at that point in time. He was a disgrace to his calling. Ieusi Mawr!' he exclaimed with an angry fist in the air. 'Had there been another rope on the scaffold, I'd gladly have hanged that drunken buffoon alongside the prisoner, then swung on his legs to break that worthless neck of his.'

Henry Ferriday turned to Colbeck with a weak smile.

'I did warn you that the chaplain had strong opinions,' he said.

CHAPTER SIX

Before he set out, Victor Leeming took the precaution of changing into a shabby old suit that he kept at the office for just such occasions. Although it was invariably crumpled, the clothing he wore to Scotland Yard every day was too close to that of a gentleman to allow him an easy passage through Bethnal Green, the most miserable and poverty-stricken district in the whole of the city. His aim was to be as nondescript as possible so that he could merge with his surroundings. For that reason, he traded his hat for a battered cap and his shoes for a pair of ancient boots. When he left the building, he looked more like a disreputable costermonger than a detective. Some of the cabs that he tried to hail refused to stop for him, fearing that he would be unable to pay his fare.

It was over a year since he had been in Bethnal Green but he remembered its notorious reek all too well. No sooner did he reach the area than it assaulted his nostrils once more. In a space enclosed between a hoarding on either side of the Eastern Counties Railway was a vast ditch that had been turned into an open sewer, filled with ever-increasing quantities of excrement, dead cats and dogs, rancid food and disgusting refuse of every imaginable kind. Passing within thirty yards of this stagnant lake, Leeming had to put a hand across his nose to block out the stench. Denizens of Bethnal Green had long been habituated to the stink of decomposition.

The Seven Stars lay on the edge of an infamous area known as the Nichol. Named after Nichol Street, one of its main thoroughfares, it was a stronghold for villains of every kind, fifteen acres of sin, crime and sheer deprivation that operated by rules entirely of its own making. Leeming was a brave man, raised in one of the roughest parts of London, but even he would not have tried to walk alone through the Nichol after dusk. Its filthy streets, shadowed lanes and dark passages were a breeding ground for thieves, pickpockets and prostitutes. Its squalid tenements, slum cottages and ramshackle pubs teemed with beggars, orphans, destitute families, ruthless criminals and fugitives from the law. Bethnal Green was a haven for the most desperate characters in the underworld.

Glad that he was visiting the place in broad daylight, Leeming noticed how many animals were roaming the streets. Snarling cats fought over territory with furious commitment while skinny dogs scavenged among the rubbish. The undernourished horses and donkeys that pulled passing carts looked as if they could barely stand. Loud squawks and even louder yells of encouragement disclosed that a cockfight was being held nearby. Unwashed children played desultory games or lounged in gangs on corners. Cries of pain came from behind closed doors as violent men asserted their dominance over wives and mistresses.