The wardresses had discussed it in their room. Hawkins had said it was good breeding, that a lady was trained to bottle up her feelings. To that, Bell had said she always understood ladies were taught to make conversation. ‘Not to the likes of us,’ Hawkins had replied. That had rankled with Bell. What business had a common murderess acting as if she was superior to them? Cromer was a cold-blooded killer and the story that her victim had been blackmailing her made no difference. It made it worse, in Bell’s view, for what was the cause of the blackmail? Lewd photographs. ‘If that’s a lady,’ she told Hawkins, ‘show me a whore.’
At a quarter to nine they escorted her through the ill-lit passages to the governor’s room. They stood by the door waiting for the bell of St Sepulchre to strike the hour.
In spite of herself, Bell started whispering words of comfort. ‘The governor ain’t such a hard man really. We’ve seen a lot of him, Hawkins and me. He’s one of Nature’s gentlemen.’
‘A trump,’ Hawkins concurred.
They need not have troubled. Cromer gave no sign that she had heard one word. Yet she was not completely oblivious to what was going on. At the first stroke of nine, she gave a small shudder of tension.
Hawkins knocked.
In greeting the prisoner, the governor called her Mrs Cromer. ‘You may step forward.’
He had a piece of paper in his hand.
‘You are sleeping better now, I hope?’ he said. ‘How long is it that you have been in Newgate?’
In a clear voice she answered, ‘Ten days since the trial, sir.’
‘Ten days,’ he repeated absently. He looked down at the paper. ‘I asked to see you because I have received a communication concerning you.’
Bell noticed the prisoner’s hands clench suddenly.
The governor continued, ‘You will remember that when I spoke to you in this room on your first day here I cautioned you to reconcile yourself to the sentence of the law. You have tried to follow that advice, I trust?’
‘Yes, sir.’ There was a note of expectation in her voice, as if she could not wait for him to come to the point.
‘This is from the Sheriff of the City of London. It is the warrant for your execution. It will take place a week from today at eight in the morning.’
How gently spoken, Bell thought. He might have been telling her he had tickets for the Lyceum.
The prisoner stood numbly. For an instant Bell thought she was going to sway.
‘Do you wish to sit down?’ the governor asked her.
A shake of the head.
‘It is simply a stage in the legal procedure,’ he went on. ‘So far as you are concerned, it will mean that you return now to a different part of the prison, a different cell. The same officers will be in attendance. You may exercise when you wish, accompanied by them. And you may receive visitors in the cell-your husband, and your solicitor, if you wish. The regulations forbid you from receiving any form of gift from them, or from physical contact. Do you understand?’
She was standing still with her eyes closed.
‘Did you hear what I said, Mrs Cromer?’
She nodded.
‘I shall continue to visit you each day and you may speak to me or the chaplain if anything troubles you. I urge you again to commend your soul to the Almighty. He receives those who repent their sins.’ He signalled to the wardresses.
They stepped forward, gripped her firmly by the arms and guided her out.
As they walked, Bell was tempted to tell the prisoner that if she had been willing to confide in those who knew about prison routine, they could have spared her some of the pain of that experience, but she checked herself. Words would be wasted on this one. Better to see what difference the condemned cell made to Mrs Miriam Cromer.
‘Upstairs here.’
They mounted one of Newgate’s iron staircases, Bell leading to unlock the door of the condemned block. ‘This way, your ladyship. If you take a look through here’-they had stopped by a window too narrow even to be fitted with bars-‘you can see the exercise yard.’
The prisoner glanced down at a small, cobbled square in deep shadow.
‘That’s yours. Exclusive,’ Bell told her. ‘We’re supposed to take you down there for a constitutional any time you feel inclined. It ain’t Hyde Park exactly, but it’s a place to go, ain’t it?’
The prisoner looked away.
‘Don’t you like it?’ Bell asked. ‘I suppose you can’t wait to see your new home. Come on, then.’
They passed two open cell doors and entered the next.
It was limewashed and lit by a gaslamp covered with a bright tin shade. There was a table with three wooden stools ranged round it. To the right was a narrow iron bedstead with a flock mattress and blankets folded on top. On a shelf built across one corner were a copper basin, some eating utensils and a Bible. A tap protruded from the corner opposite. Under it was the latrine-bucket.
Hawkins closed the door. The sound echoed through the building.
The wardresses watched the prisoner, waiting for a reaction. Sometimes they screamed so much that the doctor had to be called to them.
‘This is larger than the other cell.’
‘It needs to be, for three and a visitor sometimes,’ said Bell, pulling out a stool for herself. ‘We still have to watch you by turns, two at a time, day and night. It’s no different in the c.c., you know.’
‘What is that-c.c.?’
Hawkins chose that moment to make one of her rare utterances. ‘Do you play cards, Cromer? We’re allowed to play cards with you. Bell and me know just about all the three-handed games you ever heard of. Nap, rummy, poker, cribbage. Cards is a wonderful way of passing the time.’
‘No thank you.’ The prisoner turned to Bell. ‘You didn’t answer my question, miss.’
Damned impertinence! When she said it, that ‘miss’ never sounded like a term of respect. Bell took a pack of playing cards from her pocket and shuffled them. ‘If you really want to know, it’s the name we give the cell. “C” for cell, follow me? The first “c” could stand for cards, couldn’t it? But seeing as you don’t feel disposed to play cards, how would you care for a game of draughts instead? Then we can call it the d.c. What about that, eh?’ She rocked with laughter.
TUESDAY, 19th JUNE
Cribb had spent Monday footing it round Brentford and Kew checking the statements in the file at Scotland Yard-work for a constable. As there was no constable assigned to the case, he had done it himself. It was a self-inflicted chore. He was unwilling to rely on any statement taken by Inspector Waterlow. So he had talked to the Brentford pawnbroker Miriam Cromer had done business with, he had seen Dr Eagle in his surgery and he had spent two hours questioning the servants at Park Lodge. Nothing significant had emerged. It was dispiriting to admit, but he could not fault Waterlow’s work.
Over a solitary beer that evening he had concluded that whatever the outcome of this inquiry, there was nothing in it for him. If he proved beyond doubt that Miriam Cromer had made a false confession and been convicted of a crime she did not commit, the embarrassment to the judiciary, the Home Office, the police did not bear thinking about. The hullabaloo would be heard all over England. Nobody would thank him. And if his inquiry upheld the verdict of the court, it would simply underline the thoroughness of Waterlow’s work. In handing on this case, Chief Inspector Jowett had played his meanest trick.
Tuesday morning found him in the Strand, at the office of the Portrait Photographers’ League. He had decided to make an independent check of Howard Cromer’s movements on the day of the murder.
The League shared the second floor with an insurance broker. Cribb’s knock was answered by a worried-looking clerk in a thin suit of faded black and a frayed collar.