The House Of Smoke (42 page)

A whisper of voices contradicted me.

My neck hadn’t broken. I was suspended. Swaying. Swinging by my unbroken neck. Strangling slowly to death. Unable to breathe.

I snorted. Swayed left and right. Back and forth. The knot pushed my chin up and back. My spine cracked and burned with pain.

The fall had been too short. I was slowly strangling with each pendulous swing of the rope.

My feet twitched. The Morris jig. This was it. My involuntary dance of death had started. I felt irresistibly faint again.

Dear God, I was blacking out. Finally, passing away.

The swing of the rope slowed to a halt. The creak of the twine and the timbers became no more than distant murmurs and croaks.

The swaying stopped. I twirled slowly. Spun into nothingness. No breath in my body. No thought in my mind. No pain.

My life was over.

I was done.

Mr Christopher Ellis Ackborne, a veteran reporter for the
London Evening Standard
, had been invited to witness the execution and wrote about it in the following day’s edition.

In his article, he went to obsequious lengths to praise both the execution and the executioners.

Mr Ackborne was a journalist of good repute and undoubtedly his newspaper’s well-educated readership accepted his unwholesome account as entirely truthful and accurate. Indeed, Mr Ackborne had no reason to believe that he had done anything other than report precisely and with integrity exactly what he had witnessed.

But he had made grave errors. About as grave as any journalist has ever made. He will never be told of them, nor will he ever suspect there to be any. Nor, for that matter, will any of his readers.

Only Johncock, his special detail of men and a handful of extremely discreet others will ever know the truth.

To fully understand, time must be rolled back to the minutes just before the hanging, to that tense moment when the witnesses and gaolers gathered in the execution shed.

Decorum has always dictated that the gated area beneath the gallows’ trapdoors, the straw-filled pit where the body falls and is later cut down for inspection, is covered with black cloth. This ‘dressing’ prevents distress to the witnesses. And with good reason, for often the drop is not perfect. On several occasions, the hangman has been compelled to quickly descend the gallows, rush into the pit, and pull on the convict’s legs to hasten death. Some gallowsmen have even been known to climb onto the backs and shoulders of the hanged man, to add sufficient weight to finish him off. This is not a sight mere members of the public should witness.

Like countless souls before me, I had fallen through the traps genuinely believing I was dying. And I did swing on that rope. I truly did.

But not by my neck. Unbeknown to me, the noose that had been placed over my head had also been hooked by a wire of admirable strength into the back of a corset fitted beneath my straitjacket. As a result, my weight had been distributed under my arms and across my waist, not around my neck. The choking I had experienced had been through the corseted restriction around my ribs and the panic in my head. In retrospect it is clear that the beating administered in the Pinioning Room had been devised to render me unconscious and fit the harness beneath a new set of clothes.

Dazed and confused, I had been walked out and paraded before witnesses, so those assembled could be certain of my identity and my death. I had been gagged and hooded to prevent me from shouting out and inadvertently ruining the deception.

When I fell through the trap and my body jerked and swung on that rope, I was certain that I was choking. The falling and swaying motions, coupled with the lack of oxygen caused by the gag, corset and straitjacket, conspired to convince me that I was truly being hanged by the neck until dead.

Beneath the cover of those black drapes, my legs were grabbed. But they were
lifted
, not pulled. By then, I had passed out from my heightened heart rate, limited breathing and sheer shock. I was completely unconscious when the hood and corset were removed.

A pad of chloroform was subsequently held over my nose to ensure I remained subdued and compliant. Like some piece of magical theatre, the curtains were then drawn back so witnesses could see my body, limp and lifeless.

As soon as horrified eyes had been averted, I was lifted into the rough cart that had carried away Louise Masset and trundled out of sight. My specially selected execution detail slowly moved me from the gallows to the gaol’s graveyard and en route ensured many other turnkeys saw my ‘corpse’ and therefore, if necessary, would most willingly testify to my apparent death.

The detail took me to a freshly dug grave where they respectfully crowded around me to begin what must have looked to any accidental observer like my interment. Only instead of burial, I was given smelling salts. As I woke, startled and weak, I was strongly restrained and told to say nothing.

I can not adequately describe my shock at being woken from ‘death’. The mind is a most magnificent organ, but I swear in that split second when I found myself held tightly over the edge of my burial pit I glimpsed madness. Had my mouth not been covered and my limbs not secured by strong hands I would most certainly have gone into hysterics.

Once the detail had persuaded me I was not in hell or in danger, they fixed a grey wig to my head and matched it with a full beard and glasses. Baggy prison clothes and the corset and jacket were stripped away and as the grave was slowly filled in, they dressed me in a shirt and tie and smart black suit. A matching frockcoat and a Derby hat were added and within ten minutes, I and my companions had cleared the security gates.

Outside, a vast and noisy crowd was slowly dispersing. Even though they could not watch the execution they had still felt morbidly compelled to be close to the event. Hoards swarmed us, bumped and jostled for space as they resumed the mundaneness of their lives. I found the noise and clamour terrifying as I passed unrecognised through them. My senses were horribly heightened. I could feel every contour of the cobbles beneath my feet. The smells and sounds of London assaulted me. Coal, tar, fog. Rumbles of carriages, shouting traders, the crack of a coachman’s bullwhip in the frigid air.

Two men walked either side of me and they forced more than guided me towards a waiting carriage. I glanced at a woman lingering solemnly on the corner of a street we passed. Slim. Dark-haired. Almost boyish.

Surrey.

She so closely resembled my ex-lover that I could not believe it was not her.

I slowed down and started to turn to look again.

‘Do not look back,’ ordered one of the men. ‘Get inside and say nothing. Not now, not during the journey. Afterwards, there will be time enough to speak.’

I did as instructed. Men who can save your life when your neck is secured inside the hangman’s noose can end it just as easily.

The ride that followed was the most wonderful I had ever experienced. To leave Newgate alive, to watch its foul form fade in the distance with every turn of the carriage wheels was divine. I settled back and breathed a sigh of relief. Daylight seemed astonishingly bright. The winter air exhilaratingly fresh. The sky as smooth as platinum. Overhead burned a sun that seemed imbued with the warmth of God himself.

I was alive. I knew not why. But I was alive.

The journey was a long one and the stress of my ordeal and the motion of the carriage rocked me into the first throes of a troubled sleep. Perhaps the chloroform also conspired to conjure up vivid flashes of the rope, the drop and those agonising moments when I swung from the scaffold.

‘Wake up!’

A hand roughly shook my shoulder. We had stopped. The carriage door was open. A man stood holding it. Back straight. Face expressionless. Eyes catching me only briefly as he studied everything all at once.

‘Get out,’ he ordered.

I unfolded myself, finding I could barely stand from the stiffening of my joints, straining of my spine and onset of serious bruising.

I looked around. A fine country house faced me. Tall trees stood soldier-straight on both sides of the gravelled drive. I glanced back. Iron gates were being closed and barred. Men in winter coats stamped their feet to stay warm.

‘Inside.’ The rough hand shoved me again.

I creaked my way to the ivy-covered entrance arch and glossy black door beneath it.

Men strode in front of and behind me. Four in all. I stumbled climbing the steps. Hands caught me and helped me up. I remembered my stuttering walk on the planks of the gallows and shuddered.

Inside, the house smelled of waxed wooden floors, silver polish and coal fires. I was taken through a cool marble entrance hall into a large oak-panelled room where a fire blazed. Three men were grouped around the hearth, warming their hands while talking. All had their backs to me.

‘Simeon Lynch, sir,’ announced the man with the pushing hands.

A figure turned.

I did not recognise him.

He was a large, stout fellow with a high forehead, probably in his mid to late fifties. He smiled broadly as he looked me over. ‘My, my, Mr Lynch, you do look as though you have been in the wars. However, I suppose that given everything the
Crown
had planned for you, then you are in remarkably fine fettle.’ He walked closer and extended his hand. ‘My name is Mycroft. Mycroft Holmes.’

One of the other figures turned and I was not surprised to see it was Sherlock.

‘You two are brothers?’

‘I told you he wasn’t very intelligent,’ said the detective, who, understandably given our history, offered no hand to shake.

‘Make allowances, Sherlock. Make allowances.’ Mycroft looked me over, like a lord might regard the head of a stag just readied for display on his wall. ‘God and government have done a remarkable job in bringing you here today, Mr Lynch, a remarkable job.’

The third man spoke and his voice was surprisingly familiar. ‘More blessed are those who have sinned and repented, than those who have never sinned.’

‘Father Deagan?’

‘Ernest Braithwaite, at your service.’ He clicked his heels and bowed his head. ‘Priests and chaplains are but a small part of my vast repertoire.’

‘You are looking less holy but
far
healthier,’ I said, ‘than when I last saw you.’

‘My illness was feigned to bring another operative into the gaol to assist me with your escape. My rejuvenation is down to the removal of some rather good theatrical make-up.’

‘Ernest works for me,’ explained Mycroft. ‘Quite a thespian before I recruited him.’ He motioned to chairs spread around the blazing fire. ‘Please sit, before you fall, Mr Lynch. There are precious ornaments in this room and I should hate anything to be broken.’

We all sat and a wave of warmth flowed over me as I felt the glow of the fire and watched it crackle and spit. I extended my hands towards the flames for comfort. All eyes were on me and I felt compelled to break a lengthening silence, ‘Thought I might have been in an even hotter place than this by now,’ I joked, then added, directly to Mycroft, ‘I am grateful to be alive, sir. But if you have saved my neck for the same reason as your brother proposed, then you may as well just call in your men and finish the job that was started at Newgate.’

‘No, no, no!’ He waved a dismissive hand at me. ‘Sherlock has a quite blinding obsession with the Moriarties. But they are small fry to me. Whitebait in a universal sea of sharks. He believes you have killed many people but not those you were going to hang for, is that not so?’

I made no comment.

‘Good God, don’t be coy with us, man.’ Mycroft sounded irritated. ‘You confessed all to Braithwaite here, so you may as well start by being honest with me.’

‘Then you know it is true,’ I answered. ‘There
is
blood on my hands but not a drop from the veins of those I was convicted of killing.’

‘Convicted and hanged for!’ retorted Mycroft, with a tone of irony. ‘Once I had learned about you from Sherlock and the fact that you would not betray your employers, even when facing death, then you became of great interest to me. So I struck a deal with my brother. He could have you for his own devices,
if
he could turn you against the Moriarties. I could have you for mine, if he could not.’ Mycroft beamed at me again with his trophy-hunting eyes. ‘So here you are. My winnings. A triumph for me, and a defeat for the country’s best known and
saddest-looking
consulting detective.’

‘Must I suffer this?’ Sherlock slapped his hands on the arms of his chair and looked set to leave.

‘Just a little longer, dear brother. Help me appraise Mr Lynch of how indebted he is to us.’

‘
Really
, Mycroft?’

‘Indulge me.’

Sherlock sighed. ‘Oh, very well. The nail you were given was arranged by me.’

‘By you?’

‘Willy Watkins, the old orderly, used to be in my employ; that was before he was apprehended for handling stolen goods. I had deduced from seeing your cell, indeed
smelling
your cell, that the removal of part of the floor beneath your bunk would have given you a chance to escape.’