40. THE CASE OF THE HANGED MAN

Sometimes justice has about it the taint of no justice.

It was unmistakable in the morning air, the almost inaudible sounds of a man crashing to his death as the noose of the gallows tightened round his neck. And then the sort of silence that is bred of an unnatural calm as the soul is supposed to be drifting on its way to Hell. It wouldn’t be Heaven, not for this miscreant! Hell would be his destination all right, if you believe in such a place.

He was made for the place. He was a killer. The judgement had proved it.

Holmes had been strangely quiet as we stood by our buggy next to the horse and gazed at the prison, waiting for the sounds that told us our waiting was over. The gallows had done their work and I detected that he was troubled by it. We stood there for a good half hour, each with his own thoughts, trying to shake thoughts of what can only be called legally enforced murder out of or minds.

“A moment, Watson, I need to answer a call of nature,” he said in an almost unfamiliar strangled voice as he disappeared round a nearby corner.

“Don’t let anyone see,” I taunted him, and waited for his return. The morning was chill, there was nobody else about and I shivered. I particularly hate prisons and the very idea of a man’s life being so cruelly terminated, but that was British justice and I supposed I preferred not to think too deeply about it.

“Well, Watson, I wonder what he’ll be up to next,” murmured Holmes on his return as he climbed into our buggy.

“In Hell you mean, Holmes?” I asked.

“No, Watson: here on Earth.”

“But he’ll be dead even as we speak!” I protested.

“Let me point out a few insignificant little things you might have noticed as we waited for the appointed hour, small matters that may well be nothing in themselves but which add up to a great deal of doubt about the actual present condition of Smithson,” he murmured as I joined him on board and the horse was coaxed into movement.

“Smithson, Holmes, is dead,” I said determinedly.

“If he is then it’s a gross miscarriage of justice!” he said in his more acerbic voice. “He was innocent of the crime he was convicted for, that much is obvious and pours a great deal of doubt on the quality of British justice. The clerk too his own life out of shame, and poor old Smithson, who is guilty of many other offences over the years, was set up to look guilty.”

“Then, if you’re right, it’s a shame he had to die,” I murmured, still quite convinced that Holmes was backing the wrong horse for the first time in his life. “The hangman will have made sure that he is dead, and the doctor will confirm it and, if need be, the priest will be asked for his opinion!”

“Then what’s afoot over there?” pointed Holmes.

The prison in which the condemned cell had been constructed had a second gate, a service entrance I suppose you’d call it, and through it, with a guard ensuring that nothing was amiss as it trundled along, came a delivery wagon, one of those modern motorised affairs powered by a rather smoky steam engine and hissing as if it might be about to explode at any moment. It wasn’t, of course, it was just the appearance of uncontrolled power that gave that impression and unnerved me.

“It looks like the rubbish,” I said, “even prisons have rubbish you know, Holmes, a great deal of it when you consider the number of meals that are prepared for the convicts to chew on.”

“And other debris,” he pointed out. “but the dead don’t leave that way! And there are more dead than those hanged by law you know, Watson. Some even take their own lives, wishing to meet their maker rather than suffer the humiliation of facing up to their crimes. Others, even, reach the end of their natural days in a confinement imposed by a judge. But they are a different affair and that wagon contains only half putrid rubbish, and Mr Smithson.”

“There you go again, Holmes. The man’s dead, I am sure.”

“Attention, Watson. Listen: did you notice the beggar hovering not too close and not too far from the main gate this morning? You must have done because I recall asking you what you made of the fellow.”

“I did, Holmes, but he went away after a while.”

“You saw him go, Watson?”

“Not exactly, Holmes, but I did notice eventually that he was no longer standing there. What’s he got to do with Smithson?”

“A moment, Watson, pray. Did you, perchance, happen to notice the good reverend in his surplice and robes when he arrived and was swept into the entrance by a guard waiting specially for him?”

“Of course I did, Holmes! I thought he looked very much like an imitation of your brother Mycroft. Maybe it was his, er, corporation!”

“And did you ask yourself what a priest was doing arriving at such an hour when the prison employs one of its own for the care of the spiritually bereft in their cells? Why import a stranger, eh?”

“If he was a stranger! He was a man of God, Holmes, and therefore stranger to nobody.”

“What was, shall we say, special about him, Watson?”

“What are you getting at, Holmes? He may have been a little on the portly side, such men are, for they do the rounds of their parishioners and eat cake in most kitchens, and drink a great deal of port, I’m told!”

“Quite so, Watson. Tell me about the exotic lady of the night, the woman who gave every appearance of being a w***e on her way home after a successful night’s business.”

“I did notice such a creature, Holmes, and considered her to be as far from being a temptation ready to lure the frustrated man as any w***e could be. She had an almost masculine look to her.”

“That would be, Watson, because she was a man! There are some strange and exotic tastes amongst humanity and one of them is a twist of nature which encourages an apparently normal man to have desires of, what shall I call them, a peculiar nature. And Madame Shallot satisfies that group of men, being a man dressed as enticingly as a woman as he can. And while he was cavorting on the path opposite the prison gates, adjusting this or that item of clothing and exposing a great deal of pale leg in an apparently casual and needful way, far enough from any watching eyes for them to be deceived and consequently tempted by what they imagined they might catch a glimpse of, the tramp disappeared under the robes of the priest as he passed through the gates.”

“Really, Holmes? Should the authorities not be informed? We can’t have justice perverted by such deceit!”

“I would agree if it was justice, but Smithson did not commit the murder he was accused of, and to my certain knowledge has never murdered or even harmed another human being. His crime, Watson, was of a financial nature. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that one such as Smithson can accumulate wealth in much the same way as city bankers do, yet he is a criminal being pursued by the forces of law and order and they are respected and wealthy and honoured?”

“Yet a judge condemned him, Holmes, and who are we to dispute the decisions of such a high authority?”

“Pah, Watson! Judge McKiver gambled financially on a scheme designed to make him rich, but it failed whilst Smithson, whose scheme it was, became increasingly wealthy! So Judge McKiver believed that he had good reason to respond harshly when the matter came to court, and when the charge had the unfortunate death of a third party through suicide added to the offence and called murder by an overenthusiastic police department, he was always going to reach for his black cap!”

“So what happened at the hanging then, Holmes?”

“Don’t think any less of me when I tell you that it was a scheme of my own,” murmured Holmes. “It doesn’t take much to persuade prison guards to look the other way, and when they did the cell into which the unfortunate Smithson was due to drop with a rope round his neck had two additional personnel, the false priest and the tramp, neither being what they looked. For the priest was my brother Mycroft and, you must believe me here, Watson, I was the tramp!”

I stared at him. “You?” I stammered. “But you were here, with me, and urinating over there!”

He smiled again. “Plain simple me,” he assured me, “and you travelled all the way to witness this triumph in the company of Josiah Pomfrey who, you must admit, does look a little like me, though I really ought to give him elocution lessons!”

“Anyway, we caught Smithson as he fell, removed the rope and went off with him before anyone was the wiser. You can imagine how grateful he was. They’ll wonder where his body went, but probably conclude that he was buried in the jail grounds by an overzealous guard in undue haste, and forget all about him. And they’ll hopefully forget to wonder about the unauthorised rubbish cart and its extravagant steam engine, though it will make a fine story to tell the kids at home on rainy evenings!”

© Peter Rogerson 06.09.17