Waxwork (22 page)

‘Fit for work, sir,' James Berry answered.

‘Very good. Let me see. When was it we last—'

‘April, sir. Mason, the Stepney murderer.'

‘So it was,' confirmed the governor with a sigh. Small talk with the hangman was a cheerless business. ‘Is, em, everything in order for Monday?'

Berry confirmed that it was. ‘I spent an hour in the execution shed this morning. Everything's greased, sir. The traps drop nice and clean.'

The governor nodded indulgently. Berry liked it to be known that he had checked the mechanism of the gallows. An unhappy episode in Exeter Gaol three years before, when the trap-doors had three times failed to operate, had left him sensitive to criticism. ‘You have the prisoner's weight and height from the records, I am sure. Has there been an opportunity … ?'

‘Watched her at exercise this morning, sir. I see no problem. I take it the wardresses will see that the hair is pinned up. No reason to cut it.'

‘That will be attended to.'

‘Thank you, sir. And I assume I may visit the prisoner on Sunday evening, according to custom?'

‘If you wish. The husband will be asked to take his leave of her by seven. I suggest you choose a moment half an hour after that. There are other visitors to be fitted in—the clerk of St Sepulchre's, the chaplain and myself, but you will not take long, I imagine.'

‘Fifteen minutes at most, sir. I like to give the prisoner some verses of a religious character to read, as you may recollect.
My sister, sit and think, while yet on earth some hours are left to thee; kneel to thy God, who does not from thee shrink—
'

‘Yes, yes. Admirable sentiments,' said the governor. ‘You were good enough to provide me with a copy on a previous occasion. Berry, I think I should explain that this woman has already fully and freely confessed her guilt. It will not be necessary, or indeed appropriate, for you to inquire whether she wishes to make any statement about her crime. That is not to say, of course, that your exhortations to intransigent prisoners on previous occasions are unappreciated.'

‘Only two in my experience have gone without confessing,' Berry remarked with a trace of pride.

‘Quite. And concerning the arrangements for Monday … ?'

‘I should like breakfast at half past six, sir. My usual, if it can be arranged. I shall be in the shed until I hear the bell begin to toll at a quarter to eight. Then I shall walk up the passage and wait with the other parties who will form the procession. Punctually at three minutes to the hour I shall enter the cell and pinion the prisoner's arms. From what I am told she is unlikely to resist.'

‘There will be seven male warders in attendance in case of difficulties,' said the governor. ‘Two females will escort the prisoner in the procession, but at the scaffold steps they will step aside and allow two men to support her while you fasten the cap and the leg-strap.'

Berry gave a nod. ‘May I inquire who else will be present, sir?'

‘The chaplain, of course, the Under Sheriff and his two wandbearers, the surgeon and his assistant and two gentlemen from the press, making seventeen persons in all, apart from ourselves and the prisoner.'

‘Very good, sir. Just as long as they step out, I'll have the job done as St Sepulchre's strikes the hour.'

A four-wheeler drawn by a large grey threaded through the Strand in the direction of Ludgate Hill, its destination Newgate Prison. Chief Inspector Jowett, seated opposite Sergeant Cribb inside, had the strained look of a man who had slept fitfully, if at all. The evening before, he had seen the Commissioner to request an interview with Mrs Cromer in the condemned cell. Cribb had waited in the corridor outside, in case he was called in. He was not. After forty minutes Jowett had emerged looking ashen. His lips had been moving as if he was talking to himself. Ignoring Cribb, he had returned to his office and closed the door. Twenty minutes later a clerk had come out of Jowett's office and told Cribb that the meeting in Newgate would take place next morning. Cribb was to report to the Yard at half past nine.

This morning Jowett was no more communicative. He had signalled Cribb's arrival with no more than a grunt, then picked up his hat and walking-stick and headed for the street. It was Cribb who had told the cabman where to take them.

Cribb did not need telling what had passed between Jowett and the Commissioner. The suggestion that Howard Cromer could be the real murderer of Josiah Perceval would not have been well received. Jowett had gone to the Commissioner convinced that Cromer should be arrested. Far from praising Jowett's detective work, Sir Charles Warren must have erupted. That peppery old campaigner must have seen the consequences bearing down like the Dervishes in full cry: the need to inform the Home Office that the woman was innocent; the law made a laughing-stock; the Queen obliged to sign a Royal Pardon with unseemly haste; questions in the House; cries of police ineptitude; calls for a resignation.

But he could not prevent them now from talking to Miriam Cromer. She alone could confirm what had really happened.

Cribb had got what he wanted.

Privately still some way short of an explanation of the murder, he had seen the necessity of convincing Jowett that Howard Cromer's disappearance was as good as an admission of guilt. A hesitant Jowett would not have survived two minutes with Warren.

From the start, Cribb had known he would need to talk to Miriam Cromer himself. He needed to form an opinion of his own. Other people's assessments had supplied only contradictions.
‘If you ask me what sets her apart from other women, it's an absence of pity.' ‘She, poor innocent, suffered alone.' ‘She is one of those enviable females who can cast a spell over men.
Not one of you is capable of seeing her as she really is.'
He had not been helped by them. They presented postures, like the photographs round the sitting room at Park Lodge.

Understand the woman, see her, hear her, and he would get to the truth. He would discover why she had confessed.

His thoughts returned to the starting-point of this inquiry: the picture showing Howard Cromer at Brighton wearing the key to the poison cabinet on his chain. Its purpose was plain: to raise a serious doubt about the confession. The question nobody had asked was who had sent it. Who of the people connected with the case could have realised the significance of the picture? Miriam herself? She was in prison, and could not have sent it. Howard? If he had sent it, he was deliberately implicating himself in the murder. Allingham? What motive could their solicitor and confidant have had for sending it?

Howard Cromer or Simon Allingham?

If Cromer had sent it in a fit of conscience, why had he waited till now to flee from justice?

His thoughts were interrupted by Jowett, who had recovered the power of speech. ‘Where are we?'

Cribb looked out. ‘The Old Bailey is coming up, sir.'

‘Sergeant, I have decided to entrust the interrogation of Mrs Cromer to you. Your acquaintance with the more trivial details of the case is necessarily fresher than mine. I shall be present and you may defer to me on matters of procedure, but I fancy this will resolve itself quite easily now that we know the truth.'

‘As you say, sir.'

The two detectives and the governor of Newgate walked stiffly through a low-roofed passage, the antipathy between them unconcealed.

‘I may say that this is unprecedented in my experience,' Jowett remarked. ‘I have never spoken to a prisoner under sentence of death. Tell me, Governor, what is her state of mind? How is she bearing up?'

‘No better for this infliction, I assure you,' the governor answered, signalling to a turnkey to unlock the oak door to the condemned wing. ‘My estimation when I saw her yesterday was that she was beginning to reconcile herself to her sentence. There was reason to hope she would face the end with dignity. God knows how this will leave her.'

‘Permit me to assure you that we have no intention of inflicting distress,' said Jowett in a shocked tone. ‘Our purpose is to establish the truth. We should not be here if it were not in question. I venture to suggest that you would not wish to be a party to the execution of an innocent woman.'

‘She pleaded guilty and she was sentenced according to the law,' said the governor flatly. ‘That should be the end of it. If prisoners understood that there was no possibility of a reprieve, our work in Newgate would be distinctly less onerous. This kind of intrusion can only undermine the authority of the law and those of us entrusted to carry it out.'

They were met by the wardress-in-charge, whose curtsey was an odd refinement in the setting. ‘The prisoner's solicitor has gone in as you instructed, sir,' she told the governor. ‘Begging your pardon, we found it impossible to fit chairs for all you gentlemen into the cell.'

‘No matter, Miss Stones,' said the governor. ‘We do not expect to take long over this.'

The cell door stood open. The governor went in first, Jowett following. Cribb waited in the doorway while the others found positions against the wall. Two wardresses and Allingham were already inside, behind Miriam Cromer, who was the only one seated, watching the influx with interested eyes.

Cribb's first impression was that she was smaller than her portrait had suggested. But by no means was she diminished in spirit. In the graceless prison clothes, white mob-cap tied under the chin, coarse blue jacket and skirt, she succeeded still in looking elegant. She was pale from ten weeks' imprisonment, practically as colourless as the picture in Cribb's pocket. Her skin had the pellucid look of wax, and she was quite still, except for her eyes. They glinted with something between curiosity and challenge. They were confident, undismayed and, to Cribb, disturbing.

The governor announced who they were without putting it in so social a form as an introduction. ‘And this is Mr Allingham, the prisoner's solicitor,' he added for their benefit.

Allingham glanced over some papers he was studying and gave the measured nod of a legal man. Here in his black pinstripe and stiff collar he would not care to be reminded of those pictures of picnics when his hand had stolen round his client's waist.

‘Would you begin, Chief Inspector?' said the governor.

Jowett cleared his throat. ‘My, er, assistant, Sergeant Cribb, is to put the questions.'

‘Then he had better take the stool.'

Cribb edged between them and sat opposite Miriam Cromer. It was like entering a prize-ring. The situation was inimical to his style of questioning. He liked to find a common footing with those he interviewed, put them at their ease. Small chance of that in this grim place surrounded by officials.

He tried to hold her gaze in a way that excluded everyone else. ‘You haven't met me before, ma'am. I took no part in the original inquiry. I was brought in to take a look at the confession you made. There are certain small matters, details really, that have come to light since your conviction. We can't square them with your account of things. No-one says you got it wrong. The mistake may be on our side. Must be.' He chanced a smile. ‘Well, you're not likely to have got it wrong, seeing that you admitted to the crime.'

Her eyes focused steadily on his, conveying nothing.

‘It's a fair assumption,' Cribb went on, compelled to provide his own comment. Already he could see this developing into a monologue. ‘Where would be the sense in twisting facts when you know you'll end up in this place?' The question was rhetorical, but he paused before saying, ‘I'd like to talk about that confession, if you don't mind.'

‘I have a copy here,' Allingham announced. He leaned forward and put it into her hand. She took it without turning to look at him.

‘I'm obliged to you,' said Cribb, taking out his own copy from his pocket. ‘Ma'am, I want to ask you if you stand by everything you said in this document.'

She shaped her lips to answer, but Allingham spoke first. ‘Naturally she does. This is an affidavit sworn before a magistrate. I must caution you not to impute perjury to my client, Sergeant.'