They say that a new star shines its brightest, burning like a fiery cauldron, but eventually evaporates into space. They say that after eons, the core will cool and the star will vanish. I waited for that to happen to my feelings for Sherlock. I tried to recapture my life, my logic and objectivity, traits I had honed for years and upon which I prided myself. I thought the layers of time would help. I suppose I did not realize that an imploding star is a very dangerous place to be... and so, we continued our adventures.
1
18 August 1878
I could not believe that I was about to witness another hanging.
A few weeks after Oscar’s recital at Oxford, Sherlock invited me to watch an execution. The invitation shocked me. Since the recital, we had taken long walks, enjoyed a few lunches, and he’d visited my medical office once or twice to pick my brain about anatomical things in relation to his experiments at St. Bart’s. All very mundane and socially acceptable.
I did not want to let myself become involved with Sherlock again. I certainly did not want to see another death sentence carried out.
True, I had watched two other human beings swing from the rope: Margaret and Millicent Hardy. But I had attended the Hardy executions only because it was so personal. In 1874, Sherlock and I had worked together for months to find these baby farmers and have them arrested for willful murder. In the time that had passed since their executions, I had too often tossed and turned as I remembered their faces, remembered the sound of the trap falling.
But Sherlock insisted that I see the fruits of our labour, the continuance of the fight to purge England of baby and child farmers who abused and murdered helpless children for profit. I had involved him in that mission shortly after we met and he continued on his own, though he had told me long ago that he was done with it.
And so, there I was, looking up at a gallows again.
The hanging was at Wandsworth Prison. Executions took place on the third Sunday after sentencing at precisely 9 a.m. in a shed constructed in one of the yards. They called it the Cold Meat Shed.
The condemned man, Alan Horton, stood on the scaffold. He was a plump, middle-aged man with ruddy cheeks, a bulbous nose and flabby arms. The only witnesses present were Sherlock, a prosecutor, Under Sheriff Captain Colville, the prison governor, the prison doctor, two male warders, and two reporters. Actually, that would be three counting me, for Sherlock had lied about my profession, telling them I wrote for a women’s magazine, so that I would be permitted to attend.
Horton drooped his head at first, but then he lifted it to stare with wide eyes at the sound of the rumbling laughter of the warders and the cheers of a small crowd of people that had gathered just outside the gates. The assembly would see and hear nothing, but apparently they could not help themselves.
Alan Horton had been convicted of murdering dozens of children. He was a child-farmer, much like the baby farmers who Sherlock and I had investigated and brought to justice four years earlier. They profited by pretending to take in and care for illegitimate babies for a fee and then murdering them to make room for more. Now the time for Horton to meet his maker had come as well.
At precisely 8.45 a.m., the prison bell began to toll. I shifted nervously and, knowing what was about to come to pass, I could not take my eyes off the gallows. I whispered to Sherlock, “I think I am going to leave.”
“Why? You were with me at the Hardy executions.”
“That was... different somehow. We worked on that case together and Millicent Hardy nearly killed me. And I have changed, Sherlock. I do not think I believe in the death sentence anymore.”
“Not even for murder? Rubbish. This man murdered several hundred children over the years. I should think your love of children would make you glad he is to get the rope. Don’t you remember anything from your religious classes? ‘He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.’ Or Psalms, if you wish. ‘His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate,’” he added, touching his head.
“I am glad for justice being done, yes,” I said. “But I don’t think I want to watch. I became a physician because I value life. All life. I don’t think it is up to us to take a life.”
He took my hand and clenched it. Such a simple gesture, the warmth of his skin against mine, usually diminished any uneasiness I felt. I stayed, but I stepped behind Sherlock and fixed my eyes on the curly, dark hair at the nape of his neck. I felt myself perspiring. I meant what I said. I’d become a doctor because I wanted to save lives.
At 9 a.m., when the doors to the shed were closed, I glanced up and stared at the white painted gallows, the rope dangling and the noose lying on the trapdoors. The executioner, William Marwood, stopped Horton at the chalk mark on the
