Cumberland, who had finally grasped the implications of Hardwick’s findings, turned crimson. The recorder did not appear to know what to do or say.
Pyke waited for a moment of quiet and said, very quickly, before he could be stopped, ‘Given that the duke murdered his manservant in cold blood and raped his own sister, I am on reflection happy to concede the truthfulness of this witness’s testimony.’
For a second, there was utter silence in the courtroom as people absorbed the shock of his remarks, and then pandemonium broke out. Gutsy cheers from the public gallery temporarily drowned out the groundswell of indignation from the bench. As the recorder attempted to reimpose order on the courtroom by repeatedly banging his gavel down on the bench, his wig slipped forward off the top of his head and fell six feet on to the table below, where clerks were administering the proceedings.
Two hours later, Lord Chief Justice Marshall began his summing up. He reminded the jury that they were to base their decision only on the evidence they had heard in court. He added that, scandalous and offensive as the accused’s remarks had been during the cross-examination of one of the prosecution’s witnesses, they were to disregard these comments in their deliberations. Bound and gagged, Pyke listened without interest from the dock. Looking across the room at the public gallery, he noticed that Emily had vacated her seat and wondered what this meant.
Marshall told the jury that, to return a guilty verdict, they had to be satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that on the night of the fourth day of March eighteen hundred and twenty-nine, in a gin palace on Duke Street in the Smithfield area of London, the accused had, with malice aforethought, murdered the deceased, Lizzie Morgan, by stabbing her twice in the stomach with a knife. Marshall then summarised all the evidence the court had heard, pausing to underscore those points that hinted at Pyke’s guilt.
Once he had finished, he sent the jury away to reach a verdict. As they left, Pyke was removed from the dock.
It took the jury less than ten minutes. Back in the courtroom the foreman, when asked, said that they had unanimously reached a verdict. Enjoying the occasion, he paused, to clear his throat, and informed the court that the jury had found the accused guilty as charged.
The reaction inside the courtroom was a little muted. Outside, once news of the verdict spread, the cheers were louder. Those sitting on the bench nodded vigorously to one another in approval. Edmonton shook Cumberland’s hand, as though he had been responsible for bringing about Pyke’s demise. Farther along the bench, Sir Richard Fox stared down at his feet. None of the jury could bring themselves to look at Pyke. The recorder praised them for the verdict and added that it was unquestionably the right one given the damning nature of the evidence.
Finally he turned his attention to Pyke. In a suitably grave voice, Marshall said that he hoped Pyke had taken the time since his arrest to reflect on the heinousness of his crime, although this did not appear to be the case. He told Pyke it was his habit to encourage the condemned to make their peace with the Almighty, but since Pyke’s behaviour suggested that he was beyond redemption, there was no reason to prolong his detention in Newgate.
Replacing his horsehair wig with a black cap, he banged his gavel down on the bench and said, ‘You will be hanged by the neck on Monday morning.’
This left Pyke only two days to plan his escape. It was less time than he had hoped for.
THIRTEEN
Separated from the rest of Newgate by the press yard, the prison’s condemned block suffered from an austere appearance and a funereal atmosphere. In all, there were fifteen cells arranged over three floors, but it was rare that more than one or two of these was occupied at any time, especially, as a turnkey informed him, since in recent years the Bloody Code had been scaled back. This was a set of legal statutes which insisted upon capital punishment for crimes as trivial as forging coins. Pyke did not comment on the irony: he was being executed by an administration that wanted to introduce more humane forms of punishment. Nor did Pyke ask whether the man was one of the two guards who had been approached by Townsend and offered a hundred pound to assist him in his escape attempt.
Pyke had tried to make it clear that this aid would not involve them physically assisting his bid for freedom.
Rather, they were simply to turn a blind eye to particular occurrences, if and when they took place. As such, they might be dismissed from their posts for negligence but not prosecuted for aiding and abetting a crime. In which case, a hundred pounds would be more than enough to compensate them for the ‘inconvenience’ of having to find alternative employment.
When Godfrey visited him on the Friday evening, the turnkeys were to make sure he was not searched, or rather, if he was searched, that their search did not reveal anything. Nor was Pyke’s cell to be searched, after Godfrey’s departure. He was starting to worry that the turnkeys would not honour their side of the bargain when Godfrey thrust a small key into his hand. He permitted himself a hushed sigh of relief.
This did not, however, mean that the condemned block’s incarceration regime was a lax one. The governor’s promise of additional security had been realised in the form of reinforced leg-irons and handcuffs. These devices, and the thickness of the stone walls, meant that Pyke’s chances of escape would normally have been slim.
They still perhaps were, despite the arrangements that had been made, but he chose not to focus on such concerns.
Instead, after Godfrey had departed, Pyke rummaged through the items that his uncle had smuggled into the cell: the key, of course, but also charcoal, powder, soap, chalk, candles, rouge and a razor blade.
Sitting up against the cell door, in order that the turnkeys might not see him through the grated hole, Pyke worked through the night, using all his candles. By the time he heard the first cock crow, he had found a way of using the small key to unlock both the leg-irons and the handcuffs.
It rained for most of the day, the kind of relentless downpour that seemed to penetrate the tarred walls and dampen the inside of the cell and its few contents: a hemp mat and a horse rug. Pyke had wrapped himself up in the rug and settled himself on the mat, but had still been unable to sleep. Trying to ignore the cold and the stench of decaying animal matter, discarded outside the prison walls by market traders, he stared at the window and listened to the patter of raindrops peppering the outside of the building.
While the rest of the condemned prisoners spent their free time in the more welcoming environment of the press rooms, a narrow area replete with tables, benches and a fire, Pyke opted to remain in his cell, anxious that no one should look too carefully at his leg-irons and handcuffs.
He found himself thinking about Mary Johnson and Gerald McKeown - how grateful they had been when he had offered to put them up in a lodging house - and he imagined what torture they might have suffered as someone dragged them to a wild spot on Hounslow Heath, and strangled them. He also thought about Lizzie and whether she had known what was happening to her.
It was already dark by the time the Reverend Arthur Foote arrived, with Godfrey. Godfrey seemed nervous - both of them had been drinking and he stumbled as he entered the cell - but Pyke assumed that Foote was either too inebriated or excited by the prospect of eliciting a dramatic eleventh-hour confession from Pyke, which he could then ‘sell’ to Godfrey, thereby making a significant sum of money, to realise what was about to happen.
Pyke greeted them and said he was sorry that he could not offer them anything to drink. Foote produced a flask of what Pyke presumed was gin and said he had brought his own supplies. He took a swig, without offering it to either Godfrey or Pyke. He was wearing a long black cassock under a black robe, a white undershirt, a dog collar and a pair of black shoes, and was carrying a wide-brimmed hat.
Godfrey pulled the cell door closed and through the grated hole told the turnkeys that they would knock when they were ready to leave.
‘So you’ve decided to confess, boy? Excellent, excellent. God loves repenting sinners as much as the rest of his flock. More, even.’ Even in the candlelight, Pyke could see Foote’s blackened teeth as he smiled. ‘I like ’em too but for different reasons. Isn’t that right, Godfrey? Those little sheets you publish can be quite profitable, I’ve heard, especially when the confession’s been so eagerly awaited.’ He peered down at Pyke through the gloom. ‘You’re
