The gathering of dignitaries beneath the pavilion rose to their feet and filed off the platform in a solemn procession. They would now retire to the Keeper’s house, where they would consume the traditional post-hanging breakfast of deviled kidneys.
With the departure of the officials, the crowd of spectators pressed forward. Many would pay the hangman a shilling to touch the hands of the dead, which was believed to be a cure for warts and tumors and other growths. An executioner could make quite a tidy sum out of a hanging, since he would also be allowed to sell the clothes of the dead and to cut the ropes used to kill them into short lengths to sell as souvenirs.
Hero glanced over at Alexi and was shocked to see the Frenchwoman’s face wet with tears. “It’s barbarism,” said Alexi, her accent unusually heavy. “How can anyone think this is right? To kill a starving seventeen-year-old girl for stealing a ham? A ham!”
Reaching out, Hero grasped her friend’s hand, tight. And for a long moment, the two women simply held on to each other as the crowds dissipated below and the cold golden sun slid behind a new bank of clouds.
Chapter 32
“His name was Jack Donavon,” Sir Henry Lovejoy told Sebastian as the two men stood side by side, staring down at the ashen naked corpse of the man killed in the Strand.
The body lay facedown on an old door propped up on two empty whiskey barrels in the taproom of the Black Swan on Fleet Street, for the viewing of the body of the deceased was an important part of any inquest. The jurors who’d been called to serve were still milling about, along with a number of curious onlookers. By law, any sudden, violent, or unexplained death required an inquest. And because there were so few places capable of holding the kinds of crowds gruesome dead bodies could attract, the proceedings typically were held in a public house or an inn.
“So who was he?” asked Sebastian, his eyes narrowing as he studied the purple knife wound in the dead man’s back.
“A generally unsavory character from the sounds of it, although by all accounts not a simple thief. I suspect he wasn’t after your purse.”
“I didn’t think he was.”
Sir Henry nodded. “Unfortunately, we’ve no idea who he was working for or who his companion—and inadvertent murderer—might have been.”
“Lovely.”
Sir Henry shivered. A fire had recently been kindled on the enormous old-fashioned hearth, but the blaze was meager, and the room was still cold enough that few of those present were inclined to remove their greatcoats. “You’ve no idea who might have an interest in seeing you dead?”
“Not really.”
A commotion near the door foretold the imminent arrival of the coroner. Sir Henry glanced behind them, then lowered his voice to say, “One of my lads did learn something you might find of interest: Edward Ambrose is in debt.”
“Did your lad manage to discover why?”
“The usual: mainly gambling, along with an unhealthy addiction to Bond Street tailors and high-end jewelers such as Rundell and Bridge.”
“Any sign of a mistress?”
“My lads say there is talk, but they’ve yet to verify it.” The magistrate pursed his lips in thought. “The debt obviously reflects poorly on Mr. Ambrose’s character. But unless he’s planning to acquire a new rich wife, I fail to see how it constitutes a motive for murder.”
“It doesn’t—if Jane was murdered. But if Ambrose struck her in anger and accidently killed her, the debt might explain the nature of their quarrel.”
“There is that.” Sir Henry shivered again and drew a handkerchief from his pocket to blow his nose. “You’ve seen the frozen river?”
“Yesterday afternoon. Amazing, is it not?”
Sir Henry nodded, although he looked more troubled than impressed. “There’s talk of setting up a Frost Fair. Personally, I fail to see the attraction of freezing in a tent pitched on ice simply to experience the dubious pleasure of drinking expensive beer or purchasing a useless trinket at twice its worth so that one may afterward boast that it was acquired on the Thames.”
Sebastian laughed just as a constable came bustling into the taproom, clapped his hands loudly, and said, “Right, then, let’s get this started, shall we?”
As expected, the inquest returned a verdict of homicide by person unknown.
Afterward, Sebastian joined Lovejoy for a ploughman’s lunch in the inn’s public room. The pub was crowded with a motley assortment of hangers-on from the inquest—shopkeepers and tradesmen, costermongers and apprentices, all loud and boisterous with lingering excitement from the morning’s entertainment.
“I’ll never understand it,” said Lovejoy, nibbling without much appetite at a heel of bread. “Why would anyone want to deliberately look at the bloody corpse of a murdered man?”
“Presumably for the same reason they attend hangings,” said Sebastian, his thoughts on the ordeal he knew Hero was going through.
“I’ve never understood that, either. We hang felons in public as a warning to all potential lawbreakers; the spectacle is intended to put the fear of God into them. But in reality, all we do is provide the city’s pickpockets with a distracted crowd enjoying a free show.”
Sebastian found himself smiling. “You’re suggesting public hangings might not work as a deterrent?”
“One would deduce. As for hanging a man—let alone a woman or child—for stealing a handkerchief or a pheasant? I fear future generations will conclude we place little value on the lives of England’s poor.”
Sebastian drained his ale and set it aside. “Future generations will be right.”
Sebastian spent the next hour trying to find Edward Ambrose.
The playwright’s nervous servants claimed ignorance of his whereabouts. In the end, Sebastian tracked Jane’s widower to a low tavern on Compton Street. From the looks of it, the place dated back to the last years of the seventeenth century, with low, dark
