brought out the first coin he found. 'Thank you, my good man,' he said.
'Thank you, your lordship, thank you,' the turnkey said and then, to his astonishment, saw he had been tipped a whole sovereign and hastily pulled off his hat and tugged his forelock. 'God bless you, my lord, God bless.'
William Brown, the Keeper, hurried to meet his two new guests. He had met neither man before, but recognised Lord Alexander by his clubbed foot and so took off his hat and bowed respectfully. 'Your lordship is most welcome.'
'Brown, is it?' Lord Alexander asked.
'William Brown, my lord, yes. Keeper of Newgate, my lord.'
'Lord Christopher Carne,' Lord Alexander introduced his friend with a rather vague wave of the hand. 'His stepmother's murderer is being hanged today.'
The Keeper bowed again, this time to Lord Christopher. 'I do trust your lordship finds the experience both a revenge and a comfort, and will you now permit me to name the Ordinary of Newgate?' He led them to where a stout man in an old-fashioned wig, a cassock, surplice and Geneva Bands was waiting with a smile on his plump face. 'The Reverend Doctor Horace Cotton,' the Keeper said.
'Your lordship is most welcome,' Cotton bowed to Lord Alexander. 'I believe your lordship is, like me, in holy orders?'
'I am,' Lord Alexander said, 'and this is my particular friend, Lord Christopher Carne, who also hopes to take orders one day.'
'Ah!' Cotton clasped his hands prayerfully and momentarily raised his eyes to the rafters. 'I deem it a blessing,' he said, 'when our nobility, the true leaders of our society, are seen to be Christians. It is a shining example for the common ruck, don't you agree? And you, my lord,' he turned to Lord Christopher, 'I understand that this morning you will see justice done for the grave insult committed against your family?'
'I hope to,' Lord Christopher said.
'Oh, really, Kit!' Lord Alexander expostulated. 'The revenge your family seeks will be provided in eternity by the fires of hell
'Praise Him!' the Ordinary interjected.
'And it is neither seemly nor civilised of us to hurry men to that condign fate,' Lord Alexander finished.
The Keeper looked astonished. 'You would surely not abolish the punishment of hanging, my lord?'
'Hang a man,' Lord Alexander said, 'and you deny him the chance of repentance. You deny him the chance of being pricked, day and night, by his conscience. It should be sufficient, I would have thought, to simply transport all felons to Australia. I am reliably informed it is a living hell.'
'They will suffer from their consciences in the real hell,' Cotton put in.
'So they will, sir,' Lord Alexander said, 'so they will, but I would rather a man came to repentance in this world, for he surely has no chance of salvation in the next. By execution we deny men their chance of God's grace.'
'It's a novel argument,' Cotton allowed, though dubiously.
Lord Christopher had been listening to this conversation with a harried look and now blurted out an intervention. 'Are you,' he stared at the Ordinary, 'related to Henry Cotton?'
The conversation died momentarily, killed by Lord Christopher's sudden change of tack. 'To whom, my lord?' the Ordinary enquired.
'Henry Cotton,' Lord Christopher said. He seemed to be in the grip of some very powerful emotion, as if he found being inside Newgate Prison almost unbearable. He was pale, there was sweat on his brow, and his hands were trembling. 'He was G-Greek reader at Christ Church,' he explained, 'and is now the sub librarian at the Bodleian.'
The Ordinary took a step away from Lord Christopher, who looked as if he was about to be ill. 'I had thought, my lord,' the Ordinary said, 'to be connected instead with the Viscount Combermere. Distantly.'
'Henry Cotton is a g-good fellow,' Lord Christopher said, 'a very good fellow. A sound scholar.'
'He's a pedant,' Lord Alexander growled. 'Related to Combermere, are you, Sir Stapleton Cotton as was? He almost lost his right arm at the battle of Salamanca and what a tragic loss that would have been.'
'Oh indeed,' the Ordinary agreed piously.
'You are not usually tender about soldiers,' Lord Christopher observed to his friend.
'Combermere can be a very astute batsman,' Lord Alexander said, 'especially against twisting balls. Do you play cricket, Cotton?'
'No, my lord.'
'It's good for the wind,' Lord Alexander declared mysteriously, then turned to offer a lordly inspection of the Association Room, staring up at the ceiling beams, rapping one of the tables, then peering at the cooking pots and cauldrons stacked by the embers of the fire. 'I see our felons live in some comfort,' he remarked, then frowned at his friend. 'Are you quite well, Kit?'
'Oh yes, indeed, yes,' Lord Christopher said hastily, but he looked anything but well. There were beads of sweat on his brow and his skin was paler than usual. He took off his spectacles and polished them with a handkerchief. 'It is just that the apprehension of seeing a man launched into eternity is conducive to reflection,' he explained, 'very conducive. It is not an experience to be taken lightly.'
'I should think not indeed,' Lord Alexander said, then turned an imperious eye on the other breakfast guests who seemed to be looking forward to the morning's events with an unholy glee. Three of them, standing close to the door, laughed at a jest and Lord Alexander scowled at them. 'Poor Corday,' he said.
'Why do you pity the man, my lord?' the Reverend Cotton asked.
'It seems likely he is innocent,' Lord Alexander said, 'but it seems proof of that innocence has not been found.'
'If he was innocent, my lord,' the Ordinary observed with a patronising smile, 'then I am confident that the Lord God would have revealed that to us.'
'You're saying you have never hanged an innocent man or woman?' Lord Alexander demanded.
'God would not allow it,' the Reverend Cotton averred.
'Then God had better get his boots on this morning,' Lord Alexander said, then turned as a barred door at the other end of the room opened with a sudden and harsh squeal. For a heartbeat no one appeared in the doorway and it seemed as though all the guests held their breath, but then, to an audible gasp, a short and burly man carrying a stout leather bag stumped into sight. The man was red-faced and dressed in brown gaiters, black breeches and a black coat that was buttoned too tightly over his protuberant belly. He respectfully pulled off a shabby brown hat when he saw the waiting gentry, but he offered no greeting and no one in the Association Room acknowledged his arrival.
'That's the man Botting,' the Ordinary whispered.
'Ponderous sort of name for a hangman,' Lord Alexander observed in a tactlessly loud voice. 'Ketch, now, that's a proper hangman's name. But Botting? Sounds like a disease of cattle.'
Botting shot a hostile glance at the tall, red-haired Lord Alexander who was quite unmoved by the animosity, though Lord Christopher recoiled a step, perhaps in horror at the hangman's beef-like face that was disfigured by warts, wens and scars and subject to involuntary grimaces every few seconds. Botting gave the other guests a sardonic look, then heaved a bench aside so he could drop his leather bag onto a table. He unbuckled the bag and, conscious of being watched, brought out four coils of thin white cord. He placed the coils on the table and then took from the bag two heavy ropes, each with a noose at one end and a spliced eye at the other. He placed the two ropes on the table, added two white cotton bags, then stepped smartly back a pace. 'Good morning, sir,' he said to the Keeper.
'Oh, Botting!' The Keeper's surprised tone suggested he had only just noticed the hangman's presence. 'And a very good morning to you, too.'
'And a nice one it is, sir,' Botting said. 'Hardly a cloud up aloft, hardly one. Still just the two clients today, sir?'
'Just the two, Botting.'
'There's a fair crowd for them,' Botting said, 'not over large, but fair enough.'
'Good, good,' the Keeper said vaguely.
'Botting!' Lord Alexander intervened, pacing forward with his crippled foot clumping heavily on the scarred floorboards. 'Tell me, Botting, is it true that you hang members of the aristocracy with a silken rope?' Botting looked
