The Scent of Death

I stared out of the window at the gallows. It consisted of a crossbeam supported by an upright post at either end. Three black chains hung from the crossbeam.

At last, at eight minutes past eight, the door re-opened. One by one, half a dozen men emerged on to the scaffold. First came the Provost Marshal’s sergeant, strutting like a cock in his own barnyard. He was followed by two soldiers with the condemned man shuffling between them. Next came a youthful parson, whose limbs seemed too long for his body and not entirely under their owner’s control. Another soldier brought up the rear with a canvas bag swinging from his hand.

Marryot removed his hat. The other gentlemen followed suit.

‘It is quite a military affair, as you see,’ Townley observed to me in a low voice, fanning himself with his hat. ‘The army usually handles this unpleasant necessity for us – the Commandant prefers it so. Of course, the Provost Marshal has everything to hand here, so it is convenient for everyone. He is unhappily obliged to oversee a great many executions – he is responsible for our rebel prisoners of war, you apprehend.’

Virgil’s arms were bound together in front of him and his ankles were shackled with a chain. Once they reached the scaffold, his escort pushed him directly under the crossbeam. The soldiers released his arms, though they stayed close to him.

The little slave looked about him, his head turning this way and that. His eyes found the window of the room where the gentlemen were waiting for him to die so that they might have their breakfast. His head became still. He flexed his wrists. His hands flapped and twitched. His lips moved but no sound came from them.

‘Come along, come along,’ the Provost Marshal cried. ‘We don’t have all day.’

Virgil stared at the window.

No one else spoke. I prayed silently, wordlessly and surely meaninglessly: for how could God be here?

The soldier with the bag came forward. The men in the room became still, watching the soldier take out a nightcap from his bag, which he placed on Virgil’s head. With surprising gentleness he drew it down over the negro’s face and patted him on his shoulder as a man touches a nervous horse to reassure him.

No one spoke, either on the scaffold or in the room that overlooked it. The nightcap had transformed Virgil from a person into something not quite human. It stripped the individuality from him. All that was left was a bundle of rags trembling like a shrivelled leaf in a breeze.

The soldier took the rope from the same bag and looped it through the end of the chain. He tied a knot to secure it. He lifted the noose at the other end of the rope, glanced at the Provost Marshal, and then placed the noose on the shoulders of the condemned man. He tightened it and stood to one side.

As if the touch of the noose had been a signal, Virgil cried out ‘God, God, God.’ His voice was muffled and not loud but it scraped against the surface of my mind like a rusty nail. He would not stop. ‘God, God, God.’

The sergeant stepped forward and checked the knots. The clergyman opened his prayer book and began to speak, though his voice was too low to hear what he was saying through the open window. But I knew what the words must be: I am the resurrection and the life.

The slave’s legs gave way. He would have collapsed if the soldiers had not seized him under the arms. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. The parson stood back.

All this time, Virgil was crying, ‘God, God, God.’

The sergeant turned towards the window. The Provost Marshal raised his arm and let it fall. The sergeant stamped twice. An assistant beneath the scaffold released the trap.

‘God, God, God—’

The planks on which Virgil was standing gave way. He vanished into the darkness under the scaffold with a violent clatter. There was an instant of silence, broken by the beat of an invisible drum.

Virgil dangled in the air, his feet kicking. His hands fluttered and then the fingers clenched into fists. He was dancing and twisting on the rope. He tried to raise his hands towards his neck but his arms were bound to his sides at the elbows.

The Provost Marshal leaned on the windowsill. ‘Goddamn it. I told you to make this quick. I have not had my breakfast yet.’

Two hands appeared from the darkness under the scaffold. They gripped the ankles of the hanging man and pulled sharply downwards. A spasm of movement rippled through Virgil’s body. And then at last he was still.

Chapter Fourteen

‘The air is a little cooler, I find,’ Mrs Arabella said. ‘But we rarely sit here in the evening because Mrs Wintour finds it fatiguing to walk so far.’

‘I distinctly felt a draught on my cheek, madam,’ I said. ‘Indeed, it is very pleasant with all the windows open.’

I could hardly believe the banality of my own conversation. For a moment my remark seemed to have stunned the others into silence. Mrs Arabella must have thought me the most pompous fool in creation.

We were sitting in the summerhouse at the bottom of the Wintours’ garden. Mrs Wintour had been too tired to come down for supper. Afterwards, the Judge had suggested that the three of us take our tea in the belvedere.

‘There is a charming westerly prospect of Vauxhall Garden and the grounds of King’s College,’ Mr Wintour had said. ‘One can glimpse the North River beyond. Though of course it will be almost dark by the time we are settled. Still, it will be agreeable to know that the prospect is there, will it not?’

The twilight was already far advanced, though we had not had the candles lit because of the flying insects their flames would attract. The air smelled faintly of lemon juice and vinegar, an agreeable contrast to the stink that pervaded so much of the city.

I turned towards Mr Wintour. ‘I had meant to enquire sooner, sir: is there any news of the goat?’

‘No. I fear the worst. But I have placed an advertisement in the Gazette. Nil desperandum must be our motto in this matter, as well as in our larger concerns.’

I wondered whether to mention the boy who had been selling goat meat outside the barracks before the hanging. It was impossible to be sure, but he might have been the boy whom I had seen with a living goat and the scar-faced negro on the day we had inspected Roger Pickett’s body. But even if it had been—

‘Her milk is much missed, sir,’ Mrs Arabella said, picking up the teapot and breaking my train of thought. ‘If we have lost her, I fear it will be nigh impossible to find another milch goat.’

She was wearing a pale gown that in the fading light made her almost luminous. She refilled my cup. I rose to take it and, in doing so, I felt the warmth radiating from her body and smelled the perfume I remembered from that first evening: otto of roses, mingled with her own peculiar fragrance. As I took the cup and saucer, her finger brushed my hand.

‘No more tea for me, my dear,’ Mr Wintour said, struggling to his feet. ‘I must see how Mrs Wintour does and then I shall retire for the night.’

For a moment we watched the old man picking his way down the path towards the garden door of the house.

Mrs Arabella stirred in her chair, and the wicker creaked beneath her body. ‘Miriam tells me you went to see that man hanged this morning.’

‘Yes, ma’am, I did. A melancholy duty.’

‘Did he confess to the murder in the end?’

‘I believe not.’

‘You would think a man would speak the truth if he knew he was to go before his maker in a few moments.’

‘He may have desired to confess, ma’am. But he was not given an opportunity as far as I know. But forgive me – the subject must be painful to you.’

The wicker creaked again. ‘Yes, of course. Though I barely knew Mr Pickett – but his murder is a terrible thing. Tell me, sir – was it – was it a hard death?’

I stared at her in the gathering dusk. ‘Mr Pickett’s?’

‘No, no – I mean the man who was hanged for the murder.’

‘How can it not have been?’ I said, more sharply than I intended.

‘I spoke without thinking.’ She sounded upset, though there was not enough light for me to read her expression. ‘But – but there must be degrees in these matters, must there not?’

‘It cannot have been easy.’ I remembered Virgil’s clenched fists, the kicking feet and, most vividly of all, the hands that had risen from beneath the scaffold to give the sharp, fatal tug at the slave’s ankles. ‘But it did not take long.’

She sighed. ‘I am glad of that, at least. Of course they do not have feelings as we do.’

‘Who do not?’