Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty

By 8 August, although I had failed to reach a definitive conclusion on the mass of contradictory information before me, members of the jury were sent out to consider their verdict. Upon their return, they announced that Florence Maybrick was guilty as charged. Old Stephen, the judge, whose mind appeared – not least to P – to be failing, displayed an unholy relish in passing sentence of death.

“My dear fellow, what on earth is to be done?” W demanded, as we sipped sherry in the Diogenes Club.

“What would you have me do?” I yawned in a vain attempt to mask my discomfiture.

“These are dark days. If it were not bad enough for us to lose a first-class man …”

I said nothing. The body of J had been fished out of the Thames at Wapping thirty-six hours earlier. Marks found on his body established incontrovertibly that he had endured such excruciating torture that death must have come as a welcome release.

“… now we have to address the consequences of this infernal murder trial! The whole case represents a stain upon our glorious system of justice. I can tell you that the Prime Minister is deeply concerned about the prospect of continued unrest after those dreadful scenes in Liverpool. Have you read the newspapers?”

I inclined my head. “The same mob that howled for a hanging a short time ago jostled and elbowed the woman Yapp as she left court after the verdict. Journalists who were baying for Mrs Maybrick’s blood now fulminate against the verdict. To read the editorials, one would presume the woman is a saint, and the dead man a lecherous ogre of whom the world is well rid.”

“The latter point, at least, is well made. In comparison to her husband, Mrs Maybrick is as pure as driven snow.”

“But she is a woman, and he was a man. Therein lies the critical distinction. The verdict is tantamount to execution for adultery. We may never be able to determine the precise truth of her husband’s fate, but I am certain that Moriarty had a hand in it. Thanks to the bigoted summation of a decrepit old man teetering on the brink of insanity, however, a woman faces the long walk to the gallows. I hear that the prison governor has already had the scaffold built. It is utterly monstrous.”

“My dear fellow,” W said, “I have seldom seen you so roused.”

I realised that I had raised my voice. An elderly club member seated at the far end of the room had raised bushy eyebrows, and an expression of concern crinkled his leathery features. Such expenditure of energy and emotion was quite alien to me. Slumping back in my chair, I felt overcome momentarily by the weight of frustration and dismay.

“I ask you one question, my friend. In England, the country each of us loves and serves, how can such injustice be tolerated?”

“Most unfortunate, I concur.” W gave a helpless shrug. “But we do not have a court of appeal.”

Three Sundays must, by law, elapse between sentencing in a capital case and execution. Whilst I ruminated, the conviction of Mrs Maybrick was denounced on both sides of the Atlantic. Fourteen days after the verdict, I was ready to take the short stroll to Whitehall, where the Home Secretary had consented to see me.

Sir Henry’s tenure in office had coincided with a sequence of regrettable scandals, most notably his refusal to prevent the hanging of the Jewish umbrella stick salesman Lipski, and the failure of Scotland Yard to apprehend the maniac responsible for the Whitechapel murders. Now he was besieged by protests and petitions concerning the fate of a young belle from Alabama. A barrister by profession, he had previously struck me as shrewd but aloof. This evening, I glimpsed the real man behind the face he presented to the public: weary, bewildered, and tormented by conscience.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries over a glass of the most splendid Amontillado, we turned to the matter in hand. “I understand that Her Majesty is not unsympathetic to the plight of the convicted woman.”

Matthews bowed. “It has been conveyed to me by the Palace that she will accept my recommendation. But to overturn the unanimous verdict of a jury without further evidence of the most compelling nature … I tell you candidly, it would amount to much more than a confession of weakness on my part. It would launch a Whitehead at the ship of state. Yes, sir, the admission that our courts are unjustly is more damaging than any torpedo’s blast.”

“You regard capital punishment as morally repugnant, do you not?” I said quietly.

The Home Secretary sat up with a start. His cheeks were a becoming shade of pink. “What in great Heaven prompts you to say such a thing?”

“I am aware of your deeply held Catholic faith, and – forgive me – my observations of your pallor and nervous mannerisms at the time you allowed Lipski to die, following a trial tainted by prejudice, make me certain that the case caused you unusual distress. You held fast to the belief that a man in your position must do the right thing, but secretly you feared it was not right, but morally wrong.”

The heat from the coal fire was intense. Sir Henry mopped his brow. He was not the first decent man to have been brought low by the cares of high political office, and he would not be the last.

“My duty is to administer the law without fear or favour. I could no longer with honour remain in office if …”

I drained my glass with a wistful pang. It was as fine a sherry as I had tasted in a twelvemonth. “We can agree – can we not? – that the glory of the English law lies in its inherent pragmatism. Moreover, the secret of our island race’s survival and prosperity is due to our gift for compromise. Very well. A solution is within our grasp.”

“What do you propose?”

“You may advise Her Majesty to respite the sentence of death, and commute it to penal servitude for life.”

“No legal ground exists upon which …”

“Pshaw! Let us invent one that preserves the dignity of the court, as well as the wretched woman’s life. The evidence, one might say, leads to the conclusion that she administered arsenic to her husband, but there remains a reasonable doubt that it caused his death.”

“But that amounts to convicting her of a crime of which she was not charged. It is ridiculous! I never heard of anything quite so abhorrent to a logical mind.”

“I heartily concur, but for many years I have made the point to my brother – you have met him yourself, have you not? – that for all its virtues, logic is apt to be overvalued. We must confront the world as it is, and a little untidiness is a small price to pay for a life. I surmise that, in due course, the sanction will be further ameliorated, and it would not surprise me in the least if she were to be freed within the next fifteen years.”

“Nevertheless, that is a very long time.”

“True, my dear sir, but we must keep in mind that she may be guilty.”

One week later, Mrs Maybrick remained incarcerated in Walton Prison for the foreseeable future, but the scaffold erected for her had been dismantled, and, although her supporters continued to press for a pardon, the storm around the Home Secretary had abated. The Times had gone so far as to commend his decision, saying “It makes things comfortable all round …”

I meant to render Sir Henry one further service, and I was aided in my task when a messenger arrived at the Diogenes Club, bringing me an unsigned card inviting me to participate in a game of chess at the Tankerville.

Moriarty had read my mind, as I had endeavoured to read his.

“An elegant solution,” the Professor said, as he contemplated options for safeguarding his king.

“The British do not lack imagination,” I replied. “To characterise us as stolid and lacking in the power of creative thought does us a great disservice.”