Madman's Dance (Time Rovers #3)(104)

“There, on the inside of the lid,” Anderson pointed, “it looks like a boot imprint.”

Keats, you lucky little bastard. Ramsey would bet a month’s pay the marks would match one of the boots from the pawnbroker’s.

The inspector looked up into a row of anxious eyes. The men were shuffling from one foot to another to deal with the cold. “This is it, gents. You’ve done it. Let’s get it on the wagon and back to town. I’ll pay you all fiver and treat everyone to breakfast.”

A throaty cheer erupted from the group. A couple of men hoisted the coffin while another picked up the damaged lid.



Ramsey rose. “We’ve got everything we need.” Anderson’s troubled expression reined in his triumph. “We’ve got time, don’t we?”

“It’s just after five in the morning,” the reporter observed. “It will be a near thing for the telegram to arrive in time to halt the execution.”

Ramsey’s roar of frustration rent the forest, scattering birds from the treetops.

~??~??~??~



In the distance, Alastair could see the faint stirrings of dawn. If there had ever been a day that he wished he would never see, it was this one. Despite their very best efforts, his best friend would die this morning.

He’d come to know Keats quite by accident. He had appeared at the door of Alastair’s free clinic one evening, helping a limping constable. The man had broken his ankle and was in considerable pain. While Alastair treated him, Keats had asked all sorts of questions, all with a purpose, now that he thought about it. The sergeant had been testing him, finding out what sort of person he was. All through that first meeting, he’d acted the part of a fop out for a night’s jolly in Whitechapel. It wasn’t until Jacynda arrived earlier this fall that he’d learned Keats’ true vocation. Once they’d crossed that hurdle, their friendship had deepened.

Which only makes it harder now.

Behind him, he heard the endless pacing of Lord Wescomb. It was amazing the man was still on the move, given his recent wounding. The three of them—the peer, the doctor, and Kingsbury—had made the rounds until half past three in the morning. They had cajoled and argued with Home Office, met with the Prime Minister, even sent an urgent appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the Queen.

Nothing had come of it.

Nothing.

The pacing stopped.

“We should leave now,” the peer advised in a voice made hoarse by a night’s worth of pleading. “There will be a scrum outside of the prison. We do not want to be caught in that.”



“I would advise you not to attend, my lord. Your health is still at risk,” Alastair said.

Wescomb waved him off. “I must do this. It is my failure, and I must face it head on.”

Alastair nodded somberly, though he disagreed that it had anything to do with Wescomb’s abilities. After one last whispered prayer, he followed the lord down the darkened hallway.

Lady Sephora waited at the foot of the stairs.

“John…”

The peer embraced her with his uninjured arm. “We have done all we can, Sephora. It is truly in God’s hands now.”

A single tear wound its way down her pale cheek. She made no effort to brush it away, allowing it to be joined in a moment by another. And then another.

A most elegant eulogy for our dear friend.

~??~??~??~



As the time drew near, the crowd milled outside the prison like cattle in a tight corral. Cynda guessed there must be at least five hundred Londoners awaiting the death of one man. Some were selling hot potatoes and others broadsheets that supposedly contained Keats’ last words. Still, there was a solemnity here that had been missing at past executions.

To her annoyance, one of her memories returned in full force, reinforced by a particularly vivid run report. The year was 1760, the execution of an earl at Tyburn Hill, west of London. A tourist had insisted he wanted to see a “genuine hanging” and had paid her employers extra for the privilege. Worried what might happen if a junior Rover took the assignment, she’d reluctantly taken the trip.

They’d waited for nearly three hours for the prisoner’s arrival from Newgate as his escort fought their way through the thousands packing the route and the area around the scaffold. During that time, she protected her charge from the dregs of London’s underclass: pickpockets, belligerent drunks, blousy prostitutes hunting customers, robbers, and unscrupulous vendors of all sorts.



At that time, the long drop wasn’t in use. No quick or painless death; just slow strangling at the end of a rope. The locals called it “dancing the Tyburn jig.” She’d kept her eyes averted during that horror, but the tourist had watched every agonizing minute with morbid fascination. Despite the garish spectacle, he’d been elated. He’d witnessed a bit of history, he said, and then promptly purchased one of the broadsheets as a souvenir for his wife. When Cynda returned home, she informed TIC that she would never go near another hanging.

And yet here she was.

At least the ritual had changed. Now the executions took place inside Newgate Prison, away from the crowds, every attempt made to preserve the condemned’s dignity.

Except this time it was Jonathon Keats.

“What if ’e’s not good for it?” someone called out behind her, jarring her out of her sickening recollection. “If they can ’ang ’im, they can ’ang any of us.”