Deadlight-Hall(80)

Then the executioner stepped back and nodded, and said something about ‘Deeply regret’ or ‘Deeply distressed’ and added, ‘All is now in order.’

Mr Glaister, that good, kind gentleman, reached out to pat Esther’s shoulder, and said, ‘Soon you will be beyond all this, my dear.’

But she was not.

When they made the third attempt, something even more terrible happened. The trapdoor opened, and there was a dreadful cracking sound – the kind of crack that makes you wince and feel as if something deep and agonizing has wrenched at the base of your neck. Esther Breadspear gave a moan of pain, and it was then that I saw only half of the trap had opened. It had jerked the doomed woman into an ugly, uneven position, so that part of her was dangling over the execution pit, but the left side of her body was resting on the half of the door – the half that had not moved. She struggled and writhed frantically.

The hangman dragged at the lever again, but the remaining door refused to open. Even from where I stood I saw sweat break out on his brow, then the assistant ran over to him, and they put their combined weight behind the task. Still the half of the door did not move, and still Esther Breadspear writhed and moaned.

The hangman turned to the watchers, and put up his hands in a gesture of panic, as if saying, ‘Help me – I don’t know what to do.’ He was visibly shaken, and his hands – those dreadful gloved hands – were trembling. The assistant looked as if he was about to faint.

Mr Glaister took over. He rapped out an order to the two warders, who at once dropped a thick plank over the gaping pit. By dint of standing on that and stretching out their arms, they could reach Esther.

‘Cut her down,’ said Mr Glaister very sharply. ‘Quickly now.’

The hangman said, uncertainly, ‘Perhaps if she’s left long enough …’

‘She isn’t strangling,’ put in the doctor. ‘But she’s badly injured. Glaister is right. You must get her down.’ He produced some sort of surgical implement from his bag, and the warders seized it and sawed through the thick rope. As the strands parted, Esther fell prone, but even lying all anyhow on the floor we could all see that her neck had been impossibly twisted by the lopsided fall, and that one of her shoulders had been wrenched askew, giving her body a warped, hunched shape.

Under the doctor’s guidance, the warders carried her out, and Mr Glaister looked towards me and said, ‘Please to go with her, if you would be so kind.’

And so we sat, Esther Breadspear and I, in that dreadful cell, the pinions and the hood removed, and we waited to be told what would happen next. Esther did not speak, and I could think of nothing to say. The doctor spent a long time examining her, and when he finally stepped back from the bed, he told me that her spine had been severely twisted.

‘Fatally?’ asked the chaplain, who had followed us in, and had tried to say a few ineffectual words about trusting in the Lord’s mercy until I glared at him and he relapsed into silence.

‘No, not fatally, but I do not think it can be put right,’ said the doctor, frowning. He bent over the figure on the bed again, then shook his head. ‘It is beyond my medical knowledge to pronounce exactly. As for her mind …’ A shrug. ‘I do not think she has a mind any longer.’

He scarcely needed to say this. Esther was staring ahead of her with empty eyes, rinsed of all emotion and comprehension.

I have no idea how long it was before Mr Glaister came to us, because time no longer had any meaning in that room. When he appeared, the official gentleman was with him, and also Mr Augustus Breadspear, Esther’s husband. To see Mr Breadspear was a shock, for it was said he had had nothing to do with his wife since the tragedy. I looked at Esther for a reaction, but there was only that dreadful blank stare.

Mr Glaister said, in a very gentle voice, ‘We are faced with an extraordinarily difficult situation. This is something that happens so rarely, the law is not entirely clear as to the procedure we have to follow. And in light of the prisoner’s severe injuries …’ He frowned, then appeared to collect himself. ‘This gentleman is from the Home Office,’ he said. ‘He is helping us to make a decision.’

The Home Office gentleman said, ‘There is not exactly provision in the law for this kind of unfortunate eventuality, but there is something referred to as an Act of God. That is regarded as being the case when there have been three unsuccessful attempts at execution. It seems to me that this may apply here, although I should have to consult my superiors, of course.’