Property of a Lady(80)

Even so, my courage almost failed me at that point – I wished for nothing but to return home and sit down to the supper Mrs Figgis would have left out for me. But as the group made its way through the prison, I said, ‘I shan’t be travelling back with you. I have an old aunt in Shrewsbury town I should like to visit.’

This was seen as a perfectly reasonable arrangement. I was considered sensible to take advantage of the opportunity of being in Shrewsbury. There was some slight concern as to how I would get back, however.

‘I can spend the night at my aunt’s house,’ I said, ‘and walk along to the railway station in the morning.’


It satisfied them. Shrewsbury General Station is the Shrewsbury to Chester line – part of the Abbey Foregate loop – and a great many trains go through it. I would be able to travel to the halt at Marston Montgomery. It’s a three-mile walk from there to Marston Lacy, but there are any number of drays and carters coming and going who would happily take me up.

As we were ushered through the prison precincts, with doors and gates unlocked by the warders every fifteen yards, I deliberately lagged behind and caught the eye of the warder I had noticed earlier. A weasel-faced fellow he was, with a darting, acquisitive eye. Speaking quietly, I asked him in which direction the burial yard lay.

‘It’s over there,’ he said, pointing furtively. His lips formed a sly curve. ‘You’d like to take a look, sir? See where we put the murderers?’ The words were respectful, the tone was not.

I said, ‘It could be interesting. Worth my while.’ A pause, the count of five. ‘Worth yours too, perhaps,’ I said, softly so the others could not hear.

‘How much worth?’

‘Half a sovereign.’ It was a lot, but there was no point in penny-pinching.

‘Souvenir of a murderer?’ he said. ‘Lock of hair, bit of shroud to brag about and make money on? Is that what you’re after?’

I said, as frostily as I could, ‘Indeed not. But as one of the Howard Prison Reform Organization, I should like to see the exact conditions in which an executed murderer is buried.’

‘Call it what you want,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Listen, then. Pretend to turn your ankle on the cobbles. I’ll take you into the warders’ room to strap it up.’

The facility with which he came up with this small plan – a much simpler and better one than my original idea of hiding and waiting until nightfall – indicated he was not unused to such an arrangement. It’s a sad reflection on the curiosity of men, but I am in no position to level criticism.

I flatter myself I staged the ankle-turning business neatly. A stumble, a startled cry of pain, and within minutes I was helped into a small room opening off the courtyard, furnished with battered chairs and a table.

‘Now then,’ said the warder briskly, ‘how long d’you want?’

‘An hour at least. Two would be better. At a time when no one is around.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I thought it was souvenirs you was after. In that case, half a jimmy o’goblin won’t be enough. Make it whole one.’ It was extortion, pure and simple. I hesitated, and he said, ‘You pay me that and I’ll come back later and unlock a door to get you out.’

I had worried about this part of the proceedings quite a lot. My plan had been to remain inside the prison all night and find my way out when the morning contingent of warders came on duty. But this new twist would solve it very well for me. I briefly considered how far I could trust this man – it would be easy for him to leave me in the prison all night and deny all knowledge next morning.

But these things work both ways, and I said, very coldly, ‘If you cheat me in any way, I shall see to it that you lose your position here and are prosecuted. I am a man of some standing, and I think my word will be believed over yours. I hope that’s clear?’

‘I won’t cheat you,’ he said, and I thought there was a ring of sincerity in his tone, so I nodded and handed over the sovereign.

‘Good,’ he said, tucking it in an inner pocket. ‘You got until seven o’clock tonight when the night guard goes round. That do you?’

It was ten minutes to five and already dark. I said, ‘That will do very well.’

‘I’m off duty at seven. I’ll come back just before the hour and we’ll go out together. You’ll appear to be a visitor I’m seeing out. Simple as can be. From there on it’s your business how you get back to wherever you live.’

Any burial ground is a grim place, but that piece of land on the side of Shrewsbury Prison is the eeriest place I have ever encountered.

It was not very large, and although sparse grass grew here and there it had a sick look, as if there was some disease in the soil beneath. It was very dark, but a thin, cold moonlight oozed through the clouds so that I could see the outline of the newly-dug grave near one wall. It’s extraordinary how that shape strikes such terror into the heart; seeing it brought every superstition and every grisly legend ever read or dreamed or remembered into my mind. Because one should not disturb the resting place of any man, even that of a murderer, perhaps especially that of a murderer.

The words of the Ingoldsby rhyme ran maddeningly in and out of my head as I approached the grave.

On the lone bleak moor, at the midnight hour,

Beneath the Gallows Tree . . .