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.’
‘If what has just happened is not an Act of God, I do not know what is,’ put in the chaplain.
‘And the prisoner is now clearly mad,’ said the doctor.
‘Mad people have been hanged before now,’ said the Home Office gentleman. ‘But …’
He looked at the doctor who, as if responding to a signal, said, ‘She has certain injuries to the spine and neck.’ He went on to use terms I had never heard, and although there was something about the vertebrae (I believe this to mean the spine) and something about damage – a fracture or dislocation – I am not recording any of what he said, since I may not have understood correctly.
What I do understand, however, is what the doctor said next.
‘You may seek other opinions,’ he said. ‘Indeed, I think you should do so. But I believe any authorities you consult will agree with my findings.’ He paused, and then said, ‘It is my opinion that in view of the injuries caused during the bungled execution, it will no longer be physically possible to hang Esther Breadspear.’
TWENTY-ONE