Edward Kane, Advocate in The Hanged Man. Chapter 16: Professional Difficulties

Edward Kane, Advocate in The Hanged Man. Chapter 16: Professional Difficulties (Illustration: Lesley-Anne Barnes Macfarlane)

The early morning consultation at Calton Jail in anticipation of the court hearing had become more than a little heated.

Dr Jack Balloch was pointing into the face of his Advocate, Edward Kane: ‘It beyond outrageous – it is disgraceful. I’ll have your guts for garters, Kane.’

The younger brother – Sandy Balloch, who, sitting there, resembled the older brother, but shrunk in the wash - had a quizzical look: ‘Oh, Mr Kane, Mr Kane - what precisely are these “professional difficulties” that you say are causing you to withdraw from acting. On the very day of the crucial court hearing, I might add. The crucial hearing that will set my brother free.’

Edward Kane, Advocate

Since the visit to the haberdashers that morning and then in the carriage with Phipps the solicitor to the prison to see the client, Edward Kane had tried to formulate a wording that would allow him to withdraw from acting without showing his hand. What he now knew. Or thought he knew. But this attempt at withdrawal was becoming impossible given the onslaught by the condemned man and his (admittedly, more even-tempered) brother.

The older brother was shouting: ‘You will never work again, sir. I will see to that. We shall lodge a formal complaint against you, Kane. A complaint to The Dean of Faculty himself. That will show you! And don’t think that I won’t. The Dean happens to be a personal friend.’

(The young Advocate had the sudden thought that if The Dean was such a ‘personal friend’, then why was he not instructed to argue the case himself?)

Attempting to quieten the doctor, the younger brother became the moderator: ‘If you do intend to withdraw, Mr Kane, then, you will understand, we would require an appropriate – and full – explanation.’ The younger brother presented as calm, but Kane noted that he was now repeatedly rubbing and irritating the red, strawberry birthmark on his chin.

Kane stared at the floor for a time, then, when he looked up, he saw three pairs of eyes staring at him: the eyes of the two brothers and the incredulous solicitor. The Advocate made a faltering start: ‘I…um…I worked it out. How you did it, I mean…’

The older brother guffawed: ‘You make no sense, sir…’

‘…I mean the hanging…how you staged the hanging…’

The younger brother shook his head and rubbed his reddening chin: ‘“Staged?”, Mr Kane, surely…’

‘Cleverly done, I’m bound to say, with the other individuals involved entirely unaware of their own contribution…’

‘Balderdash, sir.’

‘But the plan had to work out just so, otherwise all was lost. The night before the hanging, you send a group of medical students to the well-known local hostelry where the hangman, George Gibney is wont to drink. And – having located him – they repeatedly send him over more and more rum. There was no earthly reason to do that – other than it was a part of a larger plan…’

Jack Balloch shook his head and sat back in his chair: ‘Pshaw!’ He turned to his younger brother: ‘Do we have to keep listening to this bilge?’

Balloch the Younger placed his finger to his lips to quiet his older brother and motioned for the Advocate to go on. Kane continued: ‘Whether it was the sheer quantity of alcohol, or whether those students had access to something to guarantee fogginess for the hangman the next day – the day of the hanging, I mean – is perhaps i rrelevant – but suffice to say that on the day, George Gibney was well and truly off his game.’

A hush had descended on the room. Kane l ooke d around the room. The faces of the brothers, smiling now, seemed to be focused on the floor. Only the solicitor stared at Kane, face puzzled. The younger brother looked up: ‘Ingenious, Mr Kane, but you forget – several thousand people witnessed the hanging itself…’

Kane cut in: ‘They were fooled. They witnessed what looked like a hanging, but it was no more a genuine threat to life than…’ he was lost for words for a moment, but then remembered his conversation with Mr Horse, ‘…than a fairground conjuror sawing a lady in half.’

The older Balloch had had enough. He pushed back his chair, gave a grunt, got up and stood the table. He picked up his deck of Tarot cards and began to deal them. The younger brother grinned and gave his chin a rub: ‘Proceed, Mr Kane – this is fascinating.’

‘Your brother there mounted the scaffold dressed as if for winter? With what looked like additional layers of clothing. Shivering with cold? Pretence. In fact, you had fashioned him a harness, hadn’t you? Much like the one you wear yourself under your shirt – that could be attached to the rope.’

The younger brother nodded. It was difficult to tell if he was agreeing or just considering what was being said. Kane continued: ‘And when the time came, you asked for a private moment to say a prayer into your brother’s ear – and while doing so, you hooked the harness to the rope so that it could bear the weight…’

Alexander Balloch gave a little laugh: ‘You are very clever, Mr Kane – but you are forgetting something…’

‘Such as?’

‘The rope, Mr Kane. The noose was placed around my brother’s neck and the rope alone would have done the trick. So much for your ingenious theories. Now…’

But Kane held up a hand to interrupt him: ‘No – the rope was ineffective for two reasons: One – your medical students had ensured that it received a good soaking the night before, didn’t they. That would have had an effect on its ability to tighten as a noose.’

Young Balloch smiled. ‘And “two”?’

‘And two: your brother there wore a protective collar – probably made of wood – under his own raised collar…’

The younger Balloch laughed out loud now: ‘Oh, Mr Kane – I do hope that your legal submissions today are not as fanciful as your theories. A wooden collar…’

Kane pressed on: ‘You had such a collar made. A local haberdasher remembers being asked to make such an unusual item…’

‘Nonsense…’

‘…and the person who asked him to make such a thing, apparently, was of perfectly ordinary appearance…’

‘Well, then..,’

‘…apart from a curious birthmark in his chin. The haberdasher said that it was as if the chap’s chin had been dipped in jam.’

At this point, the younger Balloch’s chin looked as if it had been dipped in jam.

Edward Kane in The Hanged Man concludes in tomorrow’s Scotsman in ‘Death. Again.’