Edward Kane, Advocate in The Hanged Man. Chapter 6: ‘You Have Done Evil in Doing This…’

The prisoner stood up turned around. He extended his hand to Kane. ‘Jack Balloch. Dr Jack Balloch.’ The Advocate shook hands with his new client. Balloch looked him up and down: ‘You must be Kane, the Advocate, then…’

The prisoner motioned to his guests to sit down on the bed, while he drew up a chair. ‘You will excuse the lack of amenities, gentlemen. I would order some tea for us but I fear that the response would involve a certain measure of cursing from the guards.’

They sat down. The condemned (in fact, now officially deceased) man engaged with a lightness of touch more suited to a drawing room than a dingy prison cell. He nodded towards the window: ‘Yes – of course – the crowds outside – the hanging in the courtyard. Today. I had quite forgotten.’ He produced a pipe from one pocket and a box of matches from the other. He struck the match, lit the pipe with contented puffs, shook out the match and tossed it onto the floor. ‘Actually, I met the chap in question the other day. The “condemned man”, that is.’ He tilted his head up towards the window: ‘Met him in the courtyard there. Sought me out. Nice fellow. Sailor. Strangled his wife when he thought she was carrying on with his cousin behind his back. Big mistake, apparently. She was planning a surprise party for him. With the cousin. For when the chap returned from sea. Just got the wrong end of the stick, I suppose.’ He chuckled: ‘Now it’s the the wrong end of a rope.’ The doctor puffed on his pipe and carried on, as if telling a story of friends at the New Club. ‘Grabbed the unfortunate woman by the neck and snuffed her out like a candle. So, that jolly Tar asked me: “How do you survive a hanging?” Told him “Blowed if I know, my friend. Blowed if I know.”’

They sat in silence for a time. Then Phipps spoke: ‘I’m afraid that they didn’t allow your release, Dr Balloch. At least, not at the moment. There will be a hearing next week.’

The doctor nodded: ‘I know. I received word from one of your errand boys.’ He turned to Kane: ‘And what is your prognosis, Mr Kane?’ Balloch tapped the mouthpiece of the pipe against his chest and leaned forward: ‘Will the patient live or die?’ He smiled: ‘You will forgive me for using medical language here.’

Edward Kane frowned: ‘As a matter of law, I’m afraid that we are in uncharted territory, Dr Balloch’.

The prisoner raised his eyes to the ceiling: ‘Fiddlesticks, sir – fiddlesticks. We have done our own research here. Margaret Dickson – the unfortunate barmaid who killed her child. Hanged. Survived. Pardoned. You survive the act of hanging. You are pardoned afterwards. That has been the law for – what – a century or so?’

Kane suddenly realised that he was being schooled in The Law. By a doctor.

Balloch frowned and shook his head: ‘I am surprised that you did not know, Mr Kane, the case commonly referred to as ‘Half-Hangit Maggie’. I should have thought that even school children would know that.’

Kane was even-tempered by nature, but could not resist: ‘I am grateful to you, doctor, for your legal analysis here…’

Balloch bristled and pointed his pipe at the Advocate: ‘No need to be impertinent, sir, I was merely…’

Kane cut across him: ‘The case of Maggie Dickson – or “Half-hangit Maggie” as it is known – did indeed occur, but that was some hundred years ago. And she was indeed hanged, recovered and pardoned…’

‘Then my analysis was correct. No need to…’

‘However,’ Kane continued, ‘her particular situation led to a change in the law. In Maggie Dickson’s day, it was sufficient that the sentence – the “doom” as it were – was pronounced that she should be “hanged”. That would have been deemed an adequate statement on her sentence…’

The doctor lifted his pipe again to interrupt - Kane halted him with a raised hand: ‘…and so, after the Maggie Dickson case, the wording of the sentence was altered to “hanged until dead” – to avoid…to avoid…’

Balloch sat back in his chair: ‘We knew that. I knew that.’ He leaned forward to make his point: ‘In my case, there were two doctors at the scene.’ He held up two fingers: ‘Two sir. I was pronounced dead. There is a signed certificate confirming my death. What more do these blasted judges want?’

Kane thought for a moment, then: ‘Two doctors? The certificate had only…’

‘Enough of these questions, sir. I am not paying you good money to be impertinent…’ (It struck Kane that Dr Balloch was not, in fact, paying him – or anyone else for that matter – ‘good money’ – it was coming out of his estate), ‘Just do your job and get me out of here. Any half-wit in the street could tell you that I have served my sentence – it’s your job to persuade the half-wits on the bench of that.’

The prisoner got up from his chair and walked across the room. He stared at the spread of cards on the table. He pointed down and smiled: ‘You see – it’s all on the cards.’

Kane and Phipps got up from the bed and went to the table. Balloch picked up a card and studied it: ‘“The Hanged Man”, Mr Kane. The hanged man.’ He smiled. ‘That’s me, isn’t it.’ Balloch held up the card for Kane to see: ‘Are you aware of The Tarot, sir?’

Kane looked again – this time, he became aware that the cards these were no ordinary cards laid face-up on the table. An array of images and figures were now visible: a chariot, a wheel, a tower being struck by lightning. Kane looked up and attempted a smile: ‘Ah, I see doctor. Yes. Tarot. I am aware of the cards, but I wager that I have never yet seen a full deck.’ The Advocate reached down to pick up and examine one. He felt a sudden grab of his wrist. Dr Balloch was agitated, scolding the young Advocate as if he were a bad dog. ‘Ah-ah! No. No, sir. Please. Mindfully. Tread carefully. We need to preserve their purity….’ He lifted up a card and stared at it: ‘…their power, if you will.’

Kane had a sudden memory of his father, a clergyman, preaching against The Tarot. Against divination. Kane knotted his eyebrows. Where was the quote from again? Genesis? The prohibition against Divination. “You have done evil in doing this…”

The doctor looked at the Advocate. ‘You look troubled, sir. I don’t wonder.’ He put the card back down and looked at the spread on the table. ‘You see before you the ancient wisdom of The Book of Thoth.’ He smiled. The deck was given me by a Gypsy woman when I was a student of medicine and I treated her child. I took no fee – being young and foolish at the time.’ He stared at the cards on the table. ‘But the cards…the cards have guided me…rewarded me one hundred times over.’

Balloch suddenly became lighter: ‘I will perform a reading for you, Mr Kane.’ He scooped the cards from the table and arranged them into a deck ready to be dealt. He held them out to Kane. ‘Take them and shuffle them, sir.’ The young lawyer – at some level still acutely aware of his late father’s disapproval - recoiled and took a step back. The doctor guffawed: ‘Your future will find you, Mr Kane - whether you hide from it or not.’ He gave a sneer: ‘Then I shall read it for you, Mr Kane, shall I?’ Before the Advocate could formulate a polite objection, Balloch quickly shuffled the cards and laid one on the table. The card was hideous. A skeleton holding a scythe. The doctor shook his head. ‘Oh dear, Mr Kane, oh dear.’

‘Doctor Balloch, I did not ask you to…’

‘You cannot escape the cards, Mr Kane.’ He nodded down to the table. And your reading is clear.’ He paused for a moment, then smiled to himself:

‘Death, Mr. Kane. The card is Death.’

Tomorrow: ‘I’ve left the wife and I’m hungry for love…’