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By Root 757 0

of a capital crime, the ‘higher court’ meant the Sessions House on Old Bailey. In normal circumstances, the room might still have been too small, but in the light of the feverish interest that Pyke’s trial had generated, its size seemed even more diminished. It was not a grand room, by any stretch of the imagination: the blackened walls and ceilings and the oppressive smell made it seem more like a public house than a court of law. It was certainly shabbier than the corresponding office at Bow Street but the examination was being held at Great Marlborough Street on the insistence of the Home Office. Rightly, they felt that Pyke would receive a more favourable hearing from Sir Richard Fox than he would from any of the magistrates at Bow Street.

The office was choked with all manner of spectators. From the dock, an elevated platform fenced off by a wooden rail facing the magistrates’ bench, Pyke watched as a line of eminent society figures took up their seats next to James Slingsby Bodkin, who was in charge of the hearing. He recognised Sir Henry Hobhouse, the retired Home Office under-secretary and a friend of Peel, the radical writer John Wade, and someone who resembled Edmund Kean, the famous thespian. Beneath the bench, the room was thronging with less salubrious types: people who had queued through the night for the chance to see one of their own - one who had risen too far above his station - take a fall.

The fact that the working poor often sided with the pick of society never failed to surprise him.

But it was a spectacle, not a committal hearing.

Pyke did not have any doubt about the verdict or what would happen during the hearing itself: the coroner’s report would be read out, witnesses would be allowed to give their evidence (especially ones whose words might incriminate him), expert testimony about Pyke’s character would be aired, the prosecution counsel would lay out the evidence against him and Pyke would have a chance to refute the claims and challenge any of the prosecution’s witnesses.

Bodkin would talk about the seriousness of the crime and the gravity of the evidence stacked against Pyke. He would ask Pyke whether he wished to say anything in his defence and when Pyke said nothing - as he planned to - the man would look around him at the packed office and then fix his gaze on Pyke and say in his small, affected voice, ‘Accused, you will be committed to Newgate to take your trial at the ensuing sessions commencing on the twentieth day of March eighteen hundred and twenty-nine for the willing, cold-blooded murder of Elizabeth Morgan on the night of the fourth day of March eighteen hundred and twenty-nine in a drinking establishment on Duke Street in the Smithfield area of London.’

Pyke would say nothing in his defence, both in order to disappoint the expectant crowd and to rile Bodkin and the prosecution counsel, who, like all prosecution counsels, expected to use the committal hearings to elicit incriminating statements from the accused. He would also say nothing because it would hasten the court’s proceedings.

If Pyke had no doubt he would be found guilty, however he conducted himself in court, what was the point of holding things up?

This way, he would be committed to a ward in Newgate prison by nightfall, from where he would be able to plan his next move, even as the forces of the criminal justice system were being marshalled against him. The grim irony of the gaoler being jailed was not lost on him, nor was he under any misapprehension about the real dangers he faced from elements within Newgate itself. If Pyke survived the first night, then perhaps he had a chance.

Chained by the hands and feet, Pyke was led by a turnkey through what seemed to be a never-ending maze of damp, narrow passages, illuminated only by occasional lanterns affixed to the walls. Periodically their progress was halted by heavy-set doors which were unbolted and opened in order to let them pass through. The sound of clanking iron drowned out the muffled shouts from the belly of the prison, but it was by no means a reassuring