Slack Your Rope, Hangman

[sonetka]

In The Beginning is now posted on AO3, for the benefit of castiron and, of course, all the Harriet/Philip shippers out there! I've cleaned it up a bit, mostly smoothing out some of the dialogue and historical references, and making sure it's as much in line with the book as possible (I'd forgotten that the Dyers lived above them, not below, and that Sylvia

Comments

[castiron]

Thank you :-).

I could see the pre-hanging breakdown going either way -- a less severe one, because this was a case where it was pretty darn clear that Peter had nabbed the right person and saved someone important to him, or a more severe one, precisely *because* Harriet has become so important to him and he now has leisure to think about what he would have lost if he'd failed.

[sonetka]

No problem! I'm flattered that someone liked it well enough to want to download it :).

I keep switching back and forth between scenarios as well -- though I can definitely picture an ugly breakdown when he begins thinking about just how different this particular last visit before hanging had the potential to be. Maybe he's sitting across from Urquhart and begins imagining Harriet in that chair.

[nineveh_uk]

I have to admit that I like the extra-angsty scenario, though "dashes off to Norfolk and has cast-iron excuse not to visit Urquhart at all" has a lot going for it.

[sonetka]

And of course, there's always the possibility that Urquhart took the classic Sayers Villain departure and managed to kill himself while in custody, like Mary Whittaker. Looking it over, it's surprising how few of the murderers from the novels live long enough to actually be executed.

[nineveh_uk]

Long, long ago, I proposed a sort of 'suicide by natural causes', and I retain a headcanon possibility of Urquhart expiring pre-trial due to arsenic, though it would have to get him pretty quickly.

The novels are a bit short on actual executions, considering how much the possibility comes up. Perhaps it is as well for Peter's health. Though I suppose that even at the time, capital punishment was politically controversial and the sentence often commuted, so there's a tension between the mystery novel needing the death to close it, and the realistic scenario tht a lot of murderers weren't being hanged, especially in the not-straightforward circumstances that make a good story!

[sonetka]

Excellent and very depressingly realistic AU (arsenic-eating being very bad for the long-term health) though I'm pretty sure there's a glancing reference to Urquhart's trial near the beginning of HHC -- either Umpelty or Glaisher (I can never remember which is which) says something about Peter having testified at the trial and that it was a pretty piece of business, along with something about like "Not but what Scotland Yard wouldn't have got the right man in the end," which wouldn't have meant a whole lot to Harriet if she'd been covered in quicklime by the time it happened. I spent a lot of tangential time while writing my fic reading about 1920s and 1930s capital cases and in this case, I think both Urquhart and Harriet would have been at real risk since poisoners weren't looked on too kindly -- the premeditation element, probably, and it was seen as being particularly cruel -- especially since most poisonings were done for gain. (By the way, have you ever read "A Pin To See The Peepshow"? It could be a great source for a Harriet-