Hardcastle's Traitors (30 page)

‘Indeed, sir,' said Hardcastle.

‘By the way,' Quinn added, ‘Pierre Benoit, the Frenchman who passed on the information given him by Captain Villiers, was guillotined in Paris four days ago.'

‘But I thought the French had offered him immunity if he cooperated, sir.'

‘They lied,' said Quinn.

Within forty-eight hours the three convicted spies had also been executed. Haydn Villiers and Irma Glatzer were dispatched at the Tower; Sinclair Villiers had been hanged at Wormwood Scrubs whence he had been transferred immediately following his trial.

Waving aside the attendant rabbi, Irma Glatzer was the first to face the firing squad. She did so without displaying any trace of fear. In fact, there was an imperious lifting of her chin just before the volley of shots rang out.

Haydn Villiers, however, presented a pitiable figure. Gone was the sneering army officer who had told his MI5 interrogators that he was prepared to die for his cause, but who had believed that he would not have to. Semi-conscious and gibbering inaudibly, he was carried to his execution, and so incapable of standing was he that the officer in charge ordered that he be secured to a chair.

It was six weeks later that the trial of Isaac Gosling took place at the Central Criminal Court at Old Bailey.

Sir George Cave, the Solicitor-General, appeared for the Crown; Sir Frederick Smith, the Attorney-General, was otherwise engaged on matters concerning the war.

Gosling pleaded Not Guilty to the two indictments of murdering his father and Peter Stein. But once the evidence of the fingerprints and the footprint, together with Dr Spilsbury's testimony regarding the blood had been given, the jury took less than an hour to find him guilty.

The judge donned the black cap, sentenced him to death, and implored the Almighty to have mercy on his soul. To which the judge's chaplain added ‘Amen'.

Three weeks later Gosling was hanged at Pentonville prison in north London. As was usual on these occasions, a morbid crowd surged forward to read the black-framed announcement that was posted on the gates. At the same time a black flag was raised over the prison.

In accordance with the regulations, Gosling's body was interred in an unmarked grave within the precincts of the prison.