The Gallows Murders

riverbanks.'
    'So,' Benjamin asked, 'are you ever threatened by friends, relatives, or members of the gangs?'
    Mallow grinned and sipped from his tankard. 'Now that's strange,' he declared. 'Oh, yes, sometimes. However, Master Daunbey, we are masked and hooded, whilst most felons and cut-throats see capture, imprisonment and execution as an occupational hazard. Amongst the outlaws and wolvesheads there is only one law: don't be caught.' He shrugged. 'And if you are, you pay the price. Why, where are these questions leading to?'
    ‘We believe that the murders of members of your guild are definitely linked to the blackmailing letters being sent to the King. Now,' Benjamin paused to collect his thoughts, 'God knows the reason, though I suspect it might be connected to the events which occurred in the Tower on the night of the King's birthday.' 'What do you mean?' Wormwood snapped.
    'If I knew, ‘I’d tell you,' Benjamin declared. 'Nevertheless,' he continued, ‘Undershaft, Horehound and Hellbane were all slain with a malicious relish. Each of them suffered execution as laid down by the law. Undershaft was burnt in a cage. Hellbane drowned in a sack, and Horehound pressed to death. We believe the assassin has a grudge against all of your company.'
    'But, as we have said -' Snakeroot's shifty eyes gazed Wearily at us, his mouth slack and dribbling '- the villains of London leave us alone.'
    Think!' Benjamin urged them. Think! Have there been any executions, carried out by all of you, where vengeance was promised?'
    Benjamin's words hung like a hangman's noose over this sinister group of men. They had walked into the tavern the roaring, bully boys, used to exercising the power of life and death. Now they were being confronted with the prospect of their own executions, and macabre ones at that.
    (Oh, I see my little clerk is tapping his quill. A sign he wishes to ask a question. 'Have you ever been an executioner?' he squeaks. I am tempted to rap him over the knuckles with my ash cane for his impertinence: the answer is no! In all my adventures, despite all the extremities I have been pushed to, I have never taken a life unless I have had to. There, he can shut his mouth and 111 continue.) Think!' Benjamin repeated.
    The Sakker Gang!' Toadflax spoke up, running his hands through his yellow hair. 'Of course!' Mallow breathed. The Sakkers!' ‘Who are they?' Benjamin asked.
    'A Kentish gang,' Mallow replied slowly. 'A father and five sons. They owned a tavern on the London to Canterbury road. They used to prey on pilgrims. The sheriff of Kent and the local law officers could do nothing against them. They robbed, plundered, raped and ravished. At first no one suspected them. They owned a tavern near St Thomas's watering-hole. Pilgrims would stop there. The Sakkers wined and dined them, carefully scrutinising their intended victims. The following morning, after the pilgrims had left, the Sakkers would take a short cut through the forest and ambush them: heavily armed pilgrims they left alone. They preyed on those little groups: families, merchants alone with their wives. Sometimes they would just rob. However, if they thought there was danger of being identified, they would kill with a cold ruthlessness.' 'And no one suspected them?' Benjamin asked.
    'Well, no. As I have said, it was a father and five sons. The eldest, Robert, would stay in the tavern and pretend that his father and brothers were with him. They'd amassed quite a fortune. One day a merchant stayed at the tavern, months earlier one of his comrades had been attacked and killed. Now this merchant had given his friend a bracelet, a midsummer present which he saw on the wrist of one of the Sakkers. The merchant immediately returned to London and laid this information before the sheriffs. The gang was caught by Theophilus Pelleter.'
    ‘Who?' I interrupted, intrigued by such a strange name.
    Theophilus Pelleter. One of the under-sheriffs,' Mallow replied. 'He lives with his daughter in Catte Street.' His eyes softened. 'A good man, straight and true. I understand that when the plague visited the city, Pelleter stayed at his post and did what he could.'
    I stared across the tavern where a cat, a rat caught between his jaws, padded out from the kitchen and disappeared into the stableyard.
    'Anyway,' Mallow continued, 'Pelleter laid a trap. The entire gang was rounded up and appeared before King's Bench where, because of their crimes, the judges ruled that their