RGL e-Book Cover 2018©
RGL e-Book Cover 2018©
Ladbroke (Lionel Day) Black (1877-1940) was an English writer and journalist who also wrote under the pseudonym Paul Urquhart. His life and career are summarised in the following entry in Steve Holland's Bear Alley blog:
Black, born in Burley-in-Wharfdale, Yorkshire, on 21 June 1877, was educated in Ireland and at Cambridge where he earned a B.A. He became assistant editor of The Phoenix in 1897 before moving to London in 1899 where he joined The Morning Herald as assistant editor in 1900. He later became assistant editor of the Echo in 1901, joint editor of Today, 1904-05, and special writer on the Weekly Dispatch, 1905-11. After a forgettable first novel, "A Muddied Oaf" (1902), co-written with Francis Rutter, Black collaborated on the collection "The Mantle of the Emperor" (1906) with Robert Lynd, later literary editor of the News Chronicle. He then produced a series of novels in collaboration with [Thomas] Meech under the name Paul Urquhart, beginning with "The Eagles" (1906). Black also wrote for various magazines and newspapers, sometimes using the pen-name Lionel Day. His books ranged from romances to Sexton Blake detective yarns. His recreations included sports (boxing and rugby), reading and long walks. He lived in Wendover, Bucks, for many years and was Chairman of the Mid-Bucks Liberal Party in 1922-24. He died on 27 July 1940, aged 63, survived by his wife (Margaret, née Ambrose), two sons and two daughters.
This collection of real-life murder mysteries was built with material from the digital newspaper archive of the National Library of Australia (NLA). From references in the versions of the articles published in the Australian press, it is apparent that the articles were first printed in Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper (United Newspapers, London, England), beginning, presumably, in 1907.
A search of NLA records shows that, in 1908, the articles were published under the general header "Famous Mysteries" in the following Australian newspapers:
• Truth, Brisbane, Qld;
• Warwick Examiner and Times, Qld;
• Clarence and Richmond Examiner, Grafton,
NEW;
• Daily Mercury, Mackay, Queensland;
• Gympie Times and Mary River Mining Gazette,
Qld.
The original "Famous Mysteries" series consisted of more than the seven articles in the present collection. In "The Great Harley Street Enigma" Blake mentions that the first article he wrote for the series was called "The Euston Square Mystery." Also, "The Burton Crescent Murder" and "The Battersea Mutilation Case" contain references to currently unavailable articles about murders committed in Kentish Town, London, and in Norwich. — Roy Glashan, 13 February 2018
OF all the criminal mysteries which the intelligence of man has failed to solve, the murder of Lieut. Percy L.O. Roper, R.E., is one of the most remarkable. There are circumstances connected with this strange case which distinguish it in many ways from other famous mysteries.
The time occupied by the tragedy was so short, scarcely more than ten minutes, and the surroundings in which the deed was done were so confined and shut in, that the escape was little short of miraculous. Moreover, the most searching examination of witnesses, the most careful sifting of evidence, failed to bring to light any motive for the crime.
WHEN the touchstone of facts is applied to the many theories
regarding the murder they dissolve at once into nothing. At
8.30 a young officer is dining at mess; and 8.45 he is found
in a dying condition on the staircase leading to his quarters,
with a bullet through his heart. The weapon with which the
deed was committed lies near at hand. It is proved to be the
property of a fellow-officer. This officer is playing cards at
the time of the murder, and therefore the weapon must have
been stolen from his rooms by the murderer.
Now the two main motives for shedding blood are hate and greed. But neither of these motives explains the case of Lieut. Roper's death. He had not a single enemy. It was proved that he was liked by everybody that knew him; therefore hate cannot have inspired the act of the criminal. Again, had the motive of the murderer been robbery, he might just as well have burgled the quarters of the officer from whom he stole the revolver. But in the latter's rooms not a thing was touched, and only one trifling piece of jewellery was found out of place in Lieut. Roper's rooms.
What was the motive for the crime? In that question is contained the greater part of the mystery with which Lieut. Roper's death is enshrouded.
I summarise these outstanding features of the case so that the reader may get a cleat view of this extraordinary mystery. Here is the grim story itself.
DURING Friday, February 11, 1881, life at the Brompton
Barracks, Chatham, followed, to all appearances, its ordinary
course. Among the officers stationed there was a young man of
21, Lieut. Percy Lyon Ormsby Roper, of the Royal Engineers. He
had just completed his course of instruction at the School of
Military Engineering, and was due to report himself at the War
Office on the following Monday, before proceeding on extended
leave to visit his relations in Germany.
That evening, between the hours of five and six, he attended his last lecture. After that he returned to his quarters to dress for mess. He was in the highest spirits, glad possibly that he had bidden good-bye to the classroom for some time to come, and had few more irksome duties to perform before setting out for the Continent. The officers sat down to mess at half-past seven.
Shortly after he had taken his seat Lieut. Roper received a hastily-scribbled note from his great friend, Lieut. Stuart Davidson. There was an entertainment on that night in the town, and his friend wanted him to come to it as soon as the mess was over. Roper scribbled back in reply, "Dear sir,—I want to finish a letter; but would be glad to go a little later.—Yours, P.L.C.R."
Several of the officers rose and left before dinner was finished, but Lieut. Davidson and Lieut. Roper stayed until the wine had been passed round. The seats on both sides of the latter had been vacated when he called his servant, William Gallagher, a pensioned sergeant of the Royal Marines, to his side, and gave him instructions about calling him the following morning.
Lieut. Davidson spoke to his friend, trying to persuade him to change his mind about the entertainment. The other replied that he could not accompany him, as he had a letter to finish, and that he would join him later.
"You had better hurry up," he added, "or you won't got a seat."
Two minutes later, at 8.30 precisely, Lieut. Roper left the mess-room. His friend followed a couple of minutes afterwards, and, having procured his forage cap from his quarters in No. 10 house, went, straight off to the theatre.
From the mess-room Lieut. Roper made his way to No. 9 house, a block of buildings set apart solely for the use of officers and their servants. His sitting-room has just been set to rights by Mrs. Gallagher, his servant's wife, who had left only a few seconds beforehand. A bright fire was burning on the hearth, and, lighting a few candles, he sat down at the table to polish off the remainder of his correspondence. Across the note-paper he traced the following words:—
Dear Mrs. Adams,
I finally go up to the A.A.G. on Monday, and as probably that will take all day...*
[* This is an incorrect rendering of
Roper's letter. The actual wording was:
Brompton Barracks, Friday evening, 11-2-81.
My dear Mrs. Evans,
I find we go up to the D.A.G. [Deputy-Adjutant-General] on
Monday next and as that will probably take the whole
day...
Source: Portsmouth Evening News, Tuesday, 22 February
1881. —Terry Walker.]
So far he got, and then something strange and mysterious
happened which induced him to lay his pen aside, so it proved,
for eternity. Outside in the barrack square it was a clear
moonlight night. The whole place was strangely silent, for the
entertainment in the town had attracted many of the officers,
and a penny-reading and other amusements had drawn off the
private soldiers.
In the basement of No. 10 house, where the servants lived and the kitchens were situated, William Gallagher was changing his mess clothes prior to going to fetch his supper beer. His wife was out shopping, but returned before he completed his toilet. Shortly after she entered there was a noise from above stairs, a noise like someone "kicking a tin bath."
"Some of the young gentlemen skylarking," said Gallagher. Mrs. Garside, wife of James Garside, the servant of Lieut. H.K. Stothert, who occupied quarters in an adjoining house, suddenly heard some dogs belonging to Lieut. Vidal begin to bark furiously, and she promptly set off to quieten them.
James Sharp, who was on sentry duty in front of No. 9 house, heard at the same time a "kind of crack," followed by the barking of dogs. Then there was "a low groaning noise" as if "somebody was calling to somebody else!"
Raising his eyes, he saw a window in that part of the building from which the noise came slowly raised. He watched for some time, but nothing happened. He heard no voices, and saw nobody leave, and thinking, like William Gallagher, that it was only some of the young gentlemen skylarking, he continued patrolling his beat.
Adam Cragg, another sentry, whose beat took him within thirty paces of No 9 house, heard and saw nothing. A sound like the breaking of china caught the ear of a third sentry on duty at the gateway, but he gave the matter no thought.
Margaret Couth, one of the female servants employed in the barracks, heard a slight "cracking sound" as she walked across the square, and the barking of dogs. She stopped a moment at the foot of the staircase leading to Lieut. Roper's quarters and listened, but she heard no further sound, nor, saw anybody come out of the quarters.
Meanwhile Mrs. Garside, having calmed the frightened dogs, was returning to her own quarters when she saw the figure of a man clad in officers' mess dress lying on the staircase. Imagining that someone was playing a joke, she took no notice of the recumbent figure beyond telling William Gallagher, whom she met outside, that one of the gentlemen was lying on the staircase. Gallagher's curiosity was sufficiently excited to induce him to go with his wife to see what was the matter.
Light on the staircase was bad, but the moonlight poured in from the window, enabling the servant and his wife to see the figure on the stairs. The man had his face to the railings of the banisters. As he lay motionless Gallagher stooped over him and turned him over to see who it was. In doing so the man groaned, and on looking down the old soldier saw that it was his master, Lieut. Roper.
Startled by the groans and the limpness of the figure, Gallagher examined the young officer more carefully and discovered to his horror that blood was pouring from a wound in his side. Leaving him with his wife, he rushed outside, greatly alarmed, to summon assistance.
At the foot of the staircase he met Colonel Duff, assistant commander of the School of Military Engineering.
"Oh, sir, my master!" he exclaimed. "Someone has stabbed him."
Colonel Duff quickly accompanied him back to the spot where Lieut. Roper lay. After examining him for a few moments he turned to Gallagher and said: "He is not stabbed. He is shot. Someone has shot him, or he has shot himself."
Gently, they carried him up to his sitting-room, and laid him on the sofa. A doctor was soon at hand. A cursory examination showed that a bullet had passed between the fifth and sixth rib, piercing the right ventricle of the heart.
What could be done was done for the unfortunate man, but before the clock struck ten he had passed away, never having recovered consciousness, or being able to throw any light on the mysterious fate that had overtaken him. While he still lay a-dying, search was made of the staircase, and a note was taken of the condition of the room.
On the top stair was discovered a six-chamber revolver with five loaded chambers. The cartridge in the sixth chamber had been exploded. Nearby was a cartridge-case, and the poker from Lieut. Roper's fireplace, and scattered about on the stairs were five or six cartridges loose, but there were no cartridges in the case.
On an adjoining window ledge was found the lieutenant's watch and a bundle of his clothing. In the sitting-room the drawers were found open, and the cover had been pulled off a box. But everything else was left undisturbed. The candles were still burning, the unfinished letter to Mrs. Adams lay on the blotting-pad. Nothing had been stolen, nothing had been taken away, and the murderer had left behind him not a single clue which could lead to the discovery of his identity.
Murder it was undoubtedly. The medical evidence proved conclusively that the fatal shot could not have been fired by the victim himself. Whoever the murderer was, he had placed tho revolver so that it touched the victim's clothes, a fact deduced partly from the discovery that the lieutenant's under garments were more burnt than his waistcoat, and partly by the astonishing circumstance that nobody had heard the sound of the revolver being fired. The pressing of the muzzle close against the waistcoat would, it was held, deaden the sound of the explosion.
The police were called in, but all that they were able to accomplish was the discovery of the owner of the revolver. It was found to belong to Lieut. Stothert, who had his quarters in No. 10 house adjoining. The discovery, however, was absolutely valueless, for no one knew how the murderer had become possessed of the weapon.
Lieut. Stothert himself had gone straight from the mess to the card-room, where he remained until after the discovery of the crime. The revolver, which was quite a new one, he had won as a prize, and it hung in its case by the side of his bed. To obtain possession of it the murderer must have gone into his room. He must have taken it, moreover, some time during that day, for it had been cleaned and oiled, and replaced by James Gerside that very morning.
The cartridges found on the staircase near the dead man must have been specially purchased by the mysterious criminal, for Lieut. Stothert had no ammunition in his possession which fitted the weapon.
Inquiries in the neighbourhood brought to light the place where these cartridges had been produced. They had been purchased by a tall, military-looking man of about 35 years of age, between 4.30 and 5.30 on the evening of the tragedy, from Edward Palmer, ammunition dealer, High Street, Rochester.
Mr. Palmer remembered the circumstance quite well. A man had asked, for some of "your decimal five cartridges." This bore was a Government bore which Mr. Palmer did not often keep in stock, as it was not much in demand.
All the drawers in Lieut. Stothert's room were opened. There was money and jewellery lying about, which, had theft been the object of the criminal, he might have taken as well as the revolver.
Suspicion pointed to the conclusion that the murderer was one of the inmates of the barracks. No single person was produced who saw any stranger leave the house in which the murdered man lived, or the barracks just before or after the commission of the deed. It would seem, too, that the night of the crime had been carefully selected. An entertainment in the town had emptied the barracks, and comparatively few people were, therefore, about.
But this fact would not be known to an outsider or any chance burglar. Robbery clearly was not the motive, for nothing was touched in Lieut. Stothert's rooms, which the murderer had first visited. The discovery of the poker on the staircase seemed to show that Lieut. Roper was disturbed in his letter-writing by some marauder, that he seized this homely weapon with which to pursue his mysterious visitor, and that in following him down the stairs he met his death. But no evidence was adduced to show why anybody should have wished to compass the young officer's destruction.
He was amiable, kind-hearted, generous, and one of the steadiest young fellows at Chatham. He had no feud with anybody; he had done nobody an injury. Why, then, was he killed?
The Government offered a reward of a hundred pounds which was increased by the officers of the Royal Engineers to two hundred, and six months later to seven hundred. But the murderer was never discovered.
On the following May, some boys playing on the chalk cliffs in the rear of the mess-room found a box containing 28 revolver cartridges, precisely similar in size to the one with which Lieut. Roper was shot, but whether they were hidden there by the murderer or not has never been found out.
The circumstances attending the crime are so mysterious and uncanny—the immunity of the criminal so extraordinary—that one is almost forced to the unnatural conclusion that the fatal shot must have been fired by some ghostly hand.
I HAVE frequently heard persons express their amazement at the number of murders perpetrated in the course of a twelvemonth. It appears to me that their surprise is misplaced. Considering the violent gusts of passion to which so many of our fellow-creatures are subject, and the ease with which human life can be taken, I am inclined to the opinion that we should rather marvel at the brevity of the annual list of murders than be appalled at its length.
The actual business of killing is a simple affair unless, like certain historical pioneers of the demoniac type, the assassin wishes to torture as well as to destroy. A brief sixty seconds is more than ample time In which to force a person to make that long, mysterious journey from the land of the quick to the Kingdom of the Dead.
In the course of these studies in crime I have already given several instances of the extraordinary celerity and despatch with which a crime can be committed. In my last, article I told the grim tragedy of a young officer at Chatham. He was alive and well at 8.30, and was found dying at 8.45; just 15 minutes had proved sufficient for the commission of the crime.
The famous mystery which I have to recount this week occupied an even briefer space of time. In eight minutes Mrs. Reville, the wife of a butcher at Slough, passed from life to death by the hand of an unknown assassin. At 8.32 p.m. she was sitting in her chair in front of a desk, alive and well; at 8.45 she was seen in exactly the same position in the chair, dead, with her throat cut and her head split open.
The crime was actually perpetrated and discovered in less than this time, but as this fact depends upon the statement of a terrified child, who was too frightened to look at any clock to fix the exact moment of her discovery, I will allow the full interval of eight minutes. In that space of time the deed was secretly committed, the murderer, made good his escape, and his crime was brought to light. I will give the events of this mysterious tragedy in the exact sequence in which they occurred.
ON Monday, April 11, 1881, there lived in what was then simply
the populous village of Slough, in Buckinghamshire, a Mr.
Hezekiah Reville, a butcher, his wife, and two children. They
had a large shop in Windsor Road, and employed two lads to
assist them in their business. The elder of these two
assistants was Alfred Payne, aged 16; the younger boy was
named Phillip Glass, and was only 15 years of age. Usually the
premises were closed at 8 o'clock, and the shutters were put
up, the shop door being left open for the convenience of any
late customers.
Punctually at the closing hour Mr. Reville went out, and after calling on two friends, adjourned to the White Hart Inn. At the time of his departure the various persons in the house were employed as follows:—
Payne was in the butcher's shop "rubbing" some stale hams; in the adjoining room, which overlooked the shop, by means of a large glass window, were Mrs. Reville and Phillip Glass. Mrs. Reville sat at a desk with a ledger in front of her going over the day's accounts with the assistance of the boy. Her chair was so placed that she faced the window that looked into the shop, and the desk was so low that she could be seen, not only from the shop, but from outside in the street.
At 8.20, having settled her accounts, she handed Glass twopence for beer for himself and Payne, and, as a special favour to the younger boy, cut him some bread and cheese. While this was being done, Glass went into the shop to give Payne his penny and to ask him if he was coming home.
"Don't you wait for me," retorted Payne. "I have some hams to rub, and shall be a little longer."
Everything had been made ready in the shop for the morrow. The tools were all in their places. On the block was a cleaver weighing two pounds, two steels and a saw, while a knife used in cutting the meat up was laid by the weights and scales.
There being nothing more to be done. Glass made haste to be off. He looked at the clock; it was 8.25 precisely.
As he was going out he saw Payne enter the sitting-room and pass into the kitchen beyond. He then shut the door and scampered home.
At 8.32 Payne was also ready to depart. Mrs. Reville, who was shortly expecting to become a mother, and, therefore moved about as little as possible, was seated again at the desk perusing the ledger. Payne asked her if he should shut the shop door.
"No," she replied; "turn the gas down, and leave the door open. Good-night."
Payne then left the premises and made for the Royal Oak beerhouse, where his father lived, the exact time of his departure—8.32—being fixed by his own evidence, and that of two people whom he met in the immediate vicinity of the shop.
Mrs. Reville was now alone on the ground floor. Upstairs were her two little children in bed. She still sat at the desk, poring over the pages of tho ledger, amusing herself, doubtless, by tracing the variations in the business during the past few months. As she sat there death came to her, swiftly and mysteriously.
ONE of the children upstairs was very restless and thirsty. At
last she got out of her bed, and started to come downstairs
for some water. As she descended she heard a door slam. It
must then have been 8:35 or 8:36, within three or four minutes
of Alfred Payne's departure.
Opening the small door at the foot of tho stairs, the child peeped into the sitting-room. She saw her mother, still sitting at the desk in her father's chair.
She spoke to her, but got no answer. Going a little closer to her, the child noticed that something red was trickling from her head and throat. She looked so ill and white that the child ran terror-stricken upstairs to bed, and, hiding herself beneath the bedclothes, like children do, spent that awful night in a state of anguished wakefulness.
AT 8.40 a Mrs. Beasley, the wife of a cooper residing near at
hand, called to see Mrs. Reville. She had been in the habit of
making this regular evening visit in consequence of her
neighbour's condition. She entered from the shop where the gas
was burning, and she saw her friend through the window, still
sitting in front of the desk. From her ghastly white face and
the general limp appearance of her body, Mrs. Beasley thought
that she must have fainted. She immediately made her way into
the sitting-room, and upon approaching the chair where Mrs.
Reville sat, saw at once that the unfortunate butcher's wife
had been foully murdered. Mrs. Beasley immediately summoned
the police, and two officers arriving, a thorough search of
the premises was made.
AS already descried, Mrs. Reville was sitting in a chair, in
front of her was a ledger, opened at March 19, and her watch.
The desk, the carpet, and all around were sprinkled with
blood.
It was found on examination she had two severe wounds in the fore part of her head, one cut on the back of her head, and a large wound on the right side of her neck. On the floor by her side was found the pen she had been using, and it was noted also that the pocket of her dress was turned inside out. A little way behind the chair was found some money and a handkerchief. But the table, which stood a little to the right behind the dead woman, provided the most gruesome evidence of the crime. Here on the blood-splashed cloth was found a cleaver, soaked with blood and covered with matted hair. Hard by this ghastly weapon lay a note, written in pencil on half a sheet of notepaper. It ran as follows:—
Mrs. Reville,
You never will sell me no more bad meat like you did on Saturday. I told Mrs. Austin, at Chalvey, that I would do for her. I done it for the bad meat she sold me on Saturday last.—
H. Collins, Colnbrook.
THE only other discoveries made by the police that it was
thought could have any bearing at all upon the crime were two
handkerchiefs which were found in the adjoining kitchen.
Suspicion turned immediately upon the boy Payne, who was known to have been the last person in the house. After the inquest and the funeral of Mrs. Reville Payne was arrested, formally charged before the magistrate, and a fortnight later stood his trial at the local assizes.
THE facts at the disposal of the police are worth
recounting.
First there was the letter signed "H. Collins, Colnbrook," and referring to a Mrs. Austin of Chalvey. Nobody of the name of Collins residing at Colnbrook had ever had any dealings at any time with the Revilles. There was an P. Collins, of Chalvey, who had bought his meat occasionally at the shop, but H. Collins was a completely fictitious name. The only two ladies of the name of Austin residing at Chalvey declared that they had never known anybody called H. Collins, and added, moreover, that they had never complained to Mr. Reville about any meat that he had supplied.
By the aid of the inevitable handwriting expert a similarity in the handwriting of "H. Collins, of Colnbrook," and Alfred Payne was traced. But as the expert admitted that he detected a like similarity in the handwriting of Mr. Reville himself, who was quietly ensconced at the "White Hart" at the time of the tragedy, his evidence did not carry much weight. Moreover, it was shown that Payne, who had been in the service of the butcher for something like three years, was quite familiar with the name of R. Collins, of Chalvey, and it was very reasonably argued that he would never have written a letter which clearly had for its object the shifting of the blame on to someone else, with a signature which could easily be discovered to be fictitious.
The second main point which occupied the consideration of the police was the cleaver.
Apart from the evidence of Payne, which was regarded as suspect, the boy Glass was positive that the cleaver with which the deed was committed was resting on the block with the other tools when he left the shop. Mrs Reville was sitting in a chair that faced the window overlooking the shop. Nobody could have come into the shop without her seeing him; the murderer must have passed through the shop in order to possess himself of the cleaver.
How had he managed it?
If he had come into it as an ordinary customer, and while Mrs. Reville was busy attending to him, had secreted the weapon, and subsequently made his murderous attack when her back was turned, the whole business could be easily explained. But there was the stubborn obstructing fact that Mrs. Reville had never moved from her chair.
Unless Payne was the murderer, the jury would have been called upon to believe that the criminal entered the shop, every corner of which was under the immediate observation of Mrs. Reville, had miraculously escaped her notice, had seized the cleaver, and, still unnoticed, walked into the sitting-room. Unless the victim had fallen into a doze, which in her condition it is very possible she may have done, the thing seemed frankly impossible.
The third point was the question of times.
I give here in tabular form the time table of that mysterious 40 minutes which culminated in so horrible a tragedy
8 p.m:—Mr. Reville leaves the shop. Mrs. Reville and Glass are in the sitting-room doing the accounts. Payne in the shop. Two children upstairs in bed.
8:25:—Payne leaves and is seen a minute later by a young woman a hundred yards from the house, walking in the direction of his home.
8:36(?):—One of Mrs. Reville's little children, coming downstairs for a glass of water, sees her mother sitting at the desk with her throat cut, and at the same time hears a door in the house bang.
8:40:—Mrs. Beasley discovers her murdered friend.
Looking at this time table it will be seen that if Payne had been the murderer he must have committed the deed within seven minutes. If somebody else was the criminal, this person must have killed Mrs. Reville, turned out her pockets, and written the note signed "H. Collins, Colnbrook," all within the space of, at the most, eight minutes.
It appeared on the face of it that the police had a very strong case against Payne. He was known to have been on the premises alone with Mrs. Reville; it seemed as if he was the only possible person who could have taken the cleaver from the shop into the sitting-room without arousing the suspicions of the unfortunate victim, and, moreover, the note was written in a hand which bore come resemblance to his.
But the young butcher lad had a clear and open conscience. He showed no uneasiness when questioned by the police. In the dock he deported himself with a coolness and perfect simplicity which were never mated to the character of a criminal.
At the end of a two days' trial the jury retired for a brief 15 minutes, and returned with a verdict of "Not guilty."
This verdict was not only right legally—by which I mean that on the evidence it was not possible to convict Payne—but it was obviously right from the point of view of facts. Payne was perfectly innocent of the charge, and had no knowledge whatsoever of how Mrs. Reville met her death—that is certain.
TO this day her assassin has not been found. The mystery which
enshrouds her death cannot be pierced. How the murder got into
the shop, obtained possession of the cleaver without being
detected by Mrs. Reville; how he committed the murder, wrote
the note, turned out the dead woman's pocket, and did all this
between the departure of Payne at 8.32 and the arrival of Mrs.
Beasley at 8.40 is a problem which can only he cleared up on
the Judgment Day.
IF twelve people are locked up in a house at night, and one of them is found brutally murdered in the morning, and it is proved, moreover, that nobody has either entered or left the house, what is the conclusion?
This sounds a simple, almost foolish question. Obviously, the answer is that the murder was committed by one of the eleven persons who were found alive in the morning.
If this problem was put to the average man, he would declare quite naturally that the detection of the murderer must he quite easy. With the scope of inquiry limited to eleven persons, the discovery of the criminal would appear inevitable.
In hundreds of little ways he or she must betray a consciousness of guilt. Careful inquiry would then very easily fasten that guilt upon the suspected person.
That a murderer could escape justice under these circumstances seems ludicrous. Hardly any mystery appears to envelope such an affair. One of the eleven must be guilty, and by a process of elimination the guilty one, so it would seem, could easily be picked out.
And yet this is the apparently simple problem which underlay the murder of Francis Saville Kent, a little boy of three years and ten months, on the night of June 29, 1860
For five years the author of this crime remained undiscovered, and the case would undoubtedly have taken its place among the number of unsolved mysteries had not the perpetrator come forward and made a voluntary confession of her guilt.
The tragedy of Constance Kent ranks as one of the world's saddest stories. I know of no other narrative among the gloomy annals of crime which equals it in the tragic elements of mystery, of passion, and of pathos.
I will tell the story here as it slowly unravelled itself before the eyes of the public some forty odd years ago.
THE small village of Road* is situated some three miles from
Trowbridge. Here, in a three-storeyed house, surrounded by a
pleasant garden there dwelt in the year 1860 a certain Mr.
S.S. Kent, district sub-inspector of factories.
[* Now Rode, Wiltshire. —Ed.]
Mr. Kent had been married twice, and was there living with his second wife.
Both his unions had been blessed with children.
His first wife had borne him four--Mary, Elizabeth, Constance, and William Saville. Mary was 29 years of age, Elizabeth 27, Constance 16, and William Saville 15.
To his second wife there had been born three children--Mary Amelia, aged five; Francis Saville, aged three years and ten months; and a baby daughter.
Of these two families Constance was the most remarkable member. She was at that time at the "difficult age"--the moment of transition from childhood to womanhood.
All who knew her have agreed that she was a strange child, possessed of a marked individuality. Her temperament was curious. She was, by turns, affectionate and sullen, silent and passionate. At times she professed a great affection for her stepmother, but if that lady found it necessary to correct any member of her husband's first family, Constance was at once up in arms.
Sometimes she showed her feelings by uncontrolled outbursts of rage. At other times she listened in sullen silence, and went away to brood over the imagined slight on her dead mother, and to think how she might best obtain vengeance.
Her peculiarity of disposition and determination of character was indicated in many ways. She did odd, unexpected things. At the age of 13 she had cut her hair, dressed herself in her brother's clothes, and run away from home, with the avowed intention of going abroad.
All her characteristics foreboded, for good or evil, that her future life would be remarkable.
On the night, of June 29 the various rooms in Mr. Kent's house were occupied in the following manner:
Of the two bedrooms on the first floor one was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Kent and the little girl Mary Amelia; the other by Francis Saville, the baby, and the nurse-maid, Elizabeth Gough. Of the four bed-rooms on the second floor, Mary and Elizabeth slept in one, the cook and the housemaid in another, and Constance and William Saville in the remaining two.
All the household retired early to bed, with the exception of Mr. Kent. At 11.30 p.m. he, too, determined to seek his bed, and, following his invariable custom, went the round of the house to sec that all windows and shutters were fastened. Having satisfied himself that everything was secure, he locked all the doors from the outside, and went upstairs.
By that time Elizabeth Gough, after having seen that her charges, Francis Saville and the baby, were all safe for the night, and lighting the night-light, was herself in bed. By midnight the whole house was plunged in slumber.
When the nursemaid woke up next morning at six o'clock she made a startling discovery. Francis Saville was not in his cot.
At first she was alarmed, but finally decided that her mistress must have come in while she was asleep and taken the little boy into her own room, she therefore, first dressed the baby, and then knocked at her mistress' door.
"Is Master Saville ready to get up, ma'am?" she said.
Mrs. Kent opened the door.
"What do you mean?" she asked. "Master Saville isn't with me."
"Well, he isn't in the nursery, ma'am," retorted the girl.
They searched everywhere for him throughout the house, but nowhere could he be found.
The others were awakened by the uproar, and hurried out of their rooms, clamouring to know what was the matter. When they heard that the little boy was missing from his bed and could not be found anywhere, their distress and concern were very great. Constance seemed to feel the situation more keenly than anybody else. She evinced the greatest excitement and interest, busying herself in searching every room for the child.
As the boy could be found nowhere, Mr. Kent hurried off to give the alarm to the police at Trowbridge. The news got about the neighbourhood. Search parties were instituted, and the garden and the house itself were carefully examined.
It was found that one of the French windows, opening from the drawing room on to the lawn, was open, though Mr. Kent had closed it the night before; further, the drawing-room door, which had been locked by the master of the house from the outside on the previous night, was ajar.
One of the searchers, a man called Benger, suddenly had a grim inspiration. Acting on an almost overpowering presentiment he went to a lavatory at the back of the house. On entering he saw a pool of blood on the ground. Striking a light, he peered down the seat. He thrust his arm down, thinking in the dim light that he discerned something.
First he drew up a blanket soaked with blood, then, more gruesome still, the body of the missing child, with its throat cut from ear to ear, and a terrible wound in its side.
THE one outstanding feature of the case, which was clear to
the police and public alike, was that the crime must have been
committed by somebody in the house.
The drawing-room window and the drawing-room door were both open. There were no signs that the window had been forced. Moreover, the lock of the drawing-room door had been turned back by the key, which was on the outside of the door.
It was clear, therefore, that somebody in the house had taken Francis Saville from his cot, had carried him downstairs, unlocked the drawing room door, opened the drawing room window, and then proceeded to the scene of the crime.
Suspicion first fell upon Elizabeth Gough. It was suggested that she had admitted some lover of hers into the house. But her guiltless demeanour and perfect frankness disarmed suspicion. After being arrested and brought before the magistrate she was discharged.
Suspicion then fell upon William Saville, and after him upon Constance. The 16-year-old girl was arrested and charged with having murdered her little brother in a fit of envy.
The fact that one of her night-dresses was missing seemed to justify the suspicions of the police. But under examination she preserved such coolness, and spoke so feelingly of the little victim, that the charge seemed absurd.
"Saville was such a merry, good-tempered little boy. I had been romping with him all that day. He was fond of me, and I was fond of him," she told the magistrate.
The perplexed Bench did not know how to act, and they discharged the girl on her father's recognisances.
Then Elizabeth Gough was again arrested, and again discharged.
Meanwhile the fury and excitement of the public had been fanned to a fierce pitch. They poured contempt upon the police, and almost openly stated that the perpetrator of the deed was Mr. Kent himself.
Time went on. Mr. Kent's unpopularity, and the general suspicion that he was the perpetrator of the deed, showed no signs of abatement.
A YEAR after the crime had been committed it was reported that
a confession had been made. The police would have taken it up,
but the public were so loud in their protests that the case
should not be reopened unless the real perpetrator was brought
to justice, that the authorities decided to leave well
alone.
Shortly after this incident Constance Kent was sent to a convent in France to be educated. She remained there for two years, and then removed to St. Mary's Home for Religious Ladies, conducted by the Rev. Arthur Wagner, of St. Paul's Church, Brighton.
Constance was then 19, but, to his surprise, Mr. Wagner found that she had never been confirmed.
After she had been in the home for 16 months he began to prepare her for confirmation.
The girl submitted herself to his teaching and influence with great earnestness. At the end of four months she came to him voluntarily and begged him to help her to make a confession.
The thought of the Holy Sacrament compelled her, she said, to tell the truth of her sin. Then, humbly and with tears, she narrated to the horrified master how she had murdered her little stepbrother on that terrible summer night five years before.
Her stepmother had said something disparaging, so she thought, about the children of her father's first marriage. Constance had brooded over it, and determined on a terrible revenge. She made her preparations carefully. In the lavatory outside she secreted a candle and some matches. Then she obtained possession of one of her father's razors.
Soon after midnight, having satisfied herself that everyone was asleep, she crept silently downstairs into the nursery. The little boy was asleep. Without waking him, she took him from his bed, wrapped him up in one of the blankets, and carried him out through the drawing-room window into the lavatory.
So as not to bungle her work she lit the candle. While the poor little fellow still slept on her arm she cut his throat with the razor. The blood, she thought, would never come, so she inflicted another wound in the side. Suddenly a breath of wind blew the candle out. Terrified, she thrust the body out of sight and crept back to her bedroom.
On examining her nightdress, she found only two spots of blood. These she washed out, and putting on a clean nightdress, got into bed.
Next day she cleaned the razor and replaced it in her father's wardrobe.
Finding the stains of blood were still visible on the nightdress, she secreted it, moving it from place to place. Six days after the murder she burnt it in her bedroom.
Had Elizabeth Gough been found guilty of the murder, she had intended to declare her guilt. As it was, she confessed to her parents a year after the event.
Accompanied by Mr. Wagner, she went up to London and gave herself up for the murder.
The last scene of the tragedy was acted before Mr. Justice Wills at the Salisbury Assizes.
In passing the dread sentence of death the Judge became deeply affected, and burst into tears. The prisoner, who had maintained up to then a certain composure, suddenly gave way. The sobs of the man who had to condemn her to death, and of the girl on whom the grim sentence had to be passed, were the only sounds heard in the breathlessness of the court.
The sentence was immediately commuted to one of penal servitude for life, and through all her prison life Constance Kent showed, by her exemplary conduct the deep contrition she felt for her terrible crime.
IS a letter in the handwriting of a murderer of any real assistance to the police in bringing a criminal to justice? I propound this question because there seems to be a general inclination on the part of the public to attach far greater importance to handwriting clues than experience allows they merit.
This weakness seems to be shared by the police. Again and again it has happened that a murderer has been allowed to escape through the authorities wasting all their energies in an attempt, to track the writer of a certain document, instead of endeavouring to unearth other clues. The murder of Mrs. Reville, the butcher's wife at Slough, which I narrated the other week, affords an illustration of my contention.
To begin with, it is very hard to distinguish any person's handwriting when an attempt has been made to disguise it. Experts there are who are prepared to swear that such and such a paper was written by such and such a person, but few juries have been found to convict on this sort of evidence alone. In the case of the murder of Sarah Jane Roberts at Manchester, I think I am not doing the police an injustice by saying that had they not restricted their investigations to the one clue which they possessed there might have been a chance of discovering the murderer.
As it is, the case remains an unfathomable mystery, and no one has been able to give a satisfactory suggestion as to how the ghastly crime could possibly have been committed
A young, buxom servant girl of 18 is alone on the ground floor of a house in Manchester. Her mistress is upstairs, an invalid.
At 6.25 the mistress hears a knock at the door. The servant goes to open it, and someone is admitted who accompanies the servant to the kitchen.
For five minutes the mistress detects no sound; then, suddenly, there is a scream. She rushes downstairs, summons her neighbours, and discovers the servant-girl dying on the kitchen floor! That, briefly, is all that is known of the death of Sarah Jane Roberts. For the benefit of my readers I will narrate the full circumstances of this extraordinary crime.
MR. RICHARD GREENWOOD was a well-to-do business man, living in
the year 1880 at Westbourne Grove, Harpurhey, Manchester. His
house was a semi-detached one, standing in a lonely
thoroughfare, his neighbours being a Mr. Cadman, a Unitarian
minister, his wife and family. Mr. Greenwood lived alone with
his wife, who was a confirmed invalid, and with one
servant—Sarah Jane Roberts, a fine-looking girl of
18.
Jane, as her mistress called her, hailed from Wales, bore an excellent character, and was much beloved by her master and mistress, in whose employ she had been for about ten months at the time that this tragic narrative commences. Like a good many homely north-country people, Mr. and Mrs. Greenwood frequently sat in the kitchen, and on these occasions treated Jane almost as a member of the family.
So much did both of them become attached to her that Mrs. Greenwood informed her one day that her husband had made provision for her in his will so that she would not have to seek a new situation if he were to die before she did. Under these circumstances, it is not to be wondered that Jane found the place very much to her liking, and avowed her intention of staying indefinitely.
There seemed to be only one blot upon the pleasant tenor of her life. Like the good-looking girl she was, it was inevitable that she should attract members of the opposite sex. She had two young men, so she wrote to her sister-in-law, a Mrs. Roberts, who resided in Manchester. One of them was in a good situation, and earning three pounds a week.
She does not seem to have returned their affection; and indeed, appears to have regarded their attentions with something akin to aversion. She deliberately destroyed all the letters she received from them, and went abroad as little as possible, probably to avoid meeting them.
ON Monday, January 5, 1880, her sister-in-law came to see her,
in order to complete arrangements for the marriage of another
sister at Halifax. Mrs. Roberts was wearing clothes very
similar to those in which Jane was normally attired when
walking abroad. As she neared the house two men suddenly
sprang out of the darkness. She turned quickly, so that they
saw her face. Finding, evidently, that they had made a
mistake, the two mysterious strangers rushed away into the
night.
On the following evening Mrs. Roberts made another visit to Jane, and on this occasion noticed a young man hanging about the house. He made off, however, on her appearance.
Wednesday, January 7, the day doomed to end in ghastly tragedy, opened for the Greenwood family in the ordinary way. At mid-day, Mr. Cooper, Mr. Greenwood's partner, called. As Jane opened the door to him he noticed lying on the ground a letter, without a stamp, evidently pushed under the door by someone, and not posted in the ordinary way.
"Hullo, June, here's a love-letter for you," he remarked, stooping to pick the letter up and handing it to the girl. She looked at the address, and then replied quietly: "Oh, no; it's for Mr. Greenwood."
Mr. Cooper was shown up into the room in which Mrs. Greenwood was confined, while Jane went to fetch her master from the back garden, where he was engaged in digging.
Dropping his spade, Mr. Greenwood followed the girl into the kitchen, where she handed him the letter without any remark. Before going upstairs he read it through, and its contents puzzled him not a little.
He had some landed property in the district, and from time to time overtures had been made to him to sell or let portions of it, but he had refused to accept these proposals for business reasons.
The letter had reference to this portion of his property, and ran as follows:
January 7, 1880.
Mr. Greenwood,
I want to take that land near the coal-yard, behind the druggist's shop, Queen's Road. I will pay either monthly, quarterly, or yearly, and will pay in advance, and I will meet you to-night from five to six o'clock at the "Three Tuns," corner of Churnet Street, and will tell you all particulars. I don't know your address, or I would have posted it.
Yours, etc.,
W. Wilson.
Oldham Road.
Mr. Greenwood carried the letter with him upstairs, and,
handing it to his partner, asked him his opinion of its
contents. Mr. Cooper read it out aloud for the benefit of Mrs.
Greenwood, and that lady was very warm in urging her husband
to keep the appointment, and if the terms offered were good
enough, to accept them.
Mr. Greenwood did not at once make up his mind. He was not particularly anxious to part with the piece of land in question. He considered it would spoil his property, but ultimately decided that no harm would be done by hearing what the mysterious "W. Wilson" had to propose.
Accordingly, at 5.40 that evening, he left the house and made his way to the Three Tuns. On inquiring of the waiter, he was surprised to learn that nobody of the name of Wilson had called there or made any inquiries for him. Like any other man would have been under the circumstances he was inclined to be angry at the failure of his correspondent to keep the appointment. He determined, none the less, to wait a little, in case he should turn up. Until 6.20 he hung about the vicinity of the Three Tuns; then, his patience giving way, he decided to return home, after leaving a message with the landlord.
"If anyone comes that wants to see Greenwood," he told him, "they will have to come to Westbourne Grove. I live there."
IN no pleasant frame of mind he made his way back to his home.
When, at 6.40. he got there, he discovered that a ghastly
tragedy had taken place. During her husband's absence Mrs.
Greenwood had been left alone in her room upstairs. She sat
with her door open, so that she could hear everything that
went on in the house. At 6.25 there was a knock at the front
door. She heard Jane come out of the kitchen and cross the
lobby to the door. Then, a second later, her ear caught the
sound of footsteps again crossing the lobby—the
footsteps of Jane, and the footsteps of somebody else, who
walked very lightly, like a woman. The door that separated the
lobby from the kitchen closed. For five minutes no sound
reached the ears of Mrs. Greenwood. Then, suddenly, a piercing
scream rent the air. It was such a blood-curdling scream that,
summoning up all her strength, Mrs. Greenwood staggered out to
the banisters.
"What's the matter, Jane?" she called. The only answer was another terrifying scream, and then dead silence. Not another sound was to be heard in the house. Under the impression that Jane was in a fit, or that, her clothes had caught fire, Mrs. Greenwood hurried down to the front door, and, opening it, cried out: "Murder! Murder!" in the hope that this sensational cry would bring someone to her assistance.
Next door Mrs. Cadman was busy in the kitchen with her servant, Annie Gillow. She had only returned at 6.25, and was making preparations for supper. At 6.30 she had been startled by a piercing scream, which she described as being like that of a woman in pain. Imagining that something had happened to her daughter Dora, who was playing in the back yard, she rushed out. Finding all was well, she returned again. Hardly had she done so when a second piercing scream struck upon her ears. This time there was no mistaking that the piteous cry came from the Greenwoods' house.
Accompanied by her servant, she ran put of her front door to find Mrs. Greenwood on the step in a great state of consternation.
"There's something wrong in my kitchen," she cried.
Getting a light, Mrs. Cadman boldly approached the lobby door and opened it. The kitchen was brilliantly lighted by the gas and the three women saw Jane lying on her breast across the floor, her feet under the dresser and her head towards the window.
Stooping down Mrs. Cadman was horrified to find that blood was trickling from her head. From the motion of her shoulders she saw she was still breathing.
A Mr. Allen, who lived hard by, was immediately sent for, and with his assistance, the poor girl was turned over on her back. Within five minutes she died, before medical assistance could be obtained, without even uttering a word.
She had been murdered. Of that there was no doubt. Four or five ghastly wounds were found on her head and brow, made by some blunt instrument. But who and where was the murderer? There were no signs of any struggle. Everything was in its place, the fire burnt cheerfully; the gas was alight; everything was neat and tidy; not a bit of furniture had been disarranged.
In an escritoire in an adjoining room Mr. Greenwood had left a considerable sum of money. Not a penny of this had been taken, and on further investigation it was found that not a thing was missing from the house; robbery had clearly not been the motive of the criminal.
Could the person who entered the house at 6.25, and who obviously had committed the deed, have been a jealous lover? But Jane, as I have already stated, was averse to young men, and was not likely to have brought any of her admirers into the house. Moreover Mrs. Greenwood was positive that the footsteps of the visitor which she had heard were those of a woman.
It was pretty clear that the crime had been carefully arranged, and that the letter which Mrs. Greenwood received was a decoy, sent for the express purpose of insuring his absence from home while the deed was done. This letter was the only clue that the police possessed, and the mystery which surrounded the case was intensified by the following strange facts:—
No weapon was found in the house or in the precincts; though the whole tragedy occupied but five minutes, Mrs. Greenwood heard nobody leave the house by the front door. Mrs. Cadman, whose kitchen overlooked the back entrance of the Greenwoods' house, was equally positive that no one left by the back door. No one had seen any person loitering in the neighbourhood. Under those circumstances the police seemed to consider that the best thing they could do was to concentrate their attention upon trying to find "W. Wilson, Oldham Road," who wrote the decoy letter.
Lithograph copies of the letter were circulated, and a large number of communications poured in upon the police, some of them containing specimens of handwriting which were thought to bear a striking resemblance to the document in question.
Every day for a month the police investigated the doings of various persons. A man called Haild, who, it was alleged, had made a false declaration in order to obtain a free emigration passage to Australia, was arrested at Plymouth on a charge of perjury, and it was generally assumed would be ultimately charged with a graver offence. But Haild's examination before the magistrates satisfied them that he was not guilty of perjury, and there were no grounds whatsoever for preferring a charge against him of having taken the life of Sarah Jane Roberts.
One other step the authorities took, a rather curious one, which I simply record for the interest of my readers. Before the poor girl's burial, a photograph was taken of her eyes, in the hope that the outline of the murderer or the weapon with which the murder was committed might he found on the retina.
A large amount of correspondence in the papers from scientific people destroyed any lingering hope that the authorities might have had of discovering anything by this eccentric means. The tragedy was made the excuse for a number of extraordinary letters to the papers—one from a man who said he knew who the murderer was but declined to give evidence lest his own past should be raked up, and another from a man who said he was the murderer himself. The veracity of the writers was never put to the test, for the police failed to discover their identities.
IT is a curious circumstance that two of the most famous murder mysteries should have for their victims two women of the same name. My readers will recollect that some weeks ago I dealt with the extraordinary murder of Mrs. Samuel, of Bartholomew Road, Kentish Town, who was killed by three miscreants in broad daylight in the year 1887.
The victim of the Burton Crescent murder was also a Mrs. Samuel, who met her death under circumstances quite as mysterious as these with which the Kentish Town tragedy was surrounded.
The story to remarkable, not only for the mystery in which the gruesome deed is steeped, but also for one of the most curious police proceedings on record. Nowadays, the splendid body of men who watch and guard the safety of the public make the proud boast that not in 99 cases of a hundred do they prefer a charge of murder against a person which they subsequently fail to substantiate. But in the year 1878 things were different. In their haste to find the murderer they arrested, within two days of the crime, a servant, Mary Donovan, and the following day formally charged her with the crime without having collected any evidence against her that could prove her guilt.
They obtained a remand five times, and a month later had to admit that they were quite unable to discover any proofs to support the grave accusation they had made. Mr. Flowers, the then magistrate of Bow Street, deemed it his duty in discharging Mary Donovan to mildly censure the police. They had no business, he told them, to have charged her on the merely suspicious evidence that they had collected.
I think the rebuke was merited. The police seemed to have considered their suspicion of Mary Donovan as good as proof, and not to have made any serious inquiries before effecting her arrest.
The story of the horrible crime runs as follows:—
MRS. SAMUEL was a widow of a diamond merchant, and in the year
1873 had just attained the good age of 75.
Burton Crescent, where she resided, is adjacent to Euston Road, and the house she occupied was a substantial, superior-looking place in keeping with her position and means. Report had it that she was very rich, and that she had managed to hoard a very considerable sum of money.
For some reason, which has never been explained, she took in one lodger. Possibly the house was too large for her, and she found it lonely, for she then kept no regular servant on the premises.
For ten years she had been faithfully served by a woman to whom she was greatly attached. This servant had left to be married; her name was Mary Donovan.
Not caring to replace Mary, Mrs. Samuel, who was an energetic, bustling woman, capable even at her advanced age of doing some of the housework, employed the services of a little girl called Fanny White, who came in every day to wash up, to sweep, and to attend to other small domestic duties. Mary Donovan used to visit her old mistress very often, being always assured of a welcome. She washed occasionally for Mrs. Samuel, and, as that old lady was unable to bend her back very far, she used to come at regular intervals to cut her toe-nails.
Mary Donovan had certain little eccentric habits, which her old mistress readily forgave. Not to mince words, she used to get drunk, and on several occasions appeared in that condition at Burton Crescent.
On Tuesday, December 10, she called some time in the afternoon, the door being opened by the lodger, a foreigner, named Borschutzky, who made his living by playing in the orchestra at some theatre. A few minutes later she left the house, Mrs. Samuel explaining to the lodger that "Mary was 'tight.'"
On Wednesday, December 11, Mary called again. It was late in the afternoon. The little girl, Fanny White, had already departed, and the lodger was thinking about setting off for his orchestral duties. By 7 o'clock Mary Donovan and Mrs. Samuels were alone in the house.
At 8 o'clock two women, a Mrs. Elizabeth Barrat and a Mrs. Shillito, called to see Mrs. Samuel with regard to the situation of housekeeper which they believed the old lady required filling. Finding that their services were not needed, they retired, being shown out by Mary Donovan.
At midnight Mr. Borschutzky returned, letting himself to with his latchkey. It was his invariable custom to take supper at this hour, the meal being laid in readiness for him in the parlour on the ground floor.
To his surprise, and probably also to his annoyance, he found that no food was awaiting. Wondering what the reason could be, he went down into the kitchen to discover from Mrs. Samuel, if she were still out of bed, the reason of this oversight, and, if possible, to have it remedied.
When he got down to the kitchen the first thing be saw was the body of the unfortunate old lady lying in a pool of blood, quite dead. He immediately rushed off to the house of her son hard by, and returned a few minutes later with that gentleman, a policeman, and a doctor, who at once proceeded to make an examination of the corpse and the house.
How Mrs. Samuel had met her death was self-evident. She had been beaten literally to death, her head and face being torn and bruised with horrible, brutal wounds. Behind a screen was found a piece of wood:—an old hat-rail fitted with pegs and pierced with long nails which originally fastened it to the wall. It bad been split in two, but both sections were covered with blood and hair, the nails being encrusted with flesh.
The old lady had not died without a struggle. She must have tried to protect herself with her hands, which were bruised and cut in a most disgusting manner. Both her eyes were discoloured, and her face was blackened with dirt of some kind, as though it had been rubbed over with dirty fingers.
On a table nearby was a knife smeared with blood, though no wound was found upon the body which suggested that any sharp instrument had been used. There were tracks of blood across the kitchen floor, and near the kitchen stair; the back door was also smeared, and the area window was found broken from the inside, and a quantity of the glass lying about bore the same grim evidence of the murder.
There was one strange and curious circumstance attaching to the tragic scene. The murderer had evidently made an attempt to clean up the bloodstains. The hat-rail with which the deed was committed had been partially washed, and near the corpse was found an old washing cloth with which the assassin had mopped up a portion of the blood on the floor. It was pretty clear that the murderer had soon given up the task, for the floor was only half wiped, and the hat-rail only half cleaned. Moreover, some water was found in the sink dyed crimson with blood, which showed that this mysterious person washed his hands after committing the deed and attempting to clear away the evidence.
It was found also that the pocket which Mrs. Samuel wore, loose, round the front of her dress had been cut away, and the plain worn gold wedding-ring which she always wore had been wrenched from her finger.
The only other things found to be missing from the house were a pair of new boots. Nothing else had been taken, and apparently, no attempt had been made to rifle the premises in the hope of securing the hoard which the old lady was supposed to have laid by.
One would imagine that the policy of the police would have been to trace, if possible, the boots and the wedding-ring, while keeping any person they suspected under observation. But this course they did not adopt.
They easily discovered that Mary Donovan was the last person to have been in the company of Mrs. Samuel on the fatal night, and by a few quick inquiries they learnt something of her doings subsequent to the murder.
She resided in rooms at 42 Lancaster Street, Borough Road. Her landlady informed the authorities that she had not returned on the night of Wednesday, December 11. The landlady's daughter had sat up for her until after midnight. At 7.45 the next morning she put in an appearance—her clothes all tumbled and disordered, her hair loose, and her face dirty.
"I slept at a coffee-house," she explained, as she entered the house with a bundle under her shawl and some wood on her arm. On this evidence the police considered they had clear and positive proof that Mary Donovan had murdered Mr. Samuel.
On Friday, December 15, two police officers called at Lancaster Street to effect her arrest. Mrs. Donovan did not seem at all upset when they made known the object their visit, and volunteered a statement, which, read now without prejudice, seems to bear the impress of truth.
She had just finished Mrs Samuel's toenails, she explained, when a man knocked at the door and asked to look at some apartments. It was then between 8 and 8:30 p.m. Mrs. Samuel appeared to know the man, who looked, according to Mary's account, like a plasterer or paper-hanger. He was asked into the house, and the old servant was despatched to get something to eat for supper.
On her return the stranger was still there. Mrs. Samuel had intended to give her some things for the wash, but told her she would give them to her the following day, and that she needn't stay any longer. She accordingly came away, leaving the man in the house.
The police officers received this narrative in critical silence, and when she had finished asked her what dress she had worn on that night. She retorted that it was the one she had on then. They immediately examined it and found here and there certain dark discolourations. Mary Donovan declared that there were iron-mould.
"I am confident it is blood," retorted one of the detectives. On the bed was a black skirt they also examined, Donovan remarking. "You will find no blood on that."
On her boots were also found the same suspicious-looking stains. She was promptly arrested and taken away in a cab, loudly exclaiming, "I am not afraid." On the way to the station the officers suspected that she was trying to tear something from the front of her dress, and, on looking beneath her shawl, they again saw some more dark stains.
The following day, Saturday, December 14, she was brought up before the magistrate and formally charged. Everyone was confident that she was the murderess. The public shared the opinion of the police. The press, regardless of the fact that the case was still sub judice, and that, therefore, criticism of the arrested was not permissible, quite openly announced that they were satisfied that Mary Donovan had murdered Mrs. Samuel.
At first everything went smoothly for the authorities. Prof. Redwood, to whom the woman's clothes were sent for examination, after a microscopical investigation extending over some weeks, averred that the dark marks on the skirt were bloodstains, and that the blood was human blood. Curiously enough, the same authority declared that there were no bloodstains on the skirt, about which Mazy Donovan had remarked to two police officers, "You will find no blood on that."
The net seemed to be closing quickly round Mrs. Samuel's old servant, and when it was discovered that a woman of the name of Donovan had pawned a gold wedding-ring on December 12, the case seemed established. The pawnbroker's assistant, who had managed the affair, was brought to the prison to identify the woman who had pawned the ring. He picked out Mary Donovan from a number of other women with that extraordinary certainty and accuracy which is an invariable feature of such cases.
All this time Mary Donovan stoutly protested her innocence, and preserved a quiet, stubborn demeanour in the box, which was translated, so high did feeling run against her, as proof of her guilt.
But the police could not discover the stolen boots. High and low they searched, but searched in vain. A reward of one pound was offered by the Criminal Investigation Department for a pair of lady's lace-up felt boots, with black fur up the front and around thee tops, nearly new, size seven, rather wide soles, scarlet lining, patent toe-tip, and a woman's "jean pocket," but without result.
Though no answer of any kind was received to this advertisement, the police still retained their confidence.
Then all of a sudden their case crumbled to nothing. The pawnbroker's assistant who had identified Mary Donovan came to the court and asked to be allowed to correct his evidence. He had found that the woman who had pawned the ring was called Anne Donovan, and not Mary Donovan, and that, moreover, Anne Donovan had come to claim the property.
AT the fifth hearing before the magistrate, Mr. Poland, who
prosecuted on behalf of the Treasury, rose in his place and
declared that he could carry the case no further. The police
had done everything they could to discover definite proof of
Mary Donovan's guilt, and had failed absolutely. The woman was
thereupon discharged.
I think it is highly possible that had the police accepted the statement of Mary Donovan and tried to find the man whom she declared had called on Mrs. Samuel on the fatal night, and looked like a plasterer, or paper-hanger, the murderer might have been caught.
The fact that nobody had broken into the house, but that somebody had forced his way out of the house, proved that the assassin must have been admitted by Mrs. Samuel herself. Mrs. Samuel was an old lady who would never have allowed a perfect stranger to enter the house at a late hour of the night. Everything, therefore, points to Mary Donovan's statement being absolutely true.
By the time the police awoke to this fact more than a month had elapsed. The detection of the criminal was hopeless. The usual reward of a hundred pounds was offered by the Government, but no one knows to this day how the diamond merchant's widow of Burton Crescent met her death on the night of December 11, 1878.
THE more I study the history of crime the more convinced do I become that London is one of the most mysterious places in the world. Persons talk of the mysterious East, but not even Asia can supply more astounding mysteries than those which underlie the surface of the vast social area we call London.
I am dealing this week with a case which reads more like some horrible myth than an account of anything which actually occurred. The narrative illustrates my contention that the mysteries or London are so strange and remarkable as sometimes to border upon the uncanny. If a novelist were to tell the story of how a wealthy and respected member of society, living in one of the most fashionable quarters, found one morning in the cellar of his house, where he had dwelt for twenty years, the decomposed remains of a body, the reader would be inclined to smile.
But if any imaginary novelist was to add that the cellar in which the remains were found had been used every day for several years, it is more than probable that his book would be thrown away as being altogether too far-fetched and ridiculous. And yet that is the story of what I have called "The Great Harley Street Enigma," and it is absolutely true in every detail.
It is the remarkable part of London that in the most unexpected quarters these grim tragedies crop up. Again and again it has been shown that the most peaceful-looking places, the most prosaic, respectable and substantial houses, have kept hidden for years the evidences of some terrible crime. In bedrooms, cellars, lofts, warehouses, railway stations, and hundreds of other unlikely places these gruesome clues have been found.
The Harley Street Enigma corresponds in many details with the remarkable mystery which I dealt with in the first of these reports—"the Euston Square mystery."
It will be remembered that in that case the mummified remains of a Miss Hacker, an eccentric spinster from Canterbury, were found in a coal-cellar which had been used every day for the 20 months the body must have rested there.
The case I am now dealing with was made public hardly more than a year later, and the similarity of the two tragedies aroused many wild conjectures. Within three or four years nearly a dozen murders had been brought to light, but not one of the perpetrators had been discovered, and the finding of an unknown woman's body in an American sugar-cask in a house in Harley Street, W., completed the uneasiness and agitation that had been aroused in the public mind.
I will let the reader judge whether or no he considers at this distance of time the scare to have been justified. Here is the story.
THE house in Harley Street was in 1880 in the possession of a
Mr. Henriques, who had occupied it then for more than 20
years. Mr. Henriques was a very wealthy merchant who kept a
luxuriously-appointed establishment and a large staff of
servants. The neighbourhood in which he resided was even more
fashionable than it is now. Not very far away Mr. Gladstone
resided, and doubtless Mr. Henriques had witnessed from his
windows two very remarkable scenes which occurred about this
time.
Probably he saw the roughs rushing down Harley Street to break the great statesman's windows, and shortly afterwards watched an enthusiastic crowd hastening the same way with cheers to welcome the hero of Liberalism back to power.
Mr. Henriques' establishment worked smoothly and easily, and to judge from the number of servants that left his employment in the course of three or four year, it is reasonable to assume that he was a person who was very particular about his domestics. He had had to change his butler very frequently, but at last found himself well-suited with a man of the name of John Spendlove.
John Spendlove had been in his employ for 15 months, having taken over the duties of the previous butler, a man named Smith, on November 21, 1878. Though he seems to have liked the place, there was one little drawback of which he felt it his duty to complain to his master. He occupied a room in the basement, which faced three cellars, running out under the pavement of Harley Street, and separated from the house by the area. Two of these cellars were used for coal, and the third was set apart for domestic purposes and boot-cleaning. From the first Spendlove complained of the very disagreeable smell that emanated from the third cellar. Quite naturally, the nuisance was attributed to the drains, and Mr. Henriques' gave instructions for them to be thoroughly overhauled and repaired. But though this was done the nuisance still continued.
Spendlove again complained, and told his master that he thought the objectionable odour must be due to the dust-bin. Steps were promptly taken to remedy this fancied defect, but still the disagreeable smell continued, increasing rather than diminishing from day to day.
Spendlove was supported in his statement regarding the nuisance by Arthur Kirkland, the footman, whose business it was to clean the boots every day in the cellar. His predecessor, a man called Tinnup, who had taken the situation prior to Spendlove's arrival, on August 18, 1876, and had left in the middle of 1879, had also complained.
On the morning of June 3, 1880, the smell had become peculiarly offensive, and the butler was determined to have the whole place cleaned out. Having seen his master safely seated at breakfast, he went down into the area. In the cellar he found Arthur Kirkland busy cleaning the boots. He told him what he intended to do, and the footman left his work to give him a hand.
They first directed their efforts to investigating a barrel, such as is used in the export of sugar from America. This barrel, which both men had seen every day since they had been in the house, stood in an opening underneath some brick staging, which supported a galvanised iron cistern. The barrel was one or two feet back in the recess, and both the butler and footman believed it to be full of empty seltzer-water bottles and gallipots, some of which protruded over the top. Together they pulled it out into the middle of the cellar floor.
Spendlove began to remove some of the bottles, when all of a sudden the footman, who was standing by, cried out, "There's somebody here."
Looking down, the butler was startled to see something which he could not make out, as it seemed like some effigy or figure stowed away. Closer investigation showed beyond doubt that it was the remains of a human body.
In great consternation. Spendlove rushed off to his master, and asked to be allowed to speak to him for a few moments.
"We have found the remains of something in a barrel downstairs," he said, in great agitation.
"Send for a policeman," was the prompt reply. "You will find one at the end of the street."
As soon as the police were on the scene Dr. Spurgin, the divisional surgeon, was summoned in hot haste to make a preliminary investigation of the cask and its tragic contents. It was impossible, however, there and then to come to any decision as to the sex or age of the corpse. All that could be noted was that the body had been thrust head downwards into the cask, and that a quantity of hair adhered to the top of the cask.
As soon as night fell the gruesome relic was removed to the local mortuary, and there a thorough examination was held. The body was that of a woman, about 4ft. 7in., and somewhere about middle age. When taken from the cask the spine was bent into a curve and the head doubled back. The right hand was clenched and pressed across the breast; the left hand was twisted round to the back. The thighs were bent backwards, and the knees doubled down, so that the legs crossed at the back. The hair on the head was dark brown save for a few grey hairs.
The body was partly mummified, and the doctors agreed that it must have been in the cask for more than a year. Chloride of lime was found in the cask, evidently placed there by some ignorant person, who imagined, like the murderer Wainwright, that its chemical action would destroy all vestiges of the crime. The legs above the knees were gartered with common metal buckles, and the discovery of some fragments of very coarse linen underclothing seemed to justify the assumption that the victim, whoever she was, had been in poor circumstances.
The only other feature which the doctors thought worth noting were the peculiar shape of the woman's front teeth, which looked as if they had been partially sawn off, and also of the discovery of a piece of coral embedded in one ear. That she had been the victim of a murder was proved beyond doubt, for there was a wound above the heart which must have been made with a knife.
To summarise the information which the doctors were able to give the police:—the victim was a brown-haired, short woman of middle age who probably wore coral earrings, and had curiously-formed front teeth.
That is all that was then known, and is ever likely to be known, of the victim.
The enigma which the police were called upon to solve was briefly as follows:—
How had the barrel and its gruesome contents got into the area cellar of the house in Harley Street, and when were they placed there? Could these two questions be more or less definitely answered, then there was some chance of bringing the murderer to the gallows. But, without an answer to either of them, it was hopeless to imagine that justice would ever be done.
There seemed good reason to suppose, when the police took up the case, that there would be no difficulty in finding these answers, for the cellar had been used every day, and the fact that bottles had been placed in the cask seemed to show that it had been noted by the servants. But from the very first the police found their hopes frustrated, and their investigations doomed to disappointment. From Mr. Henriques a list of all the servants he had employed during the previous four or five years was obtained. They were sought out and subjected one by one to a searching examination. I will give in precise form the result of their somewhat contradictory and confused evidence.
George Campbell, who was butler for five months in 1877, remembered the smell of the barrel. George Winter, who was employed from 1877 to the middle of 1878 gave evidence to the same effect. Smith, the butler whom Spendlove succeeded, never recollected having seen the cask, though he used to go into the cellar three or four times a week. He left the situation after having been in Mr. Henriques service for eight or nine months, on November 21, 1878. Robert Woodroffe, who took care of the house while the Henriques family were absent from town, neither saw the cask nor detected any smell in August 1878.
On the other hand, Spendlove had noticed the cask and detected the smell from his first entry into the house, on November 27, 1878. Tinnup, the footman, who had taken up his situation on August 18, 1878, also recollected the barrel and the smell from the very first day of his arrival. Henry Coatley, a plumber, noticed the cask in or about July 1878, while he was employed in mending the cistern. But though he saw the cask he did not detect any smell.
This was all the information that the police could obtain. It established nothing, unless the evidence of Smith and Woodroffe, the caretaker was discounted altogether. The ex-butler and caretaker both agreed that the cask was not in the cellar, and that the smell did not exist during the months from July to November.
The plumber's evidence, however, and the statement of Tinnup laid it down that the cask was in the cellar in July 1878, and that the cask was there and the smell prevalent from August 1878 onwards. With such confused material, the police investigations were doomed to failure. They pretended to be hopeful, but not a single clue as to how the mysterious barrel got into the cellar was over discovered.
The coroner's jury brought in a verdict of "Wilful Murder" against some person or persons unknown. The Government offered a reward of a hundred pounds, and there the whole matter stopped abruptly.
Who was the brown-haired, little woman of middle age with those peculiar front teeth, "as if they had been sawn off?" How came it that no-one even missed her from the world she had inhabited? She must have lodged somewhere. She must have housed herself under a roof, however humble; she must have exchanged an occasional word with some human companion. And yet no one appears to have given her a thought, or to have been disturbed by her disappearance, or to have felt any regret when she passed from her circle of acquaintances in that dreadful tomb in the cellar of the house in Harley Street.
Though her mutilated remains rested there 18 months at least—being brought there by some mysterious person on some unknown day in some strange, weird manner—how came it about that no one of the inhabitants of the house ever suspected that they lived and moved and went serenely about their work within a few yards of where these miserable evidences of a monstrous crime lay hid?
I think my readers will agree with me that I am right in calling the tragic narrative "The Enigma of Harley Street."
IF I attempted to deal with all the mutilation mysteries which have horrified the country during the last 50 years I should weary my readers with endless repetitions.
The main features of such cases are always the same: The passionate wretch who has committed an atrocious crime seeks, in the first revulsion of horror, to find some way of hiding the crying evidence of his guilt. Almost invariably in such cases the first impulse of the assassin leads him to cut the body in pieces, either with the idea of burning it, or with the object of enabling him to conceal it more conveniently.
Fortunately for the sake of justice, to reduce a body to dust by the ordinary processes of combustion is a very long, a very difficult, and a very expensive process. More than one murderer has been caught engaged in the gruesome and unavailing task of trying to burn the corpse of his victim piecemeal. The details of these cases are too nauseating to find a record here.
Sometimes, early discovering that his attempts are bound to fail, the murderer has desisted from employing fire to cover his guilt and, taking the fragments of his victim's body and either deposited the remains in one place or else scattered them broadcast, hoping, by this means, to escape detection.
My readers will recollect the story of Sherward of Norwich, who, having killed his wife, cut her body into pieces, boiled them, and then, night after night for a whole week, distributed portions of them round the city. From his own point of view his methods were so successful that, had it not been for the fact that he confessed 18 years later, he would never have met his death on the scaffold.
There are two cases which are invariably quoted together when the subject of mutilation mysteries is dealt with in the various histories of crime—the Waterloo Bridge case of 1857 and the Battersea "mutilation mystery" of 1873.
Though I intend dealing only with the latter at length, perhaps it will interest my reader if I recount, briefly, the little that is known of the former.
TWO boys who were out in a boat in the year 1857 noticed a
carpet-bag, caught by the flow of the tide, resting against
one of the buttresses of Waterloo Bridge. Regarding it as a
find, they rowed up to it and promptly proceeded to
investigate its contents. On opening the bag they were
horrified to find that it contained the mutilated fragments of
a human body, chopped up into a number of pieces. They
immediately took their gruesome find to the authorities.
The subsequent medical examination disclosed the following facts:—
There adhered to some of the pieces of the body the unmistakable shreds of male clothing; further, the doctors were able to announce that the victim was a dark and hairy man, who had met his death through a knife-stab between the third and fourth ribs.
The remains had been boiled and subsequently salted, or placed in brine, with the probable object of trying to avoid the damning evidences of decomposition until such a time as the corpse could be disposed of. Some parts of the interior bones had escaped the action of the salt, and from these it was possible to make an approximate guess at the date of death, which must have taken place three or four weeks before.
From the nature, of the clothes, it was adduced that the deceased must have been a foreigner. But beyond these generalities it was found impossible to discover anything. The crime had been committed with diabolical cunning, and must have been carefully thought out beforehand. All the parts likely to lead to identification, such as the hands, feet and head, were found to be missing. Though search was made everywhere, they were never brought to light; and as a consequence, the Waterloo Bridge mystery remains a mystery to this day
The similarity between this case and the Battersea one, which I will now recount, will be apparent at once to the reader.
ON September 5, 1873, a Thames policeman found, in the mud off
the Battersea waterworks, the left quarter of a woman's trunk.
He took the mutilated part at once to the Clapham and
Wandsworth union workhouse, where Dr. Kempster, the divisional
surgeon saw it and pronounced it to be a portion of a body
which had not been in the water more than 12 hours.
A careful and minute search of the river was immediately instituted by the Thames police, but, strangely enough, the next discovery was made by a constable in the employ of the South-Western Railway, who had no knowledge of what had already been brought to light.
Off the Brunswick wharf, near Nine Elms Station, he found the right quarter of a woman's trunk. This part corresponded with the first part found, and it was clearly seen that the gruesome; operation had been performed with a very sharp knife, and that, moreover, a saw had also been used.
Other portions of the body began to be discovered in rapid succession. Inspector Marley, of the Thames police, found a portion of the lungs, under an arch of the old Battersea bridge, and the other part near the Battersea Toll Way pier.
On the following day, September 6, the Thames yielded up off Limehouse the face of a woman, with the scalp attached—possibly the most appalling horror ever pulled out of a river whose history runs red with tragedy
It was evident at a glance that the murderer, or murderers, had taken revolting precautions to prevent identification, for the nose was cut from the face, but still hung, attached to the upper lip. There was the mark of a bruise on the right temple, evidently caused by a blunt instrument, and this blow, it was concluded, must have been the cause of death.
On September 9, two more portions of the same body were, found. The right thigh was picked up in the river off Woolwich, and the right shoulder, with part of the arm, which was smeared with tar, off Greenwich. The left foot was discovered near the bank of the Regent's Canal, off Rotherhithe, and the right forearm near the Albert Embankment. Six days later another piece of the right arm was found near Hungerford Bridge.
There was one circumstance attaching to these dreadful discoveries from which the authorities were able to deduce a very sound theory: Each fragment had been found on an ebb tide, each lower and lower down the river. This seemed to indicate that the heavier portions at least were committed to the river not very far from the place where the Wandle enters the Thames, and had been washed down by the tide to where they were found—one to Battersea, which is but a couple of miles from the Wandle; and another part a little later.
THE publication of this grim news created an immense
sensation. The public joined hands with the police trying to
track the missing portions of the body. Several fragments,
which might otherwise have escaped the notice of the
authorities, were taken to the Clapham and Wandsworth
workhouse. As invariably happens in these cases, quite a
number or pieces of flesh and bone were handed in, which, on
examination, were found to belong to different animals.
The one portion that the police were most anxious to lay their hands upon, was the skull. Without that they were unable to tell the exact cause of death. It was thought that, with that in their possession they would be able to decide definitely whether the blows on the head, as shown by the contusions, really proved fatal, or whether they only stunned the victim, whose head, while she was still insensible but still, living, was cut from her shoulders. But the skull, was never brought to light.
Under the direction of Mr. Hayden, the medical officer of the workhouse where the remains lay preserved in spirits of wine, the body was built up, and the face so arranged as to give some hope that the mutilated victim might be Identified.
The medical evidence at the inquest agreed unanimously that the body was cut up but a short time before it was committed to the water, and that death was caused, in all probability, by a blow on the right temple—a blow which the scalp seemed to show was hard enough to have crushed in the skull, and so to have caused instant death. It was held also that the parts first found had been in the water but a few hours.
The inquest was postponed from week to week in the hope that somebody could identify the remains. Crowds daily flocked to the workhouse, fearing to recognise in the horribly mutilated corpse some dear friend or relative who had been swallowed up in the mysterious maw of London.
With unfailing patience and pertinacity, the police followed up the story of each missing woman as it was related to them, testing even the most ridiculous and improbable narratives.
Within the first, few days several theories were seriously propounded. One laid it down that it might be the work of an association of criminal lunatics, escaped from Broadmoor, who, hiding among the islands of Battersea-point, wandered forth now and again to seize some victim and to put him or her to a horrible death.
Another theory, that was mooted, also in the case of the Waterloo Bridge mystery, received for several days considerable public support. The whole affair, it was said, was a grim practical joke played by some medical student who had deliberately thrown into the Thames a body they were dissecting, in the hope of horrifying the public.
The law governing the dissection of corpses was not then generally known, and it was not until The Lancet showed the impossibility of this theory, that it was abandoned. Every body of a person dying unclaimed in a public institution, is registered at the office of the Inspector of Anatomy, and its destination settled by his officers. It is forwarded with an official schedule and certificate to a licensed school of anatomy, where its receipt is duly acknowledged by a formal certificate.
From that moment the anatomical teacher is responsible for its care; no entire body is ever given to any student, and, after dissection, the remains are collected and buried. There are undertakers attached to the schools, whose interest it is to see that each body sent for dissection, is ultimately committed to the earth, and who would be certain to report to the authorities the loss of a corpse, which loss would rob them of their fees.
The theory was rendered finally untenable by the official announcement that after the closing of the school for the summer, no bodies are dissected within the metropolitan area before October 17. As September was not then out, the suggestion that the sinister discovery in the Thames was the work of some practical joker among the medical students was shown to be inadmissible.
Meanwhile, another, startling discovery had been made, which seemed to promise that the whole mystery would be cleared up. Among the number of people who came to view the corpse, was a Mr. Christian, of 15 South Street, Battersea Fields. He had had a lodger, a Mrs Cailey, who had taken his rooms five weeks previously. She was supposed to be a widow from Lyme Regis. Dorsetshire. On the morning of September 2, she had left the house, after offering Mrs. Christian two pawn tickets in payment of her rent.
"Next time you see me you will not know me," were her last words as she set out. From that day she had been seen no more in South Street, Battersea Fields.
Mr. Christian brought with him his wife and another lodger, Mr. Lawson. On seeing the body they both decided that it was the body of Mrs. Cailey. The police at once followed up this clue with great zest. Mrs. Cailey had certainly disappeared; her old landlady and a fellow-lodger appeared to recognise her in the awful human fragments at the workhouse. What was more likely, then, than it was the body of Mrs. Cailey that had been picked out piecemeal from the Thames?
An incident that occurred prior, to Mrs Cailey's disappearance seemed to lend support to the theory. On her return late one night she had been set on by some men near Battersea Park, had received a blow over the eye, and had become so frightened of going out that she had asked for the protection of the police. Might not these men who had assaulted her be the murderers. Her brother, Abel Beer, of South Street, Bridport, Dorsetshire, was sought out, and brought up to London. As soon as he saw the body he became deeply affected.
"I believe 'tis she. Yes, I believe, 'tis she. It's just her hair."
There was a large white mark on the poor victim's breast which confirmed Abel Beer's opinion. His sister had scalded herself when she was young, with boiling water, in exactly the same spot. Beer was also positive as to the identity of the ear and nose. Her stature troubled him a little, but did not make him alter his opinion that the remains were those of his missing sister.
The story of Abel Beer's tearful recognition of his sister convinced the public and the press that it was Mrs. Cailey whose mutilated body had been found in the Thames. While they were still hoping that now that the victim's identity was established, the murderer would be discovered, Mrs. Cailey suddenly turned up smiling in Kings Road, Chelsea, very much alive, indeed.
After that the whole affair was allowed to lapse gradually into the realm of undiscovered mysteries; for, though the Government offered a reward of two hundred pounds, no one has ever come forward, who was able to recognise that awesome, skull-less face and those brutally mutilated limbs that were fished out of the Thames on September 5, 1873.