The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime Read online

  And then the coroner proceeded to explain to the jury that they had to decide not upon suppositions but facts. They might all be convinced that Dr. Pitcherley’s explanation was the true one, but in law it could not be accepted. Their verdict must be in accordance with facts, and the simple facts of the case were these:—A man was found dead, and the causes of his death were such that it was impossible to believe that the deceased had been guilty of suicide. They would therefore under the circumstances feel it was their duty to return an open verdict of murder.

  The jury did not retire, but at the expiration of a consultation of three minutes, in which (I learnt) the foreman, Mr. Mortoun, had all the talking to himself, the jury gave in a verdict of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown.

  Thus ended the inquest.

  And I have little hesitation in saying it was one of the weakest inquiries of that kind which had ever taken place. It was characterized by no order, no comprehension, no common sense.

  The facts of the case made some little stir, but the plausible explanations offered by the doctor, and the several coinciding circumstances, deprived the affair of much of its interest, both to the public and the detective force; to the former, because they had little room for ordinary conjecture; to the latter, because I need not say the general, the chief motive power in the detective is gain, and here the probabilities of profit were almost annihilated by the possibility that a true explanation of the facts of this affair had been offered, while it was such as promised little hope of substantial reward.

  But the mere fact of my here writing this narrative will be sufficient to show that I did not coincide with the general view taken of the business.

  That I was right the following pages will I think prove.

  Of course the Government offered the usual reward, £ 100, of which proclamation is published in all cases of death where presumably foul play has taken place.

  But it was not the ordinary reward which tempted me to choose this case for investigation. It was several peculiar circumstances which attracted me.

  They were as follows:

  1. Why did the father refuse to offer a reward?

  2. Why did the deceased have one of the household keys with him at the time of his death, and how came he to have it at all?

  3. What did the box mean?

  1. It seemed to me that the refusal by the father to offer a reward must arise from one of three sources. Either he did not believe a murder had been committed, and therefore felt the offer was needless; or he knew murder was committed, and did not wish to accelerate the action of the police; or, thirdly, whether he believed or disbelieved in the murder, knew or did not know it to be a murder, that he was too sordid to offer a reward by the payment of which he would lose without gaining any corresponding benefit.

  2. How came the deceased to have one of the keys of his father’s establishment in his pocket? Such a possession was extremely unusual, and more inexplicable. How came he to possess it? Why did he possess it? What was he going to do with it?

  3. What did the box mean? Did the unhappy girl Dinah Yarton refer to any ordinary or extraordinary box? It appeared to me that if she referred to any ordinary box it must be an ordinary box under extraordinary circumstances. But fools have very rarely any imagination, and knowing this I was not disposed to accredit Dinah with any ability to invest the box ordinary with any extraordinary attributes. And then remembering that there was nobody in the house to play tricks with her but a grave housekeeper who would not be given to that kind of thing, I came to the conclusion that the box in question was an extraordinary box. “It was in the hall.” Now if the box were no familiar box, and it was in the hall, the inference stood that it had just arrived there. Did I at this time associate the box intimately with the case? I think not.

  At all events I determined to go down to Tram and investigate the case, and as with us detectives action is as nearly simultaneous with determination to act as it can be, I need not say that, making up my mind to visit Tram, I was soon nearing that station by the first train which started after I had so determined.

  Going down I arranged mentally the process with which I was to go through.

  Firstly, I must see the constable.

  Secondly, I must talk to the girl Dinah.

  Thirdly, I must examine the place of the murder.

  All this would be easy work.

  But what followed would be more difficult.

  This was to apply what I should discover to any persons whom my discoveries might implicate, and see what I could make of it all.

  Arrived at Tram at once I found out the constable, and I am constrained to say—a greater fool I never indeed did meet.

  He was too stupid to be anything else than utterly, though idiotically, honest.

  Under my corkscrew-like qualities as a detective he had no more chance than a tender young cork with a corkscrew proper. I believe that to the end of the chapter he never comprehended that I was a detective. His mind could not grasp the idea of a police officer in petticoats.

  I questioned him as the shortest way of managing him, smoothing his suspicions and his English with shillings of the coin of this realm.

  Directly I came face to face with him I knew what I had to do. I had simply to question him. And here I set out my questions and his answers as closely as I can recollect them, together with a narrative of the actions which resulted out of both.

  I told him at once I was curious to know all I could about the affair; and as I illustrated this statement with the exhibition of the first shilling, in a moment I had the opportunity of seeing every tooth he had in his head—thirty-two. Not one was missing.

  “There was found on the body a key and a mask—where are they?”

  “War be they—why, in my box, sin’ I be coonstubble!”

  “Will you show them me?”

  “Oh, Ise show they ye!”

  And thereupon he went to a box in the corner of the room, and unlocked it solemnly.

  As the constable of Tram it was perfectly natural that he should keep possession of these objects, since a verdict of wilful murder had been given, and at any time, therefore, inquiries might have to be made.

  From this box he took out a bundle; this opened, a suit of clothes came to view, and from the middle of these he produced a key and a mask.

  I examined the key first. It was a well-made—a beautifully-made key, and very complicated. We constables learn in the course of our experience a good deal about keys, and therefore I saw at a glance that it was the key to a complicated and more than ordinarily valuable lock.

  On the highly-polished loop of the key a carefully-cut number was engraved—No. 13.

  Beyond all question this key was no ordinary key to an ordinary lock.

  Now, extraordinary locks and keys guard extraordinary treasures.

  The first inference I arrived at, therefore, from my interview with the Tram constable was this—that the key found upon the body opened a lock put upon something valuable.

  Then I examined the mask.

  It was of black crape, stretched upon silver wire. I had never seen anything like it before, although as a detective I had been much mixed up with people who wore masks, both at masquerades and on other occasions even less satisfactory.

  I therefore inferred that the mask was of foreign manufacture.

  [I learnt ultimately that I was right, and no great credit to me either, for that which is not white may fairly be guessed to be of some other colour. The mask was what is called abroad a masque de luxe, a mask which, while it changes the countenance sufficiently to prevent recognition, is made so delicately that the material, crape, admits of free perspiration—a condition which inferior masks will not admit.]

  “Anything else found on the body?”

  “Noa.”

  “No skeleton keys?”

  “Noa; on’y wan key.”

  So, if the constable were right, and if the body had remained as it fell, whe
n found by the gardener, Brown, the only materials found were a key and mask.

  But, surely, there was something else in the pockets.

  “Was there no purse found?” I asked.

  “Noa; noa poorse.”

  “No handkerchief?”

  “Ooh, ’ees; thar war a kerchiefer.”

  “Where is it?”

  He went immediately to the bundle.

  “Are these the clothes in which he was found?”

  “Ees, they be.”

  So far, so good, I felt.

  The constable, stupid and honest as he appeared, and as he existed, was very suspicious, and therefore I felt that he had to be managed most carefully.

  Having hooked the handkerchief out from some recess in the bundle with the flattest forefinger I think I ever remarked, he handed it to me.

  It was a woman’s handkerchief.

  It was new; had apparently never been used; there was no crease nor dirt upon it, as there would have been had it been carried long in the pocket; and it was marked in the corner “Freddy”—undoubtedly the diminutive of Frederica.

  “Was the ‘kerchiefer,’” I asked, using the word the constable had used—“was it wrapped in anything?”

  “Noa.”

  “What pocket was it in?”

  “Noa poockut.”

  “Where was it, then?”

  “In’s weskit, agin’s hart, an’ joost aboove th’ ole made in ’um.”

  Now, what was the inference of the handkerchief?

  It was a woman’s; it was not soiled; it had not been worn long; it was thrust in his breast; it was marked.

  The inference stood thus:

  This handkerchief belonged to a woman, in all probability young, whose Christian name was Frederica; as it was not soiled, and as it was not blackened by wear, it had recently been given to, or taken, by him; and as the handkerchief was found in the breast of his shirt, it appeared to have been looked upon with favour. Suppose then we say that it was a gift by a young woman to the deceased about the time when he was setting out on his expedition?

  Now, the deceased had left London within eighteen hours of his death; had the handkerchief been given him in London or after he left town?

  Again, had the mask anything to do with this woman?

  Taking it up again and re-examining it, the delicacy of the fabric struck me more than before, and raising it close to my eyes to make a still narrower examination I found that it was scented.

  The inference stood, upon the whole, that this mask had belonged to a woman.

  Again I began to question Joseph Higgins, constable.

  “I should be glad to look at the clothes,” I said.

  “Lard, thee may look,” said the constable.

  They were an ordinary suit of clothes, such as a middle-class man would wear of a morning, but not so good or fashionable as one might have expected to find in wear by the son of a wealthy squire.

  [This apparent incongruity was soon explained away by my learning, as I did in the evening of my arrival, that the squire was mean and even parsimonious.]

  There was nothing in the pockets, but my attention was called to the fluffy state of the cloth, which was a dark grey, and which therefore in a great measure hid this fluffiness.

  “You have not been taking care of these clothes, I am afraid.”

  “They be joost as they coomed arf him!”

  “What, was all this fluff about the cloth?”

  “Yoa.”

  [Yoa was a new version of “e-es,” and both meant “yes.”]

  “They look as though they had been rolled about a bed.”

  “Noa.”

  The clothes in question were stained on their underside with gravel-marks, and they were still damp on these parts.

  The remarking of this fact, recalled to my mind something which came out at the inquest, and which now I remembered and kept in mind while examining the state of the clothes.

  On the Monday night, as the body was discovered on the Tuesday morning, it had rained.

  Now the clothes were not damp all over, for the fluff was quite wavy, and flew about in the air. It was necessary to know what time it left off raining on the Monday night, or Tuesday morning.

  It was very evident that the clothes had not been exposed to rain between the time of their obtaining the fluffiness and the discovery of the body. Therefore ascertain at what hour the rain ceased, and I had the space of time (the hour at which the body was discovered being half-past five) within which the body had been deposited.

  The constable knew nothing about the rain, and I believe it was at this point, in spite of the shillings, that the officer began to show rustic signs of impatience.

  I may add here that I found the rain had only ceased at three o’clock on the Tuesday morning. It was therefore clear that the body had been deposited between three and half-past five—two hours and a-half.

  This discovery I made that same evening of my landlady, a most useful person.

  Now, does it not strike the reader that three o’clock on a May morning, and when the morning had almost come, was an extraordinarily late hour at which to be poaching?

  This indisputable fact, taken into consideration with the needlessness of the mask (for poachers do not wear masks), and the state of the clothes, to say nothing of the kind of clothes found on the deceased, led me to throw over Mr. Mortoun’s theory that the young squire had met his death in a poaching affray, or rather while out on a poaching expedition.

  I took a little of the fluff from the clothes and carefully put it away in my pocket-book.

  The last thing I examined was the barb which had caused the death.

  And here I admit I was utterly foiled—completely, positively foiled. I had never seen anything of the kind before—never.

  It was a very coarse iron barb, shaped something like a queen’s broad arrow, only that the flanges widened from their point, so that each appeared in shape like the blade of a much-worn penknife. The shaft was irregular and perhaps even coarser than the rest of the work. The weapon was made of very poor iron, for I turned its point by driving it, not by any means heavily, against the frame of the window—to the intense disgust of the constable, whose exclamation, I remember thoroughly well, was “Woa.”

  Now what did I gain by my visit to the constable? This series of suppositions:

  That the deceased was placed where he was found between three and half-past five A.M. on the Tuesday; that he was not killed from any result of a poaching expedition; and that he had visited a youngish woman named Frederica a few hours before death, and of whom he had received a handkerchief and possibly a mask.

  The only troublesome point was the key, which, by the way, had been found in a small fob-pocket in the waist of the coat.

  While taking my tea at the inn at which I had set down, I need not say I asked plenty of questions, and hearing a Mrs. Green frequently referred to, I surmised she was a busybody, and getting her address, as that of a pleasant body who let lodgings, I may at once add that that night I slept in the best room of the pleasant body’s house.

  She was the most incorrigible talker ever I encountered. Nor was she devoid of sharpness; indeed, with more circumspection than she possessed, or let me say, with ordinary circumspection, she would have made a good ordinary police officer, and had she possessed that qualification I might have done something for her. As it was the idea could not be entertained for any part of a moment.

  She was wonderful, this Mrs. Green.

  You only had to put a question on any point, and she abandoned the subject in which she had been indulging, and sped away on a totally new tack.

  She was ravenous to talk of the murder; for it was her foregone conclusion that murder had been committed.

  In a few words, all the information afforded to this point, which has not arisen out of my own seeking, or came by copy from the county newspaper (and much of that information which is to follow) all proceeded from the same gushi
ng source—Mrs. Green.

  All I had to do was to put another question when I thought we had exhausted the previous one, and away she went again at score, and so we continued from seven to eleven. It was half-past eight or nine before she cleared away the long-since cold and sloppy tea-things.

  “And what has become of Mrs. Quinion?” I asked, in the course of this to me valuable entertainment on the part of Mrs. Green, throughout the whole of which she never asked me my business in these parts (though I felt quite sure so perfect a busybody was dying to know my affairs), because any inquiry would have called for a reply, and this was what she could not endure while I was willing to listen to her. Hence she chose the less of two evils.

  “And what became of the girl?”

  “What gal?”

  “Dinah.”

  “Dinah Yarton?”

  “Yes. I believe that was her name.”

  “Lor’ bless ’ee! it’s as good and as long as a blessed big book to tell ’ee all about Dinah Yarton. She left two days after, and they not having a bed for she at the Lamb and Flag, and I having a bed, her came here—the Lamb and Flag people always sending me their over beds, bless ’em, bless ’ee! and that’s how I comes to know arl about it, bless ’ee, and the big box!”

  [The box—now this was certainly what I did want Mrs. Green to come to. The reader will remember that I laid some stress upon the girl’s frequent reference to the trunk.]

  “Bless ’ee! the big box caused arl the row, because Mrs. Quinion said she were a fool to have been frightened by a big box; but so Dinah would be, and so her did, being probable in the nex’ county at this time, at Little Pocklington, where her mother lives making lace, and her father a farmer, and where her was born—Dinah, and not her mother—on the 1st o’April, 1835, being now twenty years old. What art thee doing? bless ’ee!”

  [I was making a note of Little Pocklington.]

  Nor will I here make any further verbatim notes of Mrs. Green’s remarks, but use them as they are required in my own way, and as in actuality really I did turn them to account.