She Stands Accused
V >>
Victor MacClure >> She Stands Accused
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | 7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17
If any witness had been needed to say what the black box had
contained there was Mrs Rhymer, executrix under the old lady's
will. And if Mrs. Rhymer had been at any need to refresh her
memory regarding the contents opportunity had been given her no
farther back than the afternoon of the previous Thursday. On
that day she had called upon Mrs Duncomb to take tea and to talk
affairs. Three or four years before, with her rapidly increasing
frailness, the old lady's memory had begun to fail. Mrs Rhymer
acted for her as a sort of unofficial curator bonis, receiving
her money and depositing it in the black box, of which she kept
the key.
On the Thursday, old Betty and young Nanny being sent from the
room, the old lady had told Mrs Rhymer that she needed some
money--a guinea. Mrs Rhymer had gone through the solemn process
of opening the black box, and, one must suppose--old ladies
nearing their end being what they are--had been at need to tell
over the contents of the box for the hundredth time, just to
reassure Mrs Duncomb that she thoroughly understood the duties
she had agreed to undertake as executrix
At the top of the box was a silver tankard. It had belonged to
Mrs Duncomb's husband. In the tankard was a hundred pounds.
Beside the tankard lay a bag containing guinea pieces to the
number of twenty or so. This was the bag that Mrs Rhymer had
carried over to the old lady's chair by the fire, in order to
take from it the needed guinea.
There were some half-dozen packets of money in the box, each
sealed with black wax and set aside for particular purposes after
Mrs Duncomb's death. Other sums, greater in quantity than those
contained in the packets, were earmarked in the same way. There
was, for example, twenty guineas set aside for the old lady's
burial, eighteen moidores to meet unforeseen contingencies, and
in a green purse some thirty or forty shillings, which were to be
distributed among poor people of Mrs Duncomb's acquaintance. The
ritual of telling over the box contents, if something ghostly,
had had its usual effect of comforting the old lady's mind. It
consoled her to know that all arrangements were in order for her
passing in genteel fashion to her long home, that all the
decorums of respectable demise would be observed, and that ``the
greatest of these'' would not be forgotten. The ritual over, the
black box was closed and locked, and on her departure Mrs Rhymer
had taken away the key as usual.
The motive for the crime, as said, was plain. The black box had
been forced, and there was no sign of tankard, packets, green
purse, or bag of guineas.
The horror and distress of the old lady's friends that Sunday
afternoon may better be imagined than described. Loudest of the
four, we are told, was Sarah Malcolm. It is also said that she
was, however, the coolest, keen to point out the various methods
by which the murderers (for the crime to her did not look like a
single-handed effort) could have got into the chambers. She drew
attention to the wideness of the kitchen chimney and to the
weakness of the lock in the door to the vacant rooms on the other
side of the landing. She also pointed out that, since the bolt
of the spring-lock of the outer door to Mrs Duncomb's rooms had
been engaged when they arrived, the miscreants could not have
used that exit.
This last piece of deduction on Sarah's part, however, was made
rather negligible by experiments presently carried out by the
porter, Fairlow, with the aid of a piece of string. He showed
that a person outside the shut door could quite easily pull the
bolt to on the inside.
The news of the triple murder quickly spread, and it was not long
before a crowd had collected in Tanfield Court, up the stairs to
Mrs. Duncomb's landing, and round about the door of Mrs Duncomb's
chambers. It did not disperse until the officers had made their
investigations and the bodies of the three victims had been
removed. And even then, one may be sure, there would still be a
few of those odd sort of people hanging about who, in those times
as in these, must linger on the scene of a crime long after the
last drop of interest has evaporated.
% III
Two further actors now come upon the scene. And for the proper
grasping of events we must go back an hour or two in time to
notice their activities.
They are a Mr Gehagan, a young Irish barrister, and a friend of
his named Kerrel.[18] These young men occupy chambers on
opposite sides of the same landing, the third floor, over the
Alienation Office in Tanfield Court.
[18] Or Kerrol--the name varies in different accounts of the
crime.
Mr Gehagan was one of Sarah Malcolm's employers. That Sunday
morning at nine she had appeared in his rooms to do them up and
to light the fire. While Gehagan was talking to Sarah he was
joined by his friend Kerrel, who offered to stand him some tea.
Sarah was given a shilling and sent out to buy tea. She returned
and made the brew, then remained about the chambers until the
horn blew, as was then the Temple custom, for commons. The two
young men departed. After commons they walked for a while in the
Temple Gardens, then returned to Tanfield Court.
By this time the crowd attracted by the murder was blocking up
the court, and Gehagan asked what was the matter. He was told of
the murder, and he remarked to Kerrel that the old lady had been
their charwoman's acquaintance.
The two friends then made their way to a coffee-house in Covent
Garden. There was some talk there of the murder, and the theory
was advanced by some one that it could have been done only by
some laundress who knew the chambers and how to get in and out of
them. From Covent Garden, towards night, Gehagan and Kerrel went
to a tavern in Essex Street, and there they stayed carousing
until one o'clock in the morning, when they left for the Temple.
They were not a little astonished on reaching their common
landing to find Kerrel's door open, a fire burning in the grate
of his room, and a candle on the table. By the fire, with a dark
riding-hood about her head, was Sarah Malcolm. To Kerrel's
natural question of what she was doing there at such an unearthly
hour she muttered something about having things to collect.
Kerrel then, reminding her that Mrs Duncomb had been her
acquaintance, asked her if anyone had been ``taken up'' for the
murder.
``That Mr Knight,'' Sarah replied, ``who has chambers under her,
has been absent two or three days. He is suspected.''
``Well,'' said Kerrel, remembering the theory put forward in the
coffee-house, and made suspicious by her presence at that strange
hour, ``nobody that was acquainted with Mrs Duncomb is wanted
here until the murderer is discovered. Look out your things,
therefore, and begone!''
Kerrel's suspicion thickened, and he asked his friend to run
downstairs and call up the watch. Gehagan ran down, but found
difficulty in opening the door below, and had to return. Kerrel
himself went down then, and came back with two watchmen. They
found Sarah in the bedroom at a chest of drawers, in which she
was turning over some linen that she claimed to be hers. The now
completely suspicious Kerrel went to his closet, and noticed that
two or three waistcoats were missing from a portmanteau. He
asked Sarah where they were; upon which Sarah, with an eye to the
watchmen and to Gehagan, begged to be allowed to speak with him
alone.
Kerrel refused, saying he could have no business with her that
was secret.
Sarah then confessed that she had pawned the missing waistcoats
for two guineas, and begged him not to be angry. Kerrel asked
her why she had not asked him for money. He could readily
forgive her for pawning the waistcoats, but, having heard her
talk of Mrs Lydia Duncomb, he was afraid she was concerned with
the murder. A pair of earrings were found in the drawers, and
these Sarah claimed, putting them in her corsage. An odd-looking
bundle in the closet then attracted Kerrel's attention, and he
kicked it, and asked Sarah what it was. She said it was merely
dirty linen wrapped up in an old gown. She did not wish it
exposed. Kerrel made further search, and found that other things
were missing. He told the watch to take the woman and hold her
strictly.
Sarah was led away. Kerrel, now thoroughly roused, continued his
search, and he found underneath his bed another bundle. He also
came upon some bloodstained linen in another place, and in a
close-stool a silver tankard, upon the handle of which was a lot
of dried blood.
Kerrel's excitement passed to Gehagan, and the two of them went
at speed downstairs yelling for the watch. After a little the
two watchmen reappeared, but without Sarah. They had let her go,
they said, because they had found nothing on her, and, besides,
she had not been charged before a constable.
One here comes upon a recital by the watchmen which reveals the
extraordinary slackness in dealing with suspect persons that
characterized the guardians of the peace in London in those
times. They had let the woman go, but she had come back. Her
home was in Shoreditch, she said, and rather than walk all that
way on a cold and boisterous night she had wanted to sit up in
the watch-house. The watchmen refused to let her do this, but
ordered her to ``go about her business,'' advising her sternly at
the same time to turn up again by ten o'clock in the morning.
Sarah had given her word, and had gone away.
On hearing this story Kerrel became very angry, threatening the
two watchmen, Hughes and Mastreter, with Newgate if they did not
pick her up again immediately. Upon this the watchmen scurried
off as quickly as their age and the cumbrous nature of their
clothing would let them. They found Sarah in the company of two
other watchmen at the gate of the Temple. Hughes, as a means of
persuading her to go with them more easily, told her that Kerrel
wanted to speak with her, and that he was not angry any longer.
Presently, in Tanfield Court, they came on the two young men
carrying the tankard and the bloodied linen. This time it was
Gehagan who did the talking. He accused Sarah furiously, showing
her the tankard. Sarah attempted to wipe the blood off the
tankard handle with her apron. Gehagan stopped her.
Sarah said the tankard was her own. Her mother had given it her,
and she had had it for five years. It was to get the tankard out
of pawn that she had taken Kerrel's waistcoats, needing thirty
shillings. The blood on the handle was due to her having pricked
a finger.
With this began the series of lies Sarah Malcolm put up in her
defence. She was hauled into the watchman's box and more
thoroughly searched. A green silk purse containing twenty-one
guineas was found in the bosom of her dress. This purse Sarah
declared she had found in the street, and as an excuse for its
cleanliness, unlikely with the streets as foul as they were at
that age and time of year, said she had washed it. Both bundles
of linen were bloodstained. There was some doubt as to the
identity of the green purse. Mrs Rhymer, who, as we have seen,
was likelier than anyone to recognize it, would not swear it was
the green purse that had been in Mrs Duncomb's black box. There
was, however, no doubt at all about the tankard. It had the
initials ``C. D.'' engraved upon it, and was at once identified
as Mrs Duncomb's. The linen which Sarah had been handling in Mr
Kerrel's drawer was said to be darned in a way recognizable as
Mrs Duncomb's. It had lain beside the tankard and the money in
the black box.
% IV
There was, it will be seen, but very little doubt of Sarah
Malcolm's guilt. According to the reports of her trial, however,
she fought fiercely for her life, questioning the witnesses
closely. Some of them, such as could remember small points
against her, but who failed in recollection of the colour of her
dress or of the exact number of the coins said to be lost, she
vehemently denounced.
One of the Newgate turnkeys told how some of the missing money
was discovered. Being brought from the Compter to Newgate, Sarah
happened to see a room in which debtors were confined. She asked
the turnkey, Roger Johnson, if she could be kept there. Johnson
replied that it would cost her a guinea, but that from her
appearance it did not look to him as if she could afford so much.
Sarah seems to have bragged then, saying that if the charge was
twice or thrice as much she could send for a friend who would pay
it. Her attitude probably made the turnkey suspicious. At any
rate, after Sarah had mixed for some time with the felons in the
prison taproom, Johnson called her out and, lighting the way by
use of a link, led her to an empty room.
``Child,'' he said, ``there is reason to suspect that you are
guilty of this murder, and therefore I have orders to search
you.'' He had, he admitted, no such orders. He felt under her
arms; whereupon she started and threw back her head. Johnson
clapped his hand on her head and felt something hard. He pulled
off her cap, and found a bag of money in her hair.
``I asked her,'' Johnson said in the witness-box, ``how she came
by it, and she said it was some of Mrs Duncomb's money. `But, Mr
Johnson,' says she, `I'll make you a present of it if you will
keep it to yourself, and let nobody know anything of the matter.
The other things against me are nothing but circumstances, and I
shall come well enough off. And therefore I only desire you to
let me have threepence or sixpence a day till the sessions be
over; then I shall be at liberty to shift for myself.' ''
To the best of his knowledge, said this turnkey, having told the
money over, there were twenty moidores, eighteen guineas, five
broad pieces, a half-broad piece, five crowns, and two or three
shillings. He thought there was also a twenty-five-shilling
piece and some others, twenty-three-shilling pieces. He had
sealed them up in the bag, and there they were (producing the bag
in court).
The court asked how she said she had come by the money.
Johnson's answer was that she had said she took the money and the
bag from Mrs Duncomb, and that she had begged him to keep it
secret. ``My dear,'' said this virtuous gaoler, ``I would not
secrete the money for the world.
``She told me, too,'' runs Johnson's recorded testimony, ``that
she had hired three men to swear the tankard was her
grandmother's, but could not depend on them: that the name of one
was William Denny, another was Smith, and I have forgot the
third. After I had taken the money away she put a piece of
mattress in her hair, that it might appear of the same bulk as
before. Then I locked her up and sent to Mr Alstone, and told
him the story. `And,' says I, `do you stand in a dark place to
be witness of what she says, and I'll go and examine her
again.'''
Sarah interrupted: ``I tied my handkerchief over my hair to hide
the money, but Buck,[19] happening to see my hair fall down, he
told Johnson; upon which Johnson came to see me and said, `I find
the cole's planted in your hair. Let me keep it for you and let
Buck know nothing about it.' So I gave Johnson five broad pieces
and twenty-two guineas, not gratis, but only to keep for me, for
I expected it to be returned when sessions was over. As to the
money, I never said I took it from Mrs Duncomb; but he asked me
what they had to rap against me. I told him only a tankard. He
asked me if it was Mrs Duncomb's, and I said yes.''
[19] Peter Buck, a prisoner.
The Court: ``Johnson, were those her words: `This is the money
and bag that I took'?''
Johnson: ``Yes, and she desired me to make away with the bag.''
Johnson's evidence was confirmed in part by Alstone, another
officer of the prison. He said he told Johnson to get the bag
from the prisoner, as it might have something about it whereby it
could be identified. Johnson called the girl, while Alstone
watched from a dark corner. He saw Sarah give Johnson the bag,
and heard her ask him to burn it. Alstone also deposed that
Sarah told him (Alstone) part of the money found on her was Mrs
Duncomb's.
There is no need here to enlarge upon the oddly slack and casual
conditions of the prison life of the time as revealed in this
evidence. It will be no news to anyone who has studied
contemporary criminal history. There is a point, however, that
may be considered here, and that is the familiarity it suggests
on the part of Sarah with prison conditions and with the cant
terms employed by criminals and the people handling them.
Sarah, though still in her earliest twenties,[20] was known
already--if not in the Temple--to have a bad reputation. It is
said that her closest friends were thieves of the worst sort.
She was the daughter of an Englishman, at one time a public
official in a small way in Dublin. Her father had come to London
with his wife and daughter, but on the death of the mother had
gone back to Ireland. He had left his daughter behind him,
servant in an ale-house called the Black Horse.
[20] Born 1711, Durham, according to The Newgate Calendar.
Sarah was a fairly well-educated girl. At the ale-house,
however, she formed an acquaintance with a woman named Mary
Tracey, a dissolute character, and with two thieves called
Alexander. Of these three disreputable people we shall be
hearing presently, for Sarah tried to implicate them in this
crime which she certainly committed alone. It is said that the
Newgate officers recognized Sarah on her arrival. She had often
been to the prison to visit an Irish thief, convicted for
stealing the pack of a Scots pedlar.
It will be seen from Sarah's own defence how she tried to
implicate Tracey and the two Alexanders:
``I freely own that my crimes deserve death; I own that I was
accessory to the robbery, but I was innocent of the murder, and
will give an account of the whole affair.
``I lived with Mrs Lydia Duncomb about three months before she
was murdered. The robbery was contrived by Mary Tracey, who is
now in confinement, and myself, my own vicious inclinations
agreeing with hers. We likewise proposed to rob Mr Oakes in
Thames Street. She came to me at my master's, Mr Kerrel's
chambers, on the Sunday before the murder was committed; he not
being then at home, we talked about robbing Mrs Duncomb. I told
her I could not pretend to do it by myself, for I should be found
out. `No,' says she, `there are the two Alexanders will help
us.' Next day I had seventeen pounds sent me out of the country,
which I left in Mr Kerrel's drawers. I met them all in Cheapside
the following Friday, and we agreed on the next night, and so
parted.
``Next day, being Saturday, I went between seven and eight in the
evening to see Mrs Duncomb's maid, Elizabeth Harrison, who was
very bad. I stayed a little while with her, and went down, and
Mary Tracey and the two Alexanders came to me about ten o'clock,
according to appointment.''
On this statement the whole implication of Tracey and the
Alexanders by Sarah stands or falls. It falls for the reason
that the Temple porter had seen no stranger pass the gate that
night, nobody but Templars going to their chambers. The one fact
riddles the rest of Sarah's statement in defence, but, as it is
somewhat of a masterpiece in lying invention, I shall continue to
quote it. ``Mary Tracey would have gone about the robbery just
then, but I said it was too soon. Between ten and eleven she
said, `We can do it now.' I told her I would go and see, and so
went upstairs, and they followed me. I met the young maid on the
stairs with a blue mug; she was going for some milk to make a
sack posset. She asked me who were those that came after me. I
told her they were people going to Mr Knight's below. As soon as
she was gone I said to Mary Tracey, `Now do you and Tom Alexander
go down. I know the door is ajar, because the old maid is ill,
and can't get up to let the young maid in when she comes back.'
Upon that, James Alexander, by my order, went in and hid himself
under the bed; and as I was going down myself I met the young
maid coming up again. She asked me if I spoke to Mrs Betty. I
told her no; though I should have told her otherwise, but only
that I was afraid she might say something to Mrs Betty about me,
and Mrs Betty might tell her I had not been there, and so they
might have a suspicion of me.''
There is a possibility that this part of her confession, the tale
of having met the young maid, Nanny, may be true.[21] And here
may the truth of the murder be hidden away. Very likely it is,
indeed, that Sarah encountered the girl going out with the blue
mug for milk to make a sack posset, and she may have slipped in
by the open door to hide under the bed until the moment was ripe
for her terrible intention. On the other hand, if there is truth
in the tale of her encountering the girl again as she returned
with the milk--and her cunning in answering ``no'' to the maid's
query if she had seen Mrs Betty has the real ring--other ways of
getting an entry were open to her. We know that the lock of the
vacant chambers opposite Mrs Duncomb's would have yielded to
small manipulation. It is not at all unlikely that Sarah, having
been charwoman to the old lady, and with the propensities picked
up from her Shoreditch acquaintances, had made herself familiar
with the locks on the landing. So that she may have waited her
hour in the empty rooms, and have got into Mrs Duncomb's by the
same method used by Mrs Oliphant after the murder. She may even
have slipped back the spring-catch of the outer door. One
account of the murder suggests that she may have asked Ann Price,
on one pretext or other, to let her share her bed. It certainly
was not beyond the callousness of Sarah Malcolm to have chosen
this method, murdering the girl in her sleep, and then going on
to finish off the two helpless old women.
[21] This confession, however, varies in several particulars with
that contained in A Paper delivered by Sarah Malcolm on the Night
before her Execution to the Rev. Mr Piddington, and published by
Him (London, 1733).
The truth, as I have said, lies hidden in this extraordinarily
mendacious confection. Liars of Sarah's quality are apt to base
their fabrications on a structure, however slight, of truth. I
continue with the confession, then, for what the reader may get
out of it.
``I passed her [Nanny Price] and went down, and spoke with Tracey
and Alexander, and then went to my master's chambers, and stirred
up the fire. I stayed about a quarter of an hour, and when I
came back I saw Tracey and Tom Alexander sitting on Mrs Duncomb's
stairs, and I sat down with them. At twelve o'clock we heard
some people walking, and by and by Mr Knight came home, went to
his room, and shut the door. It was a very stormy night; there
was hardly anybody stirring abroad, and the watchmen kept up
close, except just when they cried the hour. At two o'clock
another gentleman came, and called the watch to light his candle,
upon which I went farther upstairs, and soon after this I heard
Mrs Duncomb's door open; James Alexander came out, and said, `Now
is the time.' Then Mary Tracey and Thomas Alexander went in, but
I stayed upon the stair to watch. I had told them where Mrs
Duncomb's box stood. They came out between four and five, and
one of them called to me softly, and said, `Hip! How shall I
shut the door?' Says I, ` 'Tis a spring-lock; pull it to, and it
will be fast.' And so one of them did. They would have shared
the money and goods upon the stairs, but I told them we had
better go down; so we went under the arch by Fig-tree Court,
where there was a lamp. I asked them how much they had got.
They said they had found fifty guineas and some silver in the
maid's purse, about one hundred pounds in the chest of drawers,
besides the silver tankard and the money in the box and several
other things; so that in all they had got to the value of about
three hundred pounds in money and goods. They told me that they
had been forced to gag the people. They gave me the tankard with
what was in it and some linen for my share, and they had a silver
spoon and a ring and the rest of the money among themselves.
They advised me to be cunning and plant the money and goods
underground, and not to be seen to be flush. Then we appointed
to meet at Greenwich, but we did not go.[22]
[22] In Mr Piddington's paper the supposed appointment is for ``3
or 4 o'clock at the Pewter Platter, Holbourn Bridge.''
``I was taken in the manner the witnesses have sworn, and carried
to the watch-house, from whence I was sent to the Compter, and so
to Newgate. I own that I said the tankard was mine, and that it
was left me by my mother: several witnesses have swore what
account I gave of the tankard being bloody; I had hurt my finger,
and that was the occasion of it. I am sure of death, and
therefore have no occasion to speak anything but the truth. When
I was in the Compter I happened to see a young man[23] whom I
knew, with a fetter on. I told him I was sorry to see him there,
and I gave him a shilling, and called for half a quartern of rum
to make him drink. I afterwards went into my room, and heard a
voice call me, and perceived something poking behind the curtain.
I was a little surprised, and looking to see what it was, I found
a hole in the wall, through which the young man I had given the
shilling to spoke to me, and asked me if I had sent for my
friends. I told him no. He said he would do what he could for
me, and so went away; and some time after he called to me again,
and said, `Here is a friend.'
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | 7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17