The Insanity of Crime—Lunatics without restraint—What happens at the end—A dangerous monster—A craze for killing—Why the crime was committed—Amiable lunatics—Children who are insane
IF to-morrow we were to read that the whole of the inmates of some great metropolitan lunatic asylum had escaped, and were still at large, the inhabitants of London would be seriously alarmed. There would be a general feeling of insecurity, for among the inmates of all great asylums there are many whose form of insanity is dangerous to the community, even when it is not the most serious form of all—homicidal mania.
And yet there are every day in London a sufficient number of lunatics in full possession of their liberty to fill one of its greatest asylums twice over, and many of them are homicidal maniacs.
Hardly a week passes that we do not read of some terrible act committed by a man or woman who has either been in an asylum or has a family history of insanity. But just before the tragedy these unfortunate people were moving about freely among their fellow-creatures, and all the time they were meditating murder, waiting for the opportunity to take a human life.
The series of diabolical crimes in the East End which appalled the world were committed by a homicidal maniac who led the ordinary life of a free citizen. He rode in tramcars and omnibuses. He travelled to Whitechapel by the underground railway, often late at night. Probably on several occasions he had but one fellow-passenger in the compartment with him, and that may have been a woman. Imagine what the feelings of those travellers would have been had they known that they were alone in the dark tunnels of the Underground with Jack the Ripper!
Some of us must have passed him in the street, sat with him perhaps at a café or a restaurant. He was a man of birth and education, and had sufficient means to keep himself without work. For a whole year at least he was a free man, exercising all the privileges of freedom. And yet he was a homicidal maniac of the most diabolical kind.
This horrible phase of insanity is not, fortunately, a common one. But there are maniacs of the Ripper type still at large. There have been several crimes of the Ripper character committed in low lodging-houses during recent years, and the perpetrator has always succeeded in making his escape and in retaining his liberty.
But the bulk of the dangerous lunatics at large are not systematic assassins. They are only wrought to frenzy by a fancied grievance or the stress of circumstance.
Many of the mysterious crimes of London which are apparently motiveless are the deeds of men who are insane on the subject of persecution. The victims of this form of delusion imagine that some person, often a public character or a celebrity constantly referred to in the Press, is secretly injuring them.
The murder of a popular actor some years ago was due to this cause. A man to whom he was an utter stranger imagined that the actor was keeping him out of an engagement, and he assassinated his imaginary enemy at the stage door of a West End theatre.
If a list could be prepared of the people against whom some lunatic at large has sworn to be revenged for a grievance which exists solely in the imagination of the aggressor, it would be a very alarming document.
It would show the world that a large number of men and women who are dangerously insane are living unrestrained lives, mixing with their fellow-citizens without let or hindrance, and only waiting for the opportunity to attack a supposed enemy.
Many of these people are looked upon by their acquaintances merely as cranks. After the Beck case I received hundreds of letters from people with a grievance; a large number of them were well written, and the addresses at the head of them showed that the writers were in a good position.
In some of these letters there was a threat of what would happen if the "persecutor" was not compelled by the Press to abandon his course of conduct. Some of them contained an unmistakable hint that murder might be the result if the persecution were not stopped or the wrong redressed.
And all these people, absolutely insane, were free from any sort of guardianship or control. Three of them called upon me.
One came late at night. He rushed in directly the door was opened and walked into my study, the door of which was open, before the astonished servant could interfere.
I saw at once what I had to deal with, and I listened with the greatest attention to the story my visitor had to tell. As he told it he worked himself up into a frenzy. His features became convulsed, and he struck my writing-table again and again with his clenched fist. I only got rid of him at last by recommending him to a firm of solicitors, who would take his case up and see that his enemy—a near relative—was legally restrained from conspiring with an oculist to put his eyes out.
Only once before have I conversed with a man who declaimed with such insane violence against an imagined enemy. I felt safer then, for the interview took place at Broadmoor, and two stalwart keepers stood by while the poor maniac foamed and raved.
A year after my visit to the Broadmoor patient—a gentleman whose case had excited a good deal of interest—there was a movement to obtain his release. His friends thought he was cured, and that it was quite safe for him to be restored to his family. Fortunately the authorities took a different view.
This gentleman had committed no actual crime. He had only pointed a pistol at the head of his "persecutor" and threatened to shoot him. Had he recovered in Broadmoor he would have been released. But his dementia had increased during his stay. The actual murderer who becomes sane leaves Broadmoor occasionally. It is not the King's pleasure to keep the sane in a lunatic asylum. In such cases every precaution is taken to insure control and comfort in the home to which the Broadmoor patient returns. The same care is not, unfortunately, always exercised by the authorities of non-criminal asylums, and every week scores of lunatics whose mental health has only been temporarily restored are discharged and return to the family and the home, and wander the streets of London at will.
The relative who is, or has been, in a lunatic asylum is the skeleton in many a family cupboard. In wealthy homes every care is taken to keep the mad member of the family under close observation, but among humble folks such care is impossible. The lunatic is left to look after himself.
There was a man hanged recently for murdering a relative. The murder was wanton and barbarous. The motive of it was a fancied grievance. No one came forward at the trial to save the murderer from the gallows. The barbarity of the crime had turned even his own relatives against him. But the accused had for ten years been looked upon as a madman in the neighbourhood in which he lived.
"He ought to be in an asylum," had been the criticism passed upon his conduct more than once.
Too late to save this man I ascertained the facts. "I've looked upon him as mad for years," said one of his neighbours to me, "and his people knew he was."
"Then why," I asked, "didn't they have him put under restraint?"
"Well, you see, he'd never murdered anybody before," was the reply.
That answer is typical of the public attitude towards lunatics at large. Unless they have killed or attempted to kill it is nobody's business to have them, in the interests of public safety, certified as insane.
We shudder at Caliban when we see him on the stage, and we tremble for Miranda. But there are dozens of Calibans in London, and they are free to roam where they like night and day.
Come down this court with me. Here is a monster deaf and dumb and deformed. Look at the hideous grimaces he makes, listen to the horrible sounds he utters. He is eight and twenty, and has lived in this court for ten years with his mother and father. #
The children tease him. Occasionally they irritate him to such an extent that with a series of wild howls he rushes at them. Then they run away, and presently an aged woman will come out of her home in the court and coax Caliban into a good humour, and lead him indoors. The aged woman is Caliban's mother—she cannot be always looking after him, because she has to make cardboard boxes for a living.
Some day there will be a terrible crime committed in that court, or Caliban will wander away to do his deed, and there will be a shocking story in the newspapers. Then everyone will wonder why Caliban was not put in an asylum where he could be properly guarded and restrained. He is a monster, likely to commit a brutal crime at any moment. But as he has not, so far, done anything criminal, no one thinks it worth while to limit the bounds of his freedom.
Some of the mysterious crimes which baffle the police, because they can find no "motive" to give them a clue, are the deeds of homicidal maniacs at large. The crimes are often committed without provocation. The victim is unknown to them. The opportunity of killing occurs, and it is eagerly seized. Then the maniac, if he has escaped observation, goes quietly home, and thinks no more of his deed. In some cases he has no further knowledge of it.
I spent an afternoon in his private apartment at Broadmoor some time ago with a highly-cultured gentleman who left his chambers late one night, went out on to the Embankment, sat down on a seat on which a tramp was sleeping, and deliberately murdered the tramp. He shot him with a revolver. People hearing the shot ran up, and the murderer was arrested. But if he had throttled the man or stabbed him he would have gone quietly home again, and the murder would have remained a mystery.
When the prisoner was questioned the next day he had no recollection of what had occurred. He couldn't understand why he was detained. This unfortunate gentleman had a large circle of friends and acquaintances, many of whom had been his guests at the pleasant little dinner-parties he used to give in his luxurious chambers. None of them had the slightest suspicion that he was insane.
Nor would anyone suspect it who conversed with him to-day at Broadmoor. As a matter of fact, he is perfectly sane until midnight. But at midnight his entire nature changes, and he has to be approached with the greatest caution. From midnight till the break of day he is a maniac with a desire to kill. After that he is an amiable and cultured gentleman with whom it is a pleasure to associate.
One of the most charming men I ever met, a man so benevolent in appearance, so gentle in manner, that it seems to me even now impossible to think of him as a murderer, waited with a revolver night after night to kill a young fellow against whom he had an imaginary grievance. He succeeded at last. He shot his "enemy" dead at the corner of a street, and then walked quietly away. When he was seized he explained that he had only performed an act of justice, and he requested his captors to release him. He was anxious to get home at once, as he had friends coming to supper.
Had no one been about to see the murder, this genial old gentleman would have gone home to his little supper-party and played the host to perfection. His "persecutor" settled with, he would probably have lived a quiet and gentle life for the remainder of his days. The "stress" being removed he might have become sane, and in his sanity he would have forgotten all about the murder he had committed.
The lunatic at large may commit murder at any time, or he may go to the end of his days without doing the slightest harm to anyone. The merest accident may stir the smouldering fire to flame. The unfortunate barmaid who was discovered murdered in a railway carriage at Waterloo Station with a bloodstained pestle was, it is believed, the victim of her resemblance to another young woman.
The theory of this crime, which still remains a mystery, is that the victim was killed by a young man who had been jilted by a girl to whom he was devotedly attached. The disappointment in love affected the man's brain. One night he entered a railway carriage, and, finding himself seated opposite the living image of the woman who had broken his heart, roused to madness by the sight of that face, he fiercely attacked the unfortunate young woman who was alone with him. Why, if the murder was not planned, he had a pestle with him, need not be argued. Whoever the murderer was he could not have calculated at the time he armed himself with a weapon that he would find himself alone with his victim in a railway carriage. The police suspected various persons at first, but later on obtained evidence which pointed strongly in the direction I have indicated. But this evidence was not sufficient to justify the suspected person being brought to trial.
Lunatics at large are not always unpleasant people; some of them are exceedingly amiable. Their amiability is, however, apt to be embarrassing. A popular tragedian who, on certain occasions, was in the habit of having wreaths handed to him across the footlights, once told me of a painful experience. An elderly lady who admired him exceedingly, determined to make him a few wreaths herself and present them to him in private life. She found out where he lived, and watched his front door. As he came out into the street she would step forward with a smile and slip a home-made wreath over his head. The tragedian didn't want to hurt the poor old lady's feelings by flinging it away, so he took it off and walked to the corner of the street with it in his hand, and then hailed a cab and drove to the theatre.
After that the old lady waylaid him almost every week, and wanted to cover him with flowers. She did succeed one day in slipping a chain of wild flowers about his neck. The great actor became nervous. He couldn't ask the police to protect him against an amiable old lady, and he didn't care to denounce her as a lunatic for considering him worthy of wreaths and garlands. Fortunately for his peace of mind the persecution suddenly ceased. What became of the old lady he never knew.
There was a dear old lady once who made me very unhappy. She lived close to me in Regent's Park, and every day she called at my house and left a few daisies or buttercups, or a handful of simple flowers. That was very nice, but when she began to stand in front of my door and make little speeches about me, scattering floral offerings on my doorstep, and putting buttercups and daisies into my letter-box, I began to feel uncomfortable. One day she went into a flower-shop in Baker Street and ordered garlands of flowers to be sent up and twined about my railings. Fortunately the lady at the flower-shop saw that the dear old soul was not right in her mind, and didn't execute the order. Some weeks after I heard that the old lady had been taken away to an asylum.
This was an agreeable form of madness; much more agreeable than the form insanity took with a young man for whom—believing the tale he told me to be true—I bought a cornet. He assured me that he could earn his living with it, and keep his poor old father and mother out of the workhouse. He came outside my house every night late—sometimes at one and two in the morning—and played that comet. And he played it very badly.
It was only after I had put someone on to follow the comet-player to his home that I discovered that he was in perfectly good circumstances—independent circumstances, in fact—but imagined that he was poor and earning his living as a street musician. He had been in a lunatic asylum for eighteen months, and had only left it a fortnight when he came to me.
Some years ago a madman took a fancy to me, with a much more painful result. He wrote me the most extraordinary letters, to which at first I replied, but I very soon discovered that my correspondent was a violent lunatic, and I ceased to acknowledge his effusions. This made no difference. They poured in upon me as freely as ever.
One day he wrote to me and enclosed the ticket of a travelling bag which he had left at Charing Cross. "I shall commit suicide to-night," he said in the letter; "I have left you my jewellery and all my securities. You will find them in the bag at Charing Cross. I enclose you the ticket for it."
When I opened my "Daily Telegraph" I found that my correspondent had carried out his threat. He had shot himself—fortunately not fatally—in Regent Street the previous evening. I gave the ticket of the bag to the police, who handed it over to the poor fellow's relatives. The bag contained jewellery and securities to the value of many hundreds of pounds.
A painful feature in this phase of London life is the large number of children who are not in possession of their mental faculties, and yet are not under any proper control. Of the little boy who murders a baby brother or sister we hear occasionally. Of the child who only attempts to murder we hear rarely. But the schools for the feeble-minded which are now established in every part of London have a large number of dangerous children of both sexes passing daily from and to their homes and enjoying the full liberties of life in the streets.
This is not the place in which to set forth the terrible dangers to which society will presently be exposed by the ever-increasing numbers of mental and physical degenerates for whose detention, after a certain age, no provision is made by the State.
But before this series is concluded I may, with all due discretion, lift a portion of the veil and give my readers some slight insight into one of the most disquieting phases of life in this great city of packed and seething humanity.
It is not a phase which can be ignored, for statistics show us that the feeble-minded and the insane are increasing at a rate which is entirely out of proportion to the rate of increase in the population.
For every lunatic at large to-day we shall have—unless legislation finds a means of minimizing and dealing with the evil—five lunatics at large in ten years' time.
And it is to lunatics at large that we owe some of the most gruesome, the most appalling Mysteries of modern London.
Secret stories of spies—How Royalty is protected—A scare—Criminals are afraid of women—A traitor who was murdered—How evidence is discovered—Confessors who hold their peace
SCATTERED over London is a small army of spies and informers, men and women, whose business—sometimes whose pleasure—it is to make communications to the authorities with regard to their fellow-citizens. The romance of the Government spy or secret service agent is one thing; the romance of the police informer or "nark" is another.
The spies of foreign Governments are of all classes. Some of them belong to West End clubs and fare sumptuously every day; others are of humble appearance and menial occupation. The spies of Russia are popularly supposed to be highly interesting personalities. Furnished with substantial funds and first-class introductions, they mix with the best society, and have the entrée of the most exclusive circles.
But the Russian spy is in Soho and in Whitechapel, as well as in Mayfair and Belgravia, and some of the most active are members of the revolutionary societies which have their West End meetings in a club near Fitzroy Square, W.C., and their East End meetings in a club near Brick Lane, Spitalfields.
Germany and France have their spies and secret service agents in London, and some of them are British subjects who are taking foreign pay to assist in the betrayal of their country's secrets.
The days are gone when foreign Governments subsidized London newspapers; but every foreign Government of importance has in London its secret representatives, and men and women who are practically members of its secret police.
Some of these people are suspected, some of them are known, but the majority go about their business so skilfully that no one, not even their most intimate friend, has any idea of the nature of their real occupation or the real source of their income.
The stories that might be written of the foreign spies of London are many. The stories that will be written are few. There are certain diplomatic considerations which make official silence imperative, even when suspicion has developed into absolute certainty.
We do not suffer from the spy mania here as they do in France. We do not suspect the foreign tourist who arrives with a camera of designs upon our fortifications; and in our easy-going way we credit foreign Governments, especially Germany, with knowing already quite as much about our national defences as we do ourselves. With the spies who are over here looking after foreign political offenders who have sought "asylum" in the capital we have no concern. In this free land they are as free as the men whose actions they are watching, whose footsteps they are dogging, and whose fate they are seeking to encompass.
We know that London is the centre of the revolutionary movements of Europe. We know that here most of the assassinations which have shocked the world have been plotted and planned. The name and place of abode of every foreign anarchist who comes to this country are registered at Scotland Yard. The system of observation is as perfect as can be, and valuable information is constantly given to the foreign Governments as to the movements of suspected individuals. But the anarchists live in safety and plot in security. It is not our custom to take violent measures against them. To this policy we owe the immunity from outrage that we enjoy. The anarchists of Europe have no desire to make themselves objectionable in England. "Leave us alone and we will leave you alone" is the unwritten understanding in "Red" London between the foreign revolutionaries and the authorities.
There was a time when the apostles of the infernal machine and the bomb sought to terrify our own Government, and then the tension at the Yard was terrible. Spies and informers there were who brought news of many a plot and prevented its accomplishment; but every now and then the dastardly design was carried out. That time is happily passed, and the "Reds" only cause the heads of the police extra anxiety when some foreign potentate is visiting our King and driving openly through the streets of London.
On these occasions every foreign anarchist and terrorist known to the police—and I doubt if there is one in our midst who is not—is shadowed. Some of them may get into a house on the line of procession; some of them may mix with the crowd.
But wherever they are there is someone at their elbow who is watching every movement, ready at the first hint of danger to act promptly and decisively.
When recently the King of Spain drove through the streets of London I stood in the crowd close to a foreign anarchist who makes violent speeches in a certain "Red" club in a back street in Soho. He was so closely wedged in between two stalwart-looking men of the navvy type that when the King of Spain came by he, the anarchist, couldn't have got his hands up to take off his hat had he wanted to do so. The navvies were police officers.
On the occasion of the present Tsar's last visit to London as the Cesarewitch the precautions taken were of an extraordinary character. The anarchists and Russian terrorists in London were not only closely watched, but they were prevented from getting close to the line of route or near to the Royal Palaces.
The known revolutionaries are easy to deal with. The police have daily information of their movements. The "cranks" are the real terror of the authorities, for you never know what a crank will do.
A pale-faced, middle-aged woman in black, caused considerable consternation by attempting to enter St. James's Palace with a suspicious-looking box. She was promptly seized by the police.
On the box being opened with every precaution, under the impression that it was an infernal machine, it was found to contain a long steel chain and a letter to the Cesarewitch, calling his attention to the fact that chains of this description were being worn by the Russian Jews in Siberia. The whole thing was harmless enough, but the officials who first saw that box had a very bad moment.
On every occasion of the visit of a foreign potentate in London the "information" received is of voluminous character. Some of it is worth serious consideration, but a good deal of it is of the "crank" order, with just enough appearance of sanity in it to cause the authorities considerable trouble and anxiety.
The "information received" with regard to ordinary crimes and ordinary criminals is of a different kind. The information on which the police as a rule act when they obtain a "clue" to a mystery is furnished from outside. Sometimes it comes from an acquaintance of the guilty person—as often as not, when the guilty person is a professional criminal, it comes from a jealous woman or from a "nark"—that is, from a person who mixes with a criminal set as one of themselves, and is all the time in constant communication with the police.
"From information I received I went to such and such an address," is the conventional opening of the police officer's evidence.
Very rarely does the real source of information transpire. For the police to give away a professional informer would be to lose an important ally in their war against crime. The deputy of a low lodging-house, the landlord of a public-house frequented by bad characters, would have to pay a heavy penalty if it were known that he was the person who told the police where to put their hand on the "wanted" man. Still worse would it fare with the women who, often when the proceeds of the job have been spent upon them, give Scotland Yard the "office" that So-and-so has been flush of money ever since the night of a certain burglary or shop robbery.
Some of the most expert criminals in London always work single-handed. They might trust a "pal," but they mistrust a pal's pal, and they are especially prejudiced against his female acquaintances. In nine cases out of ten it is a woman who has given the first information to Scotland Yard when a professional criminal who has covered his tracks with the greatest success is suddenly pounced upon by an active and intelligent officer.
Sometimes the betrayal is due to a quarrel in which the woman has been badly knocked about; sometimes it is due to jealousy, but as often as not the information comes from a woman who lives in the neighbourhood, who consorts with thieves, who is herself the wife or the sweetheart of a criminal, but is at the same time a spy acting for the police and in receipt of police pay.
The subject is one upon which it is necessary to write with discretion. In the interests of justice a certain reticence is imperative in such a matter as this. If it were not so I might show how in some sensational cases which have recently been tried the guilty persons would never have been brought to justice but for an act of betrayal which was treacherous in the extreme.
When one knows who committed a murder, to conceal that knowledge is to be an accessory after the fact. The law demands that the knowledge shall instantly be placed at the service of the police. I am not considering information given with regard to murder as treacherous. The cases I have in my mind are those in which the crime was incited by certain individuals who for purposes of their own intended to betray the criminal.
The "agent provocateur" the person who incites a fellow-citizen to commit a crime in order that the police may make a clever capture or secure a dangerous criminal who has hitherto evaded their well-spread net, is not, fortunately, a conventional character in the British judicial drama.
But there are men and women who put up burglaries and robberies and criminal schemes in order that they may give information and get their victims caught in the act.
Not long ago a young policeman captured a man with a quantity of silver plate in his possession. The man was coming from a house in the suburbs at an early hour in the morning.
When the man was brought before the magistrate he told in self-defence a most extraordinary story. He was an ex-convict, but he was leading an honest life and working under the police. He called a police officer as a witness on his behalf, and the officer acknowledged that the man's story was correct.
The prisoner had given information that a burglary was to be committed, and had, "in the interests of justice," taken part in it himself. When he was captured he was on his way to take the stolen property to the police-station, and the information he had given had enabled the authorities to secure the other men. "The prisoner was discharged." If you read between the lines of this story you will have a fair idea of the way in which the professional "nark" works in connection with what—at least, so far as he is concerned—is a put-up job—a trap deliberately arranged for the capture of a criminal.
When a sensational crime has been committed by confederates or by a "gang," and the hue and cry continues unabated, it sometimes happens that one of them tries to make himself safe by offering information to the authorities on certain well-under-stood conditions.
"King's evidence" is recognized as a necessary evil, for it is occasionally the only evidence upon which a conviction could possibly be obtained. Turning King's evidence does not always save the traitor. He may escape the punishment of the law, only to meet with a tragic fate at other hands. Carey, one of the informers at the Phoenix Park murder trial, was got safely away, only to be shot dead by Patrick O'Donell on board a steamship near Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
Other informers less notorious met with "fatal accidents" in far-off lands. Two who went to Paris and lived under assumed names came to the Morgue. They were "found drowned" in the Seine.
The informer in the great bank-note forgery case was doomed to death by the men whom he had betrayed. The revolver with which the elder Barmash committed suicide after sentence had been passed upon him was intended to be used upon the informer who stood in the dock a fellow-prisoner. The opportunity of shooting him did not occur. The man was never in a position in which he could be safely aimed at.
But the informer is not always called upon to make a public appearance. Many of the tales we read about the marvellous discovery of a clue by the police would be shorn of their romance if we knew that an important fact was being kept in the background—viz. that the detective in charge of the investigation had received a communication informing him exactly where to look for the incriminating piece of evidence.
Sometimes the information is anonymous. A few words scribbled on half a sheet of notepaper brought two men to the gallows. The writer suggested that a visit should be paid to a certain house where a little boy would be found who had lost a toy. The hint was taken, and the tale the child told of his missing toy led to one of the most sensational captures of modern times.
Nothing was said about the information that furnished the police with the clue. There was no necessity to tell the story, or to produce the anonymous letter. Yet, but for that hint, it is probable that the crime would have remained one of the unfathomed mysteries of the Metropolis.
A year or two ago a foreign woman was tried for murder. The evidence—although the body of her victim had been concealed in a trunk—justified a verdict of manslaughter, and the woman only got a term of penal servitude.
For two years this woman had been of the greatest assistance to justice. She had become associated with a dangerous class of women in a West End district, and when a man had been robbed by one of them, or by men acting in concert with them, this foreign woman made it her business to find out who the guilty parties were, and to send their names to the police.
She was to all intents and purposes a police spy living the life of the class upon whom she was spying, and for certain reasons enjoying their confidence.
The professional informer or "nark" is rarely suspected. Personal communication with the authorities is avoided as much as possible. Sometimes, in order to put a desperate gang off the scent, the spy who has been in close relationship with them is arrested too, and discharged on account of "insufficient evidence" to implicate him.
To the student of humanity even more interesting than the professional informers are the honest people who become possessed of information with regard to criminal deeds, and from conscientious motives hold their peace.
The Roman Catholic clergy never, of course, betray that which they learn under the seal of confession. But it sometimes happens that terrible secrets are learnt by Protestant clergymen, Salvation Army workers, doctors, and nurses.
A fierce press discussion raged some years ago around the action of a Salvation Army captain to whom a crime was confessed by a penitent, and who went straight away and gave information. Some people held that the action was justified, others that the confession was made in circumstances which did not justify its betrayal.
After the conviction of Israel Lipski for the murder of a Jewess in the East End there was considerable doubt as to his guilt. It looked for a time as if he was likely to be reprieved. A Jewish Rabbi, to whom Lipski had already confessed, kept the secret inviolate until the Home Secretary had refused the petition. The Rabbi knew the man was guilty, but he felt he had no right to use his confession against him.
The secrets of many of the mysteries which have baffled the police are in the possession of men and women who for one motive or another hesitate to reveal them.
The reason for silence is sometimes relationship to the guilty person. A wife cannot be expected to give her husband to the gallows, a father or mother cannot be expected to speak the word which would send a son to a shameful death.
So all the time they keep the ghastly secret and live in constant terror that some day the truth may be discovered.
But most criminals are "given away" sooner or later by informers. How many are thus handed over to justice the public have no means of estimating. The police rule is to screen the "nark" at all hazards. The moment an informer is put in the witness-box his value as an instrument in the detection of crime is destroyed for ever.
The system is absolutely necessary. After the commission of an offence supposed to be the work of a professional criminal, the detective department must know where it can obtain accurate information as to the latest movements of the men likely to have been concerned. It does know. There is scarcely a criminal on the police books who is not kept under observation by one of his own class who "for a consideration" will betray him.
Murder for a few shillings—living on their wits—The value of a handshake—Where the money came from—The mystery of a large income —Price of a lost letter—An unwelcome burglar
ONE half of the world does not know how the other half lives." That is a stock phrase which has been worn threadbare by over-use. And if you analyse it, it appears so self-evident that one wonders at the daring of the person who first put it forward as an original observation. Very few people really know how their next-door neighbours live. They may think they do, but they are often entirely wrong in the conclusion they have arrived at.
One of the great mysteries of a vast city is how all the people in it manage to get a living. If you take a day of London life, apart from its work, and consider the hundreds of thousands of people who are merely amusing themselves and spending collectively a sum of money in the process which, if put in round figures, would astound you, you are faced with a greater mystery still.
Who are the people who during the working hours of the day can assemble in their tens of thousands at the popular race-meetings, the great cricket-matches, the afternoon performances at the theatres, the Palaces of Variety, the concert-rooms, the exhibitions, and the side-shows?
I never see a great match at Lord's or at the Oval and look around at the packed masses of spectators without wondering how the great majority arrange to have the leisure on a working day, and how some of them manage to have the price of admission to spare.
It would be a wild flight of imagination to suppose that to get the money to attend a cricket match some of the spectators had committed a crime. And yet, a few years ago, two little boys paid their sixpence each at the pay-box at Lord's and passed in, enjoyed the game, applauded the big hits, and in the evening went back to the room in which their mother lay dead, and slept in it, tired out with the day's enjoyment.
These little boys were shortly afterwards, owing to certain suspicious circumstances, arrested, and they then confessed that their mother being ill in bed they had murdered her in order to rob her of a few shillings. It was with a portion of this money they had spent a happy day at Lord's watching a cricket match.
It is a gruesome idea to associate with cricket, but the trail of tragedy passes even over the green patch on which the national pastime is played.
I have in my possession the last letter a well-known groundsman ever wrote. It was written in the condemned cell in Bedford Gaol the night before his execution. The last words of that letter, written as a P.S. after the unhappy man's signature, are "No more cricket."
Who that sat near those two little boys as they cheered a boundary hit would have thought that they had that morning murdered their mother? Who that saw this unfortunate groundsman bowling at the nets to some famous batsman of the day would have imagined that he was shortly to end his life on the gallows for cruelly and deliberately murdering his young wife and her mother?
One of the spectators at a great football match at the Crystal Palace was Alfred Stratton, the "mask" murderer. He paid his fare and his admission money to the football ground with the cash he had obtained by killing Mr. and Mrs. Farrow.
As we sit in the packed theatre or music-hall, or mix with the crowd on the race-course, to how many of us does it present itself as a probability that some of the people present are enjoying themselves with money obtained by murder?
Here is a well-known West End café. In the same building is a restaurant. The best people in London are among the frequenters of both. The company present when we enter is not of a kind to excite the slightest suspicion in our minds. The natural assumption is that they are all good citizens of unimpeachable character, and that the money they are spending is legitimately theirs.
But, looking round the crowded room, I can, from my own personal knowledge of facts, select half a dozen specimens of the mystery of the money spent.
A tall, military-looking man leaves one of the tables as we enter and comes across and shakes hands with me.
It would be rude of me to say "I don't know you" in a public room. He sees my hesitation and exclaims, "Ah! you don't remember me, I see. I am Sir —————. I used to see you very often at the old Pelican Club."
I make a conventional reply and pass to the other end of the room. My impression of Sir ————— is not a favourable one.
I remember having heard something about him, and I am a little uneasy at this public claiming of acquaintanceship. The Baronet is with a lady—a very charming lady, to judge by her appearance. I ask an habitué of the café, who is a friend of mine, if he knows anything about Sir —————.
"I don't think much of him," is the reply. "He was here with that lady the day before yesterday, and he got up and shook hands with Colonel ———— just as he did with you. The Colonel told me afterwards he was sure he had never met the man before."
Two weeks later the reason for this little comedy of acquaintanceship was made clear. The Baronet appeared at Bow Street police court and turned out to be no baronet at all, but an adventurer who had imposed his title upon confiding tradespeople and unsuspecting women. He had victimized half a dozen of the former and married two of the latter. And from both he had obtained a considerable amount of money.
Sir ———— got his living by frequenting the haunts of well-known people, shaking hands with some of them, and so establishing himself in the confidence of his dupes, one or other of whom he was in the habit of inviting to lunch at the restaurant and to sit in the café with him afterwards.
The "trick" is not a new one. A high police official whose features are well known once told me of a case in which he had been selected for the "old acquaintance" dodge. A gentleman in a restaurant came up to the official and shook him warmly by the hand. "Ah! my dear ————. How are you?" he said in a loud voice. "I hope Mrs. ———— is better."
The official's wife had been very ill, and the question at once disarmed him. He returned the hand-shake, imagining that the man really was an acquaintance whose face he failed to recall.
On the strength of that hand-shake the "acquaintance" succeeded in victimizing a gentleman who witnessed the interview to the extent of £500. A high police official would hardly shake hands in a public place with a swindler.
But let us take another look round the café in which the sham Baronet claimed acquaintance with me.
At a table in the far corner three smartly-dressed men are seated. They are smoking the most expensive cigars and drinking the oldest liqueur brandy in the establishment.
To them there enters presently an elegantly-dressed lady. She is past her first youth and is inclining to stoutness, but she is still attractive, and her manners are perfect.
The three men rise and salute her with almost Continental effusiveness. They address her as "Countess." Presently the little party of friends are conversing earnestly together, but in an undertone, as is the custom with people in good society who talk together in a place of public resort.
The three men are accomplished and clever rascals. One of them is a card-sharper of "distinction," another has made blackmailing a fine art. The third is a solicitor who has not yet been struck off the rolls. The lady is a "Monte Carlo Countess"; it is possible that she may have been married at one time of her life to a Polish Count, but her present occupation is that of a professional fiancée. The solicitor at the little table has settled three breaches of promise for her without any of them coming into court. Both in this matter and in the little parties which the Countess gives at her luxuriously-furnished flat the other gentlemen at the table are exceedingly useful to her. It is needless to add they receive their share of the stakes for bringing down the bird which the Countess "puts up."
In the days when the Vaudeville was a burlesque house a popular burlesque actress appearing there became engaged to a young gentleman who was lavish in his generosity in the matter of presents. He hardly allowed a week to pass without giving her some costly article of jewellery.
The sudden wealth of this young gentleman astonished Mr. Robert Reece, the author of the burlesque, who had known him as a clerk in a West-end bill discounter's office. Mr. Reece spoke to the young actress and begged her to make sure of her fiancées position and prospects before she married him.
She had no necessity to act on this advice, as the very next evening the young gentleman was arrested while waiting at the stage door for her. He was accused of having forged and discounted bills to the amount of £15,000. His legitimate earnings at the time he was making the young lady such costly presents amounted to £3 a week. In her dressing-room at the Vaudeville Theatre the actress handed over to the police all the jewellery she had received. It was valued in court at several thousand pounds.
The sudden possession of funds by a thief known to the police always attracts their unpleasant attention. Such a man must carefully avoid ostentation in his own neighbourhood. He does not even risk changing a sovereign in the public-houses that he "uses" lest the action should be observed by a "nark."
But there is a class of more or less "shady" individuals who, being habitually in possession of money, can indulge in extra extravagance without running any extra risk.
The Bogus Charity Collecting Brigade has all classes in its ranks. There are men and women of decent appearance, good manners, and good education, who make this form of fraud their means of livelihood. They have no other occupation and no other source of income, and every penny of the money they spend in food, clothing, and rent, is earned by false pretences. But it is only those who practise frauds upon the benevolent upon a large scale, live luxuriously on the proceeds, and generally, sooner or later, find themselves the subject of a personal memoir in "Truth," who are interesting to the public.
When a director of the Great Northern Railway saw a peer shake hands at a railway station with a man whom the director knew to be a clerk in the company's office he was astonished. He was considerably more astonished when the peer explained that the friend he had just greeted gave the best dinners in London.
It was that accidental meeting that brought the famous Red-path forgeries to light.
The mystery of the money spent disappeared when a well-dressed, well-groomed gentleman came up the steps into the dock at Clerkenwell Police Court.
I knew a man for twenty years who was respected and beloved by a wide circle of friends. He was an unostentatious man, but he had a beautiful house, he spent large sums in collecting works of art, and his benevolence was unbounded. He was secretary to a charitable institution, but it was supposed that he only retained the office because he loved the work.
The salary was a small one, but that did not matter. He had acquired riches by marrying a wealthy wife. He married this wealthy lady when he was five-and-thirty, and he was over sixty when he was one day called out of his dining-room just as he was sitting down to entertain a large party of friends, and failed to return.
His wife, who had taken her seat at the table, was sent for a minute or two after her husband had quitted the company, and she also failed to return.
The guests sat for a time, wondering what had happened. They wondered still more when a servant came back with a message that Mr. ————— had received a very important communication which compelled him to ask his guests to quit the house.
The next day the wealthy secretary of the charitable institution appeared at the police-court, and the evening papers contained the statement that he was charged with having robbed the institution of over sixty thousand pounds, the defalcations extending over a number of years.
At the trial it was elicited that the lady he had married was a young woman to whom he had been left guardian, and that he had spent every farthing of her money before he proposed to her, and made her his wife in order to cover up his crime.
Some years ago I knew a man who used to hang about racecourses and outside certain sporting clubs when any sporting event was on. He had a bad record, and used it to get his living. If, on a race-course, you lost a valuable article of jewellery—a gold watch or a diamond pin, or something valued for its associations—this man could generally be relied upon to trace it and get it back "at a price."
I saw him one night loafing about outside a sporting club, evidently hard up. A year later I saw him in fine feather and quite the "sporting gent.," as he would have said, at Nice races, and that night I met him again in evening dress at the roulette tables at Monte Carlo. He was living luxuriously at one of the best hotels. I met him a year or two later in a railway carriage coming back from Newmarket after the Cambridgeshire, and I gathered from his conversation with another passenger that he was going to try Egypt for his winter trip.
The "mystery of the money spent" in this case was not to be accounted for by any sudden stroke of luck on the Turf. The man had a good, solid income which enabled him to live at ease all the year round. His change of fortune dated from the day he was put on to try and recover a pocket-book which had been stolen from the rooms of an exceedingly wealthy young man, well known in sporting circles.
The pocket-book was recovered, with the bank-notes which it had contained missing, but a certain letter which the owner had placed in it still there. The letter must have been a very important one. The bargain struck for its restoration started the restorer on the road to fortune.
A professional burglar—a man who had been a skilled mechanic, earning good wages, in early life, but had taken to evil ways—broke into a West End mansion in the small hours. It happened that the tenant of the mansion had been making a very late night of it with some friends, and, entering his house with his latchkey at 4 a.m., he came upon the burglar in the dining-room.
The next morning the burglar went to the tenement house in which he was living with his wife, flung a handful of gold into her lap, told her to go and buy herself some good clothes while he went and got himself decently rigged out. She was to meet him in the afternoon at a given place. The husband and wife met, well dressed, and set out to look for a villa residence in the suburbs. They took a nice house, furnished it elegantly, if somewhat showily, engaged servants, and settled down into easy suburban well-to-do-ness. They had a horse and trap, and were looked upon by their neighbours as retired tradespeople, who had made their money and were living on a well-earned competency.
The ex-burglar and his wife enjoyed themselves. They had an occasional week at Brighton, or Margate, or Yarmouth; and in the summer they went away for a month or six weeks.
How did their change of fortune come? How did a burglar who was so badly off that he lived with his wife in one room in a tenement house suddenly develop into a well-to-do retired tradesman with plenty of money to spend?
The secret of the sudden access of wealth lay in the chance meeting of the burglar and the burgled in that West End mansion.
The tenant was a man of fifty, who had recently returned with a large fortune from South Africa. When he found a burglar on his premises he seized him by the throat. But as the light fell upon his assailant the burglar uttered a cry, not of terror, but of astonishment.
"Jack!" he exclaimed.
Five minutes later the two men were quietly discussing the new situation.
Twenty years previously they had met in a convict prison, where both were undergoing punishment—one for breaking into a jeweller's shop, the other for embezzling the money of his employer. They had been "pals" in prison, and had remained pals for a time after their liberation.
The burglar continued in his evil courses, but the clerk, getting assistance from some relatives, went out to South Africa. Being a ticket-of-leave man who had neglected to report himself at Scotland Yard, he was liable to be arrested on his return and sent back to prison to complete the remitted portion of his sentence. He had taken a new name in South Africa, and in this new name had made his fortune.
The police were not likely to associate the wealthy tenant of the West End mansion with the ex-convict who had failed to observe the terms of his license, and he was safe. That is to say, he was safe until the burglar who had broken into his house recognized him.
The silence of the old fellow "lag" was worth a good deal to the millionaire, and he paid it. This is how the ex-burglar was able to settle down as a respectable citizen in a pretty villa residence and deny himself nothing in the way of comfort or enjoyment.
Hush-money as a source of income is not confined to the class we usually associate with it. There are plenty of men and women moving in what is called good society who find it a profitable occupation to hold their tongue.