The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher

by Kate Summerscale

  53 ln 1851 Whicher. . . fleeing the bank with their loot. Bank robbery reports from The Times and the News of the World, June and July 1851.

  53 'The credit for skill . . . Dickens and the like. Also that year, Charley Field was criticised for the underhand manner in which he caught two men who had tried to blow up the railway tracks at Cheddington, Buckinghamshire. He disguised himself as a match-seller, according to the Bedford Times, took rooms in the town and made himself at home in the local pubs, where he would joshingly introduce himself as a 'timber merchant', until he got the information he sought. See Dickens and Crime (1962) by Philip Collins.

  53 Like Whicher . . . little finger'. Literary detectives were inconspicuous and quiet. Carter of the Yard in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's novel Henry Dunbar (1864) looks like something between 'a shabby-genteel half-pay captain and an unlucky stockbroker'. The police detective in Thomas Hardy's Desperate Remedies (1871) is 'commonplace in all except his eyes'. The narrator of John Bennett's Tom Fox (1860) says, 'I always made use of my eyes and ears, and said little - a precept every Detective should lay to heart.' The detective in Braddon's The Trail of the Serpent (1860) is mute.

  54 In 1850 Charley Field . . . a lovely idea!' From 'Three "Detective" Anecdotes' in House-hold Words, 14 September 1850.

  55 The artistry of crime . . . the analytical detective. The 'Newgate novels' of the 1820s to 1840s were melodramas about fearless criminals such as Dick Turpin and Jack Sheppard. For the ascendancy of the detective hero, see, for example, Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel - a History (1972) by Julian Symons; Bloodhounds of Heaven: The Detective in English Fiction from Godwin to Doyle (1976) by Ian Ousby; Detective Fiction and the Rise of Forensic Science (1999) by Ronald Thomas; and The Pursuit of Crime: Art and Ideology in Detective Fiction (1981) by Dennis Porter. The shift of focus was described by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish (1975): 'we have moved from the exposition of the facts or the confession to the slow process of discovery; from the execution to the investigation; from the physical confrontation to the intellectual struggle between criminal and investigator'.

  55 Whicher, who was said . . . charge of the department. From MEPO 4/333, the register of joiners, and MEPO 21/7, a record of police pensioners.

  55 In 1858 Whicher caught the valet . . . Essex cornfield. From reports in The Times, 30 June and 6 & 12 July 1858. Investigation into the murder of PC Clark from Metropolitan Police file MEPO 3/53.

  55 In 1859 . . . sued Bonwell for misconduct. The Bonwell case inspired an extraordinary editorial in the Daily Telegraph of 10 October 1859: 'This London is an amalgam of worlds within worlds and the occurrences of every day convince us that there is not one of these worlds but has its special mysteries and its generic crimes . . . It has been said . . . that Hampstead sewers shelter a monstrous breed of black swine, which have propagated and run wild among the slimy feculence, and whose ferocious snouts will one day up-root Highgate archway, while they make Holloway intolerable with their grunting.' Quoted in Black Swine in the Sewers of Hampstead: Beneath the Surface of Victorian Sensationalism by Thomas Boyle (1988). See also reports in The Times of 19 September to 16 December 1859.

  55 A couple of months before he was despatched . . . rings fall to the floor. From reports in The Times of 25 April, 4 & 7 May, 12 June 1860.

  56 He was 'an excellent officer . . . take on any case'. From A Life's Reminiscences of Scotland Yard (1890) by Andrew Lansdowne.

  56 If Whicher was certain . . . a man to me.' From 'A Detective Police Party', House-hold Words, 27 July 1850.

  56 He was not above . . . left cheek. From Scotland Yard Past and Present: Experiences of Thirty-Seven Years (1893) by Timothy Cavanagh.

  CHAPTERS 5 to 14

  The main sources for these chapters are: the Metropolitan Police file MEPO 3/61, which includes Whicher's reports on the murder, Whicher and Williamson's expenses claims, letters from the public and notes from the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police; The Great Crime of 1860 (1861) by J.W. Stapleton; and newspapers including the Somerset and Wilts Journal, the Bath Chronicle, the Bath Express, the Bristol Daily Post, the Frome Times, the Trow-bridge and North Wilts Advertiser, the Devizes Advertiser, the Daily Telegraph and The Times. Other sources are given in the notes below.

  CHAPTER 5

  59 It was another dry day . . . sailed overhead. Details of birds from Natural History of a Part of the County of Wilts (1843) by W.G. Maton; A History of British Birds (1885) by Thomas Bewick; The Birds of Wiltshire (19 81), edited by John Buxton. Weather here and subsequently from local newspapers and from Agricultural Records 22O-1968 (1969) by John Stratton.

  59 In this part of England . . . suffocate it in mud. From The Dialect of the West of England (1825, revised 1869) by James Jennings, and Dialect in Wiltshire (1987) by Malcolm Jones and Patrick Dillon.

  60 There were at least four pubs . . . impossible to unravel. Occupations and businesses from the census returns of 18 61. Information on mills from Warp and Weft: The Story of the Somerset and Wiltshire Woollen Industry by Kenneth Rogers (1986), Wool and Water by Kenneth G. Ponting (1975) and exhibits in the Frome and Trowbridge local history museums.

  61 Samuel Kent was disliked . . . three or four shillings a week. From a report in the Frome Times of 17 October 1860. Joseph Stapleton did not accept that Samuel was unpopular - he claimed that his colleague's 'urbanity and concessory spirit' had done much to popularise 'an obnoxious law'. Elsewhere in his book, though, he said Samuel was victimised by those to whom he was 'personally obnoxious by his faithful discharge of official duty'.

  61 the Temperance Hall. This was a building erected by the subscription of villagers who were opposed to alcohol, particularly the sale of beer on the Sabbath and the custom of children fetching beer for their parents. The Somerset and Wilts Journal reported that many had assembled in the hall on the Wednesday before the murder, while the rain pelted down outside, to belt out Temperance tunes; they were accompanied by the twenty-two members of the Road Fife and Drum Band, with Charles Happerfield, the postmaster, on piano.

  62 A cloth merchant . . . finest houses in the area. Information on Ledyard from A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 8 (1965), edited by Elizabeth Crittall.

  64 Affluent mid-Victorians . . . in their own quarters. In The Gentleman's House: Or How to Plan English Residences from the Parsonage to the Palace (1864) Robert Kerr advised: 'The family constitute one community; the servants another. Whatever may be their mutual regard and confidence as dwellers under the same roof, each class is entitled to shut its door upon the other, and be alone.' Quoted in A Man's Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England (1999) by John Tosh.

  66 Whicher was familiar . . . the wrong way. In 'The Modern Science of Thief-taking' by W.H. Wills, House-hold Words, 13 July 1850.

  68 The writers of the mid-nineteenth century . . . cut off. From Mary Barton (1848) by Elizabeth Gaskell; The Female Detective (1864) by Andrew Forrester; and 'The Modern Science of Thief-taking', House-hold Words, 13 July 1850.

  68 One case that turned on such evidence . . . Greenacre was hanged in May 1837. For Greenacre's capture, see Dreadful Deeds and Awful Murders: Scotland Yard's First Detectives (1990) by Joan Lock.

  69 In 1849 the London detectives . . . railway-station locker. For the Mannings' murder of Patrick O'Connor, see The Bermondsey Horror (1981) by Albert Borowitz and MEPO 3/54, the police file on the case.

  69 The detectives . . . steamships. During the investigation - on 1 September 1849 - the Illustrated London News drew consolation from the fact that 'detection is sure to dog the footsteps of crime - that the guilty wretch, flying on the wings of steam at thirty miles an hour, is tracked by a swifter messenger - and that the lightning itself, by the wondrous agency of the electric telegraph, conveys to the remotest parts of the kingdom an account of his crime, a description of his person'.

  69 Whicher checked the hotels . . . against the killers. Details of Whicher's ro
le in the investigation from MEPO 3/54 and Dreadful Deeds and Awful Murders: Scotland Yard's First Detectives (1990) by Joan Lock.

  69 two and a half million copies. Figure from Victorian Studies in Scarlet (1970) by Richard D. Altick.

  69 A series of woodcuts . . . dashing action heroes. In The Progress of Crime; Or, The Authentic Memoirs of Maria Manning (1849) by Robert Huish.

  70 He awarded Whicher . . . PS15. From MEPO 3/54.

  70 The next year . . . the detective had found. From 'The Modern Science of Thief-taking', House-hold Words, 13 July 1850.

  71 In east London in 1829 . . . her next two children, Saville and Eveline. As well as The Great Crime of 1860 (1861) by J.W. Stapleton, this account of the Kent family's past draws on certificates of birth, marriage and death, and documents in the Home Office file HO 45/6970.

  CHAPTER 6

  79 Joshua Parsons was born . . . hardy perennials. Information about Parsons from census returns of 1861 and 1871 and from 'Dr Joshua Parsons (1814-92) of Beckington, Somerset, General Practitioner' by N. Spence Galbraith, in Somerset Archaeology and Natural History, issue 140 (1997).

  80 physicians who specialised . . . perfect little devils from birth'. From 'Moral Insanity', in the Journal of Mental Science, 27 July 1881. In The Borderlands of Insanity (1875) Andrew Wynter wrote: 'It is agreed by all alienist physicians, that girls are far more likely to inherit insanity from their mothers than from the other parent . . . The tendency of the mother to transmit her mental disease is . . . in all cases stronger than the father's; some physicians have, indeed, insisted that it is twice as strong.' For writings by Savage and Wynter see Embodied Selves: An Anthology of Psychological Texts 1830-1890 (1998), edited by Jenny Bourne Taylor and Sally Shuttleworth.

  81 an almost naked woman stabbing the boy in the privy. The idea that the killer had been naked was to recur - the Western Daily Press of 4 August 1860 pointed out that near the kitchen door, 'two taps of water could have been made use of to wash away any marks, if the person was nude'.

  82 Objects could regain their innocence only when the killer was caught. For an account of the way that objects are infused with significance during a detective investigation, and returned to banality afterwards, see The Novel and the Police (1988) by D.A. Miller.

  82 the original country-house murder mystery. The horrible circumstances in which Saville's body was found also played a part in establishing the conventions of this form. The corpse in a detective novel, wrote W.H. Auden in his essay 'The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the Detective Story, by an Addict' (1948), 'must shock not only because it is a corpse but also because, even for a corpse, it is shockingly out of place, as when a dog makes a mess on a drawingroom carpet'. The classic country-house murder is an assault on propriety, an aggressive exposure of base needs and desires.

  82 'sensitiveness . . . detective faculty'. In Villette (1853).

  82 'reckoned' em up'. In 'A Detective Police Party', House-hold Words, 27 July 1850.

  83 'If you ask me to give my reason . . . safe keeping of the swell mobsmen.' In 'The Police and the Thieves', Quarterly Review, 1856. 'Between the detective and the thief there is no ill blood,' wrote Andrew Wynter in the same article; 'when they meet they give an odd wink of recognition to each other - the thief smiling, as much as to say, "I am quite safe, you know;" and the detective replying with a look, of which the interpretation is, "We shall be better acquainted by and by." They both feel, in short, that they are using their wits to get their living, and there is a sort of tacit understanding between them that each is entitled to play his game as well as he can.'

  83 'That was enough for me'. In 'A Detective Police Party', House-hold Words, 27 July 1850.

  83 'I could even notice the eye . . . saw him busy.' From The Casebook of a Victorian Detective (1975) by James McLevy, edited by George Scott-Moncreiff, a selection of pieces from McLevy's autobiographical volumes Curiosities of Crime in Edinburgh and The Sliding Scale of Life, both published in 1861.

  83 The journalist William Russell . . . comparing both'. From 'Isaac Gortz, the Charcoal-Burner' in Experiences of a Real Detective (1862) by Inspector 'F', 'edited' by Waters.

  84 'The eye . . . invisible to other eyes'. From 'The Modern Science of Thief-taking', House-hold Words, 13 July 1850. When Dickens accompanied Charley Field to a St Giles basement, he noted the detective's 'roving eye that searches every corner of the cellar as he talks'; he described the lanterns carried by Field's sidekicks as 'flaming eyes' that created 'turning lanes of light' ('On Duty with Inspector Field', House-hold Words, 14 June 1851). For a discussion of surveillance and the eyes of the literary detective, see From Bow Street to Baker Street: Mystery, Detection and Narrative (1992) by Martin A. Kayman.

  84 He once arrested . . . pick pockets. From The Times, 4 June 1853.

  84 The seemingly supernatural sight . . . theories of Sigmund Freud. For the fictional detective's ability to read faces and bodies as if they were books, see Detective Fiction and the Rise of Forensic Science (1999) by Ronald Thomas.

  85 The standard text on the art of face-reading. Lavater's essays first appeared in 1789; a ninth edition was published in 1855. See Embodied Selves: An Anthology of Psychological Texts 1830-1890 (1998), edited by Jenny Bourne Taylor and Sally Shuttleworth.

  87 Coolness was a prerequisite for an artful crime. Dickens wrote an essay about this: 'The Demeanour of Murderers', House-hold Words, 14 June 1856.

  88 Even before Whicher's arrival . . . previous day's Daily Telegraph. Letters quoted in the Bristol Daily Post of 12 July 1860 and the Somerset and Wilts Journal of 14 July 1860.

  88 A bump behind the ear . . . the seat of secretiveness. From the 1853 edition of George Combe's System of Phrenology.

  88 This was probably the same. . . a tiger from a sheep.' Letter quoted in the Somerset and Wilts Journal of 14 July 1860.

  CHAPTER 7

  91 The warm weather . . . eclipse of the sun. From the Frome Times, 25 July 1860.

  91 an odd episode that had taken place four years earlier, in July 1856. Account of the runaways episode of July 1856 from Whicher's reports to Mayne in MEPO 3/61, Stapleton's The Great Crime of 1860 and local newspaper stories.

  92 In one newspaper . . . sister's affection.' Probably the Bath Express - the piece was reproduced, without attribution, in the Frome Times of 25 July 1860 and the Devizes Advertiser of 26 July 1860.

  93 Another report . . . at the side'. Bath and Cheltenham Gazette, 23 July 1856.

  93 'The little girl . . . mode of sitting.' In the piece reproduced in the Frome Times of 25 July 1860.

  93 Emma Moody, fifteen . . . wool workers. From the census of 1861.

  94 'I have heard her say . . . just the contrary.' This dialogue is reconstructed from Emma Moody's testimony at the magistrates' court on 27 July 1860.

  94 According to Whicher's reports . . . in my place?' From report in MEPO 3/61.

  96 'wonted sagacity'. From a report in The Times on 23 July 1860; 'knowledge and sagacity'. From a letter by Dickens of 1852; 'vulpine sagacity'. From 'Circumstantial Evidence' in Experiences of a Real Detective (1862) by Inspector 'F', edited by Waters.

  96 'sleuthhound'. In Shirley (1849).

  96 'the chase was hot . . . upon the right track'. From Recollections of a Detective Police-Officer (1856) by Waters.

  96 'If any profession . . . ridding society of pests.' In The Casebook of a Victorian Detective.

  96 'a vast Wood . . . being discovered.' From An Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers (1757), quoted in The English Police: A Political and Social History (1991) by Clive Emsley.

  97 In 1847. . . hummingbird skins. From reports in The Times, 9, 15 & 19 April 1847 and 14 October 1848.

  97 Jack Hawkshaw . . . all his skins.' 'You detectives,' observes another character in the play, 'would suspect your own fathers.' The Ticket-of-Leave Man was first performed at the Olympic Theatre in Drury Lane, London, in May 1863, and proved a huge success.

  CHAPTER 8
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  99 'At the back of the house. . . very accessible.' From testimony given on 1 October 1860, reported in the Bristol Daily Post.

  100 Before Whicher's arrival . . . seen traces.' Testimony of Francis Wolfe on 2 October 1860, reported in the Bristol Daily Post.

  100 'An intimate personal knowledge . . . village boys'. From the Somerset and Wilts Journal, 13 October 1860.

  103 'I contrived to elicit . . . very suggestive.' From 'Circumstantial Evidence' in Experiences of a Real Detective (1862) by Inspector 'F', edited by Waters.

  103 'In both we are concerned . . . detective devices.' From Psycho-Analysis and the Establishment of the Facts in Legal Proceedings (1906) by Sigmund Freud.

  104 Smith was a Glasgow architect's daughter . . . hot chocolate. See The Trial of Madeleine Smith (1905), edited by A. Duncan Smith. Henry James quoted in 'To Meet Miss Madeleine Smith' in Mainly Murder (1937) by William Roughead.

  105 a kind of heroine. In Latter-day Pamphlets (1850) by Thomas Carlyle.

  106 The dizzying expansion . . . by 1860. Figures on newspaper readership from Black Swine in the Sewers of Hampstead (1988) by Thomas Boyle. The expansion of the press was fuelled by the repeal of the stamp tax in 1855, which ushered in the first penny newspapers the next year, and the repeal of the duty on paper in 1860.

  106 The tailor had educated himself . . . do the same. Whereas Dr Kahn's anatomical museum was open only to gentlemen, according to advertisements in The Times, literate members of both sexes could read the newspapers.

  107 In answer to their questions . . . William to go with me.' From notes taken by the lawyer Peter Edlin, who was present at the interview, and passed on to the author Cecil Street, who published The Case of Constance Kent (1928) under the pen name John Rhode. These and other papers about the case are in an archive assembled by Bernard Taylor, the author of Cruelly Murdered: Constance Kent and the Killing at Road Hill House (1979, revised 1989).

  107 As the week wore on. . . body was found. A partly accurate version of the rumour was reported in the Somerset and Wilts Journal of 21 July 1860.