Darlint, your own pal is getting quite a sport. On Saturday I was first in the Egg & Spoon race & first in the 100 yards Flat race … Then I was MC for the Lancers … We had a very good day indeed – until we got to Lpool St coming home & then he started to make a fuss – says I take too much notice of Dunsford and he does of me. He gets jealous & sulks if I speak to any man now … It was rather fun on Thursday at the Garden Party – They had swings & roundabouts & Flip Flaps cocoa-nut shies Aunt Sallies – Hoopla & all that sort of thing I went in for them all & on them all & I shocked a lot of people I think. I didnt care tho. It was rather fun.
On 4 July she wrote:
Last Wednesday I met your mother and she cut me … things get worse and worse … Why arent you sending me something – I wanted you to – you never do what I ask you darlint – you still have your own way always – If I don’t mind the risk why should you?
Absence and distance had not made Freddy’s heart grow any fonder – rather the reverse. It seems he had a good time on shore leave in Australia, in Fremantle, Melbourne and Sydney. He missed the boat at Sydney and rejoined the ship at Melbourne.
In England, the Thompsons went on holiday for a fortnight to Bournemouth, an event much dreaded by Mrs Thompson – ‘No swimming lessons or tennis or anything that Id [sic] really enjoy. However I must make the best of it & dance – Im so tired of it all tho – this dancing and pretending.’ She was also concerned about the paucity of his letters and an attempt to distance himself. In her letter of 14 July she observed:
You do say silly things to me – ‘try a little bit every day not to think about me’ … When you’ve got something that you’ve never had before and something that you’re so happy to have found – you’re always afraid of it flying away – that’s how I feel about your love … I never want to lose it and live.
Bournemouth, she thought, was ‘a very stiff and starchy place’, not a bit like the fondly remembered Isle of Wight. On her return to Kensington Gardens, where Mrs Lester was ‘horrid’ to her, she found herself becoming an insomniac like her husband. In her letter dated 15 August, she wrote:
Ever since Ive been back in Ilford Ive had most awful nights rest … I dream – sometimes theyre not very nice dreams. They are nearly always about you … One night I dreamed 1 had been to a theatre with a man I knew – I had told you about him & you came home from sea unexpectedly & when you found me you just threw me over a very deep precipice & I was killed …
That dream strangely foreshadows events that were less than eight weeks away. Yet any thoughts or plans about divorce or the disposing of Percy seem now to have been abandoned. She wrote on 28 August: ‘I said I would wait 5 years – and I will darlint … its only 3 years and ten months now.’
Then her ‘darlingest boy’, now homeward bound, stopped writing. Later, he told the court: ‘I said I would not see her when I came to England, as it would not be so hard for her to bear … I was doing that for her sake, as I wanted to help her.’ This was something she was unable to accept or acknowledge. On 12 September she complained:
I don’t hear from you much you don’t talk to me by letter and help me and I don’t even know if I am going to see you … I feel so hopeless – just drifting … Things here are going smoothly with me – I am giving all – and accepting everything and I think I am looked upon as ‘The Dutiful Wife’ … Darlingest, only lover of mine – try to cheer me up.
And on 19 September she wrote:
Darlingest boy – I don’t quite understand you about ‘Pals’. You say ‘Can we be Pals only, Peidi, it will make it easier.’ Do you mean for always? because if you do, No, no, a thousand times … Have you lost heart and given up hope? … Yes, darlint you are jealous of him – but I want you to be – he has the right by law to all that you have the right to by nature and love – yes darlint be jealous, so much that you will do something desperate.
In this letter she included a cutting from the Daily Sketch headed ‘Rat Poison Consumed by Fowl Kills Woman’.
The Morea docked at Tilbury on Saturday, 23 September. Freddy Bywaters never put to sea again. He went straight home to Upper Norwood, avoiding any meeting with Mrs Thompson, and refrained from seeing her until the Monday. Even then it was only for an hour after work. They met at Fenchurch Street station – as they did on the following Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
What was discussed? Bywaters later told the court that he had never thought of marrying Mrs Thompson, or even of taking her away, for ‘financial reasons’. Yet she was earning £6 a week and he £200 a year. She herself valued her job with Carlton & Prior’s very much, as much as Mr Carlton valued her – he said she was ‘a very capable woman’. But if she became involved in some scandal she would forfeit that job. It seems likely that she deceived herself and Freddy about her real intentions, subconsciously loath to lose her home, her job, her respectable status, even her husband, by letting her dreams become reality. Perhaps Freddy subconsciously realised all this, and fired once again by her presence, frustrated by snatched embraces and by her curious reluctance to seek a separation or divorce through proper channels – she never pursued this common-sense approach – was goaded into making fact of all the fantasy, talk and emotional uncertainty of the past year, on which she seemed to thrive, and into ending all the deceit and lies, which, it seems, he genuinely disliked.
Certainly something happened that weekend, some passionate experience that lit the touch-paper of his emotions and shattered the triangle. In court he described the weekend as follows: ‘On Friday the 29th I met Mrs Thompson about midday and took her to lunch, and then she went back to her business. I went to Fuller’s tea shop between three and four … Later on Mrs Thompson came in. I left her in Ilford that evening about quarter to seven, and then I went home to my mother’s. On the Saturday morning, about nine o’clock, I took her for a walk in Wanstead Park’ – with a break for her to do some shopping. He left her there in the park at one o’clock. She went home to cook her husband’s dinner and Bywaters returned to Norwood, where he remained for the rest of that day and all of Sunday.
On the morning of Monday, 2 October, she telephoned him and they met for lunch and again later on in Fuller’s, after which he saw her home, leaving her in Ilford at quarter to seven. He then went to the Graydons for a couple of hours before making the long journey back to Norwood.
On the Saturday, the Sunday or the Monday – she said it was the Monday, although she saw him twice that day – she wrote her last, undated letter.
Darlingest lover of mine, thank you, thank you, oh thank you a thousand times for Friday – it was lovely – its always lovely to go out with you. And then Saturday – yes I did feel happy … Darlint, we’ve said we’ll always be Pals haven’t we, shall we say we’ll always be lovers … Or is it (this great big love) a thing we can’t control … Your love to me is new, it is something different, it is my life … It seems like a great welling up of love – of feeling … just as if I am wax in your hands … its physical purely … Darlingest when you are rough, I go dead – try not to be please.
She went on to talk about a book she was reading and continued:
I tried so hard to find a way out tonight darlingest but he was suspicious and still is – I suppose we must make a study of this deceit for some time longer. I hate it … I’d love to be able to say ‘I’m going to see my lover tonight.’ If I did he would prevent me – there would be scenes and he would come to 168 and interfere and I couldn’t bear that … Darlint its funds that are our stumbling block – until we have those we can do nothing. Darlingest find me a job abroad. I’ll go tomorrow … Darlint – do something tomorrow night will you? Something to make you forget. I’ll be hurt I know, but I want you to hurt me – I do really – the bargain now seems so one sided – so unfair – but how can I alter it?
If she gave him the letter on the Monday, ‘tomorrow night’ refers to Tuesday night, when she had arranged to go to the theatre with her husband and her uncle and aunt, t
he Laxtons. She told the court that what Freddy was to do was to take Avis out, which would hurt her – as he would be hurt when she was out with Percy. Freddy did in fact see Avis at the Graydons’ home on Monday and Tuesday night, although he never took her out. The letter ended:
‘He’s still well – he’s going to gaze all day long at you in your temporary home – after Wednesday. Don’t forget what we talked in the Tea Room, I’ll still risk and try if you will – we have only 3? years left darlingest. Try & help. Peidi.’
Her explanation in court of these ambiguities was that ‘he’ was the brass monkey Freddy had given her and the ‘temporary home’ was a sketch of the Morea that she was having framed for her desk. What they talked about in Fuller’s, she said, was him getting her a job abroad. The mention of ‘3? years’ would hardly seem to indicate that she was plotting her husband’s murder and was prepared to wait.
Two letters from him that were found later that week at Carlton & Prior’s, 168 Aldersgate, portray his tempestuous feelings. Though undated, they were probably written on Friday night and on Sunday evening.
Darling Peidi Mia. Tonight was impulse – natural – I couldn’t resist – I had to hold you … I thought you were going to refuse to kiss me – darlint little girl – I love you so much and the only way I can control myself is by not seeing you and I’m not going to do that. I must have you – I love you darlint – logic and what others call reason do not enter into our lives … Peidi you are my magnet … I shall never be able to see you and remain impassive.
On Sunday, 1 October, he wrote:
Peidi Mia I love you more and more every day – it grows darlint and will keep on growing. Darlint in the park – our Park on Saturday, you were my ‘little devil’ – I was happy then Peidi – were you? … I mustn’t ever think of losing you … My darlint darlint little girl I love you more than I will ever be able to show you. Darlint you are the centre.
Did they plan murder that weekend? Did she urge him once too often to do something before he sailed again? Or, quite without her knowledge, was he planning to kill?
On Tuesday, 3 October, Mrs Thompson phoned Freddy Bywaters at about 9 am and they met for lunch at the Queen Anne restaurant, Cheapside. After lunch, she went back to Carlton & Prior’s in Aldersgate. In the afternoon, he went once more to Fuller’s, where she turned up at about ten-past five, meeting him at the door. They conversed for about fifteen minutes and he walked with her back to Aldersgate Street station, leaving her there about half-past five.
They both said later that arrangements for the following day were discussed: they would meet again for lunch. That was all, in fact, that was possible that day, for at 5 pm on the Wednesday both the Thompsons had arranged to go to Paddington Station to meet an arrival from Cornwall – a maid, Ethel Vernon, hired by Percy to relieve his wife of some of her domestic duties. Naturally Mrs Thompson would have to stay at home that night, tutoring the maid, and any meeting between the lovers was out of the question.
Bywaters knew of the maid’s coming. He also knew – and had known for some days – that the Thompsons and the Laxtons were going to the Criterion Theatre on Tuesday night to see Cyril Maude in The Dipper. When he left Peidi at Aldersgate Street station, she was met there by her husband. Perhaps Freddy watched them walk away together, on their way to the West End. It would have been the first time he had seen the despised possessor of Peidi for many months.
Freddy travelled east to Manor Park, to see the Graydons in Shakespeare Crescent; Avis was there, with her parents and a brother, Newenham. Freddy stayed with them for over four hours, until 11 pm.
In his overcoat pocket was a knife, which he said later he had bought the previous November; such knives were on sale in Aldersgate Street. He said he always carried it in his overcoat pocket. It was a sheath knife – but the leather sheath was never afterwards found.
Before leaving the Graydons, he asked Avis to come to the pictures the following evening. Then he walked to East Ham station. ‘I thought,’ he said later, ‘I don’t want to go home – I feel too miserable – I want to see Mrs Thompson … I walked in the direction of Ilford. I knew Mr and Mrs Thompson would be together, and I thought perhaps if I were to see them I might be able to make things a bit better … I went to see Thompson to come to an amicable understanding for a separation or divorce … It kind of came across me all of a sudden …’
He must have had to wait. For it was not until midnight that the Thompsons began to walk up Belgrave Road from Ilford station. They had left the theatre about 11 pm, said goodbye to the Laxtons at the Piccadilly Circus underground station, and had travelled on to Liverpool Street Station, where they got the 11.30 pm train to Ilford.
It was a long walk up dark and badly lit Belgrave Road, which was intersected by suburban avenues left and right. The Thompsons walked along the right-hand pavement. Mrs Thompson was, she said later, trying to persuade her husband to take her to a dance in a fortnight’s time.
They were near the Kensington Gardens intersection when a man in an overcoat and hat overtook them in a rush. He pushed Mrs Thompson out of the way and she fell, banging her head on something, the pavement or a wall. She was momentarily dazed.
Said Bywaters later:
I pushed Mrs Thompson with my right hand, like that. With my left I held Thompson and caught him by the back of his coat and pushed him along the street, swinging him round … I said to him: ‘Why don’t you get a divorce or apparition, you cad?’ … He said: ‘I know that’s what you want. But I’m not going to give it to you. It would make it too pleasant for both of you.’ I said: ‘You take a delight in making Edie’s life hell.’ Then he said: ‘I’ve got her – I’ll keep her – and I’ll shoot you’ … going at the same time like that with his right hand – as if to draw a gun from his pocket. As he said that he pushed me in the chest with his left fist, and I said: ‘Oh, will you?’ and drew a knife and put it in his arm … I had the knife in my left hand. [Bywaters was right-handed.] All the time struggling, I thought he was going to kill me … and I tried to stop him.
That was what he told the court. Two months before this, on 5 October he told the police: ‘I said to him: “You’ve got to separate from your wife.” He said: “No.” I said: “You’ll have to.” We struggled. I took my knife from my pocket and we fought and he got the worst of it … I didn’t intend to kill him. I only meant to injure him.’
Percy Thompson was slightly cut in four places on his left side below the ribs. There were also two superficial cuts on his chin, two deeper cuts on the right of his lower jaw, one on the inner right arm by the elbow, and two two-inch stab-wounds in the back of his neck, one of which severed the carotid artery. He died, drowning in his own blood, a few minutes later.
The damage done, Bywaters fled, running in and out of the pools of lamplight through Seymour Gardens, where he thrust the knife down a drain, and on through Wanstead and Leytonstone to Stratford. By taxi and on foot he passed south across London, getting home about 3 am. ‘Is that you, Mick?’ said his mother, hearing him some in. ‘Yes, Mum,’ he said.
Mrs Thompson, meanwhile, struggled to her feet. ‘When I came to my senses,’ she said, ‘I looked round for my husband, and I saw him some distance down the road. He seemed to be scuffling with someone … I saw somebody running away, and I recognised the coat and hat.’ She went to her husband. Blood was pouring from his mouth, But she had no idea, she said, that he had been stabbed. ‘He fell up against me and said, “Oe-er” … I helped him along by the side of the wall, and I think he slid down the wall onto the pavement … I went to get a doctor.’
He collapsed in one of the large dark spaces between the street lights. She ran back down the road, meeting a couple, Dora Pittard and Percy Clevely, who were walking up Belgrave Road from the station. She was sobbing, hysterical and incoherent, and cried: ‘Oh, my God! Will you help me? My husband is ill – he’s bleeding!’
They took her to the house of a Dr Maudsley, who was eventually roused fr
om his slumbers. Mrs Thompson ran back to her husband, where a local resident, John Webber, drawn there by a match being struck, found her kneeling by a man who was propped against a wall. Webber, on the point of going to bed, had heard ‘a woman’s voice saying “Oh, don’t! Oh, don’t!” in a most piteous manner’. He was certain the voice was that of Mrs Thompson. But it may have been her husband’s. On the other hand, his house was by no means the nearest to the stabbing – he may have made the story up.
The doctor arrived, and was followed at about 1 am by Police Sergeant Mew. After the body was removed, the sergeant escorted Mrs Thompson the fifty or so yards around the corner to her home. ‘Will he come back?’ she asked. ‘Yes,’ said the sergeant, assuming she meant her husband. ‘They’ll blame me for this,’ she said.
Frederick Bywaters was arrested at the Graydons’ house in Manor Park on the night of 4 October 1922 and taken to Ilford police station. Edith Thompson was detained later the same night.
He made a lying statement, saying he went straight home after leaving the Graydons. She made a lying statement the following morning, after which she happened to see Bywaters in the room where he was being detained. She said: ‘Oh, God! Oh, God! What can I do? Why did he do it? I didn’t want him to do it! I must tell the truth.’ She then made a second, brief statement naming Bywaters as her husband’s assailant. That evening Freddy was told that he and Mrs Thompson would be charged with the wilful murder of Percy Thompson. ‘Why her?’ said Bywaters. ‘Mrs Thompson was not aware of my movements.’ He then made a second statement, outlining his actions on the night of 3 October. They were then both charged.
Murder of the Black Museum 1875-1975: The Dark Secrets Behind a Hundred Years of the Most Notorious Crimes in England Page 26