Murder of the Black Museum 1875-1975: The Dark Secrets Behind a Hundred Years of the Most Notorious Crimes in England

by Honeycombe, Gordon

  Haigh’s account of his activities in Giles Yard omits the fact that soon after shooting Mrs Durand-Deacon, at about 4.45 pm, he called on Mr Jones in West Street. Haigh said the person he had intended bringing down to Crawley to discuss artificial fingernails had not turned up. Mr Jones was in something of a state, though – he had just sacked some of his employees – and Haigh left a few minutes later.

  He was next seen about ten-past six by a van driver who left his vehicle in Giles Yard, where there were also several lock-up garages. By the light of the headlights the van driver saw a man in a fawn overcoat going to and fro between a car and the workshop, the bottom half of whose windows were blacked out.

  It was not, in fact, until about 6.45 pm that Haigh went to Ye Olde Ancient Prior’s restaurant in The Square for some refreshment. Having consumed his poached egg and drunk his tea, he left the restaurant just after seven o’clock, returning to the workshop to fill the drum with acid. Soon after 9 pm, with his tasks completed, he was back in the George Hotel, where he treated himself to a full-blown three-course dinner. He then drove back to London and was safely ensconced in the Onslow Court Hotel before 11 pm.

  The following morning at breakfast, the waitress, Mary, asked Haigh if anything was wrong with Mrs Durand-Deacon as she had not been down to dinner the previous night. Mrs Constance Lane, who had lived at the hotel for nine years and was ‘a great friend’ of Mrs Durand-Deacon, was then approached by Mr Haigh, ‘a nodding acquaintance only’. After an exchange of polite ‘Good morning’ he asked her: ‘Do you know anything about Mrs Durand-Deacon? Is she ill? Do you know where she is?’ ‘No,’ said Mrs Lane, who had noticed that her friend’s table had been unoccupied the night before. She added: ‘I haven’t seen her … Don’t you know where she is? I understood from her you wanted to take her to your factory in Horsham?’ ‘Yes,’ said Haigh. ‘But I wasn’t ready. I had not had lunch, and she said she wanted to go to the Army and Navy Stores and she asked me to pick her up there.’ He said he had waited an hour for her there but she never arrived. Mrs Lane was worried. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I must do something about it.’

  She went upstairs to Room 115, Mrs Durand-Deacon’s room, and spoke to a chambermaid. But the room had clearly not been used overnight, and Mrs Lane, becoming increasingly anxious, sought some explanations from the staff and other guests for her friend’s disappearance.

  Meanwhile, Haigh was elsewhere employed that Saturday, as he later told the police. ‘I eventually went back to Crawley, via Putney, where I sold her watch, en route, at a jewellers’ shop in the High Street for £10.’ It was a ruby and diamond wristwatch and he signed the receipt with a false name and address. ‘At Crawley, I called in to see how the reaction in the tank had gone on. It was not satisfactorily completed, so I went on to Horsham, having picked up the coat and put it in the back of the car. I called at Bull’s the jeweller’s for a valuation of the jewellery, but Mr Bull was not in. I returned to town, and on the way dropped in the coat at the “Cottage Cleaners” at Reigate.’ The second-hand value of Mrs Durand-Deacon’s black Persian lamb coat was about £50.

  On Sunday morning, Haigh again approached Mrs Lane’s table in the dining-room and solicitously asked her if she had any news. ‘No,’ said Mrs Lane. ‘I haven’t had any news.’ She added that she intended going to Chelsea police station after lunch to ask them to take the matter up. Haigh went away, but before long came back to Mrs Lane in the Tudor Lounge where she was reading a morning paper. Haigh said: ‘I think we had better go together to Chelsea police station.’ ‘I think so too,’ said Mrs Lane.

  He drove her there about 2.15 pm. Unhappily for Haigh, he and Mrs Lane were interviewed by a policewoman, Sergeant Lambourne, whose instincts – based on experience – led her to mistrust the male informant. She visited the hotel and what she learned about Mr Haigh from the manageress gave colour to her suspicions. On Monday, a call was put through to the Record Office at Scotland Yard and very soon Chelsea police station was supplied with the information that Mr Haigh had thrice been imprisoned for crimes connected with the fraudulent obtaining of money.

  Meanwhile, on Monday morning, Haigh drove south again:

  I returned to Crawley to find the reaction almost complete, but a piece of fat and bone was still floating on the sludge. I emptied off the sludge with a bucket and tipped it on the ground opposite the shed, and pumped a further quantity of acid into the tank to decompose the remaining fat and bone. I then left that to work until the following day. From there I went to Horsham again and had the jewellery valued, ostensibly for probate. It was valued at just over £130. I called back at the West Street factory and eventually returned to town.

  At the Onslow Court Hotel, two police officers were waiting to see him, Detective Inspector Symes and DI Webb. The former said to Haigh: ‘I am a police officer and I am making enquiries with respect to a lady named Mrs Olive Durand-Deacon who is missing from the hotel.’ Haigh replied: ‘Yes, I thought you would see me as I went with her friend, Mrs Lane, to the police station to report her missing. I will tell you all I know about it.’

  He made a statement, written down by DI Webb, about his appointment with Mrs Durand-Deacon at the Army and Navy Stores, her failure to arrive, his trip to Crawley (without her) and his subsequent conversations with Mrs Lane.

  Apparently undisturbed by the police visit, and with money uppermost in his mind, Haigh returned to Horsham on Tuesday, 22 February, and sold the jewellery to Bull’s the jeweller’s for £100, of which he was given £60, the remaining £40 being handed over the following day. He gave the jeweller’s a false name and address. Money in hand, he drove to Crawley and gave Mr Jones £36 of the £50 debt.

  At the workshop, Haigh decided the acid had done its work and emptied the drum of its sludgy contents in the yard. Mrs Durand-Deacon’s plastic handbag had not been much affected by the acid’s action, although its handle and base had come apart, and Haigh stuffed the handbag behind some bricks beside a fence. But her disappearance was not as complete as he thought: the minor contents of the handbag and bits of Mrs Durand-Deacon remained, hidden in the sludge.

  On Wednesday, Haigh was back in Horsham, collecting the £40 that was owed him by the jeweller’s. He put £5 into his bank account in Crawley. He then called on Mr Jones just before lunch to settle his debts. But Mr Jones had other matters on his mind, for the police had interviewed him the night before. He said he hoped Haigh was not in any trouble. Haigh shrugged, said ‘No,’ and laughed. ‘If there is any trouble,’ said Jones, ‘I prefer you not to come to the works. I prefer you to stay away.’ Haigh left, and Jones never received the £14 Haigh owed him.

  The next afternoon, the police returned to the Onslow Court Hotel and interviewed Haigh again. He helpfully provided them with a second statement, very similar to the first, but with more details. He must have realised that Jones would lead the police to the workshop, but nothing daunted he stayed on at the hotel, full of foolish confidence that nothing incriminating would be found.

  Nothing happened on Friday, except that the police continued to pursue their enquiries and had a conference. It was on Saturday, 26 February that Mr Jones took DS Pat Heslin of the West Sussex Police to Giles Yard.

  The workshop door was padlocked and had to be forced, as Haigh had the keys. Inside, Heslin noted the presence of three carboys, a stirrup pump, a rubber apron, rubber gloves, a mackintosh, a gas mask, an attaché case and a locked leather hat box. A key from the attaché case opened the hat box, in which were found a revolver, ammunition and a receipt from a Reigate cleaner’s for a black Persian lamb coat.

  On Sunday and Monday, DI Shelley Symes visited Crawley, Horsham and Reigate and picked up various items.

  At 4.15 pm on Monday, 28 February, DI Albert Webb was waiting at the hotel when Haigh drove up in his Alvis. ‘I want you to come to the Chelsea police station at once,’ said DI Webb, ‘and see Superintendent Barratt and Detective Inspector Symes.’ ‘Certainly,’ said Haigh. ‘I’ll do anything to
help you, as you know.’

  At the police station, Barratt and Symes were busy, and it was not until about 7.30 pm that Symes appeared and said: ‘I have continued my enquiries into the disappearance of Mrs Durand-Deacon and I want you to answer some more questions.’ Haigh nodded. ‘I’m quite willing to answer anything I can,’ he said. ‘And to help you all I can.’ Symes then questioned him about the Persian lamb coat and Haigh’s visits to Horsham. How many times had Haigh been there? ‘I used to go to Horsham a lot,’ said Haigh. ‘But lately I’ve only been there once in the evening, to the pictures.’ ‘You’ve been there in the morning recently on no less than four occasions,’ said Symes. ‘Ah,’ said Haigh. ‘I can see you know what you’re talking about. I admit the coat belonged to Mrs Durand-Deacon and that I sold her jewellery, as you know, to Bull’s in Horsham.’ Symes then produced the cleaner’s ticket. Haigh said: ‘Yes, I wondered if you’d got it when you started.’ ‘How did you come by this property?’ demanded Symes. ‘And where is Mrs Durand-Deacon?’ He then cautioned Haigh about anything he might say. There was a pause before Haigh replied. ‘It’s a long story,’ he said. ‘It’s one of blackmail, and I shall have to implicate many others. How do I stand about that?’ Symes retorted: ‘What you have to say is entirely a matter for you.’

  At this point some other business summoned Symes and Barratt from the room for about ten minutes. Haigh was left alone with DI Webb.

  Haigh looked at him and said: ‘Tell me, frankly, what are the chances of anyone being released from Broadmoor?’ Said Webb: ‘I can’t discuss that sort of thing with you.’ ‘Well,’ said Haigh. ‘If I told you the truth, you wouldn’t believe me. It sounds too fantastic for belief.’ Webb cautioned him. Haigh interrupted: ‘I understand all that – I’ll tell you all about it. Mrs Durand-Deacon no longer exists. She’s disappeared completely. And no trace of her can ever be found again.’ Webb was non-committal. ‘What’s happened to her?’ he asked. ‘I’ve destroyed her with acid,’ Haigh replied. ‘You’ll find the sludge that remains at Leopold Road. Every trace has gone. How can you prove murder if there’s no body?’

  Webb fetched Symes and Barratt. In Haigh’s presence, Webb remarked: ‘He’s just told me that Mrs Durand-Deacon doesn’t exist, and that he’s destroyed her by acid.’ ‘It’s perfectly true,’ said Haigh. ‘But it’s a very long story and it’ll take hours to tell.’ ‘I’m prepared to listen,’ said Symes.

  What the police officers thought as Haigh told his story about the death of Mrs Durand-Deacon is not on record. If they were not amazed by the end of it, they certainly were when Haigh mentioned McSwann and Henderson – ‘the subject of another story.’ Invited to tell them about it, Haigh merely remarked that he had disposed of Mr WD McSwann and his mother and father, as well as Dr and Mrs Henderson, ‘in a similar manner to the above’.

  Pressed for details, he said that in the summer of 1944 he chanced to meet William Donald McSwann, a man in his thirties whom Haigh had first met in 1936. The acquaintance was revived. Haigh was popular with McSwann’s parents and often visited them. One night, on 9 September 1944, the two men had a drink at The Goat in Kensington High Street, and then went to 79 Gloucester Road, where Haigh had a basement workshop, in which he was repairing a pin-table for McSwann. He hit McSwann on the head with a cosh, drank his blood (he said), removed any valuables and put the body in a purloined water butt, which he had filled with acid, later disposing of the sludge down a manhole in the basement. He visited Mr and Mrs McSwann and told them their son had gone underground to avoid being called up. The deception was maintained by Haigh, who forged letters from McSwann to his parents, somehow contriving to post them from Glasgow and Edinburgh. In July the following year, Haigh dealt separately with Mr and Mrs McSwann in the Gloucester Road basement, disposing of them as he had their son.

  Posing as the son, he then obtained legal control of all his victims’ assets, including the freehold in four properties, their furniture and belongings, which he sold, and the gilt-edged securities they owned. He made over £4,000 out of the extermination of all the McSwanns.

  Haigh then told the astounded police how he had cultivated and disposed of another couple, Dr and Mrs Henderson, whom he met in 1947 over a property deal. In February 1948 he took them one by one from the Metropole Hotel, Brighton, where all three were staying, to his new workshop in Crawley. Here, both Hendersons were shot and dumped in two drums of acid, but not before he had drunk their blood and removed any money and valuables they had on them. Their hotel bill in Brighton was paid by Haigh and he took charge of their red setter dog until it contracted night blindness, when he sent it to a kennels. Again he kept the relatives quiet by forging occasional letters to Mrs Henderson’s brother, who lived in Manchester.

  Six victims were more than enough for the Chelsea police officers. After his confession, Haigh was detained in custody. The next day, Tuesday, 1 March, Symes searched Haigh’s room at the Onslow Court Hotel, Room 404, and removed certain items and papers. He, DCI Mahon and the Home Office pathologist, Dr Keith Simpson, drove down to Crawley to examine the scene of Mrs Durand-Deacon’s alleged disappearance.

  Specks of blood were found on the whitewashed wall above the workshop bench, a hat pin was found in the bottom of the green drum, and a gall stone was spotted by the observant Dr Simpson in the sludge outside in the yard. The sludge itself was ladled into five wooden boxes and carted to the police laboratory in New Scotland Yard. Carefully sifted and analysed, it produced 28 lb of animal fat, two more gall stones, part of a foot, eighteen corroded bone fragments, a lipstick container, the handle of a handbag, and a full set of dentures, which were later identified by Mrs Durand-Deacon’s lady dentist.

  Left in acid or even in the sludge, these exhibits would all have dissolved within a month, apart from the gall stones, thus preventing the identification of the remains and proving Haigh’s claim that Mrs Durand-Deacon had indeed vanished without any trace.

  He was charged with her murder at Horsham police station on 2 March, and taken to Lewes Prison in Sussex.

  Two days later, he asked to see DI Webb and made yet another statement, in which he said he had murdered three other people, strangers whom he met accidentally. He had coshed them and disposed of their bodies in acid. One was a woman in her thirties whom he had met in Hammersmith and killed in February 1945. The second was a man in his thirties called Max whom he encountered in The Goat in Kensington and killed about September 1945. The third was a Welsh girl called Mary, whom he met in Eastbourne in the summer of 1948. The first two, he said, were disposed of in the Gloucester Road basement, the third in Crawley. Haigh said he robbed all three of what they had, which was very little, and drank their blood.

  No evidence was ever unearthed by the police to substantiate these claims. Most probably Haigh fabricated these murders to enforce the idea of insanity, which was to be his defence. He may have thought, like Christie, that the more the merrier, and decided to invent victims who were slaughtered just for their blood and not for their money, as the other six obviously were.

  There is no evidence, of course, to prove whether or not he drank anybody’s blood, except that a penknife with faint traces of blood on it was found in his Alvis. Blood if drunk would, however, tend to act as an emetic.

  The blood-supping and his alleged dreams of blood and crucifixion were elaborated by the defence at the trial, as was Haigh’s claim that he had habitually drunk his own urine since he was a boy. At the trial he was reported to have done just that in the presence of a prison doctor.

  His life had, in fact, been rather unusual. He was born on 24 July 1909 at Stamford in Lincolnshire, and brought up in a Yorkshire village, Outwood, situated between Wakefield and Leeds. The only child of a colliery foreman, his solitariness was enforced by the fact that his parents belonged to a religious sect, the Plymouth Brethren, who frowned on sport, light entertainment, social amusements of any frivolous or unedifying sort, and daily prayed together and read the Bible, isolating th
emselves from the sins, pleasures and evils of the world and refusing to have even a wireless or a newspaper in the house. But Haigh was not unhappy and was fond of his mother and father. He was always neat and smart. Educated at Wakefield Grammar School until he was seventeen, he was a good mixer, eager to please, and mischievous, and although no scholar or athlete, he wrote well and won a Divinity prize with an essay on St Peter. At the same time, to avoid trouble or offence, he became an accomplished liar. He was also an accomplished pianist, music being his greatest indulgence and passion. Between the ages of ten and sixteen he sang with the Wakefield Cathedral Choir, and occasionally played the organ at minor services. Much was also made at his trial of the presumed disturbing dichotomy between the lavish High Church cathedral rituals and the austere religion of his parents, but it is doubtful whether his sensitivity or intellect were sufficiently deep to be disturbed by anything much.

  Apprenticed for a time to a motor engineer, he began at the age of twenty-one to experiment with various speculative business ventures concerned with insurance and brokerage. Then, on 6 July 1934, he married, left home and stopped attending meetings of the Brethren. Looking around for some means of making money, he devised a method of swindling a hire-purchase company dealing in cars by forging documents for non-existent cars hired by non-existent owners. Within a few months he was found out and was sentenced at Leeds Assizes in November 1934 to fifteen months for conspiring to defraud.

  He wrote later: ‘When I first discovered there were easier ways to make a living than to work long hours in an office, I did not ask myself whether I was doing right or wrong. That seemed to me to be irrelevant.’

  While he was in prison his wife left him and he was rejected by the Brethren. His next venture, a successful dry-cleaning business, collapsed when his partner was killed in a car crash. The firm went into liquidation. Haigh came to London in 1936.