Murder on the Home Front

by Molly Lefebure

“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

  Out of this stony rubbish?…”

  Nothing could have been more pat.

  Another five-barred gate, this one decorated with a large notice, “STRICTLY PRIVATE. KEEP OUT,” and festoons of barbed wire. We climbed it gingerly, Sergeant Hannam offering me assistance. Then came a stretch of old railway track. Railway track, in my opinion, is the most awkward thing in the world to walk along. You cannot step from sleeper to sleeper because they are just that much too far apart, and for the same reason you cannot stride along between them. You have to teeter up and teeter down and run great risk of twisting your ankle. And the strange thing about criminals is that they adore railway tracks.

  Finally we reached the end of the track and stepped into a wilderness of tangled grass and scrubby bushes, illuminated with lovely patches of willow herb which blazed, crimson, in the sunshine. To make you watch your step were brambles, long-​abandoned tins, remnants of broken zinc baths, and the like. As we walked the grasshoppers sprang up, whirring, from our feet. The sun beat down on us mercilessly. I began to think of Bethnal Green with nostalgia.

  This was Kempston Ballast Hole, and it was not a beauty spot. At least, not to my mind.

  Presently we reached a particularly dense thicket of elder bushes. It was here that the body had been found, concealed by the bushes and also by a branch over which had been arranged a screen of willow herb. Dr. Simpson and the detectives carefully examined this spot. Then they turned their attention to the ground around.

  We all searched slowly through the long, tatty grass for possible clues. Mr. Beveridge was very intent upon collecting and examining all the scraps of paper which lay scattered about, for in such places there are always plenty of stray pieces of paper. Most of the fragments we found were merely old bits of newspaper, dated well before the estimated time of the assault, but about twenty feet from where the body had been hidden we found the torn-up photograph of a girl, and the torn-off loop of a man’s trouser brace.

  This searching through the grass and bushes took quite a while, with the sun burning down and the grasshoppers whirring and skipping. At last Mr. Beveridge decided we had searched enough for that session; we must now get back to the mortuary so that Dr. Simpson might take a look at the body. Accordingly we picked our way over the sleepers, climbed the wired gate, crunched along the cinder track, climbed the padlocked gate, and went, all rather wearily, into the mortuary yard.

  Here the wretched police officers and CID men were crouching on all fours, wrestling with the drain. Their faces were scarlet with heat and exertion. “It looks as if we’ll have to have the yard up to get at the drain, sir.”

  “Then we’ll have the yard up,” replied Mr. Beveridge. “If it means taking up the road I’m going to get those teeth.”

  The mortuary yard, the mortuary, was puddled with disinfectant and reeked horribly.

  Disinfectant and body combined to make an astonishingly hideous smell. Outside in the yard the desperate subordinates struggled with the drain. The detectives from Scotland Yard divided their attention between the drain and the postmortem table, both men with admirably impassive faces, while the Home Office pathologist examined the remains in a manner also detached and unperturbed. Nevertheless I knew him well enough to sense a raging interior behind the mask of calm. The individual, who was the cause of the raging interior, having done his wild but ineffective best at cleaning the mortuary, now evidently considered his task finished, for he stood silently by, his arms folded on his chest, watching first Chief Inspector Beveridge and then Dr. Simpson with an absorbed yet remote expression, as a zoologist might observe two very interesting but excessively rare species. He did not lift a finger to help, either with the drain or the postmortem. When Mr. Beveridge threatened that the entire drain would have to be taken up, he stared into the yard, and when Dr. Simpson, finally utterly disgusted by the state of the mortuary, started filling buckets with water and disinfectant and sloshing them furiously in all directions, he turned and stared at him as if asking himself, “Did you ever see such a berserk pathologist in all your life?”

  Under these circumstances it was impossible for CKS to examine the body in detail, and so he decided to have it taken to Guy’s, where he could study it properly.

  We left the mortuary with Chief Inspector Beveridge and Sergeant Hannam and went back to the pretty little police station from which we had started out. The afternoon was still very hot, and our last view of the mortuary was one of purple-faced men still struggling around the wretched drain. Mr. Beveridge called that he would be back presently to see if they had found those teeth.

  When we reached the police station we went into the sunny little yard there, where beautiful rambling roses bloomed and where spread on the ground were the filthy, slimy, stinking clothes that had been removed from the body. Mr. Beveridge, Mr. Hannam and CKS, together with the station sergeant, squatted down beside these clothes and began examining them.

  CKS had already told Mr. Beveridge that the assault must have taken place some ten to fourteen days previously, judging by the condition of decomposition, the hot weather, and the exposed way in which the body had been lying. The clothing of the dead man now showed that his body had been dragged to its hiding place under the bushes. The seat of the trousers had been pulled away from the rear brace attachments, as though the body had been pulled by the arms or shoulders, the feet trailing on the ground. The brace attachment which we had found earlier that afternoon at the Ballast Hole clearly belonged to the torn braces which were still attached to the deceased’s trousers.

  Besides the trousers there were filthy socks, a crumpled sports shirt. The shoes were missing.

  Mr. Beveridge and CKS pored lengthily over these things, discussing together, occasionally dictating to Mr. Hannam and me. At last, however, it was time for CKS to catch his train back to London. We had left our departure to the last minute, and we therefore had a very helter-skelter trip to the railway station. Cups of tea were brought to us as we were about to leave, but we didn’t have time to drink them. Mr. Hannam gave me a sympathetic grin as I gloomily bypassed my second cup of tea that afternoon. Calling good-bye and waving, CKS and I dived into the car and were raced away to the station, which we reached in the final nick of time, tumbling head first into the train, which was just sliding from the platform as we chased and gasped past the ticket inspector.

  Collapsed in a hot carriage of strangely Victorian aspect, all black horse-hair upholstery and drab carpet, we mopped our brows and spread ourselves out. We had the carriage to ourselves. Dr. Simpson confessed he was feeling rotten with a migraine and attempted to revive himself with a few pieces of tart candy he had been carrying around for his small daughters. He also let escape a blast of reasonably mild invective concerning the mortuary and the disinfectant. Thus relieved he soon felt much better.

  I discovered, and squashed, a very large louse crawling up my leg.

  Back in London a good dinner at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand restored us pretty well to normal health and spirits. All the same I remember our visit to the Ballast Hole at Kempston as a trying experience.

  The last thing I remember about that day was arriving home at Southgate to find the house smelling exceptionally ripe, so that for a moment or two I thought it must be me carrying the smell of Kempston around with me. But it turned out to be a very fine Camembert cheese which the actor Basil Dean had brought back from a trip to France as a present for my father. It was the first Camembert cheese I had seen for five years, and under any other circumstances I would have fallen on it with whoops of joy, but now I turned away from it with a shudder…

  The Kempston body arrived at Guy’s next morning, and CKS demonstrated it to his students, who all turned up in swarms when they heard the details, but they didn’t look quite so thrilled when they discovered what the body was like. Nevertheless, they all stuck the demonstration out. Gibb trotted around the mortuary meanwhile looking a wee bit miffed an
d armed with a fly spray. He confided to me that the body was “a nasty, dirty thing, a pity to have it in here, really. More suitable for the anatomy department than my mortuary.” However, it was a Scotland Yard case, and as such carried unmistakable prestige. And pretty soon it was put in a carbolic tank upstairs where Dr. Simpson could examine it “in his spare time.”

  Meanwhile, at Kempston the teeth had been retrieved from the drain pipe and more back-aching searching had gone on among the grass and bushes of the Ballast Hole. Nothing of importance was found there. But inquiries had already been made about the girl whose torn-up portrait had been found near the body’s hiding place, and these inquiries proved fruitful.

  A woman police officer who saw the photo said she recognized it as the portrait of a girl who frequented a local dance hall. So detectives went to the dance hall and picked up the girl. She was shown the dead man’s clothes and said they undoubtedly belonged to her cousin, Robert Smith, a youth of twenty-two who had been working for a firewood merchant named Gribble. But, said the girl, she hadn’t seen her cousin Robert since Sunday, August 6, and she supposed he had given up the firewood round for the time and gone harvesting.

  She added that Smith had been very friendly with Gribble, his employer, and particularly friendly with Kenneth Gribble, the firewood merchant’s son, a boy of sixteen. If anybody knew about Robert’s movements, Kenneth Gribble certainly would.

  So around to Gribble’s house went Chief Inspector Beveridge and Sergeant Hannam. Kenneth Gribble proved reasonably helpful and was apparently sincere. He said he had last seen Robert Smith on the afternoon of August 6, when he had paid him his wages, in a field about midday. When questioned about the Ballast Hole, Gribble said he knew the place well, but had never visited it at any time with Smith and had not been to the place himself for over six months.

  Sincere? Apparently. But Kenneth Gribble was no match for the men from Scotland Yard. The astute Mr. Beveridge had already interviewed another youth, a pal of Gribble’s, who said he had heard a conversation between Kenneth and Robert in which they had arranged to meet at the Kempston Ballast Hole at three o’clock on Sunday afternoon, August 6. This youth added that at the time of making this date Kenneth and Robert had had “words” about money paid to Robert Smith by Mr. Gribble senior.

  Now, despite his air of sincerity, Kenneth Gribble had been very careful to tell Mr. Beveridge that he had never been to the Ballast Hole with Smith.

  Mr. Beveridge confronted Kenneth with this omission. Kenneth said, ah yes, that was right, he had made a date to meet Bob at the Ballast Hole that Sunday afternoon, but he’d forgotten to mention this appointment to the inspector. Mr. Beveridge said he would like to hear about the meeting. Well, said Kenneth, there hadn’t actually been any meeting. He’d gone to the Ballast Hole at three o’clock to meet Bob as arranged, but Bob hadn’t turned up, and after waiting around for him for ten minutes he had decided to go home. He hadn’t seen Bob at all that afternoon, at the Ballast Hole or anywhere, and what was more he hadn’t seen him since, either.

  All said, as before, with an air of sincerity. But Kenneth Gribble did not make a very good impression upon Mr. Beveridge. And Mr. Beveridge was well used to judging people correctly. So the detective continued with discreet inquiries around and about Kempston.

  Then he learned that the caretaker of the little church opposite the public entrance to the Ballast Hole had taken to the local police station a bike which he reported having found propped against the church wall on the afternoon of August 6. The caretaker had first found it there at half past three that Sunday, and at midday next day it was still standing there. Finally, the caretaker took the bike to the police as “lost property.” It was identified as Robert Smith’s bike.

  Mr. Beveridge showed the bike to Kenneth Gribble. Kenneth said he didn’t recognize it as Bob’s bike. To this the chief inspector said nothing. He did, however, instruct the detectives under his command to search the ground of the Kempston Ballast Hole afresh, inch by inch, missing nothing.

  For by this time Mr. Beveridge had reason to suspect that somewhere among the tangled grass and bushes lay the weapon, probably a large and heavy wooden weapon, a club or something similar, with which Smith had been struck down and killed.

  Dr. Simpson had concluded his examination of Smith’s body and had sent Mr. Beveridge a copy of his report, in which he strongly suggested that such a weapon had been used. Dr. Simpson said that Smith had been killed ten to fourteen days before his body was found. If he had disappeared on August 6, as everybody said he had, then that was eleven days before his body was discovered. He had been killed, Keith Simpson said, and dragged along the ground afterward to the bushes, where he had been concealed. He had not been involved in much of a fight before he was killed, for although he had been a strong, sturdy young man, well capable of defending himself in a brawl, his hands did not suggest that he had done any serious fighting before he was overpowered and killed.

  It seemed rather, Dr. Simpson said, that Smith had been attacked suddenly from in front while he was standing upright and had been struck a violent blow from some blunt heavy weapon to the left side of the face. This blow had been followed by a second one to the mouth; very vicious, knocking out eight front teeth. Smith had probably tried to ward off these two blows by raising his left arm, which bore signs of injury. A third blow, however, had caught him on the jaw and felled him to the ground, unconscious. Then, while Smith lay senseless and helpless on the ground, his assailant dealt him another violent blow to the head, which killed him.

  The intense searching of the ground of the Ballast Hole continued without result until August 21, and then, among the thickest bushes in the Ballast Hole, about a hundred feet from where the body had been hidden, was found a heavy sawn-off bough. It was bloodstained and to it adhered several hairs.

  It was taken up to London to the police laboratory and examined. The bloodstains were definitely human. One of the hairs—seven inches long—was a human head hair, while six further short hairs were eyebrow hairs. All these hairs corresponded with samples taken from Smith’s body. (It had been impossible, of course, to take a specimen of Smith’s blood for grouping because of the advanced decomposition.) Undoubtedly here was the weapon the assailant had used.

  Meanwhile more discoveries were being made at the Ballast Hole. Smith’s shoes were found: the right shoe in a disused railway truck and the left shoe a little farther away, nearer to the public entrance to the Ballast Hole. His brown jacket, roughly folded, was lying under a blackberry bush, and his hat was discovered some distance from the jacket. All these were identified as clothes Smith had been seen wearing on that Sunday afternoon he disappeared.

  Armed with this fresh evidence Chief Inspector Beveridge went again to visit Kenneth Gribble. The youth had an alibi ready; he said he had spent the afternoon of August 6 in the company of a woman friend. But what is the use of putting up false alibis to the police? Especially, what hope is there in putting up a false alibi to a chief inspector from the Yard? Mr. Beveridge immediately interviewed the woman concerned and satisfied himself very quickly that young Gribble was lying in his account of the afternoon.

  Now, nothing makes a detective more deeply suspicious than a false alibi. Mr. Beveridge didn’t go back to interview Kenneth Gribble at that stage; he issued instead instructions that the young man should be watched.

  So a month passed. A month of watching, and waiting. The grass in Kempston Ballast Hole grew drier and browner, the leaves on the bushes withered and started dropping. And it was reported to the chief inspector that Gribble was beginning to talk freely about the crime; far too freely. He seemed quite unable to leave the subject alone, and although he never actually boasted of being the assailant he talked so injudiciously that it was clear he knew far more than he should of the inside story of the crime.

  So, on September 20, Chief Inspector Beveridge, Detective Inspector Sandell of the Bedfordshire Police, and Sergeant Hannam all went around to
Gribble’s home. Their arrival, late in the evening, caused a family scene. Mr. Hannam described it afterward in conversation with us: “The whole family was in an uproar, and Gribble’s poor old parents terribly upset, everybody weeping and clutching one another…well, you can imagine it.”

  Mr. Beveridge sternly told Kenneth Gribble that he had reason to believe that the youth knew more about the crime than he had hitherto confessed. Gribble began bluffing and lying again, denying he knew anything. But his father, who was present at this interview, suddenly intervened, tearfully imploring the boy to make a clean breast of things if he were really guilty of the crime. Kenneth then broke down.

  “Yes, I did meet Bob Smith three o’clock one August Sunday afternoon and we had a fight in the Ballast Hole. He threw a piece of tree at me and I hit him with it.”

  He was cautioned and then he made a long statement. He described how he and Smith went to the Ballast Hole for “a lay down.” As they strolled there, Gribble said, he told Smith that he needn’t bother to come to work for Mr. Gribble senior anymore, “for,” said Kenneth Gribble, “you know you have been doing me out of money on the round.”

  That, then, was how the quarrel started. Gribble continued his account of it, “We got to high words…and Bob took off his jacket and came for me. There was a fight and Bob fell over a large piece of tree wood. He picked up the bit of wood and threw it at me. I dodged the piece of tree but picked it up and as Bob come at me I struck him with it. I first struck him on the side of the face. He hit me in the stomach, and I hit him again with the piece of tree on the head. He was bleeding but continued to fight me, so I hit him twice more with the piece of wood on his head. He fell down then, and whilst he was lying on the ground I hit him twice on the head with the same piece of wood. I then threw the piece of wood as hard as I could into some bushes because there was some blood on it. I then picked up Bob’s feet and dragged him into some bushes in the middle of the spinney.”