The Chieftain: Victorian True Crime Through The Eyes of a Scotland Yard Detective

by Payne, Chris

  Amongst several books on the subject, The Bravo Mystery and Other Cases dismisses misadventure and suicide and suggests that only Florence Bravo or Mrs Cox could have committed the crime; Death at the Priory lays the murder of Charles Bravo’s death at the door of Florence Bravo, with the complicity of Mrs Cox.41 In contrast, in How Charles Bravo died, the perceived culprit is Charles Bravo himself, accidentally consuming tartar emetic (purchased to control his wife’s drinking habits) instead of Epsom salts and, after realising his mistake, feeling compelled to remain silent about the poison he had consumed as he lay dying.42 Of course, unlike Clarke and the Treasury legal team, those who have assembled these versions of events have the luxury of not being required to present their evidence to the rigour of legal process.

  With no new evidence forthcoming, it was time for Clarke to move on. The Bravo inquest adjourned from Wednesday 9 August until its final day on 12 August. He found time on the Thursday to attend the wedding of his eldest daughter, Emily, to Henry Stableforth Payne, the son of a tailor from Tufton Street, Westminster. The wedding took place on a pleasantly warm day in the splendid baroque church of St John Evangelist in Smith Square, Westminster. The newlyweds spent their honeymoon at Boston, Lincolnshire, at the home of a family friend of the Paynes, William Norfolk, who would provide valuable assistance to Clarke in 1877. Clarke then returned to Balham for the last day of the Bravo inquest on 12 August but, by mid-August, having had little time to draw breath, he was engaged in not just one but two new investigations.

  ‘Count von Howard’

  On 25 August Clarke arrived in Hamburg carrying an extradition warrant for the arrest of ‘Charles Howard’ (also known as Count von Howard of Eisenach, amongst other aliases), on a charge of obtaining £380 by false and fraudulent pretences. By 27 August Clarke was back in England with the prisoner and a sealed portmanteau containing documents and other items that had been found in Howard’s rooms when he had been arrested by German police in February 1876.43

  Back in January of 1875, John Harvey of 13 Upper Thames Street, City of London, had received a ‘private and confidential’ letter from ‘F.C. Judford’, a person not known to him. The letter stated that a ‘Mr. Richard Harvey’ had died in July 1870 and that, although an earlier will had been proved, a more recent will had been found in which John Harvey was a beneficiary and stood to receive a legacy of £40,000 plus approximately £10,000 from a freehold property. The writer said that the most recent will was genuine and was in the hands of a person in humble circumstances. The will would be released if Harvey would agree to pay a small commission to the will holder. After an exchange of correspondence, Judford reported that a ‘hitch’ had arisen in negotiations, as the will holder had placed the will at a bank for safe keeping but, unfortunately, had got into debt with the bank, owing £380, and the bank would not release the will until this amount was paid. However, if Harvey sent £380 to Judford, this would ensure that the bank would release the will. Harvey duly sent the money in instalments during June 1875, and Judford acknowledged the payments. Harvey’s subsequent letters received no reply and were returned to him by the post office ‘dead letter office’. Thus, Harvey had invested £380 and had not received the promised will.44

  Count von Howard had been living at the Hotel de Rautenkrantz in Eisenach since November 1875. Together with a woman who passed as his wife, he occupied three rooms, a bedroom, a sitting room and a study. On arrival, he had brought several portmanteaus with him that were always locked and kept in the study, where he spent long hours working. He was also a regular customer at the post office, where he sent and collected substantial quantities of post. After receipt of information from England (prompted by John Harvey contacting the police), Howard was arrested under suspicion of being ‘F.C. Judford’. Precisely how the connection between Judford and Howard was made is unclear, though his working practices probably made him stand out from the usual hotel guest. A protracted series of court appearances in Germany had filled the time between Howard’s arrest in February and Clarke’s journey to Hamburg in August. Though Howard had some success in the German courtroom, it only postponed the court’s final decision that he should face trial in England.

  When Clarke returned from Hamburg on 28 August with his prisoner he brought him to the Mansion House, where the Treasury prosecution team were assembled with Harry Poland ready to open the case for the prosecution. In front of Alderman Sir Robert Carden (a former lord mayor of London), Poland described the case as a ‘fraud of the most remarkable character, which had been carried out with extraordinary ingenuity’. Howard, described as well dressed, aged 48 and of no occupation, presented himself as a relation of the chancellor of the German empire (Bismarck) which, he was later to claim, ‘ought of itself to have shielded him from such a charge’. Clarke gave evidence of Howard’s arrest, and Howard was remanded in custody in Newgate Prison.

  There were several hearings at the Mansion House, between 28 August and 10 October, before Alderman Carden committed the prisoner for trial at the Old Bailey. Clarke’s principal job during September, together with Detective Sergeant von Tornow and the Treasury team, was to disentangle the contents of the portmanteau, identify and contact potential key witnesses and build the case against Howard. As the hearings progressed it emerged that Howard had been born in America, and that he had worked in the War Office in London between 1855 and 1858 in the name of Temple Bouverie Cleveland Willmott. The portmanteau contained numerous documents, suggesting that Howard had corresponded with up to 100 individuals on the subject of wills, including John Harvey. In addition, a Captain Henry Williams of Pilton House, Barnstaple (and previously an MP of that borough), emerged to give evidence that he had been in correspondence of a similar nature, but with someone named ‘Tent’ rather than ‘Judford’. It was noted that the handwriting of ‘Howard’, ‘Tent’ and ‘Judford’ were remarkably similar.45 Howard’s counsel pursued the course that, if the offence had been committed at all, it was committed in Germany and not in this country.46 That argument was dismissed by Alderman Carden on the basis that the German authorities had seen fit to send Howard to England for trial. In addition, Harvey had received at least one letter from Judford which bore a British stamp and had been posted in Britain.47

  At the Old Bailey on 25 October, a plea of ‘not guilty’ was entered by the court on Howard’s behalf, after he refused to plead. The prosecution had assembled a team of witnesses from Britain and Germany, the majority of whom had appeared at the Mansion House hearings. One who had not was Charles Chabot, called once more to identify the handwriting on various items of correspondence. In addition, there were several new witnesses who identified Howard as an individual they knew under different aliases. Howard’s defence counsel called no witnesses and persisted with the legal argument that there was no evidence that Howard had been in Britain since July 1875, commenting also that the handwriting evidence was unreliable and that the style of some of the letters quoted in evidence was not consistent with them having been written by a single person. This last point may have caused some amusement in court, bearing in mind the multiple identities that Howard had assumed.48

  The jury consulted only briefly before returning a ‘guilty’ verdict. Prior to sentencing, Clarke stated that there was considerable evidence from the 1,000 or so letters and papers in the portmanteau that there were many other fraud victims (some of whom had now complained to Scotland Yard), and that Howard had been getting large sums of money in that way for at least ten years. Indeed, from each victim, Howard had acquired a sum in excess of Clarke’s annual salary of £276. Recognising Howard as an accomplished swindler, Mr Justice Lush delivered the maximum sentence for the offence, five years’ penal servitude.49 Once again, a case in which Clarke had played a significant part was featured in The Times leader columns, describing Howard’s activities as ‘a crowning act of roguery, strange enough in some of its details, and strangest, perhaps, of all in its partial success’.50

  The Austrian Tr
agedy – The Re-appearance of ‘Henri Perreau’

  Shortly before his journey to Hamburg to arrest Howard, Clarke received a letter from Jonathan Oldfield, who Clarke had met in April 1868 when investigating the death of Mrs Elizabeth Brigham.51 Oldfield’s letter stated that Mrs Brigham’s son-in-law, Henri Perreau, had changed his name to ‘de Tourville’ and had remarried following the early death of his first wife. Now his second wife had died in a ‘strange tragedy’ in Austria in July 1876. Suspicious of these events, Oldfield wrote:

  From the previous enquiries made by you, no doubt you will feel an interest in this matter and no doubt you will see the propriety of at once placing yourself in communication with the relatives of the second wife and ascertain whether he is the same person and if it turns out that he is you will then know what course to take.52

  Oldfield, who had been a trustee of Mrs Brigham’s estate, was by now well versed in matters concerning de Tourville, as the latter had taken legal action against Oldfield in June 1872 concerning the income generated by the late Mrs Brigham’s investments.53

  Having obtained approval to make enquiries about Perreau, Clarke reported back on 21 August:

  I beg to report that about the latter end of 1867 a Monsieur Henri Perreau married (supposed on the Continent) a young lady named Henrietta Felicia Helen Elizabeth Brigham, the daughter of Mrs Elizabeth Brigham, Foxley Hall, Lymm, Cheshire. On the 11th April 1868, the latter was shot in the breakfast room at Foxley Hall, under very suspicious circumstances and, by direction of the late Sir Richard Mayne I made enquiries into the case … Shortly after, Monsieur Perreau (who had changed his name to De Tourville) and his wife took up their residence at 16 Craven Hill, Bayswater, and on the 27th July 1869, Madame de Tourville gave birth to a son who was registered as William Perreau de Tourville; this child is supposed to be now alive.

  On the 30th June 1871, Madame de Tourville died at the same address, according to the Register, of ‘Phthisis Pulmonalis’ [tuberculosis] of some years standing, and by her death her husband is believed to have come into possession of a large fortune said to be about £40,000.

  On the 11th November 1875, De Tourville was again married at the church of the Holy Trinity, Westbourne Terrace, to Madeline Pike (commonly known as Madeline Miller) of 6 Southwick Crescent, widow of Charles Frederick Pike Esq. and daughter of the late Captain William Miller R.N. and who had a fortune of £70,000, and by a will made shortly after the marriage the greater part of this was left to the husband. They left England to travel on the Continent and on the 6th July last were staying at the Hotel von Kammerzofe, Trafoi, in Austria on the confines of the Tyrol when the occurrence happened as stated in the newspaper extracts.

  I have seen the maid, Sarah Clappinson, who was travelling with Monsieur and Madame de Tourville at the time, and who is at present at No. 6 Southwick Terrace. She states that about 9 a.m. on the 6th July last, her Master and Mistress left the Inn mentioned in a carriage to view the scenery in the neighbourhood and about 6½ p.m. her master returned alone, and said that Madame had met with an accident by falling over a precipice, and was killed, but she – Clappinson – never saw the body, as her master stated it was lying some distance away. Two days afterwards two gentlemen whom she believes to have been Police Officials, called and took her statement, and during the enquiry which succeeded into the cause of her mistress’s death, her master was kept under surveillance of the Police at the Hotel. After the funeral De Tourville returned to London – having first sent her home – and continued to reside at 16 Craven Hill, until Saturday last, when he left for Austria, supposed for the purpose of removing the body to another resting place.

  I have also seen Mr. Thomas Frank Wilding, 5 Lime Street Square, who informed me that he had known the late Madame de Tourville for many years, that he was a trustee under the marriage settlement, and executor under the subsequent will. At the latter end of July he received a letter from Monsieur De Tourville, dated from Paris, detailing the circumstances of his wife’s death, and stating he was in Paris for the purpose of obtaining a copper coffin in which to deposit the body, also inviting him to attend the funeral, but he declined to do so. In the early part of last week De Tourville called upon him and gave him an account of the accident. Mr. Wilding considered the circumstances most suspicious, but at present is quite at a loss to know what steps to take in the matter.

  I have seen Mr. Freshfield, Solicitor, Bank Buildings, who said he was Mrs. De Tourville’s solicitor previous to her marriage, and drew the settlements, and made the will, but at present he has no instructions from any person to take any steps in the matter. He is strongly of opinion that further enquiry should be made, and suggests that a communication should be made to the authorities where the occurrence took place.

  There are two sisters of Madame de Tourville, who each take £10,000 under the will viz. Mrs Cox at present at Port Natal, and Mrs. Thompson of Gravesend, and they have been informed of their sister’s death by Mr. Wilding.54

  Clarke’s reports of 24 April 1868 and of 21 August 1876 are contemporary to the events he was investigating and are entirely consistent with other sources of primary information from the same period. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of several accounts of the ‘de Tourville’ case that emerged in the ‘true-crime’ literature between 1890 and 1930. In these accounts, the predominant (but not the only) errors are that Druscovich was the investigating officer and that the name of the woman shot in 1868 was a ‘Mrs Ramsden’.55

  Perreau had become a naturalised British citizen on 13 June 1871, in the name of ‘Henri Dieudonnée Perreau de Tourville’.56 He had increasingly moved in high society and had been presented to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and called to the degree of the Utter Bar in November 1871, permitting him to practise as a barrister. The legal knowledge that he acquired he had immediately used in trying to gain greater access to the estates of both his late mother-in-law and his late first wife.57

  Of the people who Clarke had contacted about Madeline de Tourville, at least two of them were suspicious of the circumstances of her death. Establishing what had happened in Austria was clearly important. Fortuitously, the Foreign Secretary had received a confidential letter from an English solicitor, John Jennings, who had been travelling in the Tyrol soon after Madeline de Tourville had died. The letter was passed on to Scotland Yard for information:

  My Lord

  I have just returned from a tour of some weeks in the Tyrol and find that no account of the dreadful and mysterious death of an English lady on the Stelvio Pass has been seen in the papers. This coupled with the fact that no friends or relations of the parties appeared at the trial or at the funeral has strengthened the suspicion of foul play. I deem it my duty to lay the following facts stated to me by eye witnesses at Trafoi before your Lordship in the hope that you may deem it right to cause further enquiry to be made. A gentleman styling himself as Henry Dieudonnée de Tourville with his wife (an English lady) and their maid had been travelling from Innsbrüch with a Voiturier and arrived on Saturday evening the 15 July at Spondinig where they passed the night at the small Inn. On Sunday morning another carriage was ordered to drive to the highest point on the Stelvio Road. The maid was left at Spondinig – supper having been ordered for their expected return at 8 in the evening – nothing unusual was remarked. The couple arrived at Trafoi and dined. They then continued their drive to Franzenshöhe five miles further, pulled up there, took some wine and drove on nearly to the top of the pass, not stopping again at Franzenshöhe on the return journey. About two miles before regaining Trafoi they alighted, the gentleman telling the driver that they would go down on foot to Trafoi and that he was to await them there at about 6 o’clock; the gentleman arrived alone and met the landlord who was standing outside his Inn. The latter at once asked where the lady was – de Tourville replied quite calmly ‘she has fallen on the road and (pointing to the temple) is bleeding’. He then went into the salle à manger and ordered a bottle of wine and while d
rinking it narrated to a woman of the house that he had been a widower, that he had been remarried about 8 months, with other particulars. The landlord had in the meantime despatched two men in search of the lady but not until half an hour had elapsed did de Tourville request that his carriage might be prepared and 4 strong men sent with him to bring down his wife. The men previously despatched by the landlord did not find her and on the arrival of the whole party the lady’s hat was found with blood on it a few yards from the road but the lady could not be seen and was at length discovered lifeless several hundred yards down a slope out of sight of the road, while on the grass was a narrow track as if some heavy body had been dragged downwards – a piece of an umbrella was also found a little lower than the road and was admitted by de Tourville to be part of the one which he had in his hand when he first came down to Trafoi. An earring was subsequently found just by the road, but several valuable rings which the lady had on her fingers were untouched. De Tourville was arrested and confined in a room at Spondinig for 8 days while undergoing examination by the police authorities from [illegible] and Botzen. To the latter he alleged what he had not previously stated, that his wife had attempted to destroy herself and that after he had left her she must have thrown herself down to the spot where the corpse was lying. I have myself inspected the place and agree with all the people in the neighbourhood in believing it impossible that:

  1st She could have fallen from the road to any distance on a descent so little precipitous, and