Great Train Crimes: Murder and Robbery on the Railways

by Oates, Jonathan

  On boarding the 2 pm express train at London Bridge, Gold, as was usual, chose a compartment in which he would be alone. His wife remarked of this habit, ‘he never liked getting into a full compartment. He was a man of not very conversational mood, and used often to say that it confused him if people talked to him too much. He had a habit of closing his eyes and lying back in the seat as if asleep, in order that people should not talk to him.’ Humphrey Gibson, a chemist of King’s Road, Brighton, was also on board, though in a second class compartment.

  The journey was not an ordinary one. After leaving London Bridge, the first stop was Croydon. Ann Brown, wife of Daniel Brown, a farm labourer, had a cottage in Horley 100 yards from the railway line on which the train passed between 2 and 3 pm. She later said, ‘It was going fast. I saw in one of the carriages two gentlemen standing up. They appeared to be fighting or “larking”.’ The next stop was at Preston Park, where Gibson noticed that blood was flowing from the compartment which had been used by Gold. It was at this point that Gibson recalled that he had heard what he had thought to be the sound of blasts from a fog horn. These had been emitted in Mertsham tunnel. Might they not have been gun shots?

  Later, the train had passed through Balcombe tunnel. About an hour later, Thomas Jennings, a Horley labourer employed by the railway company, was walking through that same tunnel, with his nephew, William. It was about 4.15 pm. The two made a shocking discovery, as Jennings senior later remarked: ‘In the middle of the tunnel I saw the body of a man lying in the six foot between the two roads. The head was lying towards the south and the body was lying parallel with the line. The body was lying on the back. It was dark but I had a light.’

  Jennings felt the body. It was still warm. He also noticed that it was clothed and bloody. He then took the corpse to Balcombe station and from there it was removed to the stables of the Railway Inn. The body had not been in the tunnel for long, because John Jennings, a ganger of platelayers, had passed through the tunnel shortly before 3 pm that afternoon, and he had noticed nothing remarkable. The 2 pm London to Brighton train had passed through the three-quarter-mile-long tunnel shortly afterwards. Clearly the victim had travelled, when alive, on that same train, and had either jumped out of the train or had been pushed.

  On the train reaching Preston Park, the next stop after Croydon, a strange and shocking sight greeted those on the platform. This was a young man, but he hardly presented a conventional appearance. Apparently, ‘His face was otherwise pale, and there were marks of blood upon it and blood upon his neck. There was dried blood on each nostril.

  The man looked weak, but was perfectly composed and answered questions rationally.’ He lacked a collar and neck tie and wore a frock coat and grey trousers. His trousers and coat were bloodstained. Hardly an ordinary-looking sight. Station staff thought he might have been a lunatic who had tried to injure himself. His name was Percy Lefroy Mapleton.

  Mapleton had been born in Peckham in about 1860. It appears he was an orphan, for in the following year he was living with the family of his elderly uncle in Deptford. In 1881 he lived with his cousin in Cathcart Road, Wallington, which was also used as a boarding school. He had no fixed employment and had very little money. He had tried his hand at writing, but his output was not of a high standard.

  The young man’s story was a shocking one. He had been travelling from London Bridge and said that his companions were an elderly gentleman and a man who looked like a countryman, middle-aged and bewhiskered. The train entered the Merstham tunnel and a shot rang out. Someone then knocked Mapleton on the head and he fell unconscious, not awakening until the train arrived at Preston Park. He said to Thomas Watson, the guard, ‘I have been cruelly treated on the way by two other passengers who were in the same compartment and who left the train on the way down.’ Hanging from his pocket was a watch chain – not the safest place to put so valuable an item, as Watson commented. The compartment in which Mapleton had been travelling was smeared with blood, but there was no sign of anybody else, alive nor dead. The stationmaster sent a man to Brighton station to give them the news.

  Mapleton and Richard Gibson, the platform inspector, went to Brighton town hall to report the matter to the police, where he saw Chief Constable Terry, then to Sussex Hospital. Benjamin Hall was the acting house surgeon and saw to Mapleton’s injuries. He had suffered a number of minor wounds. These included a small cut on his forehead, one above his ear and six minor injuries to his scalp. His hands, face and neck were smeared with dry blood. Hall dressed the wounds. He later observed, ‘They were very peculiar wounds; I have never seen anything like them.’ They were not caused by gravel thrown up by the train, nor by shots. Oddly enough, Mapleton told him that he had been shot at, but generally speaking was reticent as to what exactly had happened. Hall was uncertain how the wounds had been caused; they could even have been self-inflicted. He added, ‘The patient was unwilling to stay, although for his own sake, I thought it was advisable that he should do so.’ To this Mapleton replied, ‘I cannot; I have an engagement in town which I must keep.’

  Mapleton then left the hospital and was taken to the police stationagain. En route, he stopped to buy a collar and a tie. The police were becoming suspicious of Mapleton and had him searched. Apart from a few small coins, they also found some Hanoverian coins of higher value. Yet there were no grounds on which he could be detained, so he was allowed to leave, albeit in the company of a detective sergeant who had been loaned by the Met to the railway company; the man’s name was George Holmes (the first Sherlock Holmes novel was actually set in 1881).

  Holmes was to accompany Mapleton to Croydon. They took the 6.10 train from Brighton. At Three Bridges, the stationmaster told him of the discovery of the corpse. Mapleton looked uneasy when he heard the news. At Croydon, they took a cab to Wallington. When they arrived, Mapleton said that he wanted to change into clean clothes, the ones he was wearing being bloody. Holmes saw nothing wrong in letting him do so. Mapleton and Holmes arrived at Cathcart Road, Wallington, where Mapleton lived, at 9.30 pm. After waiting in the drawing room for a time, Holmes discovered that his quarry had left through the back entrance, telling his cousin that he had gone to see a doctor.

  It was believed by the police that Mapleton had gone to London and that his arrest was imminent. A poster was issued in order to assist in this. It read as follows:

  Wanted, for murder, Arthur Mapleton, alias Lefroy, aged 22, five feet eight, very thin, hair dark and short, small dark whiskers and moustache. He was last seen at Wallington about 9.30 last night (Monday) and was then dressed in a dark coat, supposed with a low black hat, worn at the back of the head. He has had scratches at his throat and supposed to be wounded in the head. Wears a gold open faced watch, no. 16, 261, maker Griffiths, Mile End Road.

  Mapleton was at large for some days. On the day after the murder he went to Islington, where he borrowed 15s from a relative who was unaware that he was a wanted man.

  Meanwhile, in Preston, Mrs Gold knew her husband’s habits of old. He normally returned home at 3.30 pm. On this day he did not do so. She then assumed he would return by the 6.15 train. Again, he did not. It was then that she became alarmed, ‘about ten minutes past eight I went up to Preston station, saw Mr Hall, the stationmaster, and asked him whether there had been an accident’. Hall assured her that he had heard no such news, so she assumed her husband had been detained in London by business. But he did not arrive by the next train, either.

  She returned home and there eventually received the devastating news. ‘At five minutes past ten I received a telegram from the stationmaster at Balcombe, addressed to Titchfield, Preston. It stated, “Man found dead this afternoon in tunnel. On him name of James F. Gold. He is now lying here. Reply quick”’. After discussing what best to do with a neighbour, Mrs Gold took a late train to Balcombe. Mr Lee Hollis of Clermont Road, Preston, and assistant to a wine merchant, and who had known the Golds for ten years, accompanied her. On arrival at Balcombe station, the stati
onmaster advised her not to view the body. Hollis did so, and he confirmed it was that of Mrs Gold’s husband.

  On the following day, the corpse was examined by Dr Thomas Spry Byass, who practised at Cuckfield. His initial impressions were thus, ‘The face and hands are covered in dirt and blackened. The right hand is clenched, the left relaxed. The clothes are saturated with blood – more on the right wristband of the shirt than on the left’. The clothes were intact. All, except the socks, were bloody. There was a wound on the right hand between the thumb and first finger. This had probably been caused by a knife and was as deep as the bone. There were also scratches on the hand and all over the body. There was a knife wound along the throat, but it was not a deep one, perhaps caused by something bigger than a penknife and smaller than a carving knife.

  He was convinced that the wounds were not caused by the body being thrown from the train or dragged along the tracks. Death was due to haemorrhage to the brain caused by the numerous wounds to the head. Dr Byass was asked if Gold had been shot but he stated that there was no evidence of any bullet wounds. Some injuries took place after death, but he could not differentiate between them. Benjamin Hall examined the body and noted the fractures to the head. These would have caused death, he said but only after about 15 minutes.

  The inquest commenced at 9 am at Balcombe on Wednesday 29 June. Mr Wynne E Baxter was the coroner and it seems to have been a high-profile affair. Solicitors for the railway company and for Mrs Gold attended, as did Inspector Turpin. As usual at this time, the jury had the unpleasant task of viewing the corpse in the stables of the Railway Inn, which they did, as well as seeing the compartment where the killing took place. Hollis identified the body.

  Baxter questioned Hollis and Mrs Gold. He was particularly interested in any relatives she might have had in Croydon. Apparently her sister married one Alfred Peel, a former businessman, and they lived in Wallington. Gold had not seen them for some time. Baxter also askedwhere Gold’s brother lived and, again, she did not know the answer. Miss Mary Peel confirmed that Gold had not visited them on the day of his death or on any other recent day. It seemed that Mapleton might have formed a great impression of Gold’s wealth through Mrs Peel.

  The railway compartment which Gold had travelled down in was examined. There were bloodstains on the upholstery of the seating and also on the floor. A piece of lead which was once a bullet was found embedded into the wall. An attempt had been made to extract this. Three bullet holes were also found. The clothes of the deceased and some of Mapleton’s were also shown to the jury. Both sets were much bloodstained. The train compartments were fitted with an electric communication cord, and this was found to have been in working order, but it had not been pulled on that fatal journey. They also found six Hanoverian coins of the same type as found on Mapleton.

  When the inquest was resumed on 7 July, there was more medical evidence. This time Dr Thomas Bond, senior police surgeon (and who was to be involved in some of the inquests of Jack the Ripper’s victims in 1888), was the physician called upon to deliver it. Contrary to his colleague’s report, he found that Gold had been shot as well as knifed and these wounds had not been self-inflicted. The coroner summed up: Mapleton, an impoverished young man, entered the train with the intent to rob, and finding Gold, shot and stabbed him. Thus the inquest was concluded; the verdict being that this was a case of murder committed by Mapleton. Superintendent Berry of East Grinstead was given a warrant for his arrest.

  Mapleton was on the run for some days. Eventually, on the evening of Friday 8 July, the police caught up with him, following an anonymous tip off. Inspectors Donald Swanson (who was to play a part in the Ripper investigations, later suggesting that Aaron Kosminski was the notorious murderer) and Frederick Smith of the CID, paid a visit to Smith Street, Stepney. According to Swanson:

  At a quarter to 8 o’clock on Friday night in company with Inspector Jarvis and Police Constable Hopkins, I went to 32 Smith Street, Stepney. On entering the front room on the first floor, I saw the prisoner, Percy Lefroy Mapleton, sitting in an armchair. Addressing him I said, ‘Percy Lefroy Mapleton?’ In reply, he said, ‘Yes, I expected it’. I told him I was a police officer and that I should apprehend him on a charge of wilfully murdering Mr Gold on the Brighton Railway on 27 June. In answer he said, ‘I am not obliged to make any reply, and I think itbetter not to make any answer’. I wrote it in my pocket book as he said it, and read it over to him. In reply to that, he said, ‘I will qualify that by saying I am not guilty’. No further conversation occurred and I took him back to Scotland Yard.

  Mapleton was searched, as was the room. He had only one shilling on his person, but some of his clothes had bloodstains on them. Mapleton told the policemen, ‘I am glad you found me. I am sick of it. I should have given myself up in a day or two. I have regretted it ever since I ran away. It puts a different complexion on the case, but I could not bear the exposure.’ He then asked if he could see a lawyer and was told that he could. He was then taken to Lewes gaol by train; crowds gathered at various stations in order to try and catch a glimpse of such a notorious personality. At Hayward’s Heath, where they had to change trains, the crowds shouted abuse at him. En route he had been chatting and smoking with his captors, excited when passing through the same tunnels as he had thirteen days ago, and then rather depressed. He arrived at the gaol at 10.30.

  After Mapleton’s disappearance he had initially gone to his sister’s house in Liverpool Road, Islington. He then went to Smith Street, on 30 June, explaining that he was an engraver and needed peace and quiet. He had called himself Mr Park and said that he was from Liverpool. The landlady, Mrs Bickers, was unsuspecting and did not read the newspapers. He had paid her 6s a week and a deposit of 3s 6d, and had not gone out in the daytime until his arrest.

  The trial at the Maidstone Assizes took place on 4–8 November. Mapleton pleaded not guilty. Yet evidence of his guilt was strong. On 21 June, at Mr Creek’s pawnbrokers on High Street, Borough, the assistant Mr Adams had been pledged a small revolver. The young man who had pledged the weapon gave his name as William Lee, of Southampton Street, Peckham. Between 11 and 12 on 27 June, the same man redeemed the weapon. When Adams was shown a number of men in Lewes Gaol, he was able to identity ‘William Lee’, who was none other than Mapleton. Mapleton could have easily have reached London from Wallington by train, catching the 10.49, reaching there at 11.20, or the 11.23, arriving at 11.53.

  He had also defrauded a shopkeeper earlier on the day of the murder. He was in debt to one Mr Ellis, a Croydon stationer, to the tune of £1 7s 6d. In order to meet this debt, on the morning of the murder, he gave Ellis’s assistant two Hanoverian medals which he pretended were sovereigns (gold coins worth £1 each), and took 13s 6d in exchange.

  There was much evidence to show that Mapleton was deeply in debt. He had on his person, when arrested, a number of pawnbrokers’ tickets. He had pawned coats and his watch as well as the aforesaid gun.

  Mapleton was found to be a liar. He told the police that the reason for his visit to Brighton was to see one Mrs Nye-Chart, lessee of Brighton theatre. She did not know of him and was unaware of any reason why he would have business with her.

  Mapleton’s defence was that there was no reason why he would know Gold had much money with him, because he did not know him. They also said that Gold was a powerfully built man and that a puny specimen such as Mapleton could not have overpowered him. Finally, why should Mapleton commit one felony in the morning and then murder in the afternoon? It was also stated that the real killer was the third man who Mapleton declared was in the same carriage as he and Gold, and that this unknown man could have left the train as it slowed down before arriving at the station where Mapleton alighted.

  Yet the jury was unconvinced and retired for a mere ten minutes before declaring their verdict. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Mapleton dramatically declared in court, ‘The day will come when you will know that you have murdered me.’ Meanwhile, he was return
ed to Lewes gaol, accompanied by two warders on a train from Maidstone, which was half an hour late. His family and friends presented a memorial to the Home Secretary to plead for a reprieve, on the grounds of insanity, and that he should therefore have been sent to Broadmoor. To strengthen this case, Mapleton confessed to the murder of one Lieutenant Roper at Chatham Barracks on 11 February 1881. A relative, Mrs Clayton, visited him in prison.

  On 24 November, the murder weapon was found, quite by chance. A platelayer was working on the Brighton line and found the pistol. It was a four-shooter and was identified by the pawnbroker as that pledged by Mapleton on 21 June and redeemed on 27 June. This evidence was not necessary, but it neatly rounded off the case. The memorial in favour of the condemned man was turned down and his confession to the previous murder was seen as merely a fabrication. The end came on 29 November and, inside Lewes gaol, Mapleton was hanged. Despite the fact there was once great interest in his fate, very few people bothered to turn up outside the prison at the time of the execution. In any case, all they would have seen was the raising of the black flag.

  Murder of a Farmer, 1901

  ‘I do not know what I did it for. I must have been mad. I had no cause.’

  Mrs Rhoda King was the middle-aged wife of Thomas, a printer employed in the Ordnance Survey Department at Southampton. They lived in Exmoor Road, Southampton, and both were aged 54 in 1901. On 17 January 1901, she took the train from Southampton to Waterloo on the London and South Western line (the same line as travelled by Rebecca Dickinson 26 years earlier) in order to visit her daughter-in-law, who lived in Battersea, and who was unwell. She boarded a third class compartment on the 11.15 from Southampton West, which was scheduled to arrive at Waterloo just after half past one. It should have been a most ordinary journey.