Apparently Brooker shouted ‘I want my Ada. I want my Ada. I admit I’ve done it.’
The inquest was held on 27 April at East Grinstead. Brooker was charged with murder. He was asked no further questions, but was remanded in custody for another week, being placed in Lewes gaol. At the adjourned inquest, Hillman was a leading witness. This was because of the controversy over him not having the train stopped when the cord was pulled. He said that when he first heard it, he looked out of the window to see if he could see anything amiss. The train was then passing by the signal box at Tinsley Green. Nothing seemed to be wrong. He explained his inaction thus, ‘I used my discretion and it was in the exercise of that discretion that I intended to run on to the Three Bridges station’. He gave the driver the white light to proceed, as opposed to telling the driver to shut off the steam and so stop the train. He explained it would be easier and safer to find out the source of the problem at a station than in between them. The jury agreed that Hillman acted correctly. They also commended Palmer for pulling the cord. The inquest concluded that Mrs Stone had been murdered and that Brooker was the killer.
The trial took place at the Sussex Assizes on 7 July, before Justice Daly. Although there was no doubt that Brooker had killed Mrs Stone, the defence did their best. They said that Brooker was drunk and so he could only be charged with the lesser crime of manslaughter, not murder. They stressed his excellent character as seen by his naval service. The reason he carried a knife was not due to any evil intention towards Mrs Stone, but because he had been attacked by a gang of men whilst on his way to work and so, presumably, needed it for self-defence. However, the jury thought otherwise and Brooker was sentenced to death.
It is unclear why Brooker killed Mrs Stone. The two appeared to be fond of one another, and there was no prior evidence of any violence between them. Even when Brooker was in drink, he had not been known to hit her. Brooker said himself:
We had been drinking and dancing and were pretty well oiled up when something cropped up and I did it. If I had done it half an hour later they would not have collared me. At least, not so fast. I had been carrying the knife down my leg for the past fortnight, but I shifted it the same day that it happened to my waist.
Presumably the two must have had some form of drunken quarrel almost immediately after boarding the train. What it concerned, we don’t know. Presumably no third party was involved or was imagined to be.
Brooker was executed at Lewes prison on 28 July 1914 by John Ellis and Thomas Pierrepoint.
10
The Most Foul of Murders, 1915
‘It was the biggest manhunt in the City of London’
Perhaps the worst of all the crimes in this book is the one to be described in this chapter. Child murder was not unknown at the time, and there was the case of Willie Strachfield killed on the Underground in the year previous to this one (outlined in Chapter 21 below). But this one was even worse.
On Saturday 3 April 1915, Margaret Ellen Nally celebrated her seventh and last birthday. She lived with her family on Amberley Road, Harrow Road, Paddington. Her father, John Henry Nally, was a night porter at Paddington. She attended All Angels’ School at Cirencester Street. She had two brothers, one aged 9, the other aged 4, and a 13-month-old sister.
The following day was Easter Day. At 3.30 pm, Margaret went to see her aunt and other family members. They lived on Carlisle Road, Edgware. It was about half an hour’s walk, but no one seems to have had any apprehension of her travelling alone there. She had made the trip before and was always back before dark. Moreover, she knew the neighbourhood well, was intelligent and didn’t speak to strangers. No one had ever offered her sweets nor had accosted her previously. And there was certainly no problem with her trip there. She arrived at her aunt’s, Mrs Betsy Scott. There she played with her 5-year-old cousin, Alice Scott, as well as seeing her aunt and grandfather.
The two little girls ran an errand for Margaret’s aunt, going to buy her some matches from Emily Knight’s shop, and she rewarded them with a penny each. They bought some sweets at a shop in the street, perhaps one run by a Mrs Walker, and then said their goodbyes. Margaret announced that she was going home, an expression that she used when going to see her grandfather, John Nally. He recalled briefly seeing her at 6.30. 8 pm was the last time that anyone is known to have definitely seen her alive.
Meanwhile, at her parents’ house, they were beginning to worry. At 8 pm, her father took the route that she probably would have taken, travelling along Formosa Street, Shirland Road, Blomfield Road, into Maida Vale, through Lions’ Mews and thus into Carlisle Street. He hoped he might see her coming in the other direction. He did not do so. On enquiring at his relatives’ homes, he was told that his daughter had departed at 8 pm. So he tried an alternative route home. This was via Clifton Road and Bristol Gardens.
Unable to find her, he went to the service flats for which he was a night porter. At 10 pm, his wife went there to tell him that she still had not returned. The police stations at John Street and Paddington Green were informed of her disappearance. Enquiries were made at infirmaries for the girl.
By 2.30 am, the brutal truth was known to the Nally family. At 11.50 pm, Inspector Richard Groves, a railway official, went around on his duties at Aldersgate Underground station (since 1968 renamed the Barbican). The last train had arrived at the station, so it was time to check the station was clear and then to lock up. He was just checking the cloakrooms. There were two compartments. The right-hand door, the one to the ladies’ lavatory, did not seem to open. There was some form of obstruction preventing his entry. He forced the door open and then saw the shocking reality.
It was the corpse of Margaret Nally. Both the City of London police and the Metropolitan police investigated. Margaret had been murdered by having a piece of pique cloth thrust down her throat. The cloth had been torn and was jagged, and this had not been done recently. It measured ten inches by eight, a white, soiled rag. Her drawers and underwear had been torn. There was a slight bruise on her face. But there was even worse to come. She had also been ‘terribly assaulted’ to use the phrase of the time. A violent sexual attack had occurred.
Edward Nicholls, later a Detective Chief Inspector in the City police, wrote:
Nobody but a police officer like myself can realise the shock of horror which permeates the whole force on the discovery that a dear little innocent child has been brutally done to death.
Margaret was tall for her age. She had blue eyes, a full face and brown hair tied up with a pink ribbon. She was wearing a grey coat with a blue half-collar. There were two metal buttons and two side pockets. She wore a white pinafore with a bright coloured sash. She had a dark red frock with a pearl button at the back and wore black shoes and black socks. And she also had a grey blue felt hat, which was trimmed with white.
However, there were few clues. Her hat was not found anywhere. It may have been taken by the killer as a trophy. The police hoped to locate it. A photograph of a similar hat was taken and this was distributed across London. One possibility was that the killer might have decoyed Margaret first taking her to a cinema and the hat was left behind there. However, none of the managers of any of the cinemas in Edgware reported finding one. A halfpenny was found under the body. This might have been used by the killer to decoy the girl away, and thus this would presume he was a stranger to her. Yet, since her pockets were shallow and as she had been given a coin by her aunt, this had probably dropped out of her pocket in the struggle. The cloth which had suffocated her was also seen as a clue. It was not at first thought to be the property of the victim nor her parents. It might have once belonged to the killer. It might have been used as a makeshift handkerchief. It might have been part of a man’s shirt or a woman’s underclothing. There were marks of blood and teeth on it, suggesting the victim had bitten her attacker and so the man who was being looked for may have been bitten on the hand or wrist.
Railway tickets issued at underground stations for travel were
handed in to a ticket collector standing at the entrance once a journey had been completed. So the police examined those given up at Edgware Road and Aldersgate, both singles and returns. Nothing of value was found unfortunately.
Dr Bernard Spilsbury (1877–1947), a well-known Home Office pathologist, undertook a post mortem examination of the body. He thought that the time of death was at about 10 pm on Sunday evening. He and Dr Robert Kearsey, the City police surgeon, also thought that the assault on her had taken place either at the time of her death or shortly afterwards. The two doctors disagreed about the contents of the victim’s stomach. She had eaten mutton and giblets for her lunch at home, that was certain, but Spilsbury thought that she might have had a later meal – one given to her by her killer – but his colleague thought it was more likely that the evidence pointed to a case of indigestion, not a second meal.
Rumours and false leads abounded. One was that an old man was seen talking to Margaret in Carlisle Street, but this had no foundation in truth. Another concerned a man who was giving children pudding in Burne Street, a continuation of Carlisle Street, but it transpired that this occurred on the evening after the murder.
Chief Detective Inspector Ottaway of the City police was in charge of the investigation. He heard a number of statements from transport officials which might be relevant. The first was from an omnibus conductor on the bus from Pound Lane to London Bridge. He said that he noticed a soldier aged 30 and a little girl, whom he identified as Margaret, on Sunday at 8.40. The soldier was five feet eight or nine, sallow complexion, medium build, looked ill, had brown hair and a moustache and several days of hair growth. They had got on his bus at the corner of Chapel Street and Edgware Road. The man pushed the girl onto the bus. He was looking a little drunk and she seemed reluctant to accompany him. The man seemed confused about where he wanted to travel to. The girl was without a hat. The two alighted at the corner of Gray’s Inn Road. The man led the girl across the road and towards King’s Cross station. They stopped at a whelk stall. Then the bus went on its way and that was the last the conductor saw of them. Mr Burwick, the stall holder, did not remember seeing the two. If the soldier was the killer, then they could have reached Aldersgate station from there within minutes, travelling via Euston Square.
Another statement was from a railway guard who was on the Metropolitan railway on the night of the murder. He saw a girl who he thought was Margaret leaving an Edgware Road train at Aldersgate. It was 9.45 and she was accompanied by a woman who was aged between 32 and 35, five feet three inches, respectably dressed in dark clothes and wore a dark flat hat. She appeared to be working class. She helped the hatless girl off onto the platform. The assistant guard did not recollect seeing the girl and the porter did not recall her either. In any case, the crime had been committed by a man. Another witness claimed to have seen Margaret in south London, but this was deemed a case of misidentity.
The inquest on 7 April was held at the City Coroners’ Court, Golden Lane Court. Dr Waldo presided. It was well attended. The corpse was to be preserved in the mortuary so people could view it in case it triggered any recollections of that fatal Sunday evening. Both the victim’s parents spoke, though her mother broke down in tears. Yet she was pressed to speak and finally examined the cloth which had been thrust into her daughter’s mouth. It had come from her daughter’s own clothing. Margaret’s little friend was asked if she saw her with a strange man on leaving her, but she merely said that she went away alone.
After this, the inquest was adjourned until 22 April. Railway officials at Aldersgate station gave their evidence as has already been described. Yet Edward Spencer, a porter there, gave additional information. He described a man he had seen lurking near the ladies’ cloakroom about six or seven weeks before the murder. This man was 32 or 34, five feet seven, with dark hair and a moustache and a thin face. He looked like a builder’s labourer, wearing a grey overcoat, a muffler and a black cloth cap. Could this man have been the same as the soldier seen with Margaret on the bus on the evening of the murder? There are certainly similarities in the descriptions given. Detective Inspector Thomas told the court that there had been seven alleged sightings of an adult with a child who looked like Margaret on the night of her death. Clearly, most could not be of her. He added that her hat had still not been found. Finally, a good photograph of the girl had been obtained and was to be distributed throughout London. Medical evidence of the girl having had at least one meal prior to death was given. Yet the depressing conclusion was inevitably given at the end of proceedings – murder by person or persons unknown.
The principal theory of what had happened was thus. A man had taken Margaret on or near Carlisle Street. They had then travelled by train from Edgware Road, the nearest underground station to Carlisle Street, or, perhaps, from Royal Oak, and travelled on the Metropolitan line eastwards, through five stations before stopping at Aldersgate. Yet as she left Carlisle Street at 8 pm and did not arrive at Aldersgate until 10 pm, how is the time to be accounted for, such a train journey would only have taken about 15 minutes. Some of the time could have been spent in Margaret walking back home, but most of it might have been spent with her killer in an Edgware cinema or in a restaurant.
Once at Aldersgate, it was thought that it would have been easy for someone to have slipped into the cloakroom without anyone noticing them. Only the porter might see someone and he might not be on the platform at that time. Nor was there a cloakroom attendant on that duty that evening (he was at Farringdon station from 7.30 pm). There would be few passengers on Sunday evening too. This meant that a man could have easily have slipped into the cloakroom unobserved. Once the girl had been taken into the cloakroom, any screams would have been stifled and nothing of what had happened would have been observed by anyone.
The police appealed to anyone who was travelling on that stretch of the Metropolitan line from 8 to 11 pm on the Sunday evening, and who had seen a man and a child, to come forward. They also wanted to see a man who was of medium height, fresh complexion, clean-shaven and dark haired, who had tried to abduct an 11-year-old in Barnsbury, two days before this murder. Could he have been the killer? The police worked hard, as Nicholls related: ‘Hundreds of alleged clues were followed after; days and nights on end were spent in an attempt to track the criminal. It was the biggest manhunt in the City of London.’
Margaret’s killer was never found. He had certainly taken a risk in taking his victim by the Metropolitan line to Aldersgate, though there were few people travelling that evening, so the risk was diminished. It is also worth noting that no one sought to blame the parents for allowing their young daughter to walk about a mile through London’s streets, unaccompanied. Generally speaking it was completely safe enough to do so. Child murders in London in this era (such as the killing of Marie Bailes in 1908, Willie Starchfield in 1914 and Vera Page in 1931) were extremely rare. Unfortunately, sexual perverts were not entirely unknown even then and it was very unfortunate that Margaret met one of these and went with him, unprotesting and unknowingly, to her doom. The murder may have been planned and Aldersgate selected because it would be a quiet and secluded place to commit such a heinous crime and escape unscathed. It is presumed that she did not know her killer, but this cannot be verified. Was he the soldier on the omnibus that Sunday or was he the man seen at the station weeks previously – assuming the two were not the same? Or was he someone wholly different who came and went unreported by anyone? It seems we shall never know the answer.
Nicholls outlined the difficulty facing the police. ‘The man seldom murders twice, and there is no precedent in his methods, and generally speaking, there is a lack of previous planning.’ There were certainly no clues to his identity. He concluded:
The crime was undoubtedly the work of a man who though he knew what he was about and that he was doing wrong, was nevertheless impelled by mental disease and an irresistible impulse to commit that diabolical and criminal act. It was a case of the ancient and dangerous and ‘uncon
trollable impulse’.
11
Death of ‘the White Queen’, 1920
‘She has had a nasty knock of some kind.’
Florence Nightingale Shore was, like her more famous relation (and godmother), a nurse. Her late father was Offley Bohun Shore of Norton Hall, near Sheffield, and cousin to the ‘Lady with the Lamp’. Miss Shore was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, in 1865. Her brother was Brigadier General Offley Shore, CB, DSO, and late of the Indian Army, having fought in France during the recent war. He was living in California in 1920, presumably for health reasons. Unmarried, and without any near relations in Britain (her parents were both dead), she was almost alone in the world. She was well travelled and well educated, but a mystery to many of her colleagues. She had had a long and varied career in civil and military nursing. During the First World War, she had been in the Queen Alexandria Imperial Nursing Home Reserve and had served in France. Among the men she treated were black soldiers from France’s empire and they called her ‘the white Queen’. Demobilized in November 1919, she began living at the Hammersmith and Fulham District Nursing Association Nursing Home at Carnforth Lodge, Queen Street, Hammersmith. Although she had no close friends there, she and Miss Mabel Rogers, the matron, were old friends, and had been so for over 26 years. Miss Rogers later said, ‘she was very reserved and very quiet, but cheerful’.
At the beginning of 1920, she was clearly in need of some respite. On Sunday 11 January, she travelled to Tonbridge Wells to see her aunt, the Baroness Farina, returning to Hammersmith on the same day. She had arranged with some friends in St Leonard’s to stay with them for a few days, and would meet them at Warrior Square station in St Leonard’s. Travelling with Miss Rogers to Victoria station, on Monday 12 January 1920, they arrived at 3.02. The train she planned to take arrived shortly afterwards. Miss Rogers then helped her friend choose an empty compartment, opting for the second one they came to. The time was 3.10. Miss Shore took a corner seat, facing the direction of travel, in a third class non-smoking compartment of the 3.20 train. The carriage was the one at the back of the train. Miss Rogers and Miss Shore entered the compartment. Miss Rogers later said:
Great Train Crimes: Murder and Robbery on the Railways Page 11