After we had been seated for a little time, a man got in [at 3.17]. He was about 28 or 30, clean shaven and respectable looking. He was wearing a brownish tweed suit of rather mixed and light material. I did not notice the kind of hat he wore, but he had no overcoat. I do not think he had any luggage, but he might have had a small hand bag.
He looked like a bank clerk or a shop assistant. Just before the train was about to depart, the young man offered to help Miss Rogers from the compartment, but she refused his offer. The man was a stranger to both ladies. At this time the window was down.
The train travelled non-stop to Lewes. This was a trip of about 50 miles and the train passed through several long tunnels en route. Although the train slowed down at Gatwick and the Three Bridges, its speed there was still 30 mph, hardly slow enough for a man to depart safely. It arrived at Lewes, at 4.34 (two minutes late). The next station was Polegate Junction, where the train split; some coaches travelling to Eastbourne and the other to Hastings, via Bexhill. No one saw anything odd at the station. At Polegate, George Cloutt, Ernest Thomas and William Ransom, three platelayers employed by the railway company, entered the same compartment as Miss Shore, having finished work at 4.30. They got into the compartment as soon as the train arrived at the station. It was 5 pm. No one could have left the compartment at that station, therefore.
At first, none of the men noticed anything about the middle-aged lady who was apparently asleep in the compartment they were now sharing. She appeared to have dropped her book into her lap and was in a sitting position. In any case, the light in the carriage – incandescent gas – was poor and the weather outside was dark and raining. The window was now pulled up and the blinds had been pulled down down. Cloutt later recalled, ‘I saw someone there in the further right hand corner facing the engine’.
It was halfway between Polegate and Bexhill that they first noticed that something might be wrong. Cloutt recalled, ‘I saw there was something wrong with her, from the position in which she was.’ He said to Ransom, ‘She has had a nasty knock of some kind.’ They did not think it was too serious; she was breathing and her eyes were open. Cloutts thought she was reading.
However, when the train pulled into Bexhill, at about 5.20, the men contacted Henry Duck, the guard: ‘There appears to be something doing up there.’ Together, they found there was blood on her clothing and a severe injury to the left side of her head. According to the guard:
She was in a sloping position facing the engine. The head was back on the padding, and her legs were pushed forward and showing to her knees, because of her having slipped down. Her hands were in front of her and her fingers kept moving. She put out one hand several times, her fingers moved and she appeared to be looking at her hands.
It was decided that she was so badly hurt that she should not be taken off at Bexhill, but should remain on the same train and be taken to the East Sussex Hospital at Hastings.
He travelled with the injured woman for the rest of the journey. The two suitcases she had as her luggage were intact and on the rack above her head. There were broken spectacles and a fancy hair comb on the floor and her leather attaché case had been opened. Her fur hat was on the seat next to her; it was found to have had a gash in it.
Meanwhile, Miss Shore’s friend, waiting at Warrior Square station, met the 5.32 train and the 6.45 one, but since Miss Shore did not alight from either, she went home. A telegram was sent to Miss Rogers, who was at the theatre that evening. She took the 11.20 train from Victoria and then motored down from Tonbridge. She arrived at the Hastings hospital on the following day. She remained there for the next few days, until the end. Baroness Farina also visited her niece. Although the doctors and surgeons there tried to save her life, they were unsuccessful. On 7.55 on the morning of 16 January, Miss Shore died, without ever having regained consciousness and the mystery of who killed her deepened even more. Miss Rogers paid her friend a fulsome tribute:
Miss Shore was one of the most unselfish nurses I have ever known. When the hospitals were being bombed by Gothas [German aircraft], she was advised to take shelter. ‘No, I never leave my patients’ and she remained with the men, walking up and down the ward, speaking cheerful words to them and keeping up their spirits.
The funeral took place at St Saviour’s church on The Grove in Ealing on 20 January. This was because she had friends living there and was well known to some of the nurses who worked at St Faith’s Nursing Home in Mount Park Road, Ealing. When she had been in London she often attended St Saviour’s and it was assumed that her wish would be that the funeral service be held there. There had been a requiem at Christ Church, St Leonard’s, before the body had been brought to Ealing. The burial took place at Westminster Cemetery, Hanwell, in the grave where her younger sister had been buried a few years previously. Many people lined the route from the church to the cemetery and the church was packed full. The coffin was draped in the Union flag and there were many floral tributes heaped on it, some from nursing organizations. Police on horse and foot were present for crowd control.
Although the combined police forces of Scotland Yard, the Hastings Borough police and the Sussex Constabulary were involved in this case, they found little in the way of clues. The line from Victoria to Lewes was searched in case the criminal had flung his weapon out of the train. Nothing relevant was found. However, a khaki handkerchief was located near the line at Wivelsfield, but if this had any connection with the case, it was not obvious. They also asked that any tailors, launderers, pawnbrokers and sellers of second clothes should report any bloodstained clothes to them.
No obvious suspect emerged. There was a story about a man who bought a drink in a Lewes pub with a bloodstained pound note. Was he the killer? Then a Lewes barber claimed he cut a man’s hair on the day of the attack, and the client resembled the description of the man in Miss Shore’s compartment. One man was arrested in Hastings on a charge of burglary a few days after the murder and was found to have an unloaded revolver with a bloodstained butt in his possession (the murder could have been committed using a weapon of this type). He could not account for his movements on the day of the murder and the clothing he had worn at that time had subsequently been destroyed.
Although a railway official thought that a man looking like him left the train at Hastings on the day of the murder, no one else identified him, so he was not thought to be guilty, however. Finally another man tried to leave the country who had a passing resemblance to the suspected man, but was soon cleared.
At the inquest, which was begun at Hastings Hospital on 19 January, what little evidence there was was examined. First, though, the coroner, Mr W J Glenister, paid tribute to the victim, describing her thus ‘a lady of philanthropic disposition a nurse of many years’ standing’. The jury saw the corpse at the mortuary. They also expressed their sympathy. Miss Rogers told of her escorting her friend to the station and of the young man in the compartment. She then wondered if her friend’s appearance was a possible reason for her death. She said:
Miss Shore was wearing a new fur coat and looked nicely dressed, and I expect that the assailant – whether it was the man in the same compartment I couldn’t say – thought she was well off.
If this was the case, then the thief/killer would have been disappointed. The only money she had with her were three one pound notes, and these were missing. On the other hand, the thief did leave the gold rings on her fingers and the brooches in her possession. Jewellery in her case was also left. However, these items might have been difficult and dangerous to dispose of. If this were not the motive, it is unclear what was, for, as Miss Rogers stated, her friend had no enemies. One possibility was that the man was mentally deficient. The only obvious gainer by her death was Brigadier Clarence James Hobkirk, presumably a relation. Miss Shore’s will left him a large sum: £14,279 18s 5d. She was the richest person ever to have been killed on a train. It is not thought that the brigadier had any involvement at all in her death.
After Miss Roge
rs’s evidence had been given, the inquest was adjourned until 4 February and was not concluded until 4 March at Hastings Town Hall. There was some discussion as to whether the jury should view the compartment where the crime occurred, but this was decided against.
Henry Duck, the guard on the train, recalled that he had seen a man alight at Lewes. He had come from one of the rear carriages – possibly the one in which Miss Shore had travelled. He jumped from his compartment and walked along the track and then up the platform, clearly in a hurry to leave. Apparently, ‘He had a dark, drab mackintosh coat on and I think he wore a cap, but I am not certain’. Duck did not see the man’s face. He was about five feet eight and aged between 26 and 30. But Duck paid little attention to him because at that time there was no reason why he should. It did not seem likely that this was the same man as Miss Rogers had seen at Victoria, though there were some similarities.
Spilsbury was once again called upon to examine the corpse on 18 January and gave the jury the benefit of his findings. He said that the deceased was five feet three and well nourished. There were three wounds to the head. Death had been due to a coma because the skull had been fractured and the brain had been damaged. According to Spilsbury, these injuries ‘were caused by very severe blows by a heavy instrument having a fairly large striking surface’. She had been struck whilst she was seated. Possibly the butt of a revolver had been used to injure her. He added that there was no sign of any sexual interference or any attempt at the same.
The last sitting of the inquest lasted two hours and fifty minutes. It was noted that the police had questioned ten men and had taken statements from at least 100 people. There were many more tributes to the deceased. There were hopes expressed that an arrest would be made. The jury could only make the verdict that this was a case of murder by person or persons unknown.
It seemed fairly certain that the murder occurred between Victoria and Lewes and that the killer probably left the train at the latter, the first stop after Victoria. Clearly he was not in the compartment at Polegate, since he did not leave there, according to the platelayers; so he must have alighted at the previous station – Lewes. The killing must have taken place some time before Lewes was reached, because the man had had time to rearrange his victim’s body to make it look as if she was asleep; giving him more time to escape before the hue and cry was raised.
The train was a long one, of eleven carriages, and was longer than the relatively short platform then at Lewes station. The passengers in the two back carriages, if they wished to alight there could wait until the train moved on a little. Or they could simply leave and walk along the track and on the platform at the latter’s end, as the killer, eager to escape, would have done.
The next question is, after he left the train at Lewes, what did he do next? He could have taken a return train to Victoria. Or he could have travelled on by another train, to Brighton. Or, as the train split at Polegate, he could have joined the forward portion of the train which was bound for Eastbourne. Or he could have just left the station there and gone into Lewes proper by going over the railway fences to the junction of Station Road and Friars’ Walk. Mr Marchant, the stationmaster, ridiculed this idea because he thought it would have brought more attention to the man, which he would have wanted to avoid. None of the railway staff noticed anything obviously unusual, but then none of them was aware that a brutal assault had just occurred on the train. Although the line was normally busy, on this dark and wet day, which was not in the tourist season, there were not many travellers.
Mr McMaster MP asked the Minister of Transport what was being done to prevent crimes of this nature. He was told that the railway companies provided designated compartments for ‘ladies only’ and female passengers would be made aware of this option.
It seems highly probable that the man seen by Miss Rogers in the same compartment as Miss Shore must have been the killer. No one else had entered, and there was no one else there after the train left Lewes. The motive was certainly robbery. He was ready to commit an assault, having a weapon with him already, and took the opportunity to attack his victim, as she was alone and thus vulnerable. He struck, taking her completely by surprise, and left at his first opportunity, but whoever he was, he easily escaped.
It has also been suggested that Miss Rogers was the killer, presumably inventing the man seen in Miss Shore’s compartment, which we only have her word for, but the motive is unclear.
12
A Crime of Passion, 1927
‘I have killed my girl. I have stabbed her in one of these compartments,
I don’t know which.’
Passion, in all its forms, as well as financial gain, has been a common motive for murder. It is usually easy to detect, for either the criminal acts without thought to evade the police, as in Chapter 10, or confesses. Furthermore, the killer is someone well known to the victim and so will be a name which crops up as the police begin to talk to their family and friends. This case is no exception to the general rule.
Daisy Dorothy Mays was aged 25 in 1927 and was a typist, employed at Ortweiler’s works in East London and lived at Grinstead Road, Deptford. She had ‘been keeping company’ with one James Frederick Stratton. He was a 26-year-old warehouse packer who lived in Homerton Terrace, Homerton. His history was not an altogether happy one. He had been born on 10 February 1901 in Hackney. His mother, Ada Marion Stratton, had died of appendicitis when he was 6 months old. James was looked after by his grandmother, Mrs Mary Padley, and he lived with her throughout his life. James attended the London County Council School on Chatham Place, Hackney, until he left, aged 14, in 1915. He had an unexceptional record there. His working life began in a Hackney printing firm for a few months. Then he worked for Mr Marsh, a confectioner, at Bethnal Green, again, for a few months. From about 1916 he was employed by a woollen goods merchant near Aldersgate Street. Then, from 1919, he worked as a warehouse packer at Mr Ortweiler’s, a fancy leather goods merchant, whose works was based at Great Arthur Street, Golden Lane, EC. It was undoubtedly here that he and Daisy met. In 1905, two men by the name of Stratton had killed a shopkeeper and his wife in Deptford (see the author’s Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Lewisham and Deptford) – but presumably James was no relation.
His character was variously assessed. According to Mr Ortweiler, he ‘was a very good servant and always well behaved’. His 75-year-old grandmother gave a more ambivalent statement, ‘her grandson was usually well behaved, but at times gave way to violent fits of temper, also that a few months ago, after having had a argument with his uncle, Stratton threatened to go upstairs, get his revolver and blow out his uncle’s brains’. It should be stated, as no gun was ever located, that the threat was likely made more in anger than in any serious intention to carry it out.
His family history, as pointed out already, was not entirely happy. A few more points can be made. First, his father, Frederick, who lived in Richmond Avenue, Southend on Sea, in 1927, had only seen his son twice after 1909. There might also have been some degree of mental instability in the family. Frederick’s sister, Deborah McGarth, had shot herself in 1894. His mother had died in 1909 in some kind of institution in Birmingham.
Daisy had not introduced James to her family, as her brother, although he knew of her association with him, did not know his name nor where he lived. In fact, relations between the lovers was deteriorating, although no one quite knew how drastically. Matters came to a crisis in February 1927.
Stratton had hoped to see Daisy on the evening of Sunday 20 February. She did not keep the appointment. He went around to his house in Hackney, but she was not there. He then went to Deptford to try and find her. After walking around some of the streets there, near her home in Grinstead Road, he saw her with another man. Stratton did not make himself known to them and wandered off.
The man in question was one Clement Freeman, a 22-year-old plater’s mate, who lived with his parents in Windmill Lane, Deptford. He had known her for seven years, but had be
en walking out with her since 26 January 1926. He claimed, ‘I have seen her practically every night’. They used to meet at Deptford Park Gates, just around the corner from where she lived, Daisy arriving from Shoreditch by the 47 bus and later he would see her home. On that evening, they had met at 6.30 and were together for the next five hours. In this time they went to the New Cross Cinema (on the day before they had been to the Prince of Wales cinema in Lewisham). They arranged to meet on the following evening at the Polytechnic on Regent Street at 10 pm, where Freeman attended the gymnasium.
Initially, Daisy did not tell her new boyfriend about Stratton. She claimed that the weekend afternoons she spent with Stratton were afternoons spent with girlfriends. However, in April 1926, she did begin to tell him about her worries. He said, ‘She was afraid he would get to know that she was walking out with me.’ In June of that year, Stratton began to make threats. Freeman suggested that she tell her brother, or the police, but she did neither. Yet by early 1927, Daisy thought life was looking up, as Freeman stated, ‘Daisy had seemed happier than ever since Christmas and I took this as a sign that the fellow had left her alone.’ This was because, although Stratton threatened her if she did not spend Christmas with him, she had ignored him and spent it with Freeman instead, and apparently Stratton had not carried out his threats. Yet this was to dwell in a fool’s paradise.
Great Train Crimes: Murder and Robbery on the Railways Page 12