by Roy Vickers
Rason thanked her again, then looked up the dossier of Elsie Natley. Elsie had died, as had the other women, of asphyxia resulting from drowning. Not of anything else.
Rason told his tale to the Chief, and soon was telling it again to a junior lawyer from the Public Prosecutor’s office.
Rason, of course, was privileged and he received the young man with a smile.
‘If you had been able to prove that Carshaw’s wife, May, had been a very strong swimmer, you’d have got a conviction, wouldn’t you?’
‘Of course we would! We could have used it to prove, what everyone knows, that he held her under! Also, it would have established a prima facie case and we could have brought in the other cases.’
‘Well, there’s a Mrs Huystefan to prove that Elsie Natley was a strong swimmer. And you’ve still got the two other cases left – Madge and Violet. And as they wouldn’t let you use them the other day you can use ’ em now.’
George was hanged on December 7th, 1909, for the murder of Elsie Natley.
The Snob’s Murder
Chapter One
One of the basic human stories, refurbished from generation to generation, is the story of the Dissolute Nobleman and the beautiful Maid of Low Degree, in which the Maid is, in modern jargon, bumped off when she becomes a nuisance. So when the whole thing seemed to re-enact itself in modern London, interest soon became world wide. The case was regarded by foreigners, quite mistakenly, as a test of British justice.
True that for every person who had heard of the existence of the Earl of Brendon probably a thousand had seen and, in a sense, loved or reprobated Nelly Hyde. But she was as indisputably the daughter of a casual labourer as Brendon was a blue-blooded aristocrat, though he was anything but dissolute.
When the scandal was at its ugliest, Sir James Harwick, of Scotland Yard, happened to be a guest of honour at a Rotary Club Luncheon. He made his stock speech without realizing that the Nelly Hyde murder had given his amiable little platitudes an electric significance. There was, he said, no such thing nowadays as an unsolved murder mystery, though Judge’s rules sometimes made it impossible to bring a known murderer to trial. At question time a bull-headed cotton-broker asked:
‘Do the judge’s rules favour suspected persons who move in Court circles? I mean – well, as this is a privileged occasion – I mean, is some influence stalling the prosecution of Lord Brendon for murdering poor Nelly Hyde? I mean, foreigners say we’re a nation of snobs, and I’d like to know if there’s anything in it when it comes to downright crime?’
Something like uproar followed. The member was expelled from the club for insulting the guest of honour. Moreover, a Rotary Club luncheon, however socially privileged, is, in law, a public assembly. Lord Brendon promptly brought a slander action for one farthing damages and an apology – alternatively for fifty thousand pounds, to be paid to the Actors’ Benevolent Fund. The bull-headed cotton-broker resented his expulsion and determined that the Club should reinstate him. Against his lawyer’s advice, he defended the action, pleading justification. In lay language, he was, in effect, betting fifty thousand pounds that he would prove Lord Brendon had murdered Nelly Hyde.
In the course of his opening, Counsel for the defence referred to the known facts of the murder. Nelly Hyde had been found dead in her flat in Westminster, in the hall, near the front door. She had been strangled with wire taken from a picture which had hung in the sitting-room of the flat. The Brendon jewels, temporarily in her possession, had disappeared, which created the assumption that robbery had been the motive for the murder. The body had been found by a service-maid when she entered the flat at eleven in the morning. Death had taken place between eight and twelve hours previously.
‘My client is not required to prove that Lord Brendon did in fact murder this woman,’ explained Counsel. ‘He is required to prove only that any reasonable man must draw the inference that Lord Brendon strangled her with the wire from the picture frame – Exhibit C – and himself secreted the Brendon jewels in order to support the theory of robbery and murder by person or persons unknown.’
Formal questions elicited that Lord Brendon had been the deceased woman’s lover for approximately three years; that on December 6th, 1928 – four days before she had met her death by violence – he had announced their forthcoming marriage, by word of mouth and by publication in The Times newspaper.
Then came cross-examination, remarkable for the fact that every answer given by Lord Brendon was wholly truthful.
‘I will remind you, Lord Brendon, of the evidence you gave in the Coroner’s court. You had lent the deceased woman the Brendon jewels. She was wearing them when she entered the flat at about eleven o’clock on the night of December 10th. She was not wearing them at about eleven-thirty when you were both entertaining the Duke of Maensborough to supper. You left the flat with the Duke about midnight. Would you have had a chance to slip away for a minute or so, without the Duke’s knowledge, and re-possess yourself of the jewels?’
‘Oh yes! I knew where the jewels were.’
‘And – in the course of the same minute or so – you could have created disorder in the bedroom so as to suggest a jewel thief in a hurry?’
‘I imagine that would have been quite possible.’
‘Thank you, Lord Brendon. I need trouble you no further with the jewels. We come to the picture. In your evidence you stated that, after the picture had fallen from its place on the wall of the sitting-room, you yourself removed the wire from the picture-frame. Why?’
‘The wire was trailing awkwardly – my uncle caught his foot in it. So I pulled the second staple from the back of the frame and rolled up the wire. I do not remember what I did with the wire.’ Questioned, he admitted that it would have been possible for him to put the wire in his pocket unobserved by the others.
In the eyes of the public the cotton-broker had already won his case. But Counsel, aware of shallows ahead, continued:
‘You are a captain in His Majesty’s Life Guards, with a distinguished record?’
‘I am an officer of that regiment, and my rank is that of captain.’
‘Am I right in believing that, in the event of your making the deceased woman your legal wife you would have been required, by a standing rule, to resign from that illustrious regiment?’
‘Yes.’
‘In the event of this marriage taking place’ – Counsel was mouthing the words – ‘would you also have sacrificed an income of some twenty thousand pounds a year?’
‘Yes.’
‘I am now going to ask you a question, Lord Brendon, which – as your counsel will doubtless assure you – you need not answer if you do not wish to.’ The last words were followed by a well timed pause and then: ‘Lord Brendon, did you ever actually intend to marry Nelly Hyde?’
That is one of the questions which we to-day can answer better than Lord Brendon himself – provided we can escape from the Dissolute Nobleman angle.
Chapter Two
Henry Ashwen, eleventh Earl of Brendon (to ignore his Scottish, Irish, and Continental titles) was as good a specimen of manhood as you would find in any country. He was class-conscious only in the sense that he accepted a social discipline for himself which he would not have demanded of those outside his own immediate circle.
When he was seventeen and a member of the tiny club of seniors that rules the social life of Eton, he administered a snub to the Emperor of Germany on the latter’s visit to the school during Coronation week, 1911. For this he neither expected nor received reproof from authority. By the rules of his caste, which he would have been temperamentally incapable of disobeying, the boy was right – as everyone knew, including the Kaiser. On the outbreak of the 1914–18 War he was given a University cadet’s commission in the Guards. The commission was confirmed at the end of his training – which means, in civil terms, that he had learnt to keep his mouth shut while being driven to the limit of physical endurance, subjected to hunger and thirst, bullied by N. C.O.
instructors and insulted by officers. After four years of war service his commission was made permanent, which was military honour enough for a youngster of twenty-five.
The earldom of Brendon, in the West country, is about four times the size of London. Under the management of an able land agent, its revenue covered its costs. Brendon was entailed to the eldest son, as were the family jewels. But another estate had been free of entail. Henry’s father had sold it, with its coal and its ore. After payment of taxation Henry received some twenty thousand pounds a year, payable at the discretion of the trustee – his uncle, the Duke of Maensborough. It is of incidental importance that Henry was also heir to the dukedom of Maensborough.
He formed his intimate friendship with Nelly Hyde in 1925, some three years after Nelly’s arrival as a top line comedienne on the music halls. Good looking in a plump style, but no beauty, Nelly was one of those rare personalities who contain in themselves the genius of the common people. Her vulgarity, which was almost free of obscenity, was of spiritual stature. One of her successes, ‘Never keep the Rent on the Mantelpiece’ was quoted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget speech in 1924.
When she had made up her mind to accept Henry, she dismissed her queue of lovers and took a service flat in Westminster in her own name, which he was at liberty to regard as his home.
The life of a Guards officer in peacetime was only strenuous for about three months in the year, so they saw a good deal of each other. Their relationship was unmercenary. He gave her the usual presents, and whenever he saw a bill lying about he would pay it, though she did not know this, as she was careless with her considerable income.
Each respected – and in a limited sense admired – the position which the other occupied. Henry’s room in the flat was littered with photographs of Nelly in character. Nelly, encroaching on their common territory, had adorned a wall of the living-room with a picture, painted from a photograph, of Henry at an Investiture. Nelly had withheld her cheque until the unhappy artist had distorted perspective to the point where Henry’s features were plainly recognizable.
The crisis came while they were having lunch. She had been more than usually nervy of late. From Hollywood had come the talkies to conquer the entertainment world and leave only a few pockets of resistance. Nelly had been tried in the new medium, with somewhat humiliating results. Insult had been added, she thought, by an offer of an engagement to appear in the flesh between films.
Henry had remarked that he would not be at home next Sunday and added: ‘Going down with my uncle on Friday night for a week. Probably get three days’ hunting.’
‘Hunting foxes! You in a red coat with brass buttons and a black topper! Or is it only the grooms do that? Cor, that reminds me! I meant to tell you last night, only something put it out of my head – you, I expect! Harry, old dear: I’m sorry and all that, but we gotter get married.’
‘You and I? Why? Who said so?’
‘Shy secret, stupid! – or I wouldn’t be so fussy. You needn’t get the wind up. I don’t fancy myself as Lady Lah-di-dah, I can tell you, and we won’t have any o’ that. Nelly Hyde’s good enough for me, because you can take it from me, and I oughter know, these talkies or whatever they call ’ em aren’t going to last, so you and I’ll just go on as we are. If it’s a girl I’ll take care of her. If it’s a boy I’ll keep myself to myself and you’ll bring him up as a gentleman, or get the right colleges and things to do it for you. And I can’t say fairer than that, seeing that it’s your spot o’ bother as well as mine.’
Henry was not a garrulous man. He received the information with a grunt. Nelly rattled on:
‘It’s a bargain, mind, and I’ll keep my part of it. And you needn’t start worrying about my relations turning up to disgrace you because I haven’t got any, not what you’d call relations. There’s only poor dad, and he’s been in the looney bin for nigh on twenty years, same as his father before him.’
‘What the devil is a looney bin?’
‘Lunatic asylum, of course! Fancy you not knowing! Don’t bolt your food like that or you’ll get hiccups, same as the rest of us.’
Henry pushed his chair from the table and without getting up lit a cigarette. In the official report that eventually came to the Department of Dead Ends, more than four pages are devoted to that cigarette. The first page contains an analysis of his smoking habits and proves that he habitually smoked only with coffee and after his bath. The remainder elaborates the theory that, while smoking this cigarette in total silence – in the circumstances somewhat unnatural behaviour – he was deciding that he would murder Nelly; a theory which seems to ignore that the sequence of events centring on the picture could not have been foreseen by Henry. When he had finished the cigarette she asked:
‘What are you going to do, Harry? – now I’ve told you the Glad News?’
‘Announce our engagement in The Times. I’ll be back this evening before you leave.’ It is noteworthy that he did go straight to The Times to authenticate the announcement.
Nelly was appearing at the one West End house that was still running the old type of music-hall show. Shortly before she was due to leave the flat, Henry came into her room and put the Brendon jewels on her dressing-table – a tiara, a collar, a star, and a bracelet. Nelly knew intuitively what they were, though she had never heard of them and could not guess that they occupied a tiny niche in English history.
‘Cor!’ For several seconds she was in danger of being overawed. ‘What’s the idea, Henry – you bringing that lot here?’
What was the idea? Thousands subsequently asked that very question. Even now it is difficult to assert that the jewels were being used as an ingredient in the already planned murder.
‘The law doesn’t allow me to give them to you, or I would. You have the use of them for life – or rather for my lifetime. After that, they’ll belong to our son, if we have one. Why not try them on?’
‘Not me! It’d bring bad luck. What you brought ’em here for I don’t know. I told you I wasn’t fool enough to think I could play Countess of Brendon.’
Henry said nothing. Nelly’s eyes were on the diamonds, and the diamonds won.
‘Oh, all right then! I’ll try anything once!’ Her hands looked ugly as she snatched the diamonds. When she had put them on, the effect was unexpected.
‘Well, I’m damned!’ exclaimed Henry. Her flamboyant physicality was able to absorb the preposterous illumination of all those diamonds. ‘My mother loathed them, but they suit you. Damned if they don’t!’
‘Henry!’ Nelly’s magnetism was at its highest power. ‘I believe I could pull it off as the Countess in spite of all I’ve said. I feel different somehow. It’s the jools, I expect. Oo! I’m doing Uncle Fred’s Lady Friend for my second number to-night, and these’ud look lovely “on”. D’you mind if I wear ’em?’
Henry did not mind. She wore the Brendon jewels on the stage that night while Henry discussed her future and his own with his uncle, the Duke of Maensborough.
Chapter Three
The conference between uncle and nephew can be viewed from the outside as the commiseration of a couple of snobs – or, at best, as the needless pre-occupation of two votaries of an Order which, for centuries, has stood for nothing but its own privileges and to-day has no meaning except to the idle-minded.
But this approach ignores the truism that a point of view which appears idle-minded to one man may be a religious ideal to another man which he will defend with his substance and his life and even, by a common confusion of thought, with his honour.
‘My dear fellow!’ The Duke spoke as to one bereaved. ‘I don’t know what the devil we’re going to do. It would mean you would have to leave the Regiment’ – the words hurt him for he was himself a retired lieutenant-colonel of the Guards – ‘that is, if you really intend to marry her?’
‘Can’t exactly let her down.’
‘Of course not! Everything is getting so morally complicated nowadays. There’s this y
oung woman with her indisputable claim – I take it, it is indisputable? – and there’s Brendon, to say nothing of Maensborough, whose claims, my dear boy, are also indisputable.’
‘Vicious circle!’ contributed Henry. ‘Something’s got to snap somewhere. Don’t see how I can let her down.’
‘If she’s a bad woman she’ll accept a settlement,’ said the Duke. ‘And if she’s a good woman she won’t want to spoil your life and – and she’ll accept a settlement.’
‘She isn’t either. She’s very like us.’
‘It might have been all right but for the medical record,’ said the Duke. ‘Father and grandfather certified lunatics! Forget everything else. What the devil can we do?’ The Order, it seemed, was in peril. ‘The Socialists are rather fond of us, but the Communists are just waiting for a certified duke.’
It is in this conversation that we must look for the genesis of the murder, though it would be absurd to suppose that the Duke was consciously inciting his heir to a deed which he would have viewed with appropriate horror. Henry’s next remark was unfortunate.
‘Well, I suppose they’ll abolish us before long. We’re out of date, anyway.’
‘We may have been out of date in Victoria’s time. But we’re beginning to be useful again. Look at this feller the Germans are putting up – Hitler. Hindenburg will probably have to make him Chancellor. Then you’ll get another war – whole world in it. Everything in the melting-pot. And afterwards – science everywhere and manners nowhere. Engineer’s paradise, but nobody knowing what to do when they aren’t driving the engines. We represent social continuity. Show ’em how to keep their heads. How to get beauty and amusement out of life instead of cutting each other’s throats. What about my having a talk with the lady – in your presence, of course?’
‘She isn’t easy to talk to. Come and have supper on Friday night and you and I can go on to Maensborough afterwards. She gets back from the theatre about eleven.’