Pretty Jane and the Viper of Kidbrooke Lane

by Paul Thomas Murphy

  Beset, it seemed, from all sides, Mrs. Thomas held fast to her claim. She remembered absolutely nothing, and said so when she was later called and recalled both at Guy’s Hospital and at Greenwich Police Court. Her steadfastness won her few admirers. Her neighbors in Deptford, reading accounts of her testimony, interpreted it, as Poland, Payne, and the jury had, as obstinacy. She began to receive anonymous, threatening letters demanding she reveal the truth. Strangers and neighbors began to harass her in their shop. It became too much for her, and she eventually relinquished all work in the shop to her husband.

  When a thoroughly harrowed Jane Thomas stepped down and Henry Letheby stepped up, it was Henry Pook’s turn to fume. Letheby essentially repeated the testimony he had given before Daniel Maude at Greenwich Police Court, and Henry Pook challenged him as before. But this time the solicitor went further. He had studied Letheby’s formidable record as an expert witness, and had discovered one case, twenty-one years before, in which Letheby’s testimony apparently had had a nearly disastrous effect. “Once,” Henry Pook barked at the doctor, “a woman named Merritt was sentenced to death upon your evidence, and she was afterwards pardoned upon other scientific evidence.”*8

  But Letheby’s conscience was clear. “Yes,” he replied, “and if the court wish me to tell the story of that case at great length I will do so.”

  Pook angrily chided Letheby for his flippant answer, but the deputy coroner defended him: “the character of Dr. Letheby is too high in this country for anything that he says to be called flippant.”

  The courtroom burst into applause, and Henry Pook shouted his defiance: “I will not be put down by clamour.”

  *

  A fortnight in cell 33 of Maidstone Jail had taught Edmund Pook that he faced an enemy just as insidious if not quite as perfidious as Inspector Mulvany and Superintendent Griffin: sheer mind-killing boredom. The highlights of Pickwick had lost their luster, and, as Edmund complained in a letter to friends, the books in the jail’s library were “dry.” And the police, as usual, had conspired to worsen matters; they had “needlessly” confiscated his watch, rendering the empty days measureless. Escaping that was almost worth the weekly journey north to Greenwich, though the size of the angry crowds and the abuse he took only seemed to increase each time. And there was an even greater enticement to make the trip to police court on this day, Friday, May 19: Alice Durnford, his avowed sweetheart, to whom he had written the night he was arrested, was set to testify.

  Her testimony was a crushing disappointment to him. She spoke, for one thing, altogether dismissively about their relationship. She had kept it a complete secret from her parents and Edmund had never entered her home. They had not met for weeks besides a very brief meeting days after the attack on Jane—not since the first week of April, when “we did not part very good friends.” But worse than this, Durnford’s testimony convinced the Pooks, both prisoner and solicitor, that she had betrayed Edmund and was now colluding with the police. When Edmund came calling for her outside her house, she testified, he would signal his presence to her, and to her alone, by means of a little dog whistle that he carried with him. Durnford said nothing about seeing Edmund on the night Jane was attacked. But he did stand outside her house two days later. She saw him, but could not come to him. She did not hear any dog whistle that time.

  When she mentioned the whistle, Inspector Mulvany stood and held out his hand to display the pewter whistle that PC Ovens had pulled from the mud of Kidbrooke Lane. Henry Pook stood amazed at this. It was the first he had heard anything about a whistle; there was absolutely nothing about a whistle in any police records; it was certainly not listed among the evidence they had found. In cross-examining Durnford, Pook elicited the fact that she had the day before, at Superintendent Griffin’s bidding, gone to the Treasury to review her testimony. The solicitor suspected she had been coached to tell this story. “A very valuable witness indeed, Mr. Poland,” he uttered sarcastically, earning a reprimand from Daniel Maude, and leading to an argument that ended with the magistrate angrily and repeatedly ordering the solicitor to “sit down, sir!”

  Edmund Pook, on the other hand, could hardly be surprised by Alice Durnford’s revelation. He had often called her to him in that particularly ungallant way. But the appearance of a whistle in the palm of Mulvany’s hand—whether it was or was not the whistle—was a shock. Later, after he had returned to Maidstone, Edmund wrote an anxious letter to Thomas Pook, genuinely or perhaps disingenuously directing him to search his bureau for whistles. And Thomas Pook found—or claimed to find—two whistles there: one of bone and the other of metal, looking very much like the one that Mulvany now possessed.

  The dog whistle was the first bombshell to fall that day. The second was the appearance of Thomas Sparshott. Now convinced that the murder weapon had been purchased on Monday, April 24, the police realized the importance of Sparshott’s testimony of serving in his shop that night a young man looking to buy a “chopper.” Earlier that morning, they set up another identification parade in the station yard. William Sparshott had easily picked Edmund Pook from a dozen other men as the one he had seen in his shop and had directed on to the Thomases’. Sparshott proved to be a confident and convincing witness, and Henry Pook, in spite of an aggressive cross-examination, could do nothing to shake his claim. The solicitor did, however, succeed in casting a bit of doubt upon Sparshott’s identification. While Sparshott swore he had never seen Edmund Pook outside his shop until the moment he identified him that morning, Henry Pook pressed him.

  “Now tell us: have you not seen a photograph of the prisoner?”

  “No, I have not.”

  “Have you not seen a portrait of him?—No, I have not.”

  “Why, have you not seen the Police News for last week?—Yes.”

  “And has that not a portrait of him in it?—What they call one; but I should be very sorry to judge any one by that.”

  Sparshott was right. The portrait in question—the first one of two to appear in the Illustrated Police News—was a ridiculously bad likeness of Edmund Pook. (The newspaper itself, in publishing the second portrait, had apologized for the terrible likeness of the first.) No one could have recognized Edmund Pook from that likeness. Nevertheless, Henry Pook succeeded in making Sparshott’s testimony seem tainted—tainted by the intrusion of the mass media into the case.

  Sparshott appeared exactly when the police and prosecution needed him. For while his star was rising, Thomas Lazell’s was falling. It was not Lazell’s lamentable demeanor as a witness that was the problem when he appeared on this day; it was the adamancy with which he stuck to the claim that he had seen Edmund Pook on Kidbrooke Lane no later than 6:50 on the night of the attack. That simply could not have been the case, according to the testimony of other witnesses. William Cronk, William Norton, and Louisa Putman all swore they had seen a man much later: between eight-thirty and nine o’clock. And Fanny Hamilton, Jane’s landlady, swore that she had left Jane at 6:40 on Deptford High Street. It would have been physically impossible for Jane to traverse the nearly three miles between Deptford and Kidbrooke in ten minutes.

  *

  At Guy’s Hospital six days later, on May 25, the police had run out of bombshells and the coroner’s jury was running out of patience. Only one witness of any importance appeared: Olivia Cavell, an acquaintance and a customer of the Thomases. Cavell had been in the Thomases’ shop on Monday evening, April 24, and her testimony both dovetailed with William Sparshott’s and provided details about that evening that the Thomases could not—or would not—provide. She had entered the Thomases’ shop between eight and eight-thirty that evening to buy a pair of scissors. (Her order was duly noted on the ledger, near the record of purchase of the J Sorby hammer.) She then remained in the parlor adjoining the shop to chat with Mrs. Thomas. Mr. Thomas was not there. Cavell thus witnessed Mrs. Thomas serve a customer—a young man in a dark coat and a low, round hat. The young man and Mrs. Thomas walked to the shop window, from whi
ch Jane Thomas fetched something that Cavell could not quite see and wrapped it up in paper. Olivia Cavell did not see the man’s face, and was sure that she could not recognize him again.

  Harry Poland recalled Jane Thomas immediately after Cavell testified, clearly hoping that Cavell’s memories would jog Jane Thomas’s. They did not. Harry Poland tormented Mrs. Thomas with another relentless round of questioning. Henry Pook again objected to his deplorable abuse. William Payne again overruled him, and again expressed his certainty that Jane Thomas was withholding evidence. And again, the jury agreed with him, and said so.

  Soon afterward, Harry Poland gave the case over to Henry Pook to call the witnesses he had claimed would entirely exonerate Edmund Pook. But Henry Pook chose to call none of them. Clearly fearing that Edmund Pook was destined to stand trial at the Old Bailey, he elected not to show his hand at either coroner’s or magistrate’s court, and instead surprise the prosecution there by unleashing evidence he now claimed was “very substantial and astounding.”

  And so William Payne summed up the prosecution’s case for his jury, and did so in a way that made it very clear he wished Edmund Pook committed for trial. There was a strong prima facie case of suspicion against Pook, he told the jury. Edmund had a motive: Jane had—probably truthfully—claimed that he was the father of her child. And Edmund had opportunity: Jane had said he was to meet her on the night she was attacked, and both Lazell and Cronk swore they saw Edmund Pook with a girl on Kidbrooke Lane. Norton and Putman corroborated their sightings. Letheby could not connect the blood on Edmund’s clothing with Jane, but his finding of hair similar to Jane’s on both the murder weapon and Edmund’s trousers was more compelling. Payne also made much of the evidence that Edmund Pook purchased the murder weapon, citing both Sparshott’s genuinely compelling eyewitness testimony and James Conway’s—and making no mention at all of the fact that Conway’s testimony had been thoroughly discredited. He could not mention the sale of the hammer without again censuring the Thomases: they had refused to speak, Payne told the jury “not because they could not, but because they would not.”

  If the jury thought that the evidence brought forward did not warrant committing Edmund Pook for trial, Payne told them, they could of course return the open verdict of murder by a person or persons unknown. But that, Payne told the jury, “would be very unsatisfactory, for it would to a certain extent be saying that this inquiry and all these labors had gone for nothing.”

  One of the more doubtful jurors here spoke up. Even if they did return an open verdict, wouldn’t the magistrate still have the power to send the case for trial? “If you return an open verdict,” Payne told him, “it will very much weaken the case against the prisoner, for it will be said ‘the Coroner’s jury has returned an open verdict,’ and that will be taken as in favour of the accused.” If they did that, he could not say what Daniel Maude would do. But if they named Edmund Pook as the murderer, Maude would certainly agree and indict Pook. They had the power. Clearly, Payne wished them to use it.

  The jury then retired, to return thirty-five minutes later. Sixteen of the twenty-two had followed Payne’s lead and held that Edmund Pook had willfully murdered Jane Maria Clouson. Six had not, and held out for an open verdict. The sixteen were more than enough to establish a verdict. A requisition was quickly drawn up; William John Payne and twelve of his jurors signed it; and Edmund Pook was committed for trial.

  *

  Although the verdict at the inquest meant that Edmund’s case would certainly be decided at the Old Bailey, Magistrate Daniel Maude still had his opportunity to concur with or dissent from their verdict. And so Edmund Pook still had two turbulent journeys to make between Maidstone jail and Greenwich Police Court. He made his most chaotic and dangerous journey on May 27: then, the roiling and execration-heaping crowd through which he passed on the way to court from New Cross station had actually been able to get ahold of him, and for a few moments Edmund Pook experienced the terror of a near lynching. His coming on that day had served no purpose: Harry Poland was absent, arguing another case, and so Edmund Pook was immediately remanded back to Maidstone. Three days later, on May 30, when he returned to Greenwich, the police finally, belatedly, took steps to avoid the mob: they slipped Pook off the train at a distant station, bundled him into a cab, snuck him past the crowd and behind the station, led him up a ladder, over a wall, across the roof of the police stables, down into the yard, and into the station.

  Police and prosecution on this day essentially offered up what they had offered up in Southwark five days before. Cavell repeated her testimony, and no fewer than six policemen testified, most about finding the whistle in the mud. And then Harry Poland asked Maude to commit Edmund Pook for trial as Payne’s jury had done.

  Henry Pook, again given the opportunity to call his witnesses, again declined. But this time he launched into a full-bore attack upon the prosecution. He was amazed, he told Maude, that the twelve men of the coroner’s jury had put their names to an indictment on evidence so slight. It was impossible for Edmund Pook to travel from Greenwich to Kidbrooke Lane and back in the time the prosecution stated. And he would not have been foolish enough to buy the murder weapon in nearby Deptford: that would have been the act of a madman. The hair in the trousers meant nothing: thousands of people had similar hair. Letheby, he argued, was a hack and a legal menace: he had “been plentiful in indulging theories which had broken down.” To support that contention, he mentioned, not the Ann Merritt case this time, but a more recent murder at Saffron Hill, in which a man had been found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, but was reprieved when another man confessed to the murder. Harry Poland interrupted him: Henry Letheby, he claimed, had nothing to do with that trial. (He was right—and Dr. Letheby himself shot off a letter that appeared in the Times the next day to say so.) In sum, the solicitor scoffed, the evidence against Edmund Pook “would not be deemed sufficient to obtain judgment for a debt of 5s. in a County Court.”

  For form’s sake alone, Daniel Maude left the courtroom, to return five minutes later with his foregone conclusion. He was not at all sure that the evidence he had heard proved Edmund Pook’s guilt. But that was not the question he had to answer. Rather, he had to decide whether the evidence he heard was enough to place the question of Pook’s innocence or guilt in the hands of a jury at a criminal trial. And, he was certain, there was more than enough to do that.

  The clerk told Edmund Pook he was committed to stand trial at the Old Bailey. He was cautioned and allowed to speak. “I say I am not guilty,” he said—clearly; firmly. Henry Pook had only one more request to make. His defense of Edmund was already prepared, he announced. He hoped that the Crown, too, would be ready to proceed at the commencement of the next Old Bailey sessions, in a week’s time.

  It seemed that Henry Pook would get his wish.

  But then the music hall–singing, donkey-driving cabman came forward.

  *1 The deputy coroner for the Borough of Southwark, William John Payne, would preside over this inquest because the actual coroner for the Borough of Southwark—Payne’s father, also William—had by 1871 delegated every one of his responsibilities to his son, who was thus the coroner in all but name. [“Obituary: Mr. Serjeant Payne.”]

  *2 Exactly who constituted Jane Clouson’s family in this case—who engaged and paid William Lenton Pulling and the barrister he later briefed—is not known for certain. Certainly, the Trotts, the family members closest to Jane by affection, if not by blood, were involved. Perhaps her father, James, was as well. Besides them, Jane had several other aunts and uncles, on both sides of the family. It is difficult to imagine, however, that the Clousons, the Hancocks (on Jane’s mother’s side), and the Trotts could handle this great expense on their own. In this situation, the great support shown to Jane by the working-class community of South London likely extended beyond the emotional to the financial.

  *3 Nothing stoked the public outrage against Edmund Pook and his family more than this slur on
Jane Clouson’s hygiene, and thus upon her character. Later that month Archibald Taylor, Jane’s employer before the Pooks “decoyed” her away, dispatched an indignant letter to the newspapers in response: “I believe a cleaner, more civil, or quieter girl never could be inside a house, and my family, and all who knew her when with me, believe it was her nature to be so. I have seen her many times since she left us, and always saw her clean and respectable.” [GDC May 2, 1871, 2; NC May 26, 1871, 6; WDP May 23, 1871, 3.]

  *4 Twenty-two members sounds excessive, and at the time a reporter for the Times deemed this jury “unusually large” [May 26, 1871, 12]. But in 1871 up to twenty-three members could sit on coroner’s juries (and on grand juries). No matter how large the jury, twelve votes alone were needed to reach a decision; limiting the jury to twenty-three members would ensure that those twelve constituted the majority.

  *5 Prosser testified consistently that Jane had confided her pregnancy to her three months before. Her dating of Jane’s revelation is, to say the least, problematic, given the physician Michael Harris’s testimony that Jane Clouson was only two months pregnant at the time of her death.

  *6 Most of the national newspapers reported that this symbolic procession had taken place; the Illustrated Police News even illustrated it. But the reporters for the local newspapers were certain that the procession, though planned, never happened.

  *7 The treatment that Boulton and Park received at the hands of the police after they were arrested was actually far more humiliating and intrusive than the papers dared report: not only were they interrogated, but a police doctor had been called in to examine both men for signs of anal penetration. Boulton and Park—and those tried with them—were acquitted.