Dorset Murders

by Sly, Nicola;

‘I’m not joking’, insisted the woman. ‘You have almost the kindest face I ever saw.’

  Little did either the man or the woman know that these flattering words would eventually lead to a marriage, extra-marital affairs, scandal and, ultimately, murder.

  The young woman was Alma Victoria Pakenham, a Canadian concert pianist; the man was Francis Mawson Rattenbury, an elderly British architect working in Canada. The couple first met in 1922 after a piano recital given by Alma at a hotel in British Columbia. Relaxing in the hotel lounge with a friend after her performance, Alma heard the rousing strains of ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ coming from another part of the hotel and casually remarked that the singers seemed really sincere in their sentiments. Curiosity drew her to investigate the celebrations more closely and she soon discovered that the object of the adulation was Rattenbury, famed for his innovative design of the Canadian parliament buildings, the Law Courts in Vancouver and the Empress Hotel in Victoria. Alma was impressed by his good looks and self-confidence and, when the two were eventually introduced, Rattenbury found himself equally smitten by the vivacious and mercurial Alma.

  The Empress Hotel, 1909.

  Although then only twenty-nine years old, Alma had already led a full and interesting life. Aged nineteen, she had married for the first time to a man from Ulster, with whom she had moved to England. Tragically, he had died during the First World War in the Battle of the Somme and, as soon as Alma heard of his death, she joined a Scottish ambulance unit, working behind enemy lines in France. Such was her bravery that she was awarded the Croix de Guerre Medal, with Star and Palm.

  When the war ended, she married again, this time to a captain, and the couple moved to America. The marriage broke up after the birth of a son, Christopher, and Alma and her child moved back to Canada to live with her aunt in Victoria.

  Now, it seemed, she had another suitor. Having made a point of attending one of her piano recitals, Rattenbury met Alma again by chance shortly afterwards at a dance and, by the end of the evening the couple had fallen in love.

  They met at a time when things were not going well for Francis Rattenbury. The fifty-five-year-old man was feeling his age. He had lost interest in his work, complained of several physical afflictions, and was, to the concern of his friends, beginning to look old and unwell. He and his wife of more than twenty years were drifting apart and he was depressed and lethargic. Attracting the attentions of Alma, a woman thirty years his junior, must have acted as a real tonic.

  By 1925, Rattenbury’s wife had left him, citing her husband’s affair with Alma as grounds for divorce. Alma, too, had arranged a divorce from her estranged husband and she and Rattenbury married and moved into his house at Oak Bay with Christopher, who was then three years old. However, their May to December marriage was not well received in Canadian society and eventually Francis moved his wife and stepson back to England where they could make a fresh start.

  Manor Road, Bournemouth, 1906.

  The family settled into the Villa Madeira on Manor Road, Bournemouth, from where Alma embraced a new career as a songwriter, writing under the pseudonym ‘Lozanne’. She was quite successful in her new venture and several of her compositions were recorded and played on BBC radio.

  In due course, Alma gave birth to the couple’s son, John, and subsequently fell ill with tuberculosis. In the meantime, Francis once again began to feel his advancing years. Alma was quite extravagant and, having now retired, Francis worried about money. He was also finding it somewhat of a strain being married to a much younger woman. He and Alma had not shared a bed since John’s birth six years previously, and it was almost certain that the still young and highly sexed Alma had taken lovers to compensate for her husband’s deficiencies in the bedroom.

  By 1935, Rattenbury had fallen into another of his frequent bouts of depression and, on Sunday 24 March, Alma found herself struggling to think of ways to lift his near-suicidal mood. It was a lovely day and Bournemouth was bathed in warm spring sunshine, so she impulsively decided to erect an awning in the garden so that he could sit outside. However, she was unable to find a mallet with which to hammer the pegs into the ground. Stoner, the couple’s chauffeur/handyman, mentioned that his grandparents owned one and Alma sent him off to borrow it. While waiting for his return, as a diversion for Francis, she arranged a trip to a nearby kennels to see a litter of puppies that her dog had just borne, but any elevation in her husband’s state of mind was all too brief and by tea time that afternoon, he was back to being morose and feeling hopelessly depressed. Over tea, he insisted on reading aloud passages from a book, Stay of Execution by Eliot Crawshay-Williams.

  The main character from the novel, Stephen Clarke, was in many ways similar to Francis Rattenbury, a bitter man who feels old, depressed and suicidal. In one chapter of the book, Clarke tries to dissuade a young girl from marrying him, telling her that it would be hell for both of them. The girl would have to watch her husband ‘mouldering’ while she still felt ‘frisky’. A woman, Clarke theorised, always wanted a good deal more sex than a man. It would take a young man all his time to keep pace with her and an old man wouldn’t stand a chance of doing so, forcing the woman to seek satisfaction elsewhere.

  It was at that passage that Rattenbury, whose own life mirrored the book in so many ways, finished reading. Leaving the book open at that page, he placed it face down on the piano in the drawing room. Only hours later, he was found sitting in his armchair, one eye blackened and a large pool of blood on the floor beside him.

  On discovering her injured husband slumped unconscious, Alma immediately began to administer what first aid she could. Having tried to rub his cold hands, she searched for a pulse and shook him to try and bring him round. Noticing the blood on the floor, she stepped back in alarm, treading on her husband’s false teeth with her bare feet as she did.

  This was enough to send her into hysterics. She screamed for Irene Riggs, her housekeeper, telling her, ‘Someone has hurt Ratz! Telephone the doctor.’ While Irene was calling for assistance, Alma ran to the bathroom to fetch a towel, which she wrapped around Francis’s head. Then she poured herself a neat whisky, gulped it down and immediately vomited it back up again.

  Her telephone call finished, Irene came to help tend to her employer, fetching a bowl of water and a cloth to bathe his injured eye. Between them, the two women struggled to lift Rattenbury, eventually calling for Stoner, who helped the two women get Rattenbury to his bed. Having sent Stoner to drive to the doctor’s house and hurry him up, Alma and Irene tried to undress Rattenbury. Mindful of having a small child in the house, who might become distressed by the evening’s events, Anna also tried to clean up the blood in the drawing room and threw away her husband’s bloody collar.

  Dr O’Donnell arrived at 11.15 p.m. and asked Alma what had happened. By now Alma was well on the way to being drunk and could only tell the doctor that ‘Somebody’s finished him’. After a brief examination of the wound, Dr O’Donnell telephoned for Mr Rooke, a surgeon who lived locally. Rooke arrived by taxi some forty-five minutes later, but found any examination of the injured man almost impossible, since the drunk and highly excited Alma kept getting in the way. Accordingly, he arranged for Rattenbury to be moved to Strathallen Nursing Home where the two doctors were finally able to conduct a proper examination. Finding three large wounds on Rattenbury’s head, they notified the police.

  The first officer to arrive at the Villa Madeira was PC Arthur Bagwell, who was greeted by Alma and ushered into the drawing room. Alma’s behaviour as the policeman tried in vain to interview her was bizarre to say the least. As Irene tried unsuccessfully to calm her down, she chattered incessantly, seemingly without pausing for breath, laughed hysterically and inappropriately, played records of her own songs at full volume, danced around the room and even tried to kiss the police constable.

  Bagwell was forced to seek backup for his own protection and Alma tried to follow him when he left to summon reinforcements. He returned soon afte
rwards with a number of officers, who promptly began a search of the house.

  They found the discarded collar and Rattenbury’s waistcoat and jacket in the bathroom, both newly washed. The cover from the chair on which he had been sitting was in the bath.

  Bagwell tried again to interview Alma and, at one point, she suddenly declared, ‘I know who done it’. Bagwell cautioned her and opened his notebook in readiness but Alma continued to ramble. ‘I did it with a mallet’, she said. ‘Ratz has lived too long. It is hidden’. She immediately contradicted herself, saying, ‘No, my lover did it’. She told Constable Bagwell that the chair was covered in urine and then offered him £10.

  Inspector Mills, meanwhile, had gone to the nursing home, where he had seen Stoner sitting outside in the Rattenbury’s car, apparently asleep. On returning to Villa Madeira, Mills informed Alma that her husband was judged to be in a critical condition and, at this, Alma’s first words were, ‘Will this be against me?’

  She was cautioned again but continued to ramble, telling the investigators ‘I did it. He gave me the book. He has lived too long.’ She asked if the coroner had yet been informed and promised to show the police the location of the mallet she had used the previous morning. She also promised to ‘make a better job of it next time’, stating that she had made a ‘proper muddle of it’ and that she ‘thought she was strong enough’.

  By 4 a.m., Dr O’Donnell was summoned back to the house with the purpose of administering a sedative to Alma, who was rapidly becoming more and more unhinged as the night progressed. Dr O’Donnell put her to bed and gave her half a grain of morphine to try and quieten her down, but shortly afterwards she came downstairs again and excitedly announced to the police that Rattenbury’s son had committed the murder.

  Aware that Rattenbury’s son from his first marriage was presently in Canada, O’Donnell quietly reminded the officers that Alma had consumed a great deal of whisky and also been given morphine. As a consequence, he doubted her fitness to be questioned. Alma was, with difficulty, persuaded to go upstairs and get back into bed. After sleeping fitfully for a couple of hours, she was given a cup of coffee but was immediately sick.

  By 8.15 a.m., the police had decided that Alma was fit to provide a statement. Now, she told officers that she had been playing cards with her husband when he had told her that he wanted to die and begged her to kill him. She had picked up the mallet, at which Francis Rattenbury allegedly told her that she didn’t ‘have the guts to do it’. At that, she hit him hard on the head, subsequently concealing the mallet outside in the garden.

  She was taken to Bournemouth police station for further questioning. As she left the house, she told Irene and Stoner, ‘Don’t make fools of yourselves’, to which Stoner responded, ‘You have got yourself into this mess by talking too much.’

  By now, officers had discovered a mallet bearing traces of blood and hair behind a trellis in the garden of the Villa Madeira and, at 8.45 a.m., Alma was charged with wounding or causing grievous bodily harm to her husband with intent to murder him. ‘That’s right’, said Alma in response. ‘I did it deliberately and I’d do it again’. Less than three hours later she made a brief appearance at Bournemouth Magistrates Court. She appeared dazed and confused as, on the advice of her solicitor, Mr Lewis Manning, she pleaded ‘Not Guilty’ to the charges against her. Having been remanded in custody, she was allowed a twenty-minute visit from Dr O’Donnell before being transported to the Royal Holloway Prison. At that visit, Dr O’Donnell noted that her pupils were still contracted as a side effect of the morphine he had administered earlier that morning and that she retched repeatedly. He also observed that Alma was unsteady on her feet and unable to stand without support.

  The following day, with Alma incarcerated and Rattenbury hospitalised, the staff at the Villa Madeira found themselves at a loose end. George Stoner and Irene Riggs decided to take a day off and drive to Wimborne Minster. Stoner was in a talkative mood and, as he drove through Ensbury Park, he pointed out the homes of his family and other acquaintances to Irene. Passing his grandparents’ home, he casually remarked that that was where he had collected the mallet on Sunday evening, adding that since he had worn gloves, it would not have any fingerprints on it.

  Irene Riggs had been enjoying a day off on 24 March, and had been completely unaware that Stoner had borrowed a mallet or for what purpose he had been asked to obtain one. Now, she could hardly believe her ears. She thought quickly and bravely asked Stoner, ‘Why did you do it?’

  ‘I saw him making love to Alma in the afternoon’, was Stoner’s reply.

  Irene’s mind was in turmoil, believing as she now did that her mistress had confessed to a crime that she didn’t commit. A few days later, on Wednesday 27 March, Irene’s mother and brother moved into the Villa Madeira to keep her company and, probably after having voiced her concerns to her family, that evening Irene went to visit a priest. On her return to the house at 10.30 p.m., she discovered that Stoner, a non-drinker, had got drunk and run out of the house shouting that he had put Mrs Rattenbury in jail. He was brought home again by two local taxi drivers, but was in such a wild state that Irene was in fear for her life.

  The following morning, Rattenbury lost his fight for life and Stoner caught an early train to London after receiving a letter from Alma asking him to come and visit her. Meanwhile, Dr O’Donnell called at the Villa Madeira and had a long conversation with Irene Riggs, whom he sensed was holding something back. O’Donnell eventually asked her directly if she believed that Alma had killed her husband and received the emphatic answer, ‘I know that she did not!’

  It appears that much of Irene’s reticence to speak out was due to her unwillingness to reveal that Alma Rattenbury and George Percy Stoner had been lovers for some time. In September 1934, Stoner had responded to an advertisement in the Bournemouth Daily Echo, placed by the Rattenburys who wished to engage another servant. The advertisement read:

  Daily willing lad, 14–18, for housework. Scout-trained preferred. Apply between 11–12, 8–9 at 5 Manor Road, Bournemouth.

  Although he was just eighteen years old at the time, on applying for the position Stoner gave his age as twenty-two and, since he was able to drive a car, was offered a position as a chauffeur/handyman.

  Stoner was the only child of a working-class couple from Redhill, Bournemouth, and was a pleasant and personable young man, if rather shy. As a child, he had missed a lot of schooling and was thought of as backward. He was, however, quite handsome and also undoubtedly much more virile than the ageing, now impotent, Francis Rattenbury and, within a short time, was providing much more than his driving skills for his employers, particularly Alma, who soon became his mistress in every sense of the word.

  She arranged for him to move into a spare room at the Villa Madeira and every night he would creep quietly into her bedroom. Francis Rattenbury, who slept separately from his wife, was either unaware or unconcerned by their affair, having long ago given his wife permission to make discreet arrangements to accommodate her sexual needs outside the marriage.

  Had the liaison remained purely a physical one then Rattenbury might still have been alive. However, Alma fell deeply in love with the young servant and, sensing the power he had over her, the immature Stoner began to exploit her. He demanded that she stopped drinking cocktails in the evening and Alma meekly did as she was asked. At some stage in their relationship, Alma discovered her lover’s true age and immediately tried to break off their affair. Stoner refused to accept the break-up and took to carrying a knife with a four-inch blade, with which he threatened to kill her. On another occasion, he lost his temper and grabbed Alma so violently that Irene Riggs was forced to step in and separate them.

  In February 1935, Alma summoned Dr O’Donnell to the house. Confessing the affair to him, she told him of Stoner’s violence towards her and asked for the doctor’s help in respect of the drugs that Stoner was abusing. The doctor spoke with the young man, who admitted that he was taking cocaine b
ut refused any intervention by the doctor to break him of the habit.

  In the week prior to Francis Rattenbury’s murder, Alma cajoled some money from her husband and, on the pretext of going to London for an operation, went off for a few days with her young lover. The couple stayed at the Royal Palace Hotel in Kensington, registering as brother and sister. For three days they attended cinemas and theatres and went shopping at Harrods, where Alma treated Stoner to a new wardrobe of clothes, including silk pyjamas.

  When they returned to the Villa Madeira on 22 March, it was to find Francis Rattenbury in the depths of depression. Alma suggested a trip to London to try and raise his spirits, but her husband showed no interest in such an excursion. However, he did show some enthusiasm for visiting a friend in Bridport, with whom he wanted to discuss a business project.

  Relieved to have found something to lighten her husband’s dark mood, Alma went into his bedroom to telephone the friend and make arrangements for a visit. Mr Jenks invited the Rattenburys to stay overnight – something to which Stoner had violent objections.

  During her telephone conversation with Mr Jenks, Stoner burst into the room waving a toy pistol, which Alma believed at the time was a real gun. Stoner was furious to find Alma in her husband’s bedroom with the door closed, immediately jumping to the conclusion that the couple had been engaged in some sexual activity.

  He angrily forbade Alma to go into her husband’s bedroom and close the door again, and insisted that, if the Rattenburys went to Bridport the next day, he was not going to drive them. Having reassured Stoner that she and her husband would be sleeping in separate rooms in Bridport, Stoner left the room and Alma assumed that the argument between them was over and went about her evening routine as normal.

  She packed some clothes for the proposed trip to Bridport the following day, gave young John a bath and tucked him into bed. She then joined her husband in the drawing room and the couple played cards until about 9.30 p.m. when, after kissing Francis goodnight, she let out her dog, Dinah, then went to bed.