The Real Sherlock Holmes

by Angela Buckley

  As he was leaving the prison Caminada met a woman with a shawl over her head, who seized him by the hand. She was Hannah Willan, Billy’s mother and she begged Caminada to spare her son. After these emotional encounters, Caminada joined the campaign for Willan’s reprieve, and soon after, on 30 May 1892, the governor of Strangeways announced that Billy Willan’s death sentence had been commuted to one of penal servitude for life. Caminada had fulfilled the promise made to the lad and his mother, but he was unaware that there would be an unexpected and astonishing dénouement to the case.

  Following his narrow escape from the scaffold, Billy Willan served eight years in Strangeways for the murder of Peter Kennedy. He was released in 1900 and returned to his work as a cooper, living alone in Harpurhey, on the edge of the city. Five years later, on 22 March 1905, he married Florence Caminada at Prestwich Register Office. Florence, 27, was the daughter of Jerome’s brother, John Baptiste. The couple remained in Manchester and their son, George William Louis, was born the following year on 15 June, just over 14 years after Willan had received the death sentence. In 1911 the family was living in Collyhurst, where Billy ran a fish and chip shop, not far from the scene of the incident that could easily have ended his life.

  Billy Willan went on to lead an ordinary and respectable life until his death in 1951, at the age of 75. However, not all criminals could be reformed and Caminada encountered many heartless men who exploited their relationships with women for their own gain and who, despite efforts to change them, would never make good husbands.

  Chapter Fourteen

  False Lovers and Wily Seducers

  (1892–1893)

  It is a case, Watson, which may prove to have something in it, or may prove to have nothing, but which, at least, presents those unusual and outré features which are as dear to you as they are to me.

  (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,

  The Adventure of the Stock-Broker’s Clerk, 1893)

  Like Sherlock Holmes, Detective Caminada loved nothing more than a puzzling case to test his skills of detection. Therefore, when he received a report of a suspected overdose from the Assistant-Commissioner of the CID in London, he soon realised there was more to this incident than met the eye.

  At 8.15pm on 18 August 1892, the police were called to an address in Marylebone. When the landlord let them in, they discovered a middle-aged woman lying in an unconscious state. There was an unlabelled bottle of chloroform on a chair beside the bed. The doctor in attendance poured a large glass of brandy down her throat before the police took her to the ‘insane ward’ of the nearest infirmary, where she was revived. When she came to, the woman gave her name as Lucilla Roberts. Originally from Kendal, she lived in Manchester and said that her husband was currently staying on the Isle of Man.

  The following day Mrs Roberts was well enough for a formal interview and she made a full statement to the local police. Aged 50, she had married her legal adviser six months earlier, but had not seen him since the wedding. A distant relative of hers, James Eckersley Thompson, had kept her informed of her husband’s whereabouts, acting as messenger between the newly-weds until they could be reunited. When she last met Thompson at Cadishead, on the outskirts of Manchester, two days before, he had given her some medicine for a skin rash from Mr Roberts and instructed her to travel to London, where her husband would join her later. Mrs Roberts took lodgings in Marylebone and the following morning after breakfast, she poured out the contents of the bottle into a glass and drank it. She remembered nothing more until she woke up in the hospital. At the end of her statement she avowed that she did not believe that either Thompson or her husband had wished her any harm in directing her to take the draught.

  When Mrs Roberts mentioned her circumstances, the police became increasingly suspicious. She did not know where her husband was and, after having recently sold two houses with James Thompson taking care of the profits, she was now penniless. As her former properties were in Manchester, the CID contacted Detective Inspector Caminada. The detective’s first port of call was Mrs Roberts’s solicitor in Manchester, who confirmed that he had acted on her behalf in the sale of her house in Whalley Range. The property had sold for £450, an appropriate price for a large house at the time, and Thompson, to whom she referred as her nephew, had been present as her companion throughout the proceedings. After the transaction Thompson had taken the money for Mrs Roberts, explaining that this was just in case she mislaid it and promising to pass it on to her husband, as he had done with previous sales. He had also apparently purchased at least one of her houses for himself.

  As the investigation progressed, Caminada realised that he had already made the acquaintance of the woman, who was also known as Miss Prescott. She regularly made complaints at the town hall about disturbances in her neighbourhood. The detective knew James Thompson too, a local baker’s son, and had recently seen him pawning some spoons, so he knew that he did not have the means to buy houses. ‘There was certainly a mystery attached to the case, and this mystery it was my duty to clear up’, Caminada concluded.

  His next step was to track down the enigmatic Thomas Roberts, husband of Lucilla Prescott. The detective paid a visit to another firm of solicitors mentioned in the police report and this revealed the first in a series of startling twists in the tale. Mr Roberts was indeed a solicitor, but he had been married for more than 20 years and had a family. He indignantly denied all suggestions that he was romantically linked with Miss Prescott, stating that she was merely a former client who had made a complaint against one of the clerks of the firm, a tenant of hers who had refused to pay his rent. He concluded that the accusation was an absolute lie from beginning to end and that ‘they had always considered her to be more or less out of her mind, particularly on the question of marriage’. He knew nothing of any attempt to poison her and had not seen her since 1888.

  It was now obvious that Lucilla’s young relative, James Thompson was the key to solving the mystery, and so, through Thompson’s solicitor, Caminada arranged to meet Thompson at his house in Cadishead. In reply to the detective’s questions, Thompson admitted that he had bought Miss Prescott’s house and some furniture for £500. At the mention of the pawned spoons, he confessed that he had stolen the money from his father’s till. He denied knowing anyone with the name of Roberts. Ignoring his protestations of innocence, on 16 September Caminada and his officers arrested Thompson on suspicion of theft, fraud and having administered poison to Miss Lucilla Prescott with intent to murder her. The detective accompanied Miss Prescott to Thompson’s house, where she identified her furniture. A letter found at the property to Thompson from his wife, from whom he had been estranged, revealed that he had also assumed the role of Roberts.

  Despite this sophisticated and convincing plot, Caminada was still perplexed by the question of how Miss Prescott could have fallen for Thompson’s charms to such an extent that she had lost all her properties and worldly goods. He was shocked to discover that a bizarre flaw in her character had led to her downfall: ‘there was unravelled the most remarkable evidence, which read more like fiction than fact’. In spite of being an otherwise intelligent and able businesswoman, Lucilla Prescott was under the delusion that every man she met would fall in love with her, and wished to marry her without delay. The son of a close friend of hers, James Thompson had cleverly exploited her weakness.

  When Thompson’s mother had died in 1886, she had asked Lucilla to take care of James. As he grew up James visited Miss Prescott’s house frequently and they became friends, with Lucilla confiding her secrets in this seemingly pleasant young man. When Thompson’s father supposedly withdrew his income, James turned to his older friend for support. In the winter of 1891, he moved into Miss Prescott’s house and his ‘nefarious designs’ began.

  In his attempt to steal her money, Thompson created imaginary scenarios to gain her trust. He pretended that a gentleman who admired her greatly, had asked Thompson to support him in his quest to marry her. This fictitious suitor was the
mysterious Mr Roberts. Thompson convinced Miss Prescott to say that she was already married to Roberts so that her lover could rid himself of a jealous ex-lover, an Italian dancer at the Palace of Varieties, with a fierce Mediterranean temper. She even bought herself a wedding ring on her husband’s behalf to complete the fiction. During the next few months Lucilla received instructions from ‘Thomas Roberts’ to travel all over the British Isles, which she did in the hope of meeting him at last. Her final destination was London, where she was urged to drink the potentially fatal bottle of chloroform that would put an end to this diabolical charade.

  The trial of James Thompson took place on 27 September 1892. In a full courtroom he was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment. There had been no proof of his attempt to poison Lucilla Prescott, so for that crime he went unpunished. His deluded victim had learnt her lesson and she remained single until her death in 1903.

  Sham marriages were not unusual in Victorian England. Before the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, divorce was only possible through a private act of Parliament. Even after the Act, it was virtually impossible for ordinary people, and particularly for women, to end their marriage legally, due to prohibitive costs and the complicated nature of the procedure. Consequently, some unhappy spouses chose simply to leave and move to a different part of the country as a final resort. However, if these absentee spouses wished to marry again, they would do so as a bigamist. Detective Caminada encountered one such case that astounded the people of Manchester.

  Leonard Ratcliffe, aged 38, was well-known in musical circles in the city. A clerk at the Diocesan Registry, he married Katherine Parr in St Ann’s Church on the fashionable square of the same name, where he was choirmaster. He was also a chorister at Manchester Cathedral and seemingly respectable. When Katherine had met her future husband four years earlier, he had told her that he was a widower. In reality, Leonard was leading a double life, which included previous convictions for fraud and, worse still, an abandoned wife and children.

  A tall and distinguished-looking man, Leonard Ratcliffe was familiar to the regular worshippers of the cathedral, who were shocked when his shady past came to light. Ratcliffe’s first marriage had taken place in 1881, to Mary Kate Dutson. The couple married in Handsworth near Birmingham, where they set up home. Ratcliffe’s first disappearance was in 1885, when he fled to Ireland following some trouble with forged bills. He returned to his wife, but left once again when it was discovered that he had been falsifying the books of his business. This happened several times more, with Leonard’s departures always following suspicions of financial double-dealing.

  He finally absconded for good in 1890, leaving his wife with their five children, including triplets; she did not hear from him again. His second wife only learned of his bigamy when Caminada produced Ratcliffe’s two marriage certificates at his arrest, by which time she was expecting their first child. At the trial Ratcliffe had no defence to offer for his actions and was sentenced to three years’ penal servitude. Both Leonard Ratcliffe’s ‘wives’ were forced to manage on their own because of his deceit, but for some women, everyday life with their husband meant habitual violence and domestic abuse.

  When Detective Caminada met a woman being attacked in the street, he wasted no time in sorting out her assailant. He was on duty one morning in Charter Street, one of the roughest parts of the city, when a woman ran screaming past him, with a large man in pursuit. Before Caminada’s eyes, the man overtook the woman and struck her two violent blows, knocking her to the ground. He then started to kick her about the body like a football as she shrieked in terror. Without a moment’s hesitation Caminada ran to her rescue: ‘Losing all command of myself I rushed at the fiend’. He struck the man in the face with his fist, using such force that he dropped to the pavement where his head smashed against the cobbles, knocking him unconscious.

  By this time a crowd had gathered and another officer came to help. They pulled the man to his feet and, as they walked him in the direction of the police station, he seized his captors so hard that he tore a large patch out of the other officer’s uniform trousers, ripping them from top to bottom. Caminada subdued him again with more punches; one so hard that the detective thought he had broken his own arm. As Caminada was leaving the police station to have his arm checked at the infirmary, the man made a final bid for freedom and rushed out into the yard. Not realising that the outer gate was closed he hurtled into it, dashing his head against the wood. The next morning the prisoner appeared before the magistrates and, as the police could not induce his wife to testify against him, he received just two months’ imprisonment.

  Caminada’s arm was only strained, but he suffered with it for months afterwards, unable even to turn a door handle without pain. However, his efforts had not been in vain: ‘I had the satisfaction of knowing that I had administered to the big bully a thrashing he was not likely soon to forget’.

  During the Victorian era the law was slowly altered to afford women more protection. Until 1841 rape had been a capital offence, but this had had the deleterious effect of reducing the number of rape charges, as juries were not keen to commit an offender to the gallows. Following the removal of the crime from the list of capital offences reports of rape increased, reaching a hiatus in 1846. Throughout the rest of the century trials for sexual crimes continued to rise, especially after the raising of the age of consent from 12 to 13 in 1875. (It was raised once more, to 16, in 1885).

  Despite these developments rape and other sexual offences were still notoriously difficult to prove and were often treated as ‘assault’, carrying more lenient sentences than theft or larceny. In 1893 Detective Caminada investigated a very serious case of indecent assault. An advertisement appeared in a London newspaper, offering young ladies the chance to work in a new Parisian women’s clothing show-room opening in Manchester. A generous salary of £60 was offered, as well as board and lodgings. Applicants were invited to send a full-length photograph showing their style of figure, to Alphonse Redfern of ‘Robes, Modes, Lingerie and Corsets’. They also had to state their age and were required to dress well in gowns and underwear, as the company, which sold high quality women’s clothing, was very particular about its staff.

  Tempted by this offer, many young women submitted applications and soon received a reply informing them of their success at the initial stage. The next step in the process was the purchase of a tailor-made French gown in black satin with a train, from the company. They could buy the dress at a discounted cost of 4 guineas, rather than the usual 10, and it would, the letter stated, improve their figure on the shop floor. After some further correspondence, the successful applicants were invited to travel to Manchester, at their own expense, to view the new premises and meet the proprietor, Alphonse Redfern.

  Young ladies flocked to the store and Redfern, who said he was the nephew of the well-known firm of Redfern Ltd Paris, took three of them to a boarding house in Salford. He engaged one to write letters to subsequent applicants, another to find a suitable residence for the female assistants, and the third to send for catalogues and samples for furnishing. He also accompanied them to the new premises at Grosvenor Chambers, Deansgate, which they viewed from the outside.

  A few days after their arrival, Redfern was walking down the road with one of the young women, when they passed a photographer’s studio with pictures of actors and actresses in the window. They stopped to look and he told her that she would be required to model fancy dress costumes, some of which would be above the knee. Later that evening after supper, he said that he was required to take her measurements himself, as his manageress was unavailable. Reassuring her that in Paris, men always took women’s measurements, he instructed her to remove her dress and measured her around the ankle, calf and above the knee. When he asked her to take off her underwear she refused and he stopped. Before leaving he requested her to send one of the other women to him.

  When the second young woman, a 20-year-old from Norwood, South
London, arrived he repeated the procedure, saying that he found it an unpleasant task but he was obliged to do it because of the continuing absence of his manageress. After initially refusing, she agreed to remove her dress so that he could measure her chest and, that done, she then put out her foot for the final measurement. Redfern knelt on the floor, took hold of her ankle and committed an indecent assault. The terrified woman ran screaming from the room and one of the other assistants accompanied her to the detective office.

  Caminada returned to the firm’s offices with the women to question Alphonse Redfern. When asked for references to prove his identity, Redfern could not produce any, so the detective took him into custody. Finding only £5 on his person, he questioned the suspect about the money the women had given him for the dresses. Redfern offered to reimburse the money in exchange for his release, but Caminada charged him with obtaining money by false pretences, indecent assault and procuring women for immoral purposes, to which the prisoner replied, ‘I am not so bad as you think I am’.

  Alphonse Redfern had no connection with the company of the same name in Paris and they stated that it was not their practice to measure shop assistants in their underwear. The case aroused great public interest and on 16 June 1893, Alphonse Redfern was found guilty and sentenced to 12 months for obtaining money under false pretences and six for indecent assault, the sentences to be served concurrently. The judge concluded that: ‘the prisoner had committed a cruel fraud on these young people, an abominable sort of crime’. On his release Redfern was re-arrested for similar offences in London.

  When he recalled the case later, Detective Caminada gave a grave warning to other potential victims:

  There are few frauds of a worse kind than those by which respectable girls are induced to leave their homes. Finding themselves destitute amongst strangers they become an easy prey to the wily seducer.