Hardcastle's Quandary

by Graham Ison

  ‘I appear for the Crown, my lord,’ said Sloane, ‘prosecuting both defendants, and my learned friend John Digby is for the defence of both accused.’ He then named their respective juniors.

  ‘Thank you, Sir Patrick. Bailiff, swear the jury.’

  Although women had been allowed to sit as jurors since 1919, it had been decided by some faceless court official, who had seriously underestimated the strength of character of women, that it would be better not to expose their tender sensibilities to the gruesome evidence that was likely to be given. He had completely overlooked the fact that many women had nursed in base hospitals during the war and been witness to the most horrific injuries. The outcome of the official’s unwarranted assumption was that there were no challenges, peremptory or for cause, to the empanelment of an all-male jury.

  Both defendants pleaded not guilty.

  Over the next few days, the trial followed the customary course of such proceedings.

  Hardcastle gave evidence of arrest and testified to Walker’s allegation that Marjorie Hibberd had committed both murders. Defence counsel gave a bravura performance in attempting to turn the DDI’s testimony against him by pointing out that his statement mentioned Walker’s unreliability. John Digby was slightly disconcerted to discover that Hardcastle agreed with him when the point was raised. But he had crossed swords with the wily DDI before and should have guessed that Hardcastle’s ready admission did not influence the outcome.

  Sir Bernard Spilsbury, in the eloquent testimony that had come to be expected of him, described the cause of death in each case and gave a chilling description of the manner of the victims’ dismemberment. Prompted by Sir Patrick Sloane, he expressed the opinion that it was done with such skill as to lead him to believe it was the work of either a surgeon or a butcher.

  It was, however, the arrival in the witness box of Detective Superintendent William Bell, head of the Yard’s Fingerprint Bureau, that put the outcome beyond doubt.

  ‘I have examined the car-jack handle handed me by Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle and I have made a comparison with the fingerprint impressions found on that car-jack handle with the impressions of the accused persons that were taken at the time of their arrest and taken again by or on behalf of the governors of Holloway Prison in respect of Hibberd, and Wandsworth Prison in respect of Walker. I can say without doubt that the car-jack handle bears the fingerprints of both Marjorie Hibberd and Gerald Walker.’ Bell then explained in great detail how he had come to that conclusion. He supported it by distributing photographs to members of the jury, after which he described the sixteen points of similarity between the prints of each of the accused and the marks found on the car-jack handle.

  Digby, the defence counsel, rose to cross-examine. ‘Am I to understand, Superintendent,’ he asked, ‘that you are suggesting the two accused jointly committed the murders?’ But his attempt to muddy the waters was immediately dashed.

  ‘I cannot express an opinion about that which is rightly the preserve of the jury, sir.’ Detective Superintendent Bell had given evidence on many occasions and was unlikely to be caught out that easily.

  ‘Are you certain that these are the finger impressions of the accused, and not someone else’s?’ asked Digby, desperately trying to find a flaw in the fingerprint evidence.

  ‘The chances of two different people having identical fingerprints has been estimated at sixty-four million to one, sir,’ said Bell.

  When it was Digby’s turn to present the defence case, the unfortunate position of representing both Hibberd and Walker caused him to decide not to put either of them in the witness box. He believed that it would merely result in accusations being made by each against the other, and the prosecution would thus be helped to build the case against them. Marjorie Hibberd expressed a willingness to enter the witness box to accuse Walker, but Digby realized the danger of that, even if she did not appreciate it.

  The jury took two whole days to consider their verdict, but at four o’clock in the afternoon of the second day they returned to the courtroom.

  ‘Gentlemen of the jury, are you agreed upon your verdict?’ asked the clerk of the court.

  ‘We are,’ said the foreman, and delivered their decision that each defendant was guilty of the murders of Guy Stoner and Celine Fontenau.

  The judge asked each defendant if they wished to say anything before sentence of death was passed upon them, but they remained silent, stunned by the verdict and that which was to follow. He donned the black cap.

  ‘Marjorie Hibberd,’ he began, ‘you stand convicted of murder. The sentence of the law upon you is that you be taken to a lawful prison and thence to a place of execution. That you be there hanged by the neck until you are dead and that your body be buried within the precincts of the prison in which you shall have last been confined before your execution, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.’

  After which, the judge’s chaplain intoned the single word ‘Amen’.

  Marjorie Hibberd stared stoically ahead and said nothing, but it was a different reaction when the judge repeated the sentence to Gerald Walker.

  Half fainting, so that he had to be supported by the two prison warders, he shouted and screamed his innocence.

  ‘Take them down,’ said the judge.

  It was two weeks after the Court of Criminal Appeal had dismissed the appeals of both Marjorie Hibberd and Gerald Walker that the Home Secretary opened the docket requiring him to confirm the sentence of death passed on Gerald Walker. It was the third time that he had perused the document. Although not opposed to the death penalty, he was a scrupulously just man and the thought that he might be responsible for sending an innocent man to the gallows appalled his sense of fair play. The reason for his concern was not so much the evidence of DDI Hardcastle, the senior investigating officer, that Walker was an unreliable witness, as much as the letter that the Home Secretary had received from Marjorie Hibberd. Written from the condemned cell at Holloway Prison, it stated that although Gerald Walker had certainly alerted her to where she could find Guy Stoner, he had taken no part in the actual murders.

  She did not understand, of course, that it made no difference to the penalty because he was an accessory to the murders and was treated in law in exactly the same way as the principal.

  What prompted this sudden statement was unclear, but it was likely that she actually loved Walker and that they had lived together ever since she was released from prison following her conviction for running a brothel at Albert Road, Brighton. It was even possible that an intimate liaison had started before that.

  As a consequence, and after long and careful consideration, the Home Secretary commuted Walker’s sentence to one of life imprisonment. He then drew the docket concerning Marjorie Hibberd across his desk and, after one last reading, took out his fountain pen and wrote on the cover, Let the law take its course.

  As Sir Patrick Sloane had predicted, Rupert Holroyd and his brother-in-law, Harold Barton, each received a sentence of three months’ imprisonment for dismembering and secreting the bodies of Guy Stoner and Celine Fontenau. In Holroyd’s case, his sentence was but a precursor to the main act. Two weeks after the end of the Hibberd and Walker trial, Holroyd and Horace Beauchamp appeared at the Old Bailey and were each sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude for a bank robbery that, in the event, had netted them nothing.

  It was raining on the Monday morning when, undeterred by the weather, the usual crowd of ghoulish sightseers gathered in Parkhurst Road, North London. At seven minutes past eight, a warder appeared and posted a notice on the gate. It said that Marjorie Hibberd had been executed in accordance with the law. Some members of the crowd nodded their approval. Others, opposed to the death penalty, murmured their dissent. The crowd dispersed and went about their business.

  ‘The one thing I don’t understand, sir,’ said Marriott, ‘is why Gerald Walker came to us to report his wife missing when he knew exactly what had happened to her. Not that she was his wi
fe, of course.’

  It was the day after Marjorie Hibberd’s execution and the two detectives were mulling over the case in the DDI’s office.

  ‘That,’ said Hardcastle, ‘is what I call criminal bravado. You see,’ he continued, lighting his pipe as he warmed to his subject, ‘people of Walker’s type love to think they’re clever enough to outwit the police. But, deep down, they want to know what we’re doing about it. In a way, they think we can’t work out what they’re up to. But they’re trying to discover whether we’re getting nearer the truth and nearer to them, so they can arrange their next move. They’re a bit like an arsonist, Marriott, who will often be in the crowd watching the brigade putting out the fire that he started.’

  ‘I suppose we should have worked that out, sir. If we’d discovered earlier that he wasn’t the clerk he pretended to be, we might’ve got him and the Hibberd woman to trial quicker.’

  Hardcastle walked across to his window and for a moment or two watched an Underground train pulling out of Westminster station below. Then he turned. ‘I suppose these clever psychologists would know the answer to that, Marriott.’

  TWENTY

  One morning in November, Hardcastle was seated in his office, checking the latest report that he had prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions. It was also the morning that he heard that Gerald Walker had died in Dartmoor Prison. The official verdict was that he had died as the result of a heart attack, but Marjorie Hibberd’s warning about what happened to pimps in prison made Hardcastle wonder.

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  ‘What is it, Marriott?’

  ‘A telephone call from Mr Wensley’s clerk, sir. Would you see Mr Wensley as soon as possible?’

  Hardcastle sighed, stood up and took his bowler hat and umbrella from the stand.

  The PC at the main entrance of New Scotland Yard opened the door and saluted.

  Tapping on the chief constable’s door, Hardcastle entered without waiting for a summons.

  ‘Good morning, Ernie. Take a seat.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Hardcastle was convinced he was about to be given another out-of-town murder to deal with, but Wensley’s next statement was one that he had not expected.

  ‘I’m afraid I have to tell you that Arthur Fitnam died this morning, Ernie.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir. Arthur was a good detective.’

  ‘I’m offering you his post as DDI V Division. It’s time you had a rest from the hurly-burly of the Royal A Division.’ There was a twinkle in Wensley’s eye as he said that. ‘On the other hand, given that you’ve got …’ He paused and glanced down at the open docket that contained Hardcastle’s record of service. ‘Given that you’ve been in the Job for thirty-six years, you might even be considering retirement.’ He closed the docket and placed it in his out-tray. ‘You deserve a rest, Ernie. But I don’t want an answer now. Mull it over and discuss it with Mrs Hardcastle if you like. After all, we’ll still have a Hardcastle in the Job. Your boy Walter is doing very well, and if he goes on the way he’s going, I can see him rising up the ranks very quickly.’

  Hardcastle alighted from the tram at the top of Kennington Road and walked the few yards to Boxall’s the newsagents.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Hardcastle.’ Kathleen Boxall had taken over the shop when her father, Horace, had died at the end of the war. Now forty years of age, she was unmarried. Like so many unfortunate women of her generation, she had been betrothed to a soldier. In her case, her fiancé had been a sergeant in the Machine Gun Corps who was killed at Cambrai when his tank was hit by shellfire. She had never wanted to risk getting too close to anyone ever again.

  ‘Ah, I can see you know me well, Kate,’ said Hardcastle, as, unasked, Kathleen placed an ounce of St Bruno tobacco, a box of Swan Vestas and a copy of the Evening News on the counter as he entered the shop.

  ‘I was trained well by my dad,’ said Kathleen. ‘He told me that you were our oldest customer, Mr Hardcastle.’

  ‘I doubt that I’m that old.’ It was the second time in one day that Hardcastle had been reminded of his age.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it like that, Mr Hardcastle,’ said Kathleen hurriedly. ‘I meant that you had been a customer longer than anyone else around here.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Yes, Alice and I have lived here now for thirty-four years.’

  ‘Have you really? Good gracious. I suppose you must be thinking about retiring soon, then. Will you move away? Some nice little bungalow by the seaside, perhaps?’

  ‘We’ll have to see, Kate.’ The thought of a bungalow by the sea horrified Hardcastle. He placed a half-crown on the counter and pocketed his change.

  ‘Give my regards to Mrs Hardcastle,’ said Kathleen, as Hardcastle left the shop.

  Hardcastle let himself into his house and put his umbrella in the stand and his bowler hat on a hook, as he always did. He took out his hunter and compared its time with that of the longcase clock, as he always did. Satisfied that the hall clock was accurate, he put his watch away and pushed open the door to the sitting room.

  ‘You’re early tonight, Ernie.’

  ‘A glass of sherry, love?’ Hardcastle kissed his wife.

  ‘Please, Ernie.’

  Hardcastle poured his wife a glass of Amontillado and himself a whisky. As he always did.

  GLOSSARY

  APM: assistant provost marshal (a lieutenant colonel attached to the military police).

  BAILIWICK: area of responsibility.

  BEAK: a magistrate.

  BIT OF FLUFF: sexually attractive woman.

  BLADDER O’LARD: Scotland Yard (rhyming slang).

  BLOW THE GAFF, To: to reveal a secret or to turn informant.

  BOB: a shilling (now 5p).

  BOGEY: derogatory term for a police officer.

  BRADBURY: a pound note. From Sir John Bradbury, Secretary to the Treasury, who introduced pound notes in 1914 to replace gold sovereigns.

  BRADSHAW: a timetable giving routes and times of British railway services.

  BRIEF, a: a warrant or a police warrant card or a lawyer or a barrister’s case papers.

  CAT’S PAW: a dupe.

  CULLY: alternative to calling a man ‘mate’.

  DICKEY BIRD: a word (rhyming slang).

  DOXY: a woman of loose character.

  DROP, the: a hanging.

  FIVER: five pounds sterling.

  FLOWERY DELL: cell, as in prison cell (rhyming slang).

  FLUFF, a bit of: a girl; a sexually attractive woman.

  GANDER, to cop a: to take a look.

  GILD THE LILY, to: to exaggerate.

  HA’PENNY: a half penny (pre-decimal coinage).

  HALF A CROWN or (colloquially) HALF A DOLLAR: two shillings and sixpence (12½p).

  HAVE IT UP, to: to engage in sexual intercourse.

  HOLLOWAY: women’s prison in North London.

  JIG-A-JIG: sexual intercourse.

  JILDI: quickly (ex Hindi).

  KC: King’s Counsel: a senior barrister.

  KNOCKING SHOP: a brothel.

  MANOR: a police area.

  NICK: a police station or prison or to arrest or to steal.

  NICKED: arrested or stolen

  ON THE GAME: leading a life of prostitution.

  PICCADILLY WINDOW: a monocle.

  PIG’S EAR, to make a: to make a mess of things.

  PIP, SQUEAK & WILFRED: WW1 medals, namely the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal 1914-18 and the Victory Medal 1914-19, so named after newspaper cartoon characters of the period.

  POT AND PAN, OLD: father (rhyming slang: old man).

  PUSHING UP DAISIES: dead and buried.

  RAG, TAG AND BOBTAIL: term describing a low-class or disreputable persons.

  SALLY ANN: affectionate term for the Salvation Army.

  SOMERSET HOUSE: formerly the records office of births, deaths and marriages for England & Wales.

  STIPE: a stipendiary magistrate (a qualified barrister presiding alone in a petty sess
ional court).

  STRETCH, a: one year’s imprisonment.

  STRIPE, to: to maliciously wound, usually with a razor.

  TOUCH OF THE VAPOURS, a: to be overcome with faintness.

  TUMBLE, a: sexual intercourse.

  TURN UP ONE’S TOES, to: to die or be killed.

  TWO-AND-EIGHT, in a: in a state (rhyming slang).

  WHITE-FEATHER JOHNNY: man avoiding military service.