The Lady in the Cellar

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The Lady in the Cellar Page 21

by Sinclair McKay


  The brief homilies on prison and religion that were to follow will have been greeted by many readers with cackles of cynicism; by the late 1870s, in many parts of London, church-going was chiefly a matter for fervent evangelists. Agnostics had other uses for their Sundays. None the less, Hannah’s bid for redemption was an important element in any sensationalist story.

  ‘My life in prison differed, I suppose, in no respect from that of other prisoners,’ she wrote. ‘I behaved well, and was treated with some kindness and consideration. I saw the chaplain on the morning following that on which I was admitted. I dare not tell him all I should have liked, but I felt very very wretched and confessed to him what a miserable evil-doer I had been. I had not been confined there many days before I made my mind up to lead quite a new life and never see prison again.

  ‘I was not sorry I was placed in prison,’ she added, ‘as I felt it was all for my own good. After I had been there six weeks I was set to work and then the time passed very much quicker but still I had such a load of guilt on my mind that I often longed to relieve myself of the whole burden. Then the old threats would recur to me and I was frightened to speak … I felt as though I must change my life. I prayed as I have never prayed since I was a child and I afterwards told the chaplain I should like to prepare for confirmation.

  ‘[The chaplain] spoke so kindly to me and I joined the preparation class and was afterwards confirmed on April 29th. That day was not to me as it should have been, for my heart was sick with the secrets of others which I had kept locked up in my breast.’

  Hannah Dobbs and her co-writer were now venturing on to slightly trickier ground. ‘Inspector Hagen came to the prison in the beginning of May,’ she wrote. ‘I answered all his questions but still I volunteered no additional information which I might have given. I had made a solemn promise to keep what I had seen and heard a secret and I tried to conceal certain matters which would have thrown suspicion on the guilty parties. From what he told me I concluded the remains were of Miss Hacker and I was exceedingly surprised to hear where they were found as I was told the body had been interred in the Square.’

  This was a fresh detail almost bordering on the whimsical: Euston Square was constantly busy with the traffic to and from the railway station. Even in the depths of the night, the digging of a grave under the gaslight – and the dumping of a body therein – would have attracted some curiosity. None the less, she said, she told the inspector that the remains were certainly those of Miss Hacker.

  ‘On the second occasion when Inspector Hagen came,’ she wrote, ‘I was taken to the mortuary. He asked me several questions, all of which I answered truthfully, but I volunteered no information farther than what was being asked …’

  And then came what Hannah claimed was an unexpectedly cruel twist. ‘A few days after I went to the mortuary, I was surprised to find that I was to be confined to my cell,’ she wrote. ‘My clothes were taken from me each night, and a warder stationed at the door. I could not understand when I was taken in a cab to Bow Street but until I was placed in the dock I had not the slightest idea that I was going to be charged with the murder of Miss Hacker.

  ‘I was dumbfounded, and knew not what to say,’ Hannah continued. ‘But the thought of my own innocence, so far as the commission of this crime was concerned, enabled me to bear up; in fact all through my examination and trial I was confident I could not be made to suffer for a crime which I never committed.’ This composure, she said, endured even as she was committed for trial at the Old Bailey. ‘I had such confidence in those whose vile actions had placed me in that position that I felt sure that they would not let me suffer for their crimes.’

  Not, she said, that she felt desperate to save herself from execution: ‘I had been a wicked wretch and death had no great terrors for me at that moment,’ she wrote. As her trial was adjourned, and she was taken to the prisoners’ area below, Hannah wrote that she met Kate Webster, even then better known as The Richmond Murderer; she too was awaiting her verdict and, she told Hannah, had no idea what the result would be. ‘She seemed cheerful’ though; and after she was called up to hear of her fate – a guilty verdict and a date for execution – Hannah wrote that she never saw her again.

  She also related that her composure remained as the jury returned in her trial; the verdict of ‘not guilty’ was pronounced. Yet she looked around the court and ‘no friendly eyes’ met her gaze.

  Hannah had to complete her term for theft; and she related that two days after the murder trial, a frustrated Inspector Hagen came to visit her once more. He asked ‘to know if I could throw any light upon the affair’. Hannah wrote that she ‘at once complied and commenced to tell’ all she knew. But Hagen ‘sneeringly stopped’ her by ‘throwing doubt on (her) truthfulness’. She went on, she wrote, to tell more, until ‘he remarked harshly: “we don’t want any of your lies.” ‘Why should he call me a liar then?’ Hannah wrote. ‘I was ready at that moment to have spoken fully and freely to anyone who would have listened to my story, but though Inspector Hagen said he would come again in three or four days time, I saw no more of him.’

  She was released from jail ‘on the 8th of August’ and upon leaving, someone handed her a copy of a book called The Great White Thorn. ‘I was much touched that anyone should have thought it worthwhile to remember such an abandoned wretch as me,’ she wrote. ‘The consolation I have derived from (its) perusal is more than I can tell.’ The book – a reprint of a popular eighteenth-century work concerning Joseph of Arimathea coming to England and preaching about Jesus by the great thorn at Glastonbury – was ‘a comfort when all else seemed to have forsaken me’. And, wrote Hannah, may it ‘long continue to be a source of comfort to me and may Heaven guide my steps aright for the future!’

  Again, this was almost demanded by the convention of popular literature and drama; the wicked woman who finds redemption. Yet some sort of concluding note was needed: after all, both Hannah and the Bastendorff family had somehow to continue their lives. She also had to say something about the possible impact of this pamphlet.

  ‘And now one word as to the dreadful secret which was imparted to me,’ wrote Hannah. ‘Inspector Hagen has expressed a theory, so I am told, as to this case.’ (This was extremely improbable, at least in the form Hannah was about to outline.)

  ‘That the old lady had missed her property. That she made a noise about it. That she threatened to go for the police and then the murder was committed. His theory is correct. And the one who suggested it to him was the one that committed the deed. Let the authorities ask the men in the workshop if they remember the bell being violently rung on the day I was at Hampstead with the children.

  ‘The men remember the day, as they joked me when I came back about donkey riding. Let the police ask if they remember the bell being rung a second time and then one of their number being asked to go upstairs. And also let them be asked whether they heard pistol shots, screams for police, and the smash of glass.

  ‘Have the police tried to find the glazier who mended that window? If he can speak to the date, he will declare it was before Sunday October 14th. Have they tried to find Mr Ross, the lodger, who took Miss Hacker’s room the day after I went to Hampstead and was living in that room on October 14th (the day on which it was alleged I had committed the murder)? The lodger, it will be remembered, discovered a pistol in the water closet on the day following his arrival in the house.’

  There was also an explanation for the rope around the neck of the corpse of Miss Hacker. Once she had been murdered, Hannah averred, her body had first been dragged by this rope through an opening into the garret of the house; and there it remained until it was transferred to the coal cellar.

  ‘In my statement, which has been forwarded to the Home Office,’ she wrote in conclusion, ‘I have mentioned other matters and given such definite information that if the police act on the suggestions thrown out, and work on the facts of the case instead of their own theories, the murder of Miss Hacker will no
longer be known as the Euston Square Mystery.’

  There was a reproduction of a handwritten addendum: ‘I have read this through and declare it to be my own story and correct in every particular.’ And there was her signature, dated 18 September 1879. Below was an advertisement for other ‘books’ that readers might enjoy: among them were the mystic, fortune-telling works that Matilda Hacker loved: The Egyptian Dream Book, Napoleon’s Oraculum: or the Book of Fate, The Egyptian Circle; or Ancient Wheel of Fortune and Raphael’s Chart of Destiny.2

  Ever since he had first heard of the forthcoming publication of this pamphlet, Severin Bastendorff had been seeking legal means to have it stopped. But publisher George Purkess seemed happy to risk any court case; he knew that he could make a vast amount of money very swiftly from getting this pamphlet out on to the newsstands. It had a kind of terrible gravity; and in his frantic efforts to have all his denials heard, Bastendorff was going to find that he was dancing on the edge of absolute ruin. Rather than bring a sense of closure over the murder of Matilda Hacker, a further moral chasm was opened.

  21

  She Had No Character

  There would have been no consolation for the Bastendorff household in the cynically amused response of some newspapers to the pamphlet. One wrote that ‘Hannah Dobbs of Euston Square celebrity has been “exploited” as the French would say by some sensational writer for Penny Dreadfuls’. The reporter also acknowledged that this ‘volume of startling disclosures’ would be like ‘red pepper in gin’ for ‘the readers of police news’.1

  Given that he, his wife and his family were being accused of complicity in multiple murders, including that of a small child, Severin Bastendorff’s immediate response on 27 September had the curious flavour of the soon-to-be invented comic character Mr Pooter. Perhaps he received advice telling him to stay calm in order to show the world that the maid’s story was insane. But his initial statement, given out to newspapers, read very oddly. This was perhaps also a result of English not being his first language; how difficult it must have been, in terms of tone, for him to defend himself in his second tongue.

  Bastendorff declared: ‘I have read carefully what has appeared of (Hannah Dobbs’) statements, and they are a wilful perversion of certain circumstances which have taken place, so artfully strung together by her as to make them appear to really bear on the death of Miss Hacker. All the things she relates have reference to other dates and other facts which occurred long prior to Miss Hacker coming to our house at all.

  ‘As regards her story about a little boy, about ten years of age, being killed one night, and his flesh being given to Mr Riggenbach’s dog. I never heard of it before and know nothing at all about it.’ Given the luridness of the allegation, Bastendorff’s phrasing here seemed exquisitely polite.

  ‘With respect to her other allegations,’ continued Bastendorff. ‘I can only say that so far as I am concerned, they are not true. I know nothing at all about them and for all I know, Mr Findlay, the American, who did live at my house, is alive now.’2

  Yet Hannah was also at hand with an immediate reply to this. ‘I have written this book in order that justice may overtake the perpetrators of certain horrible crimes,’ she said in a statement given out by the Central News Agency, ‘to clear myself of the suspicion attaching to me as the author of one of those fearful deeds, and to make public that which the police, by prematurely charging me with the murder, prevented my making [sic] before the Coroner, and which by vulgar abuse they stopped me from saying after my acquittal.’3

  The Bastendorffs could obviously not allow any of this to stand. ‘A special application was made yesterday afternoon to Mr Justice Bowen,’ reported the newspapers ‘for an injunction to restrain Mr George Purkess, publisher, of 286 Strand, from publishing a certain pamphlet entitled ‘The Euston Square Mystery’ … on the ground that the said pamphlet contained libels on the plaintiff Mr Severin Bastendorff.

  ‘Mr J.J. Sims, barrister, appeared for the plaintiff and Mr Edmund Thomas for the defendant. The plaintiff in his affidavit stated that … he had purchased and read the pamphlet in question.’

  Here were the sworn denials of the facts as set out. ‘He (Bastendorff) never saw Hannah Dobbs before his wife engaged her as a servant. He had nothing to do with her engagement (for the job), nor had he anything to do with the engagement of any female servant since he was married. He had always been greatly occupied in his business and had always left the management of his household affairs to his wife.’

  Then there was the slander on his marriage that he wanted refuted. ‘He and his wife had always since their marriage in 1872 lived on terms of the greatest affection,’ the affidavit continued. ‘He believed the charges in the pamphlet referring to the pawning of various articles of jewellery to be wholly untrue. The gold necklet mentioned Mrs Bastendorff now has in her possession, and there is no entry of it having been pawned with Mr Gill of Hampstead Road. He believes that the false statements contained in the said pamphlet respecting the pawning of articles belonging to himself and his wife are calculated to do him injury in his credit and business.’

  There were the other rather more serious matters: ‘The allegations respecting Mr Findlay, who was stated to have disappeared from 4, Euston Square, are wholly untrue. The whole of the statements in the pamphlet to the effect that he was concerned in the murder of Miss Hacker are wholly untrue. The allegation that he was a witness to a disgusting act of cruelty on a little dog, is wholly untrue. The publication of the said pamphlet and the libels therein are calculated to damage his character, property and trade.’

  The newspapers also reported that Bastendorff had been ‘greatly annoyed by crowds outside his house’ and that he had ‘commenced an action for libel against the defendant’.4 With the affidavit read, the case was adjourned for a few days – with George Purkess required to give an undertaking that no further copies of the pamphlet would be sold in that time.

  This was a crisis that reached rather wider than number 4, Euston Square and Severin Bastendorff; the distinctive family name was, after all, attached to a high quality furniture business; and indeed the brothers Joseph, Pierre and Anthony had been named in the pamphlet too, not only as witnesses to the murder of a small child, but also (possibly even more damning in the eyes of a sentimental public) the torture of a small dog.

  It would be difficult to imagine, in fact, anything that could be more damaging to a business that required the name ‘Bastendorff’ to be synonymous with taste, grace, and a fine sensibility.

  Hannah Dobbs’ pamphlet also had the most tremendous impact on Severin’s wife, Mary. She was depicted both as complicit in hideous crimes and their concealment, and also as a stupid, indolent woman who could not detect the sexual betrayals taking place within her own house.

  She, too, swore an affidavit; and this too was solemnly reported by newspapers across the land (presumably happily, since it afforded an opportunity to remind readers of the most intensely gothic details). Added to this was a sense that her voice was being heard properly at last, following her faltering performance at the trial of Hannah Dobbs a few weeks previously.

  As reported, Mary Bastendorff’s affidavit – which seemed rather more strongly worded than her husband’s – ran as follows: ‘She says she … has read the pamphlet written by Hannah Dobbs. She selected Hannah Dobbs from several young women who called in answer to her advertisement in the Clerkenwell News in June 1876. She had never heard her name or known that there was such a person in existence before, nor was there any conversation between Mr Bastendorff and herself before she engaged Dobbs.’

  And what then of Hannah’s claims of a sexual relationship with her husband? This drew a sharply concise response. ‘She [Mary Bastendorff] never saw any appearance of Dobbs being pregnant.’ What then of Hannah’s claim that Bastendorff left the marital bed and crept into her room late at night? ‘I say positively,’ went Mrs Bastendorff’s affidavit, ‘that I always made a practice of sitting up for my husba
nd until he came home when he had gone out during the evening and I never went to bed until he came home.’ And the idea that Severin’s brother, Peter, effected entry into the house late at night? ‘Peter Bastendorff was not allowed the privilege of a key of the street door, and no such key was furnished to him with her knowledge.’

  And there was an intriguing element of ambiguity about two other named lodgers. ‘Miss Griffiths, a middle-aged woman, came to lodge at number 4, Euston Square in January 1877. Mr Findlay came to lodge with Miss Griffiths. So far as she (Mrs Bastendorff) knew, there was no improper or immoral connection between them, and she never heard any suggestions of the kind on the part of Dobbs, or anyone else, before she saw the pamphlet.’

  The wording of the affidavit might have been at fault; the suggestion possibly was that Findlay and Miss Griffiths had begun lodging there at the same time, rather than ‘with’ one another. And yet Mary Bastendorff also stated that when: ‘Miss Griffiths left, Mr Findlay left also, to take a room in Miss Griffiths’s new house, but not liking the apartments, he came back to 4, Euston Square.’

  There was, she deposed, no mystery about his departure as the pamphlet had stated. ‘She recollected Mr Findlay leaving when he went for the last time. She shook hands with him in the dining room and saw him walk away with his travelling bag. She has not seen or heard from him since.’

  How did she respond to the allegations concerning the seemingly ceaseless pawning of garments? ‘She never sold clothes, nor ordered any to be sold at any time, and she believed the statement with reference to such sales to be wholly unfounded.’

 

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