The Trial of Elizabeth Cree

by Peter Ackroyd

  “Let me talk to her, Inspector. She knows me. She has seen me on the stage and, I suppose, trusts me. Perhaps I will be able to coax some details from her which your methods could not discover. People tell Dan Leno everything, you know.”

  “Well, if you wish it. I need all the assistance I can muster.” So it was quickly settled and, on the following morning, Dan Leno was driven to a lodging house in Pentonville where Miss Gerrard had been secretly placed by the police; it was thought that she might at some stage be able to recognize the voice or tread of the Limehouse Golem, so it was considered necessary to protect her from the idle attentions of the newspaper reporters.

  “Well, my dear Peggy,” Leno said as he was ushered into her room. “This is a very bad business.”

  “Very bad indeed, Mr. Leno.”

  “Dan.”

  He watched her as she slowly moved her head from side to side, as if she did not like to stare at one spot for too long. She was generally a stout and well-made woman but, in the bleak light of the lodging-house window, she became almost ethereal. “There was no noise coming from them, Dan. Nothing at all. Otherwise I would have come down. I would have stopped him.” It was clear to Leno that she was not to be diverted from her memories. “It’s the little children who should have been spared, Dan. He could have taken me. But not them. They were just like the babes in the wood.”

  “Lost in the forest dark and drear, I see a figure coming near.” It was one of the first roles he had performed as an “infant wonder” and, as he recited the verse, he experienced the horror of the Gerrard children for a moment. “That’s the beauty of the pantomime, Peggy. It is believed only while it is being performed. In real life things are a bit harder, you know. And I suppose that’s what we try to do in pantomime. Soften the hardness just a little.”

  “You make them laugh, I know. But nothing can make me laugh now.”

  “No, I don’t believe it could. At times like this, Peggy, I am at a loss for words. Truly I am.”

  “Never mind it, Dan.”

  “But I do mind it. I wanted to comfort you by telling you how I feel. It is all so absurd. So senseless.” He could find only the most frail and timid words of comfort now, whereas on the stage he could have delivered a great tirade of sorrow before spoofing his own grief. “It will be all right,” he said. “Everything will be all right.”

  “I don’t think so, Dan.”

  “No, I don’t think so either. But, you know, the badness will pass in time.” He was feeling cramped and restless in this small room, so now he began to stroll around the edge of the faded brown carpet. “And do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to set you up in a nice little clothes business a long way away from here. Didn’t the family come from Leeds?”

  “From Manchester.”

  “Well, then, what could be better than a business in Manchester?”

  “I could not—”

  “You’re his only relative now, Peggy. You owe it to him.”

  “If you put it like that …”

  “I do put it like that. But what I want you to do now is have a little sleep. You’re all knocked out, Peggy. Come this way. Is that your retiring room over there?” Leno was always adept at giving directions, and it was as if he were leading her through a rehearsal. She got up and went towards the door, but then she came back in again as if she were not at all sure what she was meant to be doing. “Why do you think it happened, Dan?”

  “I can’t say. It’s too—too deep.” This was a strange adjective to use of so brutal a crime, but he was at that moment reminded of the similarity between the Marr murders and the Gerrard murders. There was some element of ritual here which, despite his genuine horror, still interested him.

  “There must be a reason for everything, Dan, don’t you agree?” She was touching her neck with the fingers of her left hand. “I can’t say the word, but they talk of this—thing.”

  “The Golem?” He dismissed the term, almost blowing it away as you would an iridescent bubble. “That’s just the easy answer. The funny thing is that people are less scared of a golem than they would be of a real person.”

  “But people believe in it. It’s all I have heard.”

  “Oh, people will believe anything. I have learned that. And you know what I always say, don’t you? Believing is seeing.” Once more he was restlessly pacing around the room. “It is not inconceivable,” he said, “that this murderer was known to your brother. Did you notice anyone in the vicinity? Before any of this happened?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve gone over and over it in my mind.”

  “Go on. Go over it again.”

  “I was leaning out of the attic window around twilight, just to get the air, when I thought I saw some kind of slim shadow. Do you understand me? I explained it to the police detective, but he told me they were looking for a large, broad-shouldered man.”

  “A leonine type?”

  “Something of the kind. But all I saw was a little waif.”

  “Now let me see.” Leno’s constructive intelligence about movement and gesture came into play at once, and he seemed to sidle into the corner of the room.

  “It was something like that, Dan. Only the shoulders wriggled a little.”

  “Like this?”

  “That is closer.”

  “Well, it’s a very funny thing, Peggy. But, believe me or believe me not, I think you saw the shadow of a woman along the Ratcliffe Highway.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  There was a long silence after the verdict had been pronounced upon Elizabeth Cree. She realized then that silence would surround her for the rest of her life. It would surround her always. She might scream into it, but there would be no echo. She might plead with it, but she would hear no voices in reply. If there was such a thing as mercy or forgiveness, its tongue had been cut out. This was a silence filled with threat because, one day, it would swallow her up. But perhaps there was also a kind of happiness to be obtained there—to be joined, at last, in the communion of silence.

  She had been found guilty of her husband’s murder, and had been condemned to death by hanging in the yard of the prison where she was incarcerated. She had realized from the beginning that she would soon be looking at the judge’s black cap, and she betrayed no particular feeling when he placed it upon his head; he looked, she thought, like Pantaloon in the pantomime. No, he was too florid and too fat. He was good for nothing except a Dame part. She was led from the court into an underground corridor, and taken from there in a horse-drawn van to Camberwell Prison. Even then she felt no need to sigh, or cry out, or pray. To what god, after all, could she pray? The one who knew the truth about her life and that of her husband? That night, in the condemned cell, she began to sing one of her old favorites, “I’m a Little Too Young to Know.” She had sung it last after Uncle’s funeral.

  THIRTY-SIX

  It was never the same with Dan and me after Uncle left us for the great pantomime in the sky. He was never actually rude to my face, but I knew that he was avoiding me; I suppose he was jealous of the fact that Uncle had left me £500, together with all the photographic equipment, but he never mentioned the subject. It occurred to me sometimes that he might know all about Uncle’s dirty secret, and that he might suspect me of being involved in it, but there was nothing I could do about that little matter. So we tried to carry on in the same way but, somehow, my heart was no longer in it. I had a great success with one song, a tuneful ditty by the name of “An Irish Maid’s Lament for Home, or Where Are the Potatoes Now?” but I was never really in the proper frame of mind. The death of Uncle must have affected me more than I realized, and I found myself turning to John Cree for company and consolation. Of course I already knew that he was a gentleman; I saw how he stood out among the other reporters, and Uncle had informed me long ago about his “expectations.”

  “Oh yes,” I had said at the time, very innocently. “He has told me of the play he intends to write.”

  “Not that,
dear. The baksheesh. The bunce. Money. He’ll be rolling in it one day. His father’s as rich as Aladdin.” John Cree had already been paying me particular attention, and I must say that Uncle’s piece of news aroused my curiosity a little.

  It so happened that, a month after the funeral, I was sitting in the green room of the Wilton with Diavolo, the one-legged gymnast, when he came in. “Why,” I said, “here is the Era. Have you seen Diavolo on the wire, Mr. Cree?”

  “I have not had that pleasure.”

  “It is not to be missed. Yes, you may sit with us for a moment.” He drew up a chair and we gossiped, as hall folk generally do, until Diavolo decided to take a turn in the evening air; he was always very partial to saveloys, as I knew, and would soon be found wetting one with a glass of porter.

  “Well, Lizzie,” John Cree said after he had left. “You and I always seem to be thrown together.”

  “Whenever did I give you permission to call me Lizzie?”

  “It was in the second booth of the Blair Chophouse a week last Wednesday.”

  “What a memory. You should go on the stage, Mr. Cree.”

  “John.”

  “Be a dear then, John, and walk me to the door. It really feels very warm tonight.”

  “Shall we follow Diavolo?”

  “No. I know his habits. It would be indelicate.”

  “May we take a stroll instead? It’s a fine night for walking.”

  So together we left the Wilton, and walked out into Wellclose Square. It was not in the best neighborhood, situated by Shadwell, but for some reason I felt quite safe in his company. “How is Misery Junction coming along?” I asked him.

  “Oh, it goes on. I’ve almost completed the first act. But I can’t quite decide what to do with my heroine.”

  “Kill her.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “No, I am not being serious at all.” I tried to laugh. “I think she should get married. The female lead always gets married in the end.”

  “Is that so?” I said nothing, and we walked on towards the river. The houses were not so packed together now, and I could see the masts of the ships moored in the basin; for a moment it reminded me of Lambeth Marsh, when the boats were left on the bank by the fishermen. “I was hoping,” he said at last, “that you might play the part when I have completed it.”

  “What is she called?”

  “Katherine. Katherine Dove. At the moment she is very close to starvation and ruin, but I wonder whether I should rescue her in the next scene.”

  “Oh, let her go down.”

  “Why?”

  “John, sometimes I think you really know very little about the theater. People love to see degradation upon the stage.” I paused. “Of course she can be saved in the last act. But not before she has suffered terribly.”

  “Why, Lizzie, I had no idea you were a dramatist.”

  “It is life. That is all. As stern and dark as life.” I took his arm, so that he could guide me across some broken cobbles, and I squeezed it to reassure him that I was not quite as serious as I must have sounded.

  “I think,” he said, “that you need someone to protect you against this life. If it is as dark as that, why, you need a prompter and manager.”

  “Uncle was all that to me, and more.”

  “Forgive me for saying so, Lizzie, but Uncle is dead.”

  “There is always Dan.”

  “Dan is too great an artist to sacrifice himself to you or anyone.”

  “I was not talking about any sacrifice.”

  “But that is what you need, Lizzie. You need someone to devote himself to you always.”

  I gave one of my light comedy laughs. “And where am I going to find such a creature?” We had come down by the riverside, and we could see the domes and spires and rooftops clustered in the distance. “You must have a scene in Misery Junction painted like this,” I said in order to break the silence. “It would make quite a strong effect.”

  “London is always depicted in that way. I would like to show the interior of a furnished room, or a gin palace. That is where the genuine life is to be found.” He was still holding my arm, and now he put his hand over mine. “Is that too much to hope for? Genuine life?”

  “Oh, what is that? Do tell me.”

  “I think you know, Lizzie.”

  “Do I? Perhaps I should help you with your drama then, John. If my own life were somewhere within it—”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  Ever since the death of Uncle I had dreamed of leaving the halls and advancing upon the legitimate stage. With John Cree as my writer and patron, was there any reason why I could not become another Mrs. Siddons or Fanny Kemble? We grew more intimate, after that night, and together we visited all the various old melodramatic haunts we loved—the diorama in Leicester Square and the artificial waterfall at Muswell Hill were my favorites, while he preferred the poor areas of the city. He said that they inspired him—well, as I have always said, there is no accounting for tastes.

  There was already whispering about us in the green room, as you might expect, and one afternoon I put it to him that we could not be so much in one another’s company without clarifying our position to the world. Apparently it is what he had expected, or hoped for, and on the last day of 1867 we became betrothed. I could not wait to be converted to his own religion—all the hall folk had a fondness for it—and our marriage followed the next spring with a simple ceremony at Our Lady of the Rocks in Covent Garden. Dan Leno led me to the altar, orphan as I was, while four sand dancers held up my train; my old pals were there and Ridley, the skeleton comique, made a very nice speech at the wedding supper. I pressed Dan to say something but, curiously for him, he declined. I knew how to catch that monkey, though: I plied him with strong water and, after a few glasses, he came up trumps with a very gallant toast. “I have known her as Lizzie of Lambeth Marsh for so long,” he said, “that I shall never accustom myself to Mrs. Cree. We met at the old Craven so many years ago that I feel now it is time she grew a beard. What hasn’t she done on the halls? She has knocked about with the knockabouts, she has been the softest of soft shoes and the most simultaneous of dancers. She has been instrumental with the instrumentalists, turned with the double turns and been illusory with the illusionists. But now she has taken off her duds, picked up her props, and taken the brougham home for the last time …” He was a little unsteady on his feet now, so I patted his hand and thanked him. He raised his glass, put it to his lips, and then collapsed on the long table in a daze. It was a lovely occasion, and all the more moving because I was seeing most of the acts for the last time. It was the end of my second life.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The Morning Advertiser of the 3rd October, 1880, carried the following announcement on its front page:

  For the benefit of the public we are printing this illustration of a golem, taken from a woodcut in the possession of Mr. Every, the Holborn bookseller extraordinaire. Please to note its size in relation to its victim, and its glaring orbs like those of a bull’s-eye lantern. The legend beneath it in Gothic script informs us that the creature is made of red clay, but we beg to differ. The creature preying upon our citizens is made of some more solid material than clay, for how otherwise can it have wreaked such havoc on the bodies of the slain? We have discussed the matter with Dr. Paley of the British Museum, who has made an especial study of the old folklore of Europe, and he confirms our suspicions. He sees no reason why it should not be made out of stone, or metal, or some other durable material. He adds (horribile dictu!) that it is also able to change its shape at will! He further informs us that the golem is always created within great cities and, by some awful instinct, is thoroughly acquainted with the streets and alleys of its birthplace.

  This will come as no surprise to Mrs. Jennifer Harding, the justly renowned poulterer of Middle Street, who claims to have seen the creature lapping blood in the shambles by Smithfield before making its way past St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.
An itinerant match-seller, Anne Bentley, has been in a hysterical condition ever since Friday last, when she was apparently taken up by a pale creature with no eyes. She had been about to enter the Wapping workhouse, where her mother resides in the Foul Ward, when she was surprised by this monster and felt herself being carried off. She promptly fainted away and only recovered her senses in Charterhouse Square, where she was found lying with her clothes disheveled. She claims that the Golem “unpeeled” her and “guzzled her” like a piece of fruit; she now believes that she is with child, and is fearful of giving birth to a monster. Any news of such an eventuality will of course be promptly reported in these pages. Meanwhile the unfortunate woman has been confined to Shadwell Asylum.

  There have come frightful reports and observations of a similar nature from both sides of the river. Mr. Riley of Southwark has written to inform us that a creature of ferocious strength was seen climbing along the rooftops of the Borough High Road at the beginning of last week—pray send us more intelligence when you can, Mr. Riley. Mrs. Buzzard who owns a chair-making establishment in Curtain Street was disturbed last Monday morning by a “shadow” which, she tells us, followed her everywhere until she ran shrieking into Shoreditch High Street. She is now quite recovered, and has offered a free chair as a reward to anyone who can explain this mysterious occurrence to her satisfaction. Once again, in this incident as in so many others, the word “golem” has been on everyone’s lips. Let us say to those who profess to disbelieve these accounts, there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, et cetera, et cetera. In recent years we have discovered marvels in the most remote objects, from the solar system to the snowflake. Who is to say that there are not more marvels still?

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  After our marriage John Cree and I took a little house in Bayswater near the old Hippodrome; here I began a life so different from my old one on the halls that sometimes I had to pinch myself to confirm that Lizzie was still there somewhere. But there could be no more patter and no more songs—to the world I was now Mrs. Cree, and I was very careful never to mention my past to the neighbors or the tradespeople. Of course there was no reason why I should not eventually appear on the legitimate stage, and I persuaded my dear husband to continue work on Misery Junction at times when he seemed uninspired. I would never have allowed him to abandon it: the heroine appealed to me very much, and I knew that I could find an element of wonderful pathos in the character. It was in one of my reveries on the subject, in fact, that I hit upon the most charming idea—ever since we had moved to Bayswater, I had felt the need for a lady’s maid. And where better to look for a competent servant than at Misery Junction itself, where the hall folk would be assembled? I knew most of them by reputation, and I felt sure that I would be able to pick out some clean and serviceable young woman who had tired of finding work in the halls. She might have already played the part of a maidservant in some low comedy or other, just as I had done, and so she would need very little coaching with her general deportment. And, besides, what a fund of gossip we would share for the quiet hours!