The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife and the Missing Corpse

by Piu Marie Eatwell

  There was one aspect of the case, however, that was a source of great anxiety even to the pragmatic Chief Inspector. For it seemed that the Druce party was employing, to frame its dubious case, one of the greatest CID officers of the time. This was Chief Inspector John Conquest, a man who, in his day, had acquired a name as one of the ablest detectives in Europe. Now retired from the force, he was operating a private detective agency. Before his retirement, however, he had practically run Scotland Yard.

  The stories of Conquest’s achievements as a detective would fill a dozen exciting volumes. One of the most famous was his arrest of the burglars Charles Russell and William Whistler, whose most notorious heist involved the theft of £3000 worth of jewellery from a lady’s bedroom in a house in Audley Square, off Park Lane. Russell, dressed as an old country squire, would visit West End estate agents and view houses for sale in wealthy neighbourhoods, so that he could draw a plan of the interior of any other house in the terrace, always particularizing the lady’s bedroom. A small boy in Russell’s employ would then slip along the roofs into the garret window of the intended house, and proceed to rob the bedroom while the family were at dinner. A code of signals, consisting of striking matches, was arranged, and it was by spotting these signals that Inspector Conquest got on the burglars’ track. He identified about fifteen or twenty burglaries of this type in three months, all carried out by the same boy under the instructions of Russell and Whistler. The pair were arrested and tried at the Old Bailey, and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment.

  Conquest’s exploits also included shadowing Mr Gladstone, when threats were made against the Liberal prime minister during the 1880s. As the Grand Old Man’s bodyguard, Conquest had stuck like a limpet to his charge, despite Gladstone’s efforts to elude his protector.

  The thought of investigating the conduct of such a hero, and a fellow police officer to boot, was anathema to Dew. He could not – indeed, dared not – imagine that Inspector Conquest’s conduct had been anything other than right and proper in the matter of the Druce case. He was a member of Dew’s beloved Met. How could it be otherwise?

  The clatter of approaching boots woke Walter Dew from his reverie. In this most frustratingly tangled of cases, so many questions remained unanswered. But at least, the truth about the contents of the Druce family vault was about to be revealed. As the morning wore on, two officially authorized press representatives arrived – one from the Central News Agency, the other from the Press Association. Great care had been taken to respect the privacy of the proceedings. Only authorized ticket holders were allowed into the cemetery, and entry permission had even been refused to an anonymous newspaper, which had offered in excess of £1000* to the London Cemetery Company for exclusive access to the exhumation. But the hounds of the press were not to be deterred. Later, it was discovered that an ingenious journalist had devised a scheme to communicate the outcome of the disinterment to the outside world, by waving different coloured handkerchiefs. Another pressman attempted forcibly to break his way into the site, but was barred at the gates.

  It had been announced that George Hollamby, who had himself issued the summons for perjury against Herbert Druce, would arrive at the cemetery gates at 8 a.m. and request permission to attend the exhumation. This he duly did, presenting himself at the superintendent’s quarters at the appointed hour. He was, however, refused permission to enter, the reason given being that he was not one of the named persons authorized to be present in Dr Tristram’s order. Retreating to the cemetery gates, George Hollamby issued a press statement: ‘I have been refused admission, and I have lodged a protest.’ He then left the cemetery to mingle with the assembled crowd, sidelined as a mere spectator of the drama that he himself had helped to create.

  Within the interior of the shed, the only natural light was the grey sky glimpsed through the roof skylights. This was punctured, however, by the searing glare of naked electric bulbs suspended from the shed’s ceiling. In the sharp reliefs of light and darkness thrown up by the arc lamps over the small knot of assembled men in top hats, word was finally given to commence the operations. A tarpaulin was spread over a portion of the floor, along with two pairs of trestles, on which a board was placed to make a table top. The layers of black mould and earth had already been dug up. Expertly, the workmen lifted the heavy flagstones with crowbars, and pushed them away on rollers. The vault – a glare of white-painted bricks – was thereby exposed, as far down as the marble slab which acted as a shelf for the coffin of T. C. Druce’s second wife, Annie May. An electric light was hung over the grave, and a ladder lowered into the gaping hole. Then the workmen descended gingerly, passing ropes underneath the coffin and raising it to the surface. Next, they descended again into the vault to number the slabs making up the stone shelf, with a view to their exact replacement. The cement joints between the slabs were cut, to expose a coffin on the right-hand side; but when the workmen attempted to clear the dust and dirt off the face of the coffin, they were stopped and ordered to remove all the slabs that made up the shelf. As they chiselled away, large lumps of lime and stone fell on the coffins. But at last, the whole of the bottom level of the vault was exposed. On the right side lay the coffin of Anna Maria’s husband Walter Druce, together with the tiny coffin of a baby – the dead child of Sidney Druce, T. C. Druce’s second son by Annie May. On the left side was the coffin of Thomas Charles Druce himself. There then followed a long and expectant pause of whispering and shuffling of feet, as everybody awaited the arrival of the physicians, who were to inspect the contents of the coffin.

  At 10.20 a.m. precisely the medical men arrived: Dr Augustus Joseph Pepper and Sir Thomas Stevenson. Dr Pepper came with a recommendation from the Home Office, and was a surgeon and pathologist of considerable distinction. Sir Thomas was a well-known toxicologist and forensic chemist, who had served as expert in a number of famous poisoning cases, including the Pimlico Mystery, the case of Florence Maybrick and that of George Chapman.

  When the medical men arrived, the workmen once again descended into the vault, and hoisted up T. C. Druce’s coffin with ropes. It was a large, old-fashioned coffin, approximately six feet five and a quarter inches in length, covered in blackish-coloured cloth and studded with brass nails. Of the six brass handles, one had come off, but the coffin was otherwise in remarkably good condition, save for some fraying at the sides and wasting at the edge of the lid. Once the nameplate on the coffin was carefully washed, the inscription became clearly visible:

  THOMAS CHARLES DRUCE,

  Esqre.,

  Died 28th Decr.,

  1864,

  In his 71st year.

  Above the inscription was a trefoil brass cross, and below it a Maltese brass cross. Robert Caldwell, in his evidence, had been adamant that there was no inscription on the coffin. If the age stated was correct, it would have made T. C. Druce’s birth date 1792 or 1793 – seven years before the birth of the 5th Duke of Portland.

  The diggers then left. Two workmen entered the shed bearing powerful pliers, with which they unscrewed the lid of the oak coffin. Within the coffin, there was found to be a leaden shell, bearing the same inscription as the outer coffin of oak. The lid of the leaden shell was then cut away, taking with it an inner, wooden casing. An electric light was suspended above the exposed contents of the coffin, the glare of the beam bouncing wildly as it swung over the expectant group. All craned to get a glimpse inside the coffin. A collective gasp rippled around the enclosed confines of the shed.

  * Over £100,000 in today’s money.

  One of the most serious and cruel cases which have been brought before a Court of Justice.

  MR JUSTICE GRANTHAM

  with reference to the Druce–Portland case, May 1908

  On Twelfth Night, 6 January 1908, the Druce–Portland case came up – this time at the Clerkenwell Police Court – for its fourteenth and last court hearing. The witnesses of the exhumation of the grave at Highgate were called immediately.

  First in t
he stand was Mr Leslie Robert Vigers, a member of the Institute of Surveyors. He had made a careful preliminary examination of the site prior to the exhumation, and it was under his supervision that the monument had been removed. He testified that the marble slabs and York stones covering the grave had been lifted on the morning of Monday, 30 December. First to be exposed had been the coffin of Mrs Annie Druce, T. C. Druce’s second wife, resting on a floor consisting of eight York stone slabs about one and a half inches in thickness. When these slabs were raised, a vault consisting of two compartments was revealed. The coffin containing the body of Thomas Charles Druce had been lifted out of the vault. The floor of the grave was made of bricks, pointed up and whitened. In the half of the vault from which T. C. Druce’s coffin had been removed, a sample of bricks was lifted and the soil beneath tested with a crowbar, driven in as far as a man was able in two places, to see if the clay beneath had been disturbed. It was found to be quite solid: so-called ‘virgin clay’. There was no lead to be found anywhere in the vault or near the coffin. In fact it was clear, Vigers said, that the soil of the vault had not been tampered with, and that the grave and coffin appeared to have been undisturbed since 1864.

  Next in the witness box came Dr Augustus Pepper, who had attended the exhumation as a medical expert along with Sir Thomas Stevenson. He had arrived at the vault at 10.20 a.m. on the morning of Monday, 30 December, to find it opened and three coffins lined up on the floor of the grave. The coffin bearing the inscription of Thomas Charles Druce was raised under his supervision. The three layers of wood, lead and inner casing of the coffin were then opened up. In the inner shell there was the shape of a human body, covered by a shroud of white cambric.

  ‘Was there anything over the face?’ demanded Horace Avory. The atmosphere in the police court suddenly crackled with electricity.

  ‘A linen handkerchief about the size of a pocket handkerchief,’ came the response.

  ‘Any mark on it?’

  ‘The initials “TCD”, and the figure “12”.’

  ‘And on removing the sheet in which the body was wrapped, what did you find the body to be?’

  There was pause. ‘A male body, aged… ,’ came the reply.

  Dr Pepper went on to estimate that the age of the body was about sixty-five to seventy-five. It was extremely well preserved. The skin was broken on only one part of the body. The doctor had with him at the scene one of the ‘carte de visite’ photographs of Thomas Charles Druce that had been produced earlier in the proceedings, showing the bearded Druce in a standing position. He was of the view that there was a ‘striking general resemblance’ between the photograph and the features of the corpse. The head was covered with scanty reddish-brown hair, the eyebrows thick and wavy. The beard was very bushy and the hair was coarse. It was natural hair, still attached to the skin, and had not fallen off anywhere. When Dr Pepper examined the body, he found there to be a marked difference between the upper and lower regions. In the lower parts of the trunk, there was extreme decay. This was consistent, he said, with the presence of abscesses or a destructive disease of some kind.

  A peculiar feature of Dr Pepper’s evidence was that, although a police photographer had been present at the time of the exhumation, no photographs of the grave or its contents were produced in court, or published afterwards in any newspaper. Had photographs of the coffin and remains been taken? If so, what did they show, and what had happened to them? Why had they been suppressed?

  The final witness was George William Thackrah, a partner in the firm of Messrs Druce & Co. He had joined the firm in 1860, and had seen T. C. Druce almost daily until his death in 1864. He had been present at the exhumation and had seen the body in the coffin when the shroud was removed. He recognized the face distinctly as that of the late Thomas Charles Druce.

  ‘You recognized him beyond a shadow of a doubt?’ the magistrate asked keenly.

  ‘Oh yes, beyond a shadow of doubt,’ came the reply. ‘There is no doubt whatever about it.’

  There was silence in the courtroom as Llewellyn Atherley-Jones rose to his feet.

  ‘Sir,’ the advocate began, clearing his throat with a hint of nervousness, but nevertheless looking Mr Plowden steadily in the eye, ‘I wish to give very shortly the views of the prosecution with regard to this case. You were good enough, when the question of the exhumation was first mentioned, to ask me – in a certain contingency – what view the prosecution would take of the case. I then answered that in my judgment, it would be practically impossible for the prosecution to proceed. Deliberation and anxious consideration since the happening of the event have confirmed the view that I then entertained.’

  Pausing for an instant, he glanced towards the seated figure of Horace Avory, counsel for the defence. ‘Sir,’ he continued, ‘I therefore have no hesitation in saying, speaking for myself and for those instructing me – that I now withdraw the prosecution.’

  From the press gallery came murmurings, and a stifled exclamation. One of the fashionable ladies seated next to the judge fainted. Herbert Druce suddenly lost his stoop, and sat bolt upright. And, for the first time, the face of the 6th Duke of Portland lit up with a smile. For Atherley-Jones, the admission of the prosecution’s defeat seemed a blessed release, and he appeared finally to relax. Horace Avory remained stonily silent and inscrutable. Did he know more about the secret lives of his clients than he chose to show? He was soon to receive a strange letter that would have shocked even those closest to the case. But for the moment his face, as always, revealed nothing.

  There was a pause, as everyone waited for Mr Plowden to look up from his notes and speak. When the magistrate finally did so, his voice was grave. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, adjusting his spectacles with a light cough, ‘this inquiry may have taken some time, but I do not think any impartial person will say that the time has been wasted. The bubble which has floated so long and so mischievously out of reach has been effectually pricked at last. No one can now doubt that Thomas Charles Druce existed in fact; that he died in his own home in the midst of his family; and that he was buried in due course in the family vault in the cemetery in Highgate. His existence stands out as clear, as distinct, as undeniable as that of any human being that ever lived.’ Directing a stern gaze towards the assembled journalists, Plowden continued: ‘How the myth ever arose that confused Thomas Charles Druce and the 5th Duke of Portland as the same personality it would be idle to speculate. Sufficient to say that this case is an illustration of the love of the marvellous which is so deeply ingrained in human nature, and is likely to be remembered in legal annals as affording one more striking proof of the unfathomable depths of human credulity. The case is dismissed.’ Turning then to Herbert Druce, he said in a much gentler tone: ‘I have only one final word to say. Mr Herbert Druce leaves this court with his character for truthfulness absolutely and conclusively vindicated. Mr Druce, you are now discharged.’

  Thus ended – ostensibly – one of the greatest legal sagas of the early twentieth century. Ten long years had passed since Anna Maria Druce first appeared before Chancellor Tristram with her application to open the Druce vault. During those ten years, a dozen judges had presided over fourteen court hearings; hundreds of legal personnel, from barristers to clerks, had spun arguments and taken down testi-mony; armies of investigators had combed through archives up and down the land; witnesses from three continents had been examined, cross-examined, and re-examined. Family secrets had been unearthed, shameful conduct exposed, and the lies that lurked beneath the respectable façade of Victorian society had been ruthlessly exposed before the public. Most of all, the Druce case had provided the world with one of its first global media sensations – a long-running saga that held the public in thrall, played out from Asia to the Antipodes, featured in every newspaper from the New York Times to the Wanganui Chronicle.

  But the wider story was far from fully played out. For although one mystery about the life of the 5th Duke of Portland had been laid to rest, the case had raised man
y other questions, including the enigma of the shadowy ‘lady fraternity’ at Welbeck. Had the bachelor duke had something to hide after all? Not an alternative identity as T. C. Druce, admittedly, but some other dark secret? Who in the Cavendish-Bentinck family had been helping the Druce cause, and why? Most important of all was the question of who was behind the conspiracy at the heart of the Druce claim. Could the tracks of the perpetrators of this enormous falsehood – as it was now revealed to have been – be followed, before they were covered over?

  Act 3

  Revelation

  Truth is the daughter of time.

  Attributed to SIR FRANCIS BACON,

  English philosopher and statesman

  The scene immediately after the opening of the Druce vault

  (the Penny Illustrated Paper, 4 January 1908)