The Supernatural Murders

by Jonathan Goodman

  Carlin had his theories, though. He believed that Dyer had lured Tombe to The Welcomes and, in a tumble-down shed near the paddock, crept up from behind and shot him in the back of the head. He had left the body in the shed, returning later to stuff it down the well and fill the well with stones.

  This theory was partly confirmed by a subsequent conversation with Dyer’s widow. She told how, at about eleven o’clock one night, she was sitting alone at The Welcomes, when she heard the sound of stones dropping against the drainpipe. She called to her dog and opened the front-door. As she peered out, the dog started to growl and bristle. The moon was up, but big black clouds scudding across the sky plunged the yard into alternate silvery light and thick darkness. Suddenly, barking savagely, the dog dashed towards a disused shed in the corner of the yard and flew at someone crouching in the shadows. A man emerged, and at that moment a stream of moonlight flooded full on his face. To her astonishment, she saw that it was her husband, whom she had believed to be miles away, on business in France. Deathly pale and trembling, he held up his hands, shouting, ‘Don’t come in here. Don’t come out. Get into the house again, for God’s sake.’

  Nearly seventy years have gone by since Tombe and Dyer perished – both by the same hand. But The Welcomes still stands.

  When, some years ago, I went there, it was a peaceful scene. The wells had long since been filled in. Nothing remained to hint at the old tragedy.

  Over a cup of tea in a luxuriously-furnished room above what were once the stables, the then occupant, the widow of Charles Pelly, the pilot who flew Neville Chamberlain to Munich on his ‘Peace in Our Time’ flight to see Hitler in 1938, told me: ‘The Tombe tragedy wasn’t the only one connected with The Welcomes, you know. In 1934 a Major St John Rowlandson shot himself in a taxi as he was being driven through St James’s Street. I think he was in some sort of financial trouble. He lived here with his sister.’

  But it was the Tombe case that was remembered in those parts. ‘Even today,’ said Mrs Pelly, ‘local boys peer through the gate and recall “Eric down the well”.’

  What are the odds against anyone dreaming the same circumstantially accurate dream night after night, as the clergyman’s wife did? If it was no more than chance, then they are odds so high that it is virtually impossible to calculate them.

  And was it not passing strange that a hard-headed policeman should, acting on the ‘evidence’ of a mother’s prophetic dream, come to solve what might well have remained a mystery for ever?

  An Astrological Postscript

  William Henry

  Had Sherlock Holmes turned to the planets for help when unravelling some of his more celebrated murder-cases, we might today be surrounded by dozens of star-gazing ‘astrosleuths’, each as eager to seek clues in a suspect’s birth-chart as in the bloodstained clothing found under the floorboards. But despite a life-long interest in the paranormal, Conan Doyle never let his pipe-smoking hero examine a single horoscope. And what a pity. For if he had, Sir Arthur might have forged some useful links between astrology and the law.

  Holmes, of course, confined his detective work to the fiction shelf; but much can be said for the use of astrology in real-life murder investigations as well, for no matter how carefully a killer may try to cover his tracks, there is always one piece of evidence he can never destroy: namely, the positions of the planets at the time of his crime.

  Which brings us to the Dyer-Tombe case. Did Ernest Dyer actually kill Eric Tombe? And if so, is there any evidence – any planetary evidence, I mean – to confirm that fact?

  Before looking at what the planets have to tell us (and by tradition the Sun and Moon are called ‘planets’ as well), I should explain that in astrology one normally works with at least three sets of planetary positions: the ‘natal’ positions (those degrees of the zodiac occupied by the planets at the time of a person’s birth); the ‘progressed’ positions (those degrees occupied by the planets during the days immediately following birth, where each day represents one year in the individual’s life); and the ‘transiting’ positions (the actual day-to-day positions of the planets at any given time).

  Since the planets act as the principal words in the language of astrology, every person, object or event encountered in life can be expressed by the appropriate ‘signature’ or combination of individual planets. Murder, for example, is commonly indicated by the ‘vulgar’ (Hades) ‘acts’ (Mars) combination of Mars and Hades (one of the eight transneptunian ‘planets’ discovered by Alfred Witte and his colleagues at the Hamburg School of Astrology), with Saturn or Uranus also frequently appearing as part of the signature.

  To create a signature, the planets involved must be properly linked together. A link is formed, for example, whenever the distance between two planets is either an exact whole-number fraction of the full 360° zodiac or a whole-number multiple of that fraction, or whenever a planet is positioned either on the ‘midpoint’ (or halfway point) of two planets or at one of those same fractional distances from that midpoint. Thus, planets that are 45° apart (⅛ of 360°) or 135° apart(⅜ of 360°) will be linked together, as will any three planets, one of which is positioned either 30°() 60° (⅙), or 72° (⅕) away from the midpoint of the other two.

  Now, if Ernest Dyer killed Eric Tombe (as the circumstantial evidence strongly suggests), then we ought to be able to find at least one Mars-Hades ‘murder signature’ in Dyer’s chart at the time of Tombe’s death. Ideally, such a signature should also be linked to Tombe’s natal or progressed Sun – that is to say, to either the Sun’s position when Tombe was born or (since Tombe was 29 ½ years old when he died) to its position 29½ days after he was born – in order to identify Tombe as the murder-victim.

  Surprisingly enough, a link does turn up in Dyer’s chart between Tombe’s natal Sun (1° Scorpio) and Dyer’s natal Hades (1° Pisces), for those two planets are exactly 120° (½ of the zodiac) apart. But Dyer’s natal Mars (13° Leo), needed to complete the Mars-Hades ‘murder’ signature, is not directly connected to either of those planets.

  The investigation, however, does not end there. If we calculate the position of Dyer’s progressed Mars for the spring of 1922, note what turns up: at the time of Tombe’s murder, Dyer’s progressed Mars (1° Virgo) was exactly 180° (½ of the zodiac) away from Dyer’s natal Hades and 60° (⅙ of the zodiac) away from Tombe’s natal Sun, thus creating the ‘murder’ signature linked to Tombe’s Sun that we were looking for (Fig 1). To the astrologer, such evidence is as incriminating as the discovery of Tombe’s suitcase in Dyer’s possession in Scarborough.

  Fig 1

  Fig 2

  But there is still more evidence to be found against Dyer. In his chart, natal Saturn (7° Libra) is linked to natal Hades (the distance between them is 144° or ⅖ of the zodiac) and at the time of Tombe’s death was also linked to Dyer’s progressed Uranus (30° away at 7° Scorpio). Had Dyer’s natal or progressed Mars been part of this same pattern, we would once again have a potentially dangerous ‘murder signature’ on our hands – but Dyer’s natal Saturn fails to reveal any obvious links to either of these Mars positions. However, if we measure the distance in his chart from natal Mars to natal Saturn, and similarly measure the distance from natal Saturn to the position of Tombe’s progressed Sun (1° Sagittarius) in 1922, note what we discover: those two distances (54° each) are exactly the same – thus placing Dyer’s natal Saturn (7° Libra) directly on the midpoint (7° Libra) formed between his natal Mars and Tombe’s progressed Sun at the time of Tombe’s death (Fig 2). In other words, Tombe was killed precisely during that one brief period in his life when the position of his progressed Sun would complete the Mars-Saturn-Uranus-Hades ‘murder pattern’ in Dyer’s horoscope.

  An ephemeris for 1922 (listing the daily positions of the planets) indicates that a solar eclipse took place in March of that year, less than a month before Tombe’s death. The ancient astrologers feared eclipses, for they tend to act as powerful ‘triggers’ for any planets or plan
etary signatures to which they are attached. (For instance, the 15 January 1991 deadline set by the United Nations for the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait fell on the day of a solar eclipse [at 25° Capricorn] that was directly linked to the position of Mars [the planet most commonly identified with weapons and warfare] in President Bush’s natal horoscope.) It therefore comes as no surprise to find that the March 1922 solar eclipse fell at 7° Aries, exactly opposite (that is to say, 180° away from) Dyer’s natal Saturn, thus linking the eclipse-point to the entire cluster of planets (Mars, Uranus, Hades, and Tombe’s progressed Sun) attached to Dyer’s natal Saturn at that time!

  If we knew the precise time of Dyer’s (and of Tombe’s) birth, we could possibly determine the exact day (and perhaps even the time of day) that Tombe was killed. In the absence of that evidence, we can note that Tombe was most likely murdered some time between 17 April (the date of his letter to his parents) and the 22nd (when he failed to keep his appointment). And we can further note that on Wednesday the 19th, the ‘murder midpoint’ between transiting Mars and transiting Hades was exactly aligned with the ‘thinking about Tombe’ midpoint formed by transiting Mercury in combination with Tombe’s progressed Sun. This could easily have been a day on which Dyer thought seriously about killing Tombe, and may even have been the actual day that Dyer, eager to get his hands on Tombe’s money, pointed a gun at Tombe’s head and pulled the trigger. The exact time of the murder may never be known, but there can be little doubt (astrologically speaking) about the identity of Tombe’s killer.

  Calling Madame Isherwood …

  EDMUND PEARSON

  WHEN GHOSTS get into court, they meet a facetious and disrespectful audience. It used to be otherwise: there are some fine stories of spectral evidence in murder cases of two or three hundred years ago.

  We laugh at the judge in the Salem witchcraft trials who rose and struck with a switch at the evil spirits that were floating in the air above the bench. But we listen with grave faces while the alienists in the Loeb-Leopold case [1924] talk about the ‘king and slave phantasy’; or while a psychiatrist at the Hickman trial in California [1928] practises ‘dermography’ or skin-writing as a test of sanity.

  The trouble with the clairvoyant, the dealer in ghosts, is that he is socially déclassé.

  One of the spiritualists to come before an American court, and bring her ghosts with her, was an Englishwoman, a practising medium in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She called herself Madame Isherwood, and she was an important witness for the State in the trial of William Crockett Howard for the murder of his wife, Ida.

  At that time, in 1908, Howard was a young fellow in his twenties; a native of Tennessee; and a private in the United States Army, stationed at Fort Rodman in New Bedford harbour. He was most unprepossessing, with a sullen face, and ugly, turned-down lips.

  But he had the lure of his uniform, or else he had a way with him, for he devoted his spare time, most successfully, to love affairs. He made a list of his girls – it was found in his soldier’s manual – during three years at the fort, setting down the Amys and Rosas and Fredas and Evas (there were three Evas) and Mollies and Adelines whose hearts he had won.

  These were all in addition to his wife, whom he married in Tennessee during an interval between enlistments; and in addition to two other women – his real sweetheart, a girl far above him in character and in intellect, and still another, a pert little drab who came into court and committed perjury on his behalf.

  It must be the soldier’s facility in these conquests, with no more expenditure for entertainment than a few nickels for ice-cream cones and chewing gum, which turns so many literary men and artists into excited anti-militarists.

  During Howard’s courtship of Grace Sturtevant — the one superior woman he seems to have known – the two were in Hazelwood Park one evening, gazing at the moon, when there appeared a low fellow named Dewhurst, who said or did something highly objectionable.

  I do not know what he did, but it was the final mistake in the life of Mr Dewhurst. He had insulted a lady, the United States Army, and one of the Fighting Howards of Tennessee. In a few seconds – for Private Howard proceeded to violence – the soul of Dewhurst had departed to its own place, while Howard and Miss Sturtevant were refugees from the park.

  It was apparent, even to Howard, that the testimony of Miss Sturtevant, the only witness to the fight, was necessary to his safety. Moreover, he seems to have liked her, more or less, and she assuredly loved him, and expressed her devotion in a series of sincere and pathetic letters. Nevertheless, Howard, in the six weeks between his two enlistments, returned to Tennessee, where for some mysterious reason he married Ida Williams.

  He was ordered back to Fort Rodman, and when he returned he brought Mrs Howard, whom he introduced as his sister, quartering her in the town.

  He seems to have been annoyed with his wife from the start. She, so he said, ‘gave him away’ to the police, so that he was arrested in the Dewhurst affair. Grace Sturtevant, although she now learned of his marriage, testified for him and secured his release by the court. He was held to have acted in self-defence. Next, Ida Howard had her husband arrested for non-support, and caused him to assign part of his pay to her. Finally, and as a crowning mark of her irritating disposition, she was going to have a baby.

  Howard said that he wished to get rid of his wife – legally – and marry Miss Sturtevant. It is much more probable that he did not wish to marry anyone, but that he preferred to have a number of girls at his beck and call, ready to help him out of scrapes.

  At all events, on a September night he told his sergeant that he was going to fish for eels; he took a boat and disappeared. His wife, the same evening, called on Madame Isherwood, the seeress, and told her that she had an appointment to meet her husband that night at a place on the bay, called Padanaram, where they were to look at a house they were to take for the winter. This place is three miles by water from the fort – easy rowing distance.

  Next morning, Ida Howard’s body was found there, floating in the water. Some of the doctors testified that she had not been drowned but had been strangled before being thrown overboard. Although a man and woman had been seen on the bridge, nobody had recognised either of the principals. Howard made eager attempts to get his fellow-soldiers to swear to an alibi. Altogether, it takes someone well practised in believing impossible things to put much trust in the soldier’s innocence of murder.

  Nevertheless, the testimony of Madame Isherwood, as establishing Ida Howard’s intention to meet her husband that night, was essential to the case for the prosecution. The prisoner’s counsel, Mr Morton (afterwards Judge Morton), made his best efforts to discredit the medium, and to ridicule her psychic faith. He afterwards gave Francis Wellman, the celebrated writer on cross-examination, an account of the questioning.

  He asked the witness why she had delayed four weeks in telling about the call from Mrs Howard. She answered that she spoke only when the spirit of Ida Howard appeared to her and told her to reveal the story of the conversation. Mr Morton said that a wave of credulity seemed to sweep over the court; that the jury seemed influenced; and that, for a moment, he felt his case to be desperate. Then he saw his chance, and bombarded her with questions like these:

  ‘What kind of a spirit was it? A plump spirit, above five feet high?’ ‘Did she have on spirit clothes?’ ‘Did this spirit carry a harp?’ ‘Or a halo?’

  Finally, he asked: ‘Did it appear to you frequently?’

  The reply was ‘Every night’.

  Whereupon, with the delicate humour of the courtroom, the attorney inquired: ‘Don’t you take a glass of whisky every night before going to bed?’

  Aside from the spiritualist, the women who surrounded Howard were of a wide variety, and the case was remarkable for their devotion. At one extreme was the girl who tried to establish an alibi for the soldier, by swearing that she was with him, in the reservation, on the evening of the murder. She was a tiny creature, named Lena W
atson, but more intimately known as ‘Bug’ Watson. Her father was a portentous character of the water-front; the proprietor of a resort which it would be complimentary to call dubious. He was known as ‘Devil Dan’.

  His daughter wrote letters to Howard, signing herself ‘Little Lena’, but the District Attorney, displaying that frank realism which some of us praise in novelists but find so detestable when applied to a criminal or his friends, dismissed her as ‘Little Liar’.

  At the other extreme was Grace Sturtevant, a girl of eighteen or twenty, rather plain of feature, but well educated and with aspirations both to write and to paint pictures. While Howard was in Tennessee, getting married and re-enlisting in the Army, both contrary to his promises to her, she was writing to him:

  My Sweetheart Will,

  I have been so lonesome and sad tonight that I can only rest my mind by writing to you…. No truer heart ever beat for you than mine. I do love you with my whole heart…. Oh, Will, if you only knew how dearly I love you, you would not stay away from me so long…. This letter is written amidst tears. Do you realise how long you have been gone? Good night, love, and God bless you. That you may come back is my only prayer. From your true and trustworthy sweetheart,

  GRACE

  Whether it was the ridicule excited against Madame Isherwood or because of their own timidity in dealing with a pretty clear case, the jury debated a long time, and at last found Howard guilty of murder in the second [non-capital] degree. One of the jurors is said to have discovered – contrary to his oath – scruples against capital punishment.

  When the prisoner was sentenced to a life term in the State Prison, his luck was still with him, and the law, like his sweethearts, was doing better by him than he deserved.

  A Surfeit of Spirits