 time in its history, Scotland Yard opened its official files to bring you the true stories of some of its most baffling cases. Research for Whitehall 1212 was prepared by Percy Hoskins, Chief Crime Reporter of the London Daily Express. The stories for radio are written and directed by Willis Cooper. The next voice you will hear is that of Chief Superintendent John Davidson, who is in charge of Scotland Yard's famous Black Museum. Good afternoon. We keep this document in an ordinary letter-sized filing cabinet, the kind you've surely seen many times. Oh yes, here it is. It is typed on the official stationery of a London evening, never mind it's the stationery of a London newspaper. It's titled Confession in Big Black Letters, and it is a confession, the signed and attested confession of a murderer. Now it didn't hang in. Mr. Justice Anderson, who tried the case, castigated the man in the newspaper severely when he halted the trial. But that's not all the story. Here is Chief Inspector Hubert Alan Scott. He'll tell you the whole thing. Did you speak up, Hubert? Yes, it was in September 1931, wasn't it, that this began? September 1931, yes. September 1931, the 17th, that's right. It was an empty shop at New Compton Street, Soho. I suppose you'd call them wine merchants, the people who'd occupied the place. They'd moved out in a hurry and the place was littered with the things that had been peculiar to their business. Empty wine bottles, broken cats, a few crates that had once contained rather other inferior clarrots. Although the places stood vacant for some two months, it was still appallingly filthy and showed signs of someone having lived in the place during that time. A pair of brothers named Eaton had recently taken the place to house their sign painting professional business or whatever sign painting is, and it was the elder Eaton, Oswald, a man who wore a most impressive beard, who had telephoned Scottingard. Nearly noon when I arrived in response to the summons, Oswald Eaton sat glumly on a drum of blue paint and stared at the corner of the shop. I identified myself. Can't do it, Chief Inspector. She's over there in the corner behind the counter. I made my way through the litter to the counter, to the little counter in the corner of the room where the cash register had stood. And there she was. She's dead. A youngish woman with black hair, wearing a green woolen suit crumpled up under the little wooden counter as if she'd fallen asleep there. Lying quite peacefully on the floor, one arm cuddling what had been a geroboam of a glance at the label, very inferior champagne. Her face, I like to think about her face. The woolen belt of her dress was not as tightly about her throat. Not at all an edifying sight. Who is she, I asked Eaton? You never saw her before. How'd you get in here? Sure, I don't know, Chief Inspector. All right, isn't it? How many times have you been in here? Only twice. When? Stayed before yesterday when I saw it the first time. Yesterday when I told the agent I'd rent it from the song shop. Was the agent here with you? Yesterday, yes, before now. Was she here then? Couldn't see her. The agent didn't see her yesterday either, I expect. Didn't say anything about seeing her. Well, I must talk to him. Got an office such as it is next door but one. What's his name? Harold Turner. What sort of chap is he? Seedy. Office next door, you said? Next door but one. Poor Blighter. Why poor Blighter? Poor Phyllis Stonybrook. Used to own this wine shop before he got run out of business. Lost if it be. Not to shame. Happened to have got many people these days. Lost his home, flat, you know, they took that away from him too. Where's he been living? What's the matter? He's been living in here. Here? I mean in the shop here? That's right. See, that's where he slept. That's straw over there. Said he'd moved to a new place but I said I wanted to rent the shop. He did. Where? You know? His office I mentioned. Has a carpet on the floor. Better bed than his straw for all poor beggars. Say he's been staying here up to yesterday. That day before. Moved out at once when I told him I wanted it. Who hadn't much to move. Look, why don't we do about this new tenor here on the floor? Now I've got to get this place cleaned out. I'll have her taken to a mortuary. Someone killed him, I suppose. Looks like it. Hmm, somebody's trained here with their own belt. But we'll have to let the police surgeon decide that. You don't see any other wounds? And you don't know it. Hmm, not a lie. Perhaps this turner will. If she's from around this neighborhood, he well knows everybody. He have a key for this place? There's no key. Been unlocked all these months while in one night. Unbelievable. Well, she's hardly ever best just now, you know. You ever was, or should say? You say you don't know her? Look here, Chief Inspector, my friend. You think I did this? If I should happen to think so, Mr. Egan, I'll tell you that I promise you. Well, all right. Don't keep me in suspense. I won't. All right. Do you know anything about this you haven't told me? No, I don't. Do you suppose you can call and ask your Mr. Turner a step in here while I finish my preliminary examination? I'd like to have a little talk with him. You're thinking he did it? Will you allow me to draw my own confusions, Mr. Egan? I'm sorry. I'm hoping he can identify this woman. Oh, excuse me. Will you call him, please? Yes, sir. Yes, he did, sir. There's not much to examine. Though I made short work of it, Egan had not returned when I finished. I suppose I should have stepped around to the office of Mr. Harold Turner to determine what was causing him the delay. But I noted the pay telephone in the corner of the shop, and I used it instead to call Scotland Yard and arrange for the removal of the body of the unfortunate woman. And then I decided to follow Mr. Egan. Two days away was the office in question. It didn't seem to me as I entered to be the kind of place an indigent renting agent was using as a dot house. It was neatly, if not elaborately, furnished, and a well-dressed young man smiled at me from a battered but quite decent desk. Good morning, sir. Um, oh, I say, I, I, uh, I'm looking for Mr. Oswald to be eaten, but, um... Oh, the chap with the beard, you rented my old wine shop. Oh, yes. I'm afraid I haven't seen him since the day before yesterday, sir. Eh? I've completed my arrangements with him, left him in possession. Said he'd just fix himself up a bed on the floor. Are you Mr. Harold Turner? That's right. I'm sorry, I don't... Are you Harold Turner? Most assuredly, I'm, my dear fellow. Who would you be? You're Harold Turner. I've told you what. Where did he eat him, sir? Being most impertinent, sir. Who are you? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Chief Inspector Scott. Scott and the Arduino. What do you want eaten for, Chief Inspector? Why, he said... Are you the man who rented that shop to Mr. Eaton for his signed paintings? Signed painting studio? Well, I'm afraid I am, if you mean the place where I formerly sold or... rather failed at selling a most inferior line of wines and liquors. What have you done? Set it on fire? I had my suspicions of the man from the beginning, Chief Inspector. Well, he's paid me my money and... they've always been children. You haven't seen him this morning? Not since the day before yesterday, as I told you. Now, tell me something, Mr. Turner. Were you or were you not living in that place since your wine shop? I think you'd have difficulty in convincing my wife that I've been living anywhere but an hour flat. You're talking about living there. That's absurd. Mr. Eaton said you'd been living there ever since he... he showed me the spot on the floor where you had your... bunk? Now, that's errand absurdity, sir. Get the telephone. Pick it up and ring through to my flat. Here. Here's the number. Or telephone my landlord. He'll tell you where I've been living since 1925, sir. You can easily find out where I've been spending my time. All I know, Mr. Turner... you are Mr. Turner, aren't you? Of course, Mr. Turner. I'm sorry. All I know is what Mr. Eaton has told me. What Mr. Eaton has told you? Look here. He's the bloke that's been pigging it there... for two nights at least. Wait, where is he? Let me get my hands on that citizen. I'll chuck him out on his filthy beard with my own two hands. Where is he? He, uh... he was coming here to get you. Get me? What's he want of me? What's he want of me, I say? We wanted you to identify the dead woman. Dead identity? Look here, are you really a Scotland Yard man? What dead woman, I say? What dead woman? Mr. Turner, I'm sorry. You'd better be succumbing to me with... What dead woman? I'm sorry. There's a dead woman in the shop where you were living. I mean... Are you from Scotland Yard, sir? Or are men in white coats looking for you? If a man in a white coat had suddenly appeared at that moment, I'm certain that I would have slunk up to him and begged refuge in his butterfly net, pending my removal to the nearest loony bin. Instead, clutching Mr. Harold Turner securely by the arm, I proceeded back to the former wine shop. Nothing has changed. Where's the dead one? Here she is. Hmm. Do you know her? It's Marlene. Not Dietrich. Marlene Corcoran. You admit you know her? Of course, everybody in Soa knows Marlene. You hear what I mean? She's dead, isn't she? Well, I must tell her that, Mr. Turner. Who killed her, do you suppose? I don't know. I didn't. Eaten? We don't know, sir. No, not eaten. Frankly, I'm beginning to wonder, sir, what we shall see. Tell me about it, please. Well, Marlene has been a character about Soa for a good many years, since the war, at least. Everyone knows her. She isn't, wasn't very smart. But, oh, poor girl. She must have got any hoping to find a bottle of wine or something. She apparently did. That bottle she's clutching never had anything in it. An advertising thing. Not very good champagne either. And she was killed. Maybe they're fingerprints. On the bottle, I mean. We shall see. My murder squad will be here any moment. They'll be checking on everything, fingerprints and everything. Poor old Marlene. Wonder where the sign painting must have been. Ah, yes, how are my people now? Who's there? My reinforcements, the murder squad. What did you say? I said, I wondered where Eaten went when he said he was going to look for me. Oh, we'll find them. Never fear about that. The men with the grizzly wicker body basket came and took Marlene away with the police surgeon. The men with the efficient little black bags and the little vacuum cleaners came and they searched everything in the dingy little shop. The fingerprint man came with their brushes and powders and cameras and examined everything. The other man came and listened to what was said and they echoed my competent statement. Oh, we'll find him, never fear. There were no fingerprints, there was nothing at all. The police surgeon agreed she had been strangled with her own belt and the human cry was raised and Oswald Eaten was not found. And presently, what was once Marlene or Cochrane was buried. Then, about three weeks later, and I was sitting gloomily in my office alone when a strange man entered. He showed a great expanse of gleaming white teeth as he introduced himself as a crime man from the evening. Well, never mind what paper it was. And I said yes and he sat down. You really are Chief Inspector Scotland. Well, I didn't give you my name, but Romney Benedict, I'm glad to see you, sir. I don't know the very good subject for an entity, Mr. Benedict. I didn't come to interview you, sir. I came to give you some information. I'm given to understand that you are troubled, if I may use the term, by two things, Chief Inspector. If there were only two, I should be extremely happy. The murder of a woman in Soho? Marlene Cochrane. Well, was that her name? Yes. And the whereabouts of one Oswald Eaten? I am reasonably certain that finding Mr. Eaten would be of value in solving the murder. We've been searching for him. I can find him for you. I trust this is not a joke, Mr. Benedict. It is not, sir. I can produce Mr. Eaten on comparatively short notice. Where is he? In our office. How long has he been there? For some time. I must warn you, Mr. Benedict, that if you're attempting to interfere, we'll have to ask... Oh, my dear sir, let me assure you we're having no thought of interfering. We're trying to assist Justice on the contrary, as we shall demonstrate to him. You have been holding the man by your own admission so that we have been unable to find him. I think you'll find it rather embarrassing and, I'm sure, useless to attempt to prosecute us, sir. Explain that. I should be happy to. Well, please do go to Chief Inspector as I have a look at this document. What is it? You'll see that it is clearly entitled Confession. Confession of what? Confession to murder. What? I think you'll find it in good order, sir. Dictated to one of our stenographers, approved by our own legal staff who read it, signed by the man who dictated it. This is, of course, a copy. We have the original in our files. What is it? A confession to the murder of, um, Marlene Cochran. Signed of the presence of witnesses by Oswald Eaton. It's yours, sir. We also are interested in seeing Justice done. Could you pay him for this? Can you pay a man for signing away his life? I don't know. Wait, we offer it to you freely, sir. And if you don't want it, my dear Inspector, you can read it tomorrow in the pages of our great paper. Well, what about Eaton? Where will we find him if I don't accept your offer? We'll find him for you. Scotland Yard finds his own criminals. You're being dramatic, sir. We found this one. Come and get him. And if you're not disposed to accept this document and prefer to read it tomorrow with our thousands of other readers throughout the British Isles and abroad, we shall be charitable when public opinion asserts itself. We shall lead you to him again, and you can use your own excellent judgment. Give it here. You're so gracious, Chief Inspector. Excuse me, sir. Scotland Yard is grateful to you for assisting us. Although I'm sure you're aware that this confession is not admissible as evidence. It'll be an extremely useful guide in preparing your case. I'm not finished, sir. I was going to say however much we deploy your methods, and I may say your morals. We may rely upon your well-known generosity, sir. May I suggest that you send for your prisoner at once? You're at some expense. I shall accompany you myself, Mr. Benedict. And my car is outside, sir. After the somewhat painfully formal exchange of the amenities of the occasion, I was relieved to be able to look at Mr. Oswald Eaton once more in his beard and say to him that, among other things, whatever he might say from now on will be taken down in writing and might be used in evidence. Mr. Eaton giggled and jingled money in his pocket. I was actually sorry to the fellow. It was his own blood money, he was jingly. A magistrate reminded him at once on the strength of his confession and the things I could add to jail, closely. He chuckled his cell door closed behind him. The newspaper came out with great boastful headlines. They even mentioned the sum of money they paid Mr. Eaton for his confession. We received some of the congratulations and my name was in the story too. We set out at once to weed-check the points he made in the confession. He had confessed that he strangled her with his bare hands. I referred back to the report of the police surgeon. The cause of death was strangulation or suffocation accomplished for the belt of Marlene Corcoran herself. There is no evidence that manual strangulation was employed. No evidence that manual strangulation was employed. I had an exhumation order issued and the second post mortem examination of the victim's body was made. They established that it would not have been possible for her to have been strangled by anyone's hands. The belt was the sole cause of her death. I asked Eaton and he laughed for his beard. I went back to the confession. I gave her a bottle of liquor to drink and she finished it, it said. Then she started it on the jaroborum of champagne, drank it all, became unconscious and I reached for the telephone and called Harold Turner. Didn't you say Turner, there had never been any champagne in that bottle? Caravanicine into or out of it. It would have leaked out for the holes but cast right into it. I got the bottle and looked at it myself. It was porous. I told that to Harold Eaton and he laughed again and then a man came to me and assured me he would swear to having seen and sat alongside Eaton in the public house for five hours the same night the murder was committed. The public house was several miles from the place in Soho. I asked Eaton about the mistake and he laughed again. Astonishingly, we didn't have a very good case. And after Eaton had repudiated his confession, we found we were exactly where we had started. And when the trial started, Mr. Justice Anderson let it stumble along for one whole day. He was very patient. And then he stopped it. Mr. Benedict from the newspaper was in court to report on the outcome of the paper's great bid for justice. I could watch him turning several colors or perhaps he was reflecting the colors that my face changed as Mr. Justice Anderson spoke. Anything more disgraceful I have never heard. A man goes to a newspaper office and says, I am confessing that I have been guilty of murder. The newspaper representative then take him about the country, photographing him and for hours refrain from communicating with the police as every decent and respectable citizen ought to do as soon as he hears that a crime has been committed. I warn newspaper men of these proclivities that if they do this sort of thing, they are likely to find themselves very seriously dealt with. Those are the exact words used by the justice himself at the time. This is another story compiled from Scotland Yard's own official files for Whitehall 1212, which we're listening. Whitehall 1212 is researched by Percy Hoskins of the London Express. It is written and directed by Willis Cooper. No, this is not the end of the story. Listen for the astonishing and true conclusion now. You will be interested in what happened to Oswald Eaton, the erstwhile sign painter and the others. Eaton enjoyed the 500 pounds he was paid for his confession for a year or so. He then quietly disappeared. And the short time later turned up as an aircraftsman in the Royal Air Force. He afterwards deserted. More about that later. Mr. Benedict lost his position of the newspaper and became a betting commissioner. That is to say a book. And not a very prosperous one. The mystery of who murdered Marlena McCorker and was, so far as I've been able to discover, never solved. I was discussing the case with Harold Turner one autumn day in 1936. Five years later. I had a curious bit of news today of it. Yes, not a bit of that. Remember our old friend, the sign painter with a beard? Oswald Eaton? I should never forget that one. Oh, shall I? No, but had you arresting me for the murder of poor Marlena McCorker and I wonder who did kill her. What about Oswald Eaton? Eaton. Oh, yes, Eaton. He was in the RAF, you know. Still is. No. Huh? He walked out in West Africa somewhere. I know. He's posted as a deserter. Good. Perhaps the cannibals will eat him. Shouldn't think he tastes very good with that beard. Not the fact he did desert. What do they do to deserters? Time of war, they shoot him. Too bad he didn't wait for a war to desert. He'll come to a bad end. I hope. He'll never write about that. Made a fool of me, all right? Made fools of everybody. The way he led me on. I wonder if he cooked up that scheme on the spur of the moment. Must have. Came into the shop. Found poor Marlena lying there, scuppered. Brought up a way to get out of my hand. What a sapphire word. No, I don't think so. Anybody to believe him. I fell for it. And then when he did get away, you rushed out and cooked up his phony confession. And his way to get out of it. Sold it to that stupid newspaper. Pretty smart. Made a profit. Wonder who did kill that Marlena woman. But he'll never find out. Smart clever man. Searched it from the RAF, though. In West Africa. That's not smart. Hope that cannibal read him. You said that. And I said they wouldn't. Can't have his beard, you said. What business you are now, you've been. Scotland yard, this is my good man. Say all things, murders, robberies, frauds. Oh, there was interesting murder yesterday. This morning, mother. What's that? Thank you, I will have another beer. Huh? Oh. Miss, couple more pint of the bitter, please. What happened? Who? Warmer over in Clapham. Oh, do they count murders in Clapham? Thank you, miss. Who was she? I, you know, much of darling. No assignment of my thing. I was doing her own flat. Different from poor old Marlena, strangled in an empty pipe. Quite different. Right at home. From Stipple. With her head cut off. How'd they know who she was? Fingerprint. Clothes, what now? Besides, she was at home. Any idea who did it? Not yet. Careful, Oswald. Eatle and be confessing to it. From West Africa. One of the ones getting first. It's been a couple of weeks since he's deserted. Time enough for him to get back to Clapham by a snickering go-visiting. Watch for aircraftsman Eaton, chief inspector. I said that wasn't all. Exactly four days later, I had a telephone call from my friend, Inspector Arthur Austin, who was handling the case of the headless lady in Clapham. Who involved in that case? The murder thing you mean? Wasn't you? I most painfully was. We've got something like that going. Oh, have you? Chappell's a beard by any chance, named Oswald Eaton. A beard named Oswald Eaton? Oh, who? No, this one's got no beard all by it. Must he have a beard? Minded. Very no attention to her. Minds are deserted from the RAF and the cannibals have eaten them. Beared and all. Oh, yes. Goodbye. But the cannibals hadn't eaten them. Oswald Eaton, now aircraftsman John O'Brien, had escaped them and come back to England to Clapham, where he'd had the misfortune to fall in with an old friend. And over a few too many drinks of something or other, had unfortunately murdered her. And when the lady was dead, he remembered he had once made a tidy sum of money by making up a confession and then repudiating it. Of course, there wasn't any money in this one. But once it worked, once it worked again, he thought. He forgot something, though. He forgot he had once been married to this particular lady friend. And when Scotland Yard began to ask questions, it was thought very strange that aircraftsman John O'Brien was the confession writer. And there wasn't any aircraftsman O'Brien, but there had been an aircraftsman Oswald Eaton who answered to much the same description. And he was a deserter and the RAF wanted him. And when they found that the lady without a head had once been married to an Oswald Eaton, and the confession was quite useful. And Mr. Justice Anderson cheerfully put the square of black cloth on his head and sentenced Oswald Eaton to hang by the neck until he was dead. Which he did. This is written on Whitehall 1212, Horace Brayham as Inspector Scott. Others in the order of their appearance, Harvey Hayes, Carl Harbord, Lester Fletcher, Morris Dallamore and Gerard Burke. This is Lionel Rico speaking. Whitehall 1212 is written and directed by Willis Cooper. In recent years, there has been a new safety slogan, just one simple word. That word is think. If you're a driver or even a pedestrian, you'll be wise to take the advice of that slogan to heart every day. Think. Always think about doing the safe thing instead of taking a foolish chance on the highway. Remember, drive as though your life depends on it. It does. This is NBC, the national broadcasting company.