 Introduction to Survivors' Tales of Famous Crimes. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nullifidian. Many volumes are in existence, which deal entirely with records of crime, but I believe that none amongst them is composed solely of narratives related by persons who were actually associated with famous criminal cases. Personal records have a peculiar fascination and interest because they bring us into intimate touch with the subject dealt with. And such stories have an added attraction when they relate to murder mysteries, for they involve the most violent passions of human nature. Love, hatred, lust, and great of gold. These narratives illustrate the working and effects of such emotions. Their concrete may be fully relied upon as accurate accounts of the cases dealt with, because I made myself responsible when necessary for verifying statements which were made on the strength of time-dimmed memories. The occasional uncertainties which were met with related mostly to dates. As for general facts and impressions, I discovered that each case was indelibly stamped upon the mind of the particular informant interrogated. Nevertheless, to ensure accuracy and detail, each completed story was submitted to the teller for approval. In several instances a tale was told to me, either on the scene of the crime, or in some room which was closely connected with the event, so that one became linked as intimately as it was possible to be with the atmosphere of the case. I have had no wish to dwell on horrors, or to pander to any morbid taste. I desired to give a collection of stories which should be very human documents, and also remind us that grim and stealthy deeds are inseparable from our daily life. I believe that I have been able to secure many interesting little side-lights on the character and acts of notorious evildoers which have not been previously published. Much patient and willing help has been given to me by my informants, and I gladly acknowledge it. While I am under very special obligations to Dr. George Fletcher, J.P., for putting at my disposal much of his unique and unrivaled material relating to the Palmer and Titchbourne cases. End of introduction. A forger who was dramatically arrested at the Bank of England was found to be a murderer also. This felon was Samuel Herbert Dougal, a man of undoubted ability who had served in the army for twenty years and had reached the rank of sergeant. He lost his position through forgery and was sent to prison. Afterwards he lived by his wits and proved to be a callous libertine and an unscrupulous villain. A well-to-do lady named Miss Camille Cecile Holland became infatuated with him, and as Mr. and Mrs. Dougal they went to live at a lonely moat farm in the heart of Essex. Miss Holland banished, and not until four years later were her remains found in a ditch at the farm. It was proved that Dougal had murdered Miss Holland, and he was hanged at Chelmsford Prison on July 23, 1903. Before going to live at moat farm, Dougal and Miss Holland resided with Mrs. Wiscan, a widow and well-known inhabitant at Saffron Walden. Mrs. Wiscan became the principal witness for the crown, and this is her story of the famous crime. It was in this very room where we are talking that Dougal and Miss Holland, as man and wife, spent a good deal of their time when they were living with me. At this very place where I am sitting I put a fur cape which I will show you on Miss Holland, and here with tears in her eyes she said goodbye for what proved to be the last time. She was driven away in a trap by a man we called Old Pilgrim to the moat farm with Dougal, and I never saw her again till four years later when I was taken to do my share in identifying her and to send to the gallows one of the biggest scoundrels that ever lived. Ah, if I had but known then what he really was and what he must have had in his mind to do, Miss Holland, one of the sweetest, kindest and gentlest of women, would not have gone. I should not have let her leave me, and she might have been alive to-day. But I had not the slightest suspicion that there was anything amiss all the time, three months they were with me, and of course I had not the remotest idea that they were not married. To me they came as Mr. and Mrs. Dougal, and as such they drove away to live at the moat farm seven miles from here. The moat farm is a very quaint old place, dating from the time of Elizabeth, and as lonely a building as you will come across in a day's walk. It was an extraordinary place, great changes have been made since the murder was done, and the house was full of all sorts of odd corners and nooks and queer rooms and recesses. I have known it well all my life, and my dear father and grandfather knew it well too, for they had often done work at it. You could weave many mysteries and romances around the farm where plenty of strange things were lying about amongst them a grinning skull which was used as a candlestick. The house and garden were on a perfect little island. They occupied about half an acre and were completely surrounded by a wide moat which was about five feet deep. This moat was supplied with water from springs and was crossed by a bridge leading to the house. Sometimes the water, in which there was fish, flowed very quickly when the discharges from the springs were heavy. In addition to the moat, there was a ditch in front of the house, or rather a drain, because all the drainage of the farm went into it. At the time I am speaking of, the ditch was being filled up, and old pilgrim and one or two more men were doing the work. We shall come to that dreadful ditch again by and by. Dougal had been negotiating for the purchase of the farm and had made inquiries about rooms. Ms. Parnell, a relative of the lady from whom Dougal bought the farm, knew me and recommended me, and he came and arranged that Mrs. Dougal and himself should live there until the farm was ready. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon on January 26, 1899, just as darkness was setting in that they came to my house. Ms. Holland, as I shall call her, had traveled a great deal, and she brought a lot of luggage and clothing with her. Dougal and she used this room as a dining and sitting room. They had a bedroom upstairs. Dougal was a big fine man, five feet ten and a half inches high, and weighing sixteen stone, but he had shrunk to twelve when they hanged him. He was remarkably pleasant-spoken, and often enough he would come down in the cold winter mornings and worm his hands at the fire there and chad away as I did my duties. And often enough too he would go to the window and talk to a canary which I had in a cage at the time. Yes, as pleasant as you like. Sometimes he would take Ms. Holland's breakfast upstairs, and she would have it in bed and then take her bath and dress and come down. She had been used to a good deal of society, and I loved to listen to her talk. She had had a love affair earlier in her life, and she told me all about it. The lover had been drowned, but an engraved amethyst ring of his had been washed ashore and picked up, and this she constantly wore next to her wedding ring. She once allowed me to put the lover's ring on my own finger. It was a splendid ring of very thick gold. I think she was pleased to let me have it on, because, you see, I saw a great deal of her, and she used to call me mother dear, and say that when she was settled at the moat farm she would want me to go and live there and take charge of the place for her. But that was never to be. The name of Ms. Holland was mentioned very soon after the pair came to live with me. Dougal said that if a letter addressed to Ms. Holland came to the house he wanted me to take it in, saying to me that it would be all right. The following day a letter did come, and I put it under the door of the bedroom, never supposing that anything was wrong. Several other letters came addressed to Ms. Holland, and I always let the lady have them, as they had to do with her money. I naturally thought she was keeping the money in her maiden name, as other letters were addressed to Mrs. Dougal. The days went slowly by, Dougal often going to London and the moat farm to conclude arrangements for living there. In doors he was a temperate enough man, seldom taking more than a little whiskey, and that chiefly with the late dinner which was provided for them. They say that he was a regular churchgoer, but I don't remember that he ever went to church while he was living with me. When the real truth was learned about him, we knew that he spent a good deal of his time in the hotels and public houses and in bad company. A villain indeed and a hypocrite he proved to me, and it seems that he must have murdered two or three women he had married before he met Ms. Holland. Ms. Holland had with her when she came to me a beautiful little spaniel called Jacko. There he is in the case behind you. She was devoted to the faithful animal, which in his dumb way gave some sort of inkling of what happened at the moat farm, if we could only have understood things better at the time. But I will come to Jacko again by and by. All sorts of things crowd into my memory as I speak. I well remember Dougal coming home one night from London, bringing with him two great eggs which he took out of his overcoat pocket. How do you like them, Mrs. Wiskin? he asked. Do you think they were dear at five shillings each? They are goose eggs, prize ones, and when we get to the farm we shall have some very fine geese. I told him I thought the eggs seemed very dear. But I added, I hope your five shillings will very soon be five pounds. Well, the day came when the farm was ready for them and they went to live in it. That was on April 27th, 1899. Old Pilgrim came for them with a pony and trap. Here is the fur cape I put on Ms. Holland when she was leaving the house. She flung her arms round my neck and kissed me as she said, Goodbye, Mrs. Wiskin. I shall see you again in a fortnight or three weeks. Keep that material till I come, then you shall change me a check and make me another dress. She was speaking of some stuff I had to make up. I was trained as a dressmaker, but I did not carry out her wish, for I never saw her again. I had, however, made certain things for her, and these largely helped me in identifying her long afterwards and bringing home his guilt to Dougal. Talking of checks, I ought to say that it was Ms. Holland's money which paid for everything. She was worth, I think, about seven thousand pounds. Dougal seemed to have nothing, but there were no people here who would cash the checks, naturally enough, not knowing the parties. But it was all right when the checks were made payable to me. More than fifteen hundred pounds of Ms. Holland's money had gone in buying the moat farm where she and Dougal took up their residence after leaving me. Dougal still came into Walden and went to London, and Ms. Holland busied herself in attending to the furnishing of the house and carrying out alterations. She meant, amongst other things, to have a bath put in, and the bath was sent to the farm where I saw it long afterwards. Dougal himself did all sorts of things at the farm, paper hanging, painting, whitewashing, and making beehives and a greenhouse. He was very handy in this way, having been so long in the Royal Engineers. One day, about sixteen months after Dougal and Ms. Holland left me, Jacko suddenly turned up here, and naturally enough, I and my daughters were delighted, because we thought we should see his dear mistress again. No mistress came, however, and I noticed that Jacko would not leave us. So we put our things on and went to the common, quite expecting to see Ms. Holland and Dougal. But there were no signs of them, and Jacko insisted on going back home with us. I had him with me for three weeks. Then I wrote to the moat farm, to Ms. Holland, explaining that I had the little dog with me, and asking what I should do with him. In answer to that letter, Dougal wrote, saying that I could turn Jacko out one dark night, and he would find his way home. Knowing how much his mistress valued him, and fearing that he would get lost, I kept him on. A few days later, Dougal came here to the side door, where not many people could see him, and not to the front door, which is more public. I was surprised at this, and asked him if he would not go to the front door. But he said that he would rather not, and that he was quite all right where he was. Have you little Jacko still, he asked. Yes, I told him. Will you let me have him? Of course, I replied that I would, and Dougal entered the house and said to the spaniel, Come along, Jacko, you have no business to run away from your mistress like this. How much do I owe you, Mrs. Wiskin? I told him that he owed me nothing at all, but he put a shilling down and took Jacko away. After Dougal left, I found that he had dropped a glove, and he came back for it, though I fancied that he was very unwilling to do so. I had done my best to learn something about Miss Holland, what she was doing, how she liked the moat farm, and when I should be likely to see her again. But not a word could I get out of Dougal. He evaded every question. I never saw him again for nearly four years, and then he was driven past here in a fly, handcuffed, and in charge of police, who had brought him from Cambridge prison, for by that time Dougal had been arrested on the charge of forging Miss Holland's name, a charge which before long was to be followed by that of the willful murder of her. Then I knew that when Dougal came stealthily to the side door for Jacko, and refused to answer any question of mine about Miss Holland, he was a deliberate and cold-blooded assassin. Little by little, during a period of many weeks, the dreadful truth came out, and the story was this. For a week or so after leaving me, Dougal and Miss Holland were at the moat farm, passing of course as man and wife as they were supposed to be. Then a servant went, and Dougal's conduct was such that the girl complained to her mistress, who was very angry with him, and slept in the spare bedroom with her for protection. This was the night before the murder. Miss Holland was finding out how Dougal had deceived her. On May 19th, 1899, in the evening, Dougal drove Miss Holland away from the farm, and what happened was told by the servant. Miss Holland spoke to her in the kitchen, saying, Goodbye, Flory, I shan't be long. That was about half past six. Dougal had put the horse in the trap, and Miss Holland drove away with him. She had no luggage with her, and it was quite clear that she did not mean to be absent for long. In two hours Dougal returned, alone. The servant was astonished and frightened, and, well, she might be afraid, knowing that she was unprotected in such a lonely house at night in the company of a man whose real character had been revealed to her. She asked where her mistress was, and Dougal, who was never at a loss for a reply to any question, told her that Miss Holland had gone to London, and that he was going to meet her when she came back. Several times he went out and remained for a while, then returned to the house, and told the terrified girl that the mistress had not yet come. At last, just before one o'clock, he said the servant had better go to bed, and upstairs she went, but not to bed or to rest, who couldn't such a house with such a man. She went to her room, but neither undressed nor slept, and thankful she must have been that the darkness was so short, and that day broke so soon. Never did it break on a more cruel, wicked crime. At about six o'clock, the servant heard a knock at her bedroom door. It was Dougal calling her. She went downstairs, and found that he had got the breakfast ready in the kitchen. He said that he had received a letter from Miss Holland, who told him that she was taking a short holiday, and would send a lady friend down to the farm to look after things. That day the servant left the farm, her mother owing to complaints, having gone to fetch her. Gone to London for a holiday, how coolly and deliberately the man lied. What amazing calmness he showed, knowing what he did know, for he had shot Miss Holland dead, and buried her in the ditch. The exact method of the murder and the precise time will never be known, but it is believed that on returning from the drive, Dougal took the trap back into the shed, Miss Holland being with him, that he fired a revolver which was a silent one, close to the back of her head, and killed her on the spot. He certainly carried her, fully dressed, and buried her in the ditch. From the night of that ghastly crime, Dougal continued to live at the moat farm and to carry on the work exactly as if nothing had happened. Yet all the time he knew that the body of the woman, who had given everything to him, was lying in the foul ditch in front of his very windows. To show how callous and cunning he was, he actually planted some shrubs over the very grave some months after the murder. When he had done this, he must have felt pretty secure. At any rate, he was always ready with excuses and explanations, for of course, questions were very soon asked about Miss Holland. Dougal was ready with his story. Miss Holland, Mrs. Dougal, of course, had gone to London and had left her clothing and jewelry at the farm. And who was the lady who went to the moat farm just after Miss Holland's disappearance? Oh, the lady was his widowed daughter, who had gone to keep house for him during his wife's absence. But as a matter of fact, the widowed daughter was the real Mrs. Dougal herself. Month after month went by, year followed year, and four years passed without news of any sort being heard of Miss Holland. During all that time, this amazing man conducted the business of the moat farm just as if Miss Holland lived. He opened and dealt with all letters addressed to her and carried out transactions with banks and stockbrokers, just as he would have done if she had given him the necessary authority. And all this, of course, because of the clever way in which he forged her name. All the time, he was going about drinking and amusing himself at hotels and inns, and in other ways acting like the thorough villain he was. To all appearances, Dougal was leading a happy life, and it may be that he had begun to feel that he was perfectly safe and that his sin would never find him out. But for a long time people had been talking and they had been putting two and two together and were wanting some explanation of the extraordinary mystery of the disappearance of the poor lady who had first gone to the moat farm with him as his wife. But the day was coming and was very near when Dougal must have known that he stood in peril of his life. Rumors went so far that a police superintendent went to the moat farm and made inquiries about the missing lady who was said to be concealed in a cupboard. The superintendent said he would like to make a search and to this Dougal readily assented and satisfied the visitor with his bogus tales. It was in October 1902 when a gentleman from the bank came to me and inquired about Miss Holland. I told him what I knew and it was in the same month that another gentleman came to see me as Dougal was trying to get a divorce from his wife who was living with him at the farm and she was also trying to get one from him. Things were working slowly round and in the early part of 1903 detectives were set to watch Dougal who knew that at last the police were on his track. His conduct showed that he was thoroughly alarmed and realized that his desperate game was up. He did not waste an hour. He drew money from a bank at Bishop's Stortford and got some from another bank. Then he hurriedly packed some baggage at the moat farm and bolted. Dougal went to London and set to work to get as much of Miss Holland's money as he could lay hands on and he had already secured a good deal. On March 18th Dougal went to the Bank of England to change some notes. Now it happened that these notes had been stopped and the cashier had Dougal detained till a police inspector came. The inspector arrested him while on his way to the police station Dougal ran off hoping to escape but he dashed down a street with a dead end to it so that there was not much trouble in recapturing him. From that time the police never let him go. Each time he appeared in public he was handcuffed and bail was always refused. It was as a forger that Dougal first appeared in custody and a long case was slowly built up against him. Time after time he was brought to Walden and remanded but it was not the forgery charge that interested people so much as the systematic search which was now being made at the moat farm with the object of finding out what had happened to Miss Holland. The police took possession of the place and for weeks they worked in bitter weather in the most astonishing manner draining the moat going into every nook and crevice of the house and farm buildings and doing all that was humanly possible. Sometimes the men worked up to their wastes in black slime and several times there were narrow escapes from drowning in the perishingly cold spring water of the moat. Discouraging to a degree was the work but there was success at last and that was on April 27th when a policeman who was digging in the ditch came across what proved to be human remains all that was left of Miss Holland. Then it was that the charge of murder was brought against Dougal. I cannot possibly make you realize what a state of excitement the whole countryside was thrown into by the terrible discovery for Dougal by that time had become a very well known man and there had been so much talk about the strange affair and so many explanations of the mystery. Swarms of people flocked to the moat farm full of curiosity to see a place of which so much had been heard and was in itself so very interesting. People drove and rode and walked and the roads were alive with motors, traps, cycles and pedestrians coming from everywhere and making for just one place the moat farm. Whenever Dougal was brought to Walden it was a signal for practically putting up the shutters for there was an entire stoppage of business so intense was the interest which was taken in him. Often enough he was driven past this very house handcuffed and I was mostly at the window to see him go by on his way to the police court. I had to pay many visits too to the moat farm while the inquest was being held. Once when I was at the farm I had to pass through the conservatory a place of which Ms. Holland often spoke when she was living with me because she was very fond of flowers and plants and meant to get some of my own plants to take to the farm. As I passed through the conservatory I saw Dougal sitting in a chair handcuffed and guarded by jailers. He saw me and bent forward and gave quite a polite bow and that was his usual performance whenever we met face to face. I remember so well the last bow he ever gave me. That was when the judge had put on the black cap and was passing sentence of death. I was looking straight at Dougal and I saw that the tears were streaming down his cheeks. He was trembling terribly and gripping the rail in front of the dock. Yet in spite of it all he smiled at me and bowed very politely for the last time. I do not know what was passing through his mind but he could see then he was done. But I am getting on a little too fast. I must go back to the moat farm where I was taken to identify what was left of Ms. Holland. The remains had been placed in the conservatory and terrible though the ordeal was I passed through it successfully for something seemed to say within me go on, go on. By means of clothing which I had made for her and a pair of boots which I readily identified they had been repaired in Walden and Ms. Holland had uncommonly small feet and in other ways I had no difficulty in doing my share in establishing identity. I saw the bullet hole in the skull at the base so that perhaps Ms. Holland never knew what happened. There were many tedious days at the inquest and the magistrates had Dougal before them about a dozen times. Then he appeared at the Shire Hall Chelmsford to be tried for his life by Mr. Justice Wright and a jury. The trial lasted two days and at the end of it Dougal was found guilty and was sentenced to death. A great deal depended on what I had to say and there had been many efforts to trip me up but I never wavered because I had nothing but the truth to tell. I shall never forget Dougal's looks when he was in the dock. He smiled at me now and again as if I was going to say something to his benefit but I did not. I was in a rage and could not help it. When he was sentenced Dougal said he was not guilty but he confessed his guilt just before the hangman drew the bolt. He is buried in Chelmsford prison yard. Ms. Holland is buried in the cemetery here. I brought little Jacko to live with me and when he died a natural death I had him properly stuffed and there he is in the glass case. Here is one of the dresses Ms. Holland used to wear and here is a black cashmere shawl she used to put over her shoulders when she went upstairs. These her nephew gave me as well as her fur cape. And here it is the cape I put on her the day when she kissed me goodbye at the door and I never again saw her alive. End of Chapter 1 The Mote Farm Murder. Recording by Tricia G. Chapter 2 of Survivors Tales of Famous Crimes. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recording are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jules Harlick, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Chapter 2 Henry Wainwright's Crime. 40 years ago a crime was committed which aroused almost as much interest and excitement throughout the country as the poisons by Palmer the Ruggley Doctor. This was the murder of a young millner by Henry Wainwright, a man of considerable standing in Whitechapel Road, London, England. For 12 months Wainwright's crime was not discovered. Then it was sensationally revealed through the medium of one of his former employees and his own folly. Wainwright was convicted at Central Criminal Court on December 1st, 1875 after a nine-day trial before Lord Chief Justice Colleridge. His brother Thomas was found guilty of being accessory after the fact and was sentenced to seven years penal servitude. Henry Wainwright was hanged at Newgate on December the 21st. Mr. J. M. Steele, whose story is here retold, was one of the witnesses at the trial and was called to prove the pawning and redemption of a wedding ring and keeper which belonged to the murdered woman and was found on her mutilated remains. I became acquainted with Henry Wainwright before I saw him in the dock at the Old Bailey being tried for a willful murder. Henry was a fine looking man on the right side of 40. He weighed about 14 or 15 stone and was well built in Jovial, fond of life and more than usually attractive to women. He was the last man in the world you would suspect of being a murderer. He was a married man with five children. His wife was a most respectable, deserving woman. But that did not prevent him from carrying on with other women, a weakness which in the end sent him to the gallows. Henry's conduct made him very hard up through him indeed into bankruptcy and one day there was a fire at number 84. A relative of mine hurried to the rescue, got a ladder, ran up into the upper rooms and saved some books. The very things that Henry did not want to preserve for they gave clear evidence of his position and showed that he mediated arson. A crime of which he would no doubt have been found guilty if he had not been convicted for murder. That is how I first got to know Henry Wainwright. We became on speaking terms and occasionally spent a little time together. And very good company he was too, full of cheerful conversation and always ready with a laugh and a joke. Little did I imagine then that he had committed a murder so dreadful that the revelation of it filled the country with horror. Nobody suspected him of the conduct of which he was undoubtedly guilty. He was highly esteemed in his own circle and was, I believe, a great chapel goer. In those days Whitechapel Road in the neighborhood of London Hospital where Henry lived and did his business was a very different from what it is now. Though many of the old houses are standing and the premises on which the murder was committed are in existence, but altered and renumbered. Life went more easily then and there was not the rush that reigns today. A man like Henry Wainwright could have made a great deal of money comfortably if he had stuck to his business and gone straight. At that time I was 27 years old and a manager to a pawnbroker in a large way of business in Commercial Road, Mr. W. Decker. Those were the days when sailing ships with famous names came home from long voyages and men would hurry ashore with large sums of money, hard earned, which they would recklessly squander. I have known a sailor come ashore with 60 pounds and not have a half penny left next day. The girls and the harpies had got it all. Many were the strange things that were brought to me to pawn evidences of folly on the part of men who so easily fell victim to those who battled on them when they were ashore. Few things are particularly noticed when they are pawned or redeemed and certainly a busy man does not pay attention to such commonplace objects as rings. So I cannot say that I showed undue interest in a wedding ring and a keeper which were pledged on May 20th, 1874. In the name of Anne King of Three Sidley Square, yet that transaction became very material later on when Henry Wainwright, who had called himself Percy King, was being tried for the murder of Harriet Lane, who was known as Anne King, his supposed wife. I had good reason to make myself well acquainted with the pawning episode and all the details of the crime, because from first to last of it I had spent 17 days and a very weary most of them were in and about the courts. We observed at the time a custom which was duly followed in this case to the effect that when a man or a woman wished to pledge anything and refused to give a Christian name, we provided one. In this instance the rings were offered in the name of King. No Christian name was being given and we accordingly recorded the transaction in the name of Anne. It was always Anne for a woman and John for a man. This wedding ring and keeper were pawned then in the name of Anne King. The transaction in itself was too small and commonplace to be remembered by me and I gave no thought to it until September 1875 when a horrible discovery was made in the most extraordinary fashion. A woman's mutilated remains were found in the possession of Henry Wainwright. A very brief examination showed that the remains had been recently severed with some weapon as a chopper and that the woman had been murdered and dead a long time. Wainwright and a girl named Alice Day were arrested and later on Thomas Wainwright a married man was taken into custody. Bit by bit through the inquest the magistrates inquiry and the trial at the central criminal court the whole terrible story was told and as I was associated with the affair from start to finish I will tell you what it all amounted to and how the mystery developed. Harriet Louisa Lane was a young milliner who had served her apprenticeship at Waltham Cross and gone to Whitechapel about the end of 1870. She fell in with Henry Wainwright with the result that a child was born. Henry was at that time in business with Thomas and matters were far from flourishing. The association with the girl was kept up and again she expected to become a mother. She and Henry were passing as man and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Percy King. And there is no doubt that as she did not make any attempt to work at her ordinary business and threw herself entirely on Wainwright she was a very great and growing burden. Henry had to find new lodgings for Harriet and he got them at Mrs. Foster's three Sydney Square very near the spot where there was such a tremendous commotion with anarchists a few years ago. He took Harriet and the two children and a woman who he said was a nurse and arranged for them all to live in the house. He explained that as he was a traveler he would be away a good deal and would not see much of his family. As a matter of fact he was then conducting his business a few hundred yards away and was living in Tragedder Square quite near with his real wife and children. The so-called nurse was a Miss Wilmore who had been a fellow apprentice with Harriet and had gone to live at Sydney Square and to help look after the children on aggrieved terms. Henry never visited Sydney Square after leaving Harriet and the children there. He was getting deeper and deeper into the mire. He became a bankrupt. His liabilities being more than 3,000 pounds apart from a considerable sum which he owed another brother named William. He was being harassed all around and as he was not able to clear off a mortgage he got into heavy difficulties regarding number 215 Whitechapel Road. Meanwhile Harriet needed money very badly and she was determined to have it from the man who had ruined her but he could not always find money to give her and she was reduced to such desperate straits that she pawned almost everything she possessed even to her linen. The first thing she seemed to have pawned was the wedding ring which she bought to me. The fact that Henry was far from being negatively is shown by his contributions to Harriet's maintenance. For while he couldn't afford to do so he allowed her five pounds a week though he had the heavy expenses connected with his own wife and five children to meet. But the time was rapidly approaching when Henry could not give Harriet money at all and accordingly she made her way to one of his shops and was very violent and disagreeable. Wainwright tried to pacify her by sending money by his manager but she was not easily satisfied and once when two pounds had been offered she scornfully threw it on the floor saying that it was only enough to pay the rent which was owing. Altogether Harriet went to the shop about 20 times and on one occasion at least Henry got so desperate that he threatened to murder her. The squalid climate came one night when Harriet went back to Sydney Square the worst for drink and created a disturbance in the street which so badly upset her that Miss Wilmore had to sit up all night with her. The landlady gave Harriet notice to quit but as the poor girl had nothing with which to pay for rent she was allowed to remain two days longer. By that time Henry had managed. I do not know how but it must have been a desperate business to scrape together 15 pounds and this he gave to Harriet who had once paid her rent and debts and for whom Miss Wilmore got things out of the pond. Harriet made herself smart and attractive. Things seemed to be better now. Sydney Square was to be left and a new start made at Stratford where Mrs. Wilmore was to live with the children. On a Friday afternoon it was September the 10th Harriet Lane left Sydney Square carrying only a night dress in a parcel. She was in good health and spirits and there was not the slightest reason for supposing that she meant to do mischief to herself. But from that time she was never again seen alive except by Wainwright. He lured her into number 215, shot her and cut her throat and buried her in the grave in the floor which he had already dug for her. For a whole year, an exact year to the day, I believe the body remained in its awful resting place and Wainwright went about his daily duties more or less as if nothing had happened. Miss Wilmore became alarmed and troubled because of the absence of her friend and she went to number 84 and asked Wainwright what had become of Harriet. Henry was quite prepared with an explanation and said that Harriet had gone to Brighton. But, said Miss Wilmore, how could Mrs. King possibly have gone to Brighton when her sole luggage was only a night dress? Oh, Wainwright told her. Harriet was all right because he had given her money with which to buy clothes. With that explanation, Miss Wilmore had to be satisfied. Following it came in due course a letter from a man who called himself Freike, who had more than once visited Harriet in Sydney Square. The letter said that Freike and Harriet were going to the continent together, that she was making a fresh start in life and was severing her connections with all her old friends. It turned out that Freike was none other than Thomas Wainwright, who was already trying to shield his brother from the consequences of the terrible crime which he had committed. Things were swiftly going from bad to worse with Henry. He was forced to give up possession of number 215 and take a position as manager with a Mr. Martin. This meant that number 215 was put in the possession of caretakers and consequently there was the ever present risk of the awful secret being revealed. Henry must have known, despite all his care and cunning, that his crime would be discovered when the decomposing body in the grave made its presence known. People were in possession of the premises and it seemed as if he would never have the chance to try and take away and destroy the evidence of his guilt. But it happened that number 215 became temporarily uncared for and instantly Henry took steps to carry out a purpose which he must have had in mind for a long time. With the help of Thomas he bought a spade, a chopper, and some American cloth and set to work to remove from the grave the body he had concealed a year before. The body, as it happened, had been buried in chloride of lime instead of quick lime and this had brought about the very result that the murderer desired to avoid. For, instead of destroying the body, it had preserved it. So far, Wainwright had acted cunningly and cautiously. That is shown by his successful concealment of his crime for a whole year. But now he did a thing which a moment's thought would have shown him was equal to putting the rope around his neck. He actually asked a man named Stokes, his former foreman, to go with him to number 215 and help to carry two parcels to the burrow, parcels which were made up of the remains of the murdered woman. On Saturday afternoon, September 12th, Wainwright and Stokes went to the back of number 215 through the yard which is still there and entered the warehouse. Which was about 80 feet long. At Wainwright's request, Stokes went upstairs for the parcels. Then Wainwright called out and said, oh, they're here under some straw where I put them a fortnight ago. This was said doubtless to prepare Stokes for anything unpleasant which he might notice. Stokes returned to the warehouse and noticed a chopper which had some very disagreeable matter on it. Wainwright readily gave an explanation of the state of the implement which he wrapped up in paper and put aside. Then he asked Stokes to take up the parcels. Stokes began to lift them but said that they were very heavy and very disagreeable. By that time, Wainwright must have seen that the game was up but he never faltered in his determination to see the dreadful business through. He told Stokes that he would help him and taking up the lighter of the two parcels, they left the warehouse and walked as far as Whitechapel Church. Then Stokes declared that he must rest and he put his parcel down. So did Wainwright saying that he would fetch a cab and telling Stokes to wait until he returned. As soon as Wainwright had gone, Stokes full of suspicion and terrible curiosity, he still unfastened the American cloth and to his horror found a decomposed human head and a severed hand. He instantly retied the parcel and with astonishing presence of mind gave no sign. When Wainwright came back with a cab five minutes later of having made such a ghastly discovery, the two parcels were put into the cab, a four-wheeler. Then Wainwright told Stokes to go home and he would see him at seven o'clock. But Stokes had learned far too much to be able to leave the matter and he resolved to carry it through to the very end. There is little doubt that his action sent the murderer to the scaffold. Wainwright drove off and instantly Stokes started in pursuit beginning one of the most amazing chases that ever took place in the London streets. Wainwright's intention was to go to the borough but he ordered the cab men to drive in the opposite direction and after travelling some distance with Stokes in pursuit, he stopped and took up a girl named Alice Day, a ballet dancer. Then the cab turned around and began to go towards London Bridge. Wainwright told the driver to go over the bridge and continue till he was told to stop. From beyond the London hospital to the other side of London Bridge is a long distance for a man to run and the roads and pavements were much more difficult to cover 40 years ago than they are today. Stokes hurried after the cab fearful of losing sight of it and he soon began to feel exhausted. He pantingly begged two policemen to stop the cab telling them that there was something badly wrong but incredible as it seems they laughed at him and told him he was mad. Away the cab went, Stokes gamely following until he was over London Bridge. Then, not far from the end of the bridge in High Street, he saw the cab stop and Wainwright get out with one of his awful parcels. Wainwright was making towards an empty place of business called hen and chickens, which his brother Thomas had occupied. And in the cellar of which there was a great mound of earth in which doubtless Henry meant to bury the remains once for all. Two policemen were near and again Stokes called for help. He told them that something was wrong and begged them to take action. This time Stokes did not appeal in vain. Wainwright had gone, got one parcel into the hen and chicken. And was carrying the other from the cab when one of the policemen went up and said, What have you got in that parcel? How Wainwright's soul must have sunk. How his heart must almost have stopped beating. What terrible emotions must have surged through his guilty mind. Yet he was bold enough to answer. What business is it of yours? Why do you interfere with me? It was no good. The other policemen had now come up and they entered the hen and chickens and began to open the first parcel. Then Wainwright's fortitude for Suckham. He begged the constables for God's sakes not to tamper with the parcel. He offered them twenty pounds if they would let him go. Then said he would make it two hundred pounds. But the men had opened the parcels and had seen the dreadful nature of the contents. The policemen told Wainwright that he must go with them. And with Alice Day and the parcels the cab went to the nearest police station. An examination showed that the parcels contained the remains in ten portions of the body of a woman. No time was lost in going to the Whitechapel warehouse and examining the place. Then it was seen that part of the floor at the back was raised and that the boards and joists had been sawn away. Making a shallow grave about five feet long and three feet wide. There was abundant trace of chloride of lime and a chopper and spade were found as well as fragments of human remains. Wainwright had taken the body out of the resting place on the previous day. And with the chopper had rudely hacked it to pieces. He had then tied up the portions in the American cloth. When asked to explain how the remains came into his possession, Wainwright told a clumsy lie. He said that they had been given to him to take to the hen and chickens by a Mr. Martin. Who had promised him five pounds for the job. That tale was easily proved to be false and it was very soon seen that the girl Alice Day knew nothing about the crime. And she was discharged after being brought before the magistrate. She declared in court that though she had been on friendly terms with Wainwright there had been nothing further between them. The next development when Henry had appeared in the police court was the arrest of Thomas Wainwright at his address at Fulham. And finally the two brothers who had such splendid chances of making a good thing out of their business stood in the dock at the Old Bailey. Financially ruined to take their trial for a crime that was to send one of them to a shameful death. Day after day the horrible court was packed by people who ranged in rank from duchess downward for the case had aroused intense and unusual interest. In those days I was very much like stokes in appearance and often enough when we left the court we were followed by great crowds of people. More than once we made them laugh by such simple tricks as exchanging hats. We were pretty cheerful and passed a good deal of our time while waiting to be called in playing cards and drafts and dominoes. In going to the police court trial the witnesses used to pass through rows of policemen so great was the pressure of the people who were eager to get a glimpse of anybody connected to the case. Henry did not strike me as being very much upset at the prospect of the verdict of guilty. I well remember how he laughed when I was recalled after giving my evidence. I had told about the pawning of the wedding ring and keeper and Henry's counsel tried to discredit my evidence because of the use of the Christian name of Anne. The Lord Chief Justice wished to see the original pawn tickets and so I fetched them from Commercial Road. They were on a long file about five feet in length and when I got back into the witness box I began quickly to pull the tickets about to find what I wanted. Good gracious explained the Lord Chief Justice. I thought it was a snake. Everybody in the court laughed and Henry and Thomas laughed as loudly as anybody particularly Henry. Pretty nearly everything came out in evidence but not the real details of the murder for only Henry could give those but it was clear that what had happened was this. Henry decoyed Harriet into the lonely warehouse, shot her in the head from behind with a revolver, fired two more shots and then cut her throat, stripped her and buried her in a grave which he had made in the floor. He burned the clothing in a neighboring grate but left the rings on her fingers. Three shots were heard by some men who were working near and one of them ran out but it was thought that the sounds came from firing by a man who was known to practice with a double barreled gun and no further heed was paid to the matter. How perilously near was Henry to being caught as a red-handed murderer? What would have happened if the men had actually burst into the warehouse? Would he have shot them also or turned the weapon on himself? Who can tell? There was no difficulty in proving the possession of the revolver because Henry had kept one in his desk at number 84 and he had tried to pawn it but he had taken it away because he could not get the advance he asked for. Fifty shillings. There was one fact which was never made public and it was this that the night before the murder Harriet told her landlady that Henry had threatened to shoot her. But no circumstance of that sort was needed to satisfy the jury about the prisoner's guilt. They were absent for less than an hour then they went back into court and Henry was sentenced to death and Thomas to penal servitude for seven years. Henry was hanged four days before Christmas and it is told of him that the night before his execution he smoked a cigar and boasted of his victories over women. Certainly in the dock though he denied the murder he confessed that he had been wickedly immoral. A great deal of sympathy was shown and rightly for Henry's poor suffering wife and the helpless innocent children and a fund of more than 1200 pounds was raised to help them. I do not know what happened to Thomas when he came out of penal servitude but I believe that he had something to do with a public house. Neither do I know what has happened to the other witnesses who were called at the trial. Stokes I believe went into business on his own account helped to some extent by a special grant of 30 pounds which the Lord Chief Justice made to him for his uncommon effort in making the murder known to the police and sending Henry Wainwright to the gallows. End of Chapter 2 Henry Wainwright's Crime Chapter 3 of Survivors Tales of Famous Crimes This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Jules Harlock, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada Survivors Tales of Famous Crimes Edited by Walter Wood Chapter 3 The Sham Baronet The late Lord Brampton who, when he was Mr. Henry Hawkins, appeared as counsel in both the titch-borne trials, paid a compliment to Dr. George Fletcher J.P. in referring to him as a great authority on this famous case. There is no living person who has a deeper knowledge of the titch-borne case than Dr. Fletcher. He came into close association with the claimant. For many days he attended the first trial which lasted 103 days and he was occasionally present during the second trial which lasted 188 days. And finally he examined the mortal remains of the man who, having passed out of public notoriety, died almost starved in a miserable addict off the Edgewood Road in London. Dr. Fletcher tells the story of the greatest impostor who has been known in modern England. The titch-borne case is such an enormous subject that it is uncommonly difficult to know where to start and what to say. But I can begin by explaining briefly that a young officer in the 6th Dragoon Guards, the Carboneers, Roger titch-borne, was drowned in 1854 off the coast of South America at the age of 25. And 11 years later a coarse butcher from the Australian bush turned up and saying that he was the long lost Roger claimed the titch-borne estates which were worth 30,000 pounds a year. It took seven years and two lengthy trials in our law courts to prove that this man was a marvelous impostor and it cost the county half a million sterling to stamp him as a liar. And that was quite irrespective of the enormous sums which were subscribed and lost by deluded people who pinned their faith to the creed that the butcher from the bush was the missing heir to the baronet sea. Throughout the whole of the exciting times of the trial when the titch-borne case occupied the attention of the country almost to the exclusion of every other subject and when people most vehemently took one side or the other my father-in-law was rector of Ovington, a village adjoining the titch-borne estate in Hampshire. I first met the claimant during the autumn of 1867 when I was spending part of the long vacation at Ovington and I saw him several times during the next few years when he was collecting evidence in the neighborhood in favor of his claim. I had therefore many opportunities of forming an opinion of him and seeing what he was really like and a more unpromising impostor in the circumstances. It is almost impossible to imagine. I always did marvel and I marvel now that anyone could have been deceived for a moment as to the real character of the claimant. Roger titch-borne was a gentleman and no matter what his vicissitudes in his early years might have been he would have retained sufficient characteristics to show his breeding and origin but there was no redeeming feature about the claimant. He was thoroughly low-born, vulgar, illiterate fellow, plebeian to a degree and I never saw a sign in him of anything approaching education and refinement. His pronunciation of English was terrible, his accent was pure cockney and very far removed from the speech of an officer in the carabiners. In fact, in all general characteristics, he was hopeless. It is easy for some men, however insignificant their position in life may be, to hold their own in good and decent company. They are adaptable and impressionable to superior surroundings but the claimant was nothing of a sort. He was inherently and incorrigibly common, vulgar and ignorant and remained so from first to last. One of the most amazing things in this astounding case was the dissimilarity between the real Roger and the imposter from the bush. The lost heir was a tall, slim officer of ten and a half stone and a gentleman. The claimant was a hill of flesh, a twenty-five stone monster and a vulgar atrocity. Yet it took seven years to persuade a multitude of people that he was what the Attorney General called him. A conspirator, a perjurer, a forger and a lying imposter. In short, as great a criminal as could be found in the annals of our law courts. Let me briefly review the essential preliminary facts of this unexampled case. They are these. Sir Henry Titchbourne died in 1821 leaving four sons. The eldest Sir Henry died in 1845. The second Edward took the name of Dowdy and was known as Sir Edward Dowdy. He had one daughter, Kate, who was to figure prominently in the great drama. The third son, James, had two sons, Roger, born in 1829 and Alfred, born in 1838. As Sir Edward Dowdy had no sons, Roger, who was to achieve so much post-humanist fame became the prospective heir. He was born in Paris and was brought up entirely in that city until he was sixteen years old. Roger's mother was a bad tempered, weak-minded woman and hated all the Titchbourns so much that she spared no effort to keep Roger away from them and did all she could to bring him up as a Frenchman, the result of her conduct being that young Roger lived in an utterly wretched home. When Sir Henry died in 1845, Roger's father, James, insisted upon taking his son over to the funeral and introducing him as the prospective heir to the relatives. Roger was sent to school at Stonyhurst and there he remained for three years. So ignorant was he of English, speaking only a few words of our language that the boys ridiculed him, calling him Frenchy. Roger, however, progressed and passed from Stonyhurst into the Carboneers. Fortunately, as it happened, his Army examination papers were preserved. In three years, at the end of 1852, Roger sold out from the Carboneers, those being the days of purchasing and selling commissions in the Army. Roger now saw a good deal of his cousin Kate and, naturally enough, he fell in love with her. But the match was opposed and finally was broken off. And there was a sad farewell interview at Titchbourne Park, of which we shall hear later. Deeply grieved by his enforced separation from Kate, Roger determined to go away on a long vacation and in March 1853, he started on a three-year trip around the world. On April 24, 1854, having traveled over a great part of South America, he set sail from Rio de Janeiro for New York in a ship called the Bella. She was overtaken by a terrible storm on the second day. And though wreckage and boats were picked up, not a soul was ever heard of. And the law presumed that Roger was drowned. His will was proved, his brother Alfred became the heir to the estates, and on the death of their father in 1862, Alfred succeeded to the property. Alfred died in 1866 and three months later, his widow gave birth to a son who succeeded to the estates. This baby, represented by his trustees, became the defendant at the first trial. When the claimant tried to secure the estates, the baby became Sir Henry Titchborn, who died in 1910 and was succeeded by his son, Sir Joseph Titchborn, who, now 26 years old, lived at the Titchborn Park. These details will, I think, clearly explain the state of things that arose from the loss of the Bella and the disappearance of Roger. But there was an unexpected development for Roger's mother on hearing of the loss of the ship, was distracted and always somewhat feeble-minded. Her reason gave way and she positively refused to believe that he had perished. She declared that he would soon return and she always kept a light burning Titchborn Park, which is on the high road from Portsmouth to London. But the Dowager Lady Titchborn did more than just wait and mourn. She advertised persistently and extensively for news of her missing son. And in 1865, when the Gold Fever was at its height in Australia, she wrote freely to agents who had offices open for inquiries concerning missing friends. Her advertisements were seen in Sydney and a lawyer named Cubit replied saying that he could probably find her son. He asked her if she was prepared to go to the expanse of sending someone to New Zealand. Of course, the overjoyed lady would pay almost anything and she actually sent 400 pounds. Although no son was ever found for her in New Zealand. But the lawyer had got a good nibble and he was not going to let such a valuable catch go. He had a sort of partner named Gibbs at Wagga Wagga, a little bush town 300 miles from Sydney. And this man happened to see copies of the illustrated London news and the Times containing the advertisement of the languages of the missing Roger. Now there was at Wagga Wagga an enormously fat man named according to the sign over his door, Castro, and he was a butcher. He had come to financial grief and found it necessary to go to Gibbs to be taken through the bankruptcy court. It became his duty to make certain revelations and amongst them was the fact that he had been convicted for horse stealing and had taken the name of Castro on coming out of prison. He had not disclosed to Gibbs what his real name was and Mrs. Gibbs suggested to her husband that this might be the baronet who was advertised for. At this time there returned to Wagga Wagga man named Slade who had been a gardener for some years and he had not only the newspapers with the advertisements in them but also pictures of the titch-borne estate and the butcher Castro meeting him began his amazing career of fraud. Pause for a few moments to get a clear idea of the person who foisted himself off as an English gentleman and heir to an old baronet seat and a rent roll of 30,000 pounds a year. Arthur Orton was born at Wapping in the east end of London in 1834 and was the son of a butcher. As a child he had St. Vitus's dance and for that reason and because there was no school board in those days he received practically no education. As a boy he helped to cut up meat and became an expert slaughter man. The St. Vitus's dance did not improve and the boy went to sea but he deserted his ship at Valparizio and went inland 70 miles to a place called Melapila. For two years he remained there the only Englishman and stayed with a storekeeper named Thomas Castro. In 1851 Orton returned to England in the ship Jesse Miller spent a year at Wapping and kept company with a young woman named Mary Ann Loder. They were both tattooed at Greenwich Fair. How fatal Orton was that tattoo mark to become? Mary had AO tattooed on her arm and long afterwards when the imposter was posing as the heir to the estate she met him and said come now Arthur we're pals you know here's your initials on my arm and there you know pointing to his own arm you'll find AO also but the scoundrel was too cunning to show his arm and he resolutely refused to bear it. Now that tattoo mark AO was on Orton's arm I saw the scar when he was alive and after his death in a miserable poverty stricken the edge were rode. I saw it again when the spot was first seen in public there was a deep recent scar found and on being questioned the claimant calmly said that was where I was vaccinated in France on the opposite arm however I saw the ordinary scars of vaccination and Dr. Guy a prison surgeon told a friend of mine that he saw on Orton's arm when the claimant was in prison the remains of AO deeply bevelled the scar Orton left England in December 1852 in charge of some Shetland ponies and went to Hobart town where he started in business as a butcher in March 1854 he wrote to Mary Ann Loder and his sister a Mrs. Jury and he was not heard of again by his relations except as the claimant after many adventures Orton settled at Waga Waga as Castro he married a servant girl who could neither read nor write and who had to make her mark in the marriage register now began a series of posings and deceptions which are so amazing and ludicrous as to be incredible to a generation like Orton the huge butcher of Waga Waga began to shake his head and mutter mysteriously about his family and property in England in books whenever he got a chance to do so he wrote the name Roger Titchbourne and carved on trees the missing man's initials RCT one day when he was in his veranda smoking a pipe he carved on the bowl the agent Gibbs went up and said come now it's no use disguising who you are any longer I know it full well and there are your real initials Orton clapped his hand over the initials as he exclaimed hush for God's sakes don't utter a sound but did you see did you really see answered Gibbs don't write to your mother at once I shall and so the monstrous claim began and it prospered enormously because of the blind faith that the feeble minded Dowager Lady Titchbourne had in him she advanced large sums of money and unconsciously did everything she could to play into the hands of the claimant and the gang which came together to support the fraud a small band of unscrupulous men must not be confounded with the supporters who honestly but foolishly believed in the claimant for one thing the Dowager wrote to tell the claimant to go to the Metropolitan Hotel in Sydney where he would find Bogle a nigger who was your dear father's servant for 32 years and he will tell you all about yourself tell the claimant all about himself what a wondrous piece of luck when he knew so little of his real antecedents as a gentleman and heir to the Baron at sea the Wagga Wagga butcher packed up took his wife and a newborn babe and in the company of Gibbs drove in state into the yard of the Metropolitan Hotel and seeing a black man in the yard he exclaimed Aloe Bogle is that you the old negro was so greatly puzzled that he saluted the wrong man who curiously enough was about the build of the missing Roger but the claimant was equal to the occasion as he proved equal to many more he prevented any further mistake by throwing his arm around Bogle and saying come now haven't I just altered why yes answered Bogle slowly for even then he must have resolved to be the hoary headed sinner he proved to be yes you have I should hardly have known you and no wonder for Roger when he saw him last was an officer and a gentleman five feet ten inches high and weighing only a little over ten stone and here he was greeted by a butcher of 23 stone from that hour until the conviction of the claimant Bogle never left his newly found long lost master Bogle I should explain had been picked up in Jamaica 40 years before by Roger's uncle Sir Edward Dowdy and had lived at Titchbourne Park with Sir Edward and afterwards with Roger's father so that he knew as much as anybody about the details of the domestic life at Titchbourne and had been pensioned and had gone to live at Sydney where the claimant met him the old nigger threw himself heart and soul and body into the fraud playing like the rest of the conspirators for very high stakes after spending a week in Sydney the claimant and Bogle and others started for England and in due course there began the great attempt to get possession of the Titchbourne Estates in May 1871 the trial began and for 22 days the claimant was in the witness box his side closed on December 21st 1871 and the trial was resumed in the following month when the Attorney General for the defendants spoke for 26 days on the 103rd day of the trial which was March 6th 1872 the jury expressed the conviction that the claimant was not Roger Titchbourne and he was non-suited by that time it was calculated that the law proceedings had cost the estate 92,000 pounds as soon as the civil trial was over the claimant was arrested and taken to Newgate finally on February 28th 1874 after a trial lasting 188 days the claimant was found guilty of perjury and forgery and was sentenced to the severest punishment which the law allowed 14 years penal servitude on October the 20th 1884 the claimant was released on a ticket of leave when you remember that the Attorney General's opening speech at the second trial extended over a period of five weeks and that the judge took six weeks to sum up you will realize that it is impossible to do more than give a very few of the incidences from the thousands that arose in the course of the trial and I will mention only a small number which particularly impressed themselves upon me as I listened to the trial of outstanding interest and importance was the association with the case of Kate Dowdy Roger's cousin and fiance when Roger left Stonyhurst he saw a good deal of Kate who lived with her parents at Titch born Park when the time for parting came Roger who was a Catholic when he returned safely from his wanderings and married Kate he would build a chapel to the Virgin Mary he gave a copy of this bow to Gosford the steward of the estate and it became very famous as the sealed packet a crucial test in the case and another copy he gave to Kate a year after Roger was drowned and all hope of his married Sir Joseph Radcliffe a Yorkshire baronet and was proud and happy mother when 12 years later the sealed package came up in an awful and unexpected manner Kate had kept her own copy but Gosford after Roger's death had destroyed his it was of vital importance to the claimant that he should know the contents of the packet and the question he naturally enough did not even know of its existence he was then living in a small house at Croydon with his family and Bogle and Kate who for 10 years had been Lady Radcliffe had an interview with him can you wonder that she utterly failed to recognize her old lover in the butcher from Wagga Wagga but at the trial this sealed packet thinking Godfrey had destroyed the only copy he said it contained instructions for Gosford to make arrangements for his cousin's confinement and then the scoundrel declared an open court that he had seduced the lady in a plantation in Titchbourne Park but this vile infamous accusation was completely refuted and it was shown that the country at the time the claimant said this thing happened and there was not of course the slightest speck on the fair name of the lady she lived to be 74 years old was the mother of 10 happy healthy children and was beloved and honored for miles around her home in Yorkshire let us look for a moment at the claimant's version of his experiences this illiterate lad from the east end who did not know even the benefits of a board school education when in the box he was shown Roger's own Caesar and asked what language it was in Greek was the prompt and the astounding answer yes Greek to you was the attorney general's quick comment Roger's Euclid papers were shown to the claimant what Euclid was all about fortifications answered the claimant then he was asked if he reached the pawn's ascenarium but it was clear that the claimant had never heard of it any more than he had heard of Euclid so the attorney general helped him by translating and saying that it meant the asses bridge did you ever cross it asked the attorney general the claimant appealed to the judge and asked if he was to be insulted the judge assured him that there was no insult then the claimant was asked where is the asses bridge a mile and a half from Stony Arrest was his prompt reply asked to Stony Hearst I remember that the very first time I spoke to the claimant I said well one thing must go terribly against you if you ever have a jury who went to a public school and they find out of say 300 boys you don't know the name of a single lad in the whole school when I said that I scarcely expected to sit day after day in court as I did and listen to the amazing lies and evasions of the claimant he literally writhed in the box and the perspiration steamed from him one of his choices answers was to the question were you ever in the seminary I wish you were there now replied the badgered claimant who had mistaken the word seminary for cemetery the claimant was asked about his study at Stony Hearst was it in the quad he looked confused and collared suddenly said what is a quad a place where you ought to be almost grown the unhappy victim of the ruthless but perfectly just cross examination finally the claimant was forced into the explanation that a quadrangle is a thing that goes round a sort of staircase can you wonder that long before entering the box the claimant had realized that the desperate game was up while on the way to England Sir Alfred Titchbourne Roger's brother died and a baby was born three months later the baby already referred to writing to the Dowager lady Titchbourne on hearing of the birth the claimant said oh my poor sister-in-law with her husband so recently bereft of corpse I will be generous let her give me I will go back gladly to the bush and the babe and she may have the rest yes indeed by that time he would thankfully have settled the matter forever by the payment to him of one year's income 30,000 pounds but he had gone too far and he knew that if he did not try to face the monstrous imposition through he would be prosecuted he had borrowed heavily on the strength of his claim and the people had subscribed large sums of money to help him one man alone Mr. Guilford Onslow who died in 1882 spent about 15,000 pounds in supporting the claimant without dealing with events strictly in order I will mention one outstanding circumstance to show that there was some excuse for people especially if they had never seen him and that was the recognition of him as her son by the Dowager despite his brazen audacity the claimant dreaded and put off this interview but at last he was forced to meet the Dowager who was living in Paris the inevitable meeting came about but by that time the claimant had shamed illness and instead of going to the Dowager she went to him at his hotel and found him in bed groaning with his face to the wall in a darkened room she tried to embrace him but he kept his face averted and gave her no chance of really seeing him finally addressing two men who had gone with him she said here in your presence I recognize this man is my long lost Roger it was impossible after that to disillusion the poor lady and she was not even influenced by the French tutor of Roger who on seeing the claimant declared instantly and emphatically that it was not and could not possibly be the messing error and that the man was an imposter Roger spoke French like a native but when the tutor addressed the claimant in that language the illiterate fellow of course understand the word he said while his own British dialect was pure cockney of a low type on the point of his education the claimant frequently found himself in trouble on the way to England the captain of the ship and the passengers marveled that a prospective Baronette and an English gentleman should show such an utter lack of education and his defects were commented upon and told them that his education had been neglected because of St. Vitus's dance which was the result of a fire in the servants' hall at Titchbourne Park when he was nine years old a fatal slip of the tongue for Arthur Orton did have St. Vitus's dance at the age of nine caused by a big fire next door to his home at Wapping the real Roger was never in England until he was sixteen years of age though it is impossible to do more than refer to some of the leading incidents in this unparalleled case yet I must not omit to mention one or two of the outstanding people who were connected with it one witness who was called for the claimant was a man named Bajant described in Hawkins reminiscences as the historian of the Titchbourne family who knew more of the Titchbourns than they knew of themselves a man who's cross examination by Hawkins which occupied ten days did more than anything else to destroy the claimant's case another dramatic witness in the case was a foreigner named John Louis who swore that he picked up and the Bella was lost he was quickly proved to be an unconscionable and very clumsy liar for his portrait was seen in a London shop window by two gentlemen who identified him as a man they had employed and were able to prove that in the year in which he said he had picked up the shipwrecked Roger he was at that very time undergoing penal servitude for five years more I will make only one remark about the trials or rather the second of them it was noted for the ruin of the very promising career of Dr. Keenily the claimant's counsel who conducted the defense in such an outrageous manner slandering the judges and witnesses and insulting the jury that he was disbarred and ended Hawkins says of him that at last he was compelled in order to stop his insults to declare openly that he would never speak to him again on this side of the grave and he never did after serving his sentence Orton made a tour of the country lecturing but he had had his day the bubble was pierced and the man sank lower and lower and he freaked out a living as a pot man at low public houses marrying for his second wife the daughter of a poor washer woman in all finally after 12 months extreme poverty and illness he died in a squalid garret and there directly after his death I saw him there is one opinion which I held about the claimant at the time of his death and I hold it now those who believed in him and stood by him to the extent of furnishing him with large sums of money for the purpose of sustaining his preposterous and monstrous claim should at least have helped him in his utter destitution and fatal illness instead of doing that they absolutely ignored him the claimant was buried in Paddington Cemetery no stone marks his grave as it is however readily pointed out by the attendants it is a strange circumstance that the man who had be fooled half the people of Great Britain should have died on all fools day the first of April 1898 end of chapter 3 the sham baronet