The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes

THE CAMDEN TOWN MURDER by Nina Warner Hooke and Gil Thomas

Sir Edward Marshall Hall rejoiced in the title The Great Defender. His full-blooded style was at its best in a case that touched his sympathies and emotions. The Camden Town murder case was one of these, but when he took it on, Marshall Hall’s career was in low water. The year before, in 1906, he’d been overwhelmed by a run of misfortune: his hopes of a political career had been dashed when he lost his seat in Parliament, and a series of clashes with various judges had temporarily shattered and almost destroyed his practice. He needed a big, high-profile case to restore his position at the Bar. In November 1907 it came. “This”, he exclaimed, hurrying into a colleague’s room and throwing a huge pile of documents on to his desk, “is the greatest case I’ve ever had in my life. If you have an idea, however remote or far-fetched, come in and tell me. The man’s innocent, and a chance idea may mean life or death to him.” The papers flung on to the desk were the depositions in the Camden Town murder case. The accused man was Robert Wood. “When the case was over,” reported one of Marshall Hall’s biographers, “the newspapers took the view that the result was a foregone conclusion, but this was far from being true. It was a great triumph for Marshall Hall and English justice.” Its low-life setting in the dingy hinterland of Euston station, a transient world of four-ale bars and seedy sex, offers a lurid, if slightly dog-eared, snapshot of Edwardian London.

Prostitution is a dangerous trade in most western countries and will continue to be so until man throws off the shackles forged by centuries of religious discipline. Christian dogma teaches him to equate sex with sin and eternal punishment. He is taught to be ashamed of his body, not to glory in its beauty and potency; to despise it as the gross expendable husk of a spirit body which will survive it on another plane of existence. His sacred literature makes it clear that human reproductive processes are repugnant to his God who spurned them when He came to earth Himself in man’s shape. It is further impressed on him that, partly by virtue of this attitude, Christian and civilized nations are superior to unenlightened and less fortunate peoples. It is only the heathen who may regard sexual desire as an appetite like hunger and thirst, the satisfaction of which is natural, simple and enjoyable. It is only heathens who may recognize the fact that a man’s virility outlasts a woman’s and make due allowance for it. By a curious and unfair coincidence it is only in such heathen countries that sex crimes are uncommon.

Civilized man’s distrust of the rational is only excelled by his fear of the pleasurable. He still lives in dread of hell fire. The flames have abated slightly but the embers are hot and the pit still yawns. Since he cannot eradicate the erotic impulses of his body and cannot gratify them extra-maritally without incurring moral censure, he drives them deep into hiding. Here, like healthy plants deprived of light, they wilt, become diseased and may mutate into monstrous forms.

The woman who caters for these secret lusts is the easy prey of the pervert, the sadist and the obsessionist who sees in her an amalgam of Eve, the original temptress and the serpent, the devil’s emissary. Driven by remorse and terror he destroys her and is revenged for his banishment from Eden.

The murder of Emily Dimmock, a Camden Town prostitute, in the autumn of 1907 is regarded by criminologists as a classic example of this type of sex crime. It had all the ingredients necessary to titillate a sensation-loving public-a woman killed in her sleep, the discovery of her dead body with its throat cut, the long search for a murderer who had slipped away through the garden, the grief of the woman’s lover who discovered the crime and the eventual arrest of a young artist named Robert Wood who was charged with the murder.

It is a curious feature of the case that widespread sympathy was extended to the accused young man and very little was felt for the victim of the crime. It could be argued that a girl who deliberately leads an immoral life, according to the tenets of our moral code, has abandoned any claim to sympathetic consideration. It is not generally accepted, at any rate in this country, that the prostitute fulfils a useful function without which the incidence of rape and violence towards women would be even worse than it is. Whatever view one takes of this trade no one but a fool would argue that its practitioners are all good or all bad. There are among them harpies in the true classical sense, both vicious and dishonest, who prey on the weakness of men and will cheat them if they can. Emily Dimmock was not one of these. In her own way she did at least give value for money.

Though her Christian names were Emily Elizabeth she was known in the area where she lived and worked as Phyllis. The dreary tenements of Walworth where she was born have produced a genius in the form of Charles Chaplin; but for one Chaplin there are ten thousand Emilys.

She was the youngest of a family of fifteen. When she was still a girl her father removed his brood to Northamptonshire where most of them, including Emily, went to work in a factory. This phase did not last long in her case. Returning to London she went into domestic service at East Finchley, but found the hours too long and the work too hard and before long had taken to the streets. Her new occupation had probably been described to her as offering an easy living. In fact it was not only strenuous but carried with it an occupational hazard which was to cost her her life at the age of twenty-three.

Readers of Patrick Hamilton’s trilogy of novels about the London underworld will recognize in the second volume an almost exact description of Emily and her feckless way of life. [40] It is more than likely that her story formed the inspiration for the character of Jenny Maple. Emily, like Jenny, was neat, slim and attractive, dressed well and had pleasant manners.

She lived in two rooms in St Paul’s Road, Camden Town, an area which had passed through many vicissitudes. Even in the street guides of twenty-five years ago there was no mention either of St Paul’s Road or of near-by Liverpool Street. St Paul’s Road was a thoroughfare running parallel to the main railway line from St Pancras to the north. Within a short walking distance was the Caledonian Road and the old Caledonian Market. Emily was thus well situated for the transaction of her business. She could take a bus from Camden Road to the West End or she could find her clients in the numerous local public houses.

In 1907 the area around St Paul’s Road was a shabby-genteel backwater where rooms were cheap and no questions were asked as long as the rent was promptly paid. The lusty life of the Caledonian Market engulfed it on Tuesdays and Fridays but for most of the week only the clip-clop of horses’ hooves, the cries of children and street traders and the sound of passing trains disturbed the quiet. Prostitutes are not early risers and they prefer quiet neighbourhoods.

Emily shared her home with a man named Bertram Shaw and passed as his wife. Shortly after eleven o’clock on the morning of 12 September an elderly lady called at the house in St Paul’s Road. This was Mrs Shaw. She had travelled from the Midlands to visit her son who, she understood, had recently married. Mrs Stocks, the landlady, told her that her son’s wife was still in bed. They talked together in the hallway for about fifteen minutes until Bertram Shaw returned from work. He was employed as a dining-car attendant on the Midland Railway whose main lines ran to Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield. His hours of work enabled him to catch the seven-twenty a.m. train from Sheffield to St Pancras and to reach his home shortly before eleven-thirty.

After exchanging a few words with his mother and the landlady Shaw went to call Emily. Receiving no answer when he knocked at the door he tried to open it and found that it was locked. He went to the kitchen and borrowed a duplicate key from Mrs Stocks who followed him into the parlour. Evidence of an intruder was all over the room. Drawers had been ransacked and their contents strewn over the floor. The folding doors leading to the bedroom were also locked and the key was missing. Again Shaw knocked and, receiving no answer, broke into the room. The blankets were in a heap on the floor. The sheets covered something on the bed from which a pool of blood had trickled down on to the floor. The room was dimly lighted through half-opened shutters.

Shaw, thoroughly alarmed, rushed to the bed and dragged aside the sheets. To his horror he discovered the nude body of Emily Dimmock lying face downwards. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear.

A search of the room disclosed that some of her personal belongings were missing. A gold watch had gone together with a silver cigarette case bearing Shaw’s initials, a silver chain and a purse. On top of the sewing-machine lay a postcard album from which some of the contents had been torn out and scattered around.

Shaw had taken Emily from the streets to live with him. She had promised to abandon her way of life on the understanding that he would marry her. Why he had not done so was never explained. He had told his mother a lie. Mrs Stocks also was under the impression that the couple were married. It is possible that he never had any intention of keeping his word but had merely acquired cheaply an attractive bed-companion and housekeeper.

Unluckily for Shaw he had provided an excellent cover for Emily to have the best of both worlds. By day she was Mrs Shaw, the respectable married woman. At night she reverted to the life of the streets. There is a supposition that Shaw knew she had returned to her former ways and that he was turning a blind eye while taking advantage of the additional comforts she provided. Shaw, of course, denied any knowledge of Emily’s duplicity and in the absence of evidence to the contrary this must be accepted. His position was both awkward and dangerous. Whatever happened he now had to disclose his real relationship with the murdered girl and could not escape suspicion.

Events moved slower in those days than they do now. There were no police cars with two-way radios. The divisional police surgeon did not arrive at the house until after one o’clock. After examining the body he gave his opinion that the murder had been committed between four and six o’clock that morning. There were signs that the killer had washed himself before escaping through the french windows and across the garden.

Once arrived on the scene the police lost no time in starting their inquiries. During the rest of the day they collected all available information about Emily’s movements on the day before her death. This was Wednesday, 11 September. She had spent much of it on household tasks such as washing and ironing. Presumably Shaw was with her since he left in the afternoon soon after four o’clock to catch his train to Sheffield as usual. Between then and eight-fifteen Emily was seen about the house, dressing herself and curling her hair. One of the garments she put on was a light-brown skirt. Nothing out of the ordinary was heard that night, either by Mrs Stocks or anyone else in the house.

Mrs Stocks got up about five-thirty next morning, knocked on Emily’s door at nine o’clock and, getting no answer, concluded that her tenant was having what she called a “lie in”. Nothing further happened until the arrival of Shaw. Shaw’s movements were checked. His employers confirmed that he had been to Sheffield and could not possibly have got back to London until after Emily was dead.

By the following day, Thursday, the police had an almost complete dossier on the dead woman. She had plenty of men friends apart from her clients, some of whom were regular and some casual. She was young enough and attractive enough to be sure of making a good living; but like so many of her type she was open-handed with her money and was more concerned to have a good time in the present than to save for the future. She was an amusing companion and could play the piano well which added to her popularity in public-house circles. She had once been an inmate of a brothel kept by a man named Crabtree and had lived at many addresses in the Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road area. She had a collection of postcards which had come from many parts of the world, most of them from clients who remembered her and no doubt intended to seek her out again when they returned to England.

Under the name of Phyllis she was well-known at the Rising Sun public house in Camden Town. It was here that the police located their first important witness, a ship’s cook named Roberts. Having been paid off in the previous month he was now spending the last of his money before going back to sea. He had met Phyllis in the Rising Sun, taken a fancy to her and gone home with her on the Sunday night and on the next two nights preceding the one on which she was murdered-at a cost to himself of two pounds and a bottle of whisky. On Wednesday night he slept at a lodging-house since Phyllis said she had another engagement. Roberts’s story was suspicious but his alibi was confirmed by the proprietress of the lodging-house and a fellow boarder. Roberts was thus eliminated from the murder hunt. He was however able to give the police a piece of valuable information. On the Wednesday morning, while he was dressing, he said, two letters were pushed under the door which he picked up and handed to Phyllis. One was a circular, the other a private letter. After reading the letter she passed it to him. He remembered some of the contents, including the opening words:

Dear Phillis [sic],

Will you meet me at the Eagle, Camden Town, 8.30 tonight, Wednesday?

The letter was signed “Bert”. There was a postscript but Roberts had not been allowed to read this. The girl then handed him a postcard which she had taken from a chest of drawers. On one side of it was a picture of a woman embracing a child. On the reverse side was a message:

Phillis darling,

If it please you meet me 8.15 p.m. at the-[here followed a sketch of a rising sun].

Yours to a cinder,

Alice

Roberts noticed similarities between the letter and the postcard. Both were written in indelible pencil by the same hand and both contained the same misspelling of Phyllis. The letter was burnt, presumably because it was signed by a man and would be a dangerous item to leave lying around. The postcard was returned to the chest of drawers, presumably to add to the collection. The signature of Alice made it harmless.

The charred remains of the letter were found in the grate but the postcard did not come to light until Shaw, on packing up to leave the apartment, found it under a sheet of newspaper lining one of the drawers. Roberts identified it as the one he had seen on the Wednesday morning.

Owing to the nature of the crime and the mysterious circumstances in which it was committed the case received wide publicity while the investigation was going on. A leading article in the Daily Chronicle reflects one aspect of public opinion:

To the moralist and every serious-minded citizen who considers the state of society, how terrible are the sidelights which the case throws on life in London. Of scandals in high life we often hear much, and the publicity which they attract is perhaps out of proportion to their proper dimensions. Here we have the limelight thrown on scandals in low life and it is a saddening and sickening spectacle that is revealed. How awful is the picture of the murdered woman-“the lowest of the low” as she is called-passing at the end of the week as the wife of one man and for the rest of it consorting promiscuously, ending with her throat cut by some stray companion. Englishmen are proud of their civilizing mission in the dark countries of the world. We are not among those who would ridicule or discourage such work, but is there not some civilizing to be done nearer home? There are savages, as we call them, who would be ashamed to live the life that is led by some in Camden Town.

Despite this editorial exhortation it would seem that things have changed little in this neighbourhood in the last sixty years. It is not long since the murder of a newspaper reporter by a gang of louts on the fringe of Camden Town.

The most important clue so far was the postcard with the sketch of the rising sun, but it did not go far towards solving the mystery, since there was no means of identifying the writer. The Commissioner of Police enlisted the cooperation of the Press in this matter. In the album found in Dimmock’s bedroom were other postcards written in the same handwriting and it was obvious that the writer had been a regular associate of the dead girl. The postcards, four in all, were circulated to the Press. The News of the World was quick to take advantage of this circulation booster. This newspaper used a facsimile of the Rising Sun card over the bold caption: “Do you recognize this handwriting?” A reward of £100 was offered for information.

Among the readers of this popular Sunday paper was a young woman named Ruby Young. She called herself an artist’s model but in fact followed the same profession as Emily Dimmock, though possibly in a somewhat higher class. She recognized the handwriting on the postcard and wrote a letter to the newspaper attaching the cutting. But she never posted it. That same evening she had a visitor, a young artist and an ex-lover of hers whose name was Robert Wood.

Wood was in a responsible position as an artist-engraver in the glass works of Messrs J. R. Carson of Holborn. His father was a Scot who had worked for a quarter of a century as a compositor on the Scotsman. Wood’s boyhood was normal and unremarkable save for the marked artistic talent that he showed at an early age and which was encouraged at the church school he attended. When he grew up he took a job as an assistant steward at the Medical Students Club in Chancery Lane where he was frequently asked to draw medical diagrams and copy illustrations from technical papers. When the club was disbanded owing to financial losses Robert Wood went to Carson’s and rose steadily in the firm. His character was excellent. He was good-natured and kind-hearted and everybody liked him. His work attracted the attention of the great William Morris who gave him personal encouragement and advice.

But Wood had a weakness for low company. His friendship with Ruby Young had developed into a love affair. He apparently had no objection to the girl’s mode of life which was continued after they became lovers. Ruby at one time lived quite near his home at King’s Cross but moved with her mother to Earl’s Court. Wood found the journey somewhat tiresome and began to meet her less frequently. The break in their relations came when Ruby heard that he was associating with other women. In July they had a serious quarrel. Their next meeting was a chance one in the street in August after Wood had returned from a holiday in Belgium. After this casual encounter they made no further arrangements to meet. But on Friday, 20 September, a week after the murder of Emily Dimmock, Ruby received a telegram from Wood asking her to meet him at the Phit-Eesie shop in Southampton Row. This had been their former rendezvous. Ruby kept the appointment. Directly they met, and almost before they had exchanged greetings, Wood said, “Ruby, I want you to help me. If any questions are ever asked you by anyone, will you say that you always saw me on Monday and Wednesday nights?”

This was an odd request to make from a girl who had been treated somewhat shabbily. Ruby was justifiably curious and a little annoyed, particularly since he refused to give her any explanation. However after a good deal of argument she consented to the request and they parted. Wood next called on a friend of his who was employed by a bookseller in Charing Cross Road. This man, whose name was Lambert, had been in the Eagle public house opposite Camden Town Station on the Wednesday before the murder. He had seen Wood there accompanied by a young woman with her hair in curling pins who apologized for her untidiness, saying she had “just run out”. When Lambert inquired what had brought him to a public house he did not normally visit Wood replied that he had business to attend to. When Lambert left Wood had remained behind with the girl.

Lambert now guessed that the girl must have been Emily Dimmock and this was confirmed when the purpose of Wood’s visit to the bookshop emerged. Wood had come to ask him to say, if questioned, that they had had a drink together but not to mention the girl. “I can clear myself,” he said, “but I don’t want it to come to my father’s ears.”

During the following week Wood took Ruby to a theatre and on the way home reminded her of the promise she had given him: “Don’t forget now. Mondays and Wednesdays.”

There were further meetings and a lot of discussion before they finally concocted a plan. Ruby Young said: “The best thing for me to do is to say that I met you at six-thirty at Phit-Eesie’s and we had tea at Lyons’ Café, and after tea we went down Kingsway to the Strand and on to Hyde Park Corner. Then we’d better say we walked along the Park out to Brompton Oratory and got there at half past ten. We’ll say that we parted there and that you went back by tube to King’s Cross and got home before midnight.” Wood agreed to this whole-heartedly.

They met several times during the ensuing week and each time Wood reminded Ruby of her promise. She was by now getting thoroughly irritated as well as worried and she repeated that she would keep her word. “But don’t keep bothering me. It’s getting on my nerves.”

Ruby Young was a most unsuitable ally in a cloak and dagger plan of this sort, for she could not keep a secret. She confided her worries to a girl friend. The friend repeated the story in confidence to a reporter on the Weekly Dispatch. The newspaper informed Scotland Yard and Inspector Neill, who was in charge of the case, was sent to interview Ruby Young. The outcome was that she went to meet Robert Wood with the Inspector in attendance and as she shook hands with her former lover he was taken into custody. After an identification parade on 5 October, when he was identified by a number of people as having been seen in the Eagle on the night of the murder in Emily Dimmock’s company, he was formally charged with her murder.

From the time of his first talk with Arthur Newton after delivery of the brief, Marshall Hall was convinced of Robert Wood’s innocence. But the task of formulating a defence in the face of Wood’s tissue of lies about his whereabouts on the night of the crime needed all his ingenuity and the painstaking assistance of his colleague Wellesley Orr.

Marshall was well aware that a great deal hung upon the outcome of this case not only for his client but for himself. It was the most important criminal trial that had come his way since his fortunes began to mend. He needed to test his newly restored confidence in an arena lit by the full glare of publicity and he was determined to make the utmost of this opportunity.

Not least among the many difficulties with which he had to contend was Wood’s peculiar behaviour. Marshall formed the opinion that he had a dual personality. He was certainly abnormal in one respect for he seemed unable to comprehend the appalling situation he was in. Wellesley Orr considered that the evidence of the ship’s cook was of great importance. He also felt that Wood must be called in his own defence. Marshall Hall opposed this, believing that because of his obvious abnormality he would make an unreliable witness. But Orr insisted that if Wood were not called he would certainly hang. Marshall had still some lingering doubt as to whether he could, or should, trust his own judgment and allowed himself to be overruled. Accordingly the form of declaration he customarily used in such eventualities was sent to Wood who signed it, thereby giving his consent to be called.

The trial opened at the rebuilt Central Criminal Court on Thursday, 12 December, before Mr Justice Grantham. Sir Charles Mathews, K.C. appeared for the prosecution assisted by Archibald Bodkin and L. A. Symmons. Marshall Hall led for the defence with Herman Cohen, Huntly Jenkins and J. R. Lort-Williams.

Marshall had had few cases which looked more hopeless at the start. He had also had few which offered more scope for his particular brand of shrewd, lucid and hard-hitting advocacy. He did not make the mistake which a lesser man might have done. He did not say, “Wood must be innocent because X is guilty.” He maintained throughout the trial that there was insufficient evidence to convict anyone. He was thus absolved from defending one man by accusing another and in consequence had a freer hand.

Mathews opened quietly and reasonably, making the most of Wood’s futile efforts to cover up his association with the dead woman. The main point he brought out was the similarity of the handwriting on the Rising Sun postcard and the charred letter found in Dimmock’s room. If the evidence of Roberts was to be believed Wood had arranged to meet Emily at the Eagle on the night she was murdered. The curling pins seen in her hair on the Wednesday night were still there when her body was found. The inference was that Wood intended to kill her either on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning and arranged to meet her at a place where he was unlikely to be recognized. The hair curlers indicated that she was going to meet someone she knew very well. The Crown also relied on the evidence of another witness, McCowan, who said he had seen Wood in the area of St Paul’s Road at the time when, according to the medical evidence, the crime had been committed. Mathews stressed the importance of this evidence. At the identity parade the witness had unhesitatingly picked out Wood by his walk. Corroboration of the fact that Wood walked with a nervous jerk or twitch of the shoulder came from Ruby Young.

Mathews gradually built up his case into a formidable indictment against Robert Wood. The state of the apartment, he said, when the murder was discovered showed that Wood had gone to considerable lengths to find and destroy the Rising Sun postcard. The shutters had been half opened to admit light. Why had the murderer wasted valuable time looking through the postcard album unless it contained something of an incriminating nature? The articles which were missing had obviously been taken to provide a robbery motive for the crime; but if robbery was indeed the motive why had more valuable articles been left behind?

The case against Wood, although circumstantial, was strong. Great care in the handling of the defence was needed. Marshall Hall scored his first point when dealing with the street plan prepared by Sergeant Grosse. The inference to be drawn from this plan was that St Paul’s Road was in a brilliantly lit area. Under cross-examination the sergeant admitted that the street lights were extinguished at four thirty-seven a.m. Marshall saw the opportunity he needed and asked:

“If that is so, they would be useless for lighting purposes at five minutes to five?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think this is a fair plan?”

“I do.”

“I put it to you, have you ever seen a more misleading plan in your life?” No answer.

“Would not anybody, looking at this plan, come to the conclusion that the light was reflected upon the front of 29 St Paul’s Road?”

“Not on the front of the house, but in the neighbourhood.”

“You know the electric standard lights were extinguished at four thirty-seven on the morning of 12 September?”

“Yes.”

“You know it was a dark, muggy morning. If the electric standards were extinguished at that time they would be useless for any purpose of light at five to five?”

“Yes.”

“Is it not the case that, this being so, you have been specially asked to prepare a map that would show, as your evidence suggests, a sufficiency of light coming from the railway cutting forty feet below the road?” No reply.

“If it was a drizzly, thick, muggy morning, the refracting and reflecting power of the arc lights would be at a minimum, would they not?”

“Yes.”

“Is there, at the railway bridge, a wall nine feet high? High enough to prevent me, for instance, from seeing over?”

“Yes.”

“Is that wall shown on the map?”

“No, it was not necessary.”

By this forceful questioning Marshall Hall was able to cast doubt on the veracity of the police in relation to the street lighting at the time Wood was said to have been seen in St Paul’s Road. His purpose was to challenge the identification of Wood by other witnesses, and it was a move both shrewd and subtle.

Much has been written about Marshall’s talent as an orator. But less attention has been paid to his ability to elicit by clever questioning the priorities in a line of reasoning. He was faced with the fact that no other suspect in the case had both the means and the opportunity to commit the crime. He had to break one by one the links in the chain of evidence against his client.

Roberts, the ship’s cook, was the next witness. In his cross-examination it is fascinating to see how the man is manoeuvred into a difficult position and forced to admit that he might have invented his story.

“Do you know a woman named May Campbell?”

“By sight, yes.”

“Have you ever spoken to her?”

“Yes.”

“Did you talk about the case?”

“It was talked of all over the place.”

“Did May Campbell give you a description of someone who, she said, was known as a friend of Dimmock?”

“Yes.”

“And did that description correspond very much with the description of the accused?”

“It tallied very much.”

“So you could have picked him out from May Campbell’s description?”

“Not unless I knew him.”

“Was the description, published in the newspapers on 22 September of the man who was wanted, and which was described as official, very like the description Campbell gave you?”

“Yes.”

“Was the description: ‘Age twenty-eight to thirty. Height five feet seven inches. Sallow complexion. Dark hair. Clean shaven. Peculiar difference about eyes’?”

“Something like it.”

“Almost word for word, was it not?”

“Yes.”

“Did she add: ‘Pimples on lower part of face and neck’?”

“She said something about pimples. Pimples do not always stay there.”

“Do not argue. Were you not in a great fright when you heard of the murder?”

“No, I was not in any fright.”

“When you heard of the murder did you realize that except for the murderer-”

“That I was next to him.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, I realized that. That is why I stopped at the Rising Sun when I heard of the murder. I said I would stop all night until the police came.”

Having strengthened his attack on the question of identification by suggesting that Roberts and May Campbell had acted in collusion Marshall turned to the charred letter Roberts claimed to have read.

“How could anybody writing that on the Tuesday write ‘tonight’ for Wednesday?”

“You generally write that way to let a person know.”

“Do you usually, when writing on a Tuesday to make an appointment for a Wednesday, write ‘Meet me tonight’?”

“I do not.”

“I put it to you that that piece of burned paper is a fragment which might have come from anywhere and which never came through the post.”

“It did.”

“Where did the name ‘Bert’ come from?”

“I tell you it was written.”

“If the object had been to put suspicion on Shaw, the suggestion would have been very useful?” No answer.

At this point Sir Charles Mathews interrupted to ask if Marshall Hall were accusing Roberts of the murder.

“Most certainly I am not,” said Marshall.

The second day of the trial produced further proof that Marshall had fully regained his skill in cross-examination. Confidently and ruthlessly he discredited three of the Crown’s witnesses by making them so confused that the evidence they gave was worthless. One of these was the man McCowan, on whose statement that he had seen Wood coming out of 29 St Paul’s Road on the morning of the murder the prosecution placed great reliance.

With Ruby Young Marshall dealt more gently. She had incurred general resentment by her betrayal of Wood for, it was alleged, the reward offered by the News of the World.

“Have you ever thought that, having regard to the evidence of Doctor Thompson who places the time of the murder at three or four in the morning, the alibi arranged with you from six-thirty to ten-thirty on the evening previous to the murder would be a useless alibi for the murder but a perfect one for the meeting of the girl?”

“It did not strike me then that it was a useless alibi.”

“But it does now, does it not?”

“Yes, it does now.”

Some accounts of the trial pinpoint this question as the foundation of Marshall Hall’s defence, on the grounds that the ineffectual alibi proved Wood’s ignorance of the time the girl had been murdered. But it proved nothing of the kind. Medical evidence as to the time of death is not completely reliable even today with all the advances in forensic science. In 1907 methods were far more haphazard and less account was paid to the factors governing the onset of rigor mortis and blood coagulation. It should be borne in mind that the crime was committed during one of the hottest weeks of the year. The heat in Dimmock’s bedroom was attested by the fact that all the bedclothes save the sheets had been pushed on to the floor. It is by no means impossible that she had been killed much earlier than the time estimated.

It seems to us that the real foundation of the case for the defence was Marshall’s destruction of the evidence of identification. Without positive identification of Wood as the man seen leaving the house in St Paul’s Road early in the morning after the crime was committed, the Crown’s case was purely circumstantial. He had gone to enormous trouble to challenge Sergeant Grosse in the matter of street lighting, had walked the whole area himself and had studied the properties of light in relation to atmospheric conditions.

The intention of the Crown was to prove, if possible, that Wood and Dimmock were acquainted before 6 September when Wood claimed they had first met. To this end a number of witnesses were called to show that the two had been on close terms for some eighteen months before this date. They were respectively a man named Crabtree, a brothel keeper, who said that Wood visited the girl when she lived at his house; another man, named Lyneham, who had seen them regularly in the Rising Sun; a woman, Mrs Lawrence, who had seen them together in another public house, The Pindar of Wakefield; and a second woman, Gladys Warren, who had not only seen them together on many occasions but could give specific dates. Marshall Hall weakened the value of their evidence by exposing their bad characters. But the character of these witnesses was not important. Their statements were; and since they were unknown to each other they could not have acted in collusion.

Towards the end of the fourth day Marshall Hall submitted to the judge that there was no case to answer. But he was overruled. The main points of his opening speech for the defence were: the absence of positive identification, the absence of motive and the absence of a weapon. He dismissed the false alibi concocted with Ruby Young as the misguided act of a young man wishing to conceal his double life from his family. He drew attention to the fact that Wood’s father and brother confirmed that he had spent the night of the murder at home. He called the charred letter an invention of Roberts’s to divert suspicion from Roberts to Shaw. He agreed that McCowan had seen a man leaving the house in St Paul’s Road but this man was not Wood. He would call several witnesses to prove that Wood had no peculiarities of gait.

Wood, called in his own defence, was a thoroughly bad witness. He seemed incapable of giving a straight answer to a question. When asked by Marshall Hall, “Robert Wood, did you kill Emily Dimmock?” he smiled and said nothing at all. The question was repeated.

“You must answer.”

“I mean, it is ridiculous,” was Wood’s reply.

“You must answer straight.”

“No, I did not.”

Throughout the examination he was the despair of his counsel and even Sir Charles Mathews, then at the height of his powers, could do little to break through his apparent indifference. He seemed to be regarding the proceedings as an observer rather than a participant, making sketches of the personages involved in the trial-including the judge, Mathews, Ruby Young and himself. The salient point of Mr Justice Grantham’s summing up was the statement: “In my judgment, strong as the suspicion in this case undoubtedly is, I do not think the prosecution has brought the case near enough home to the accused.”

In the face of this clear direction the jury could do nothing else but bring in a verdict of “Not Guilty”.

There was no doubt that Marshall Hall had scored a great triumph. In the words of Basil Hogarth:

It was a splendid defence, the production of a marvellous forensic technique, and in architectonic structure Marshall Hall himself never improved on it. There was not a question that had not its appropriate answer, not a doubt but had its resolution. [41]

There were cheers in court on Wood’s acquittal and the streets around the Old Bailey were packed with excited people. Mrs Beerbohm Tree rushed on to the stage of a West End theatre to announce the verdict. In contrast, there was universal vilification of Ruby Young who had to be smuggled out of the Court disguised as a charwoman to save her from a mob who would have lynched her. Seldom in the annals of our legal history has the hysterical sentimentality of an English crowd gone to such lengths.

Looking back from a distance of almost sixty years it would seem probable that this public demonstration, ostensibly of sympathy for Robert Wood, was in point of fact adulation of Marshal Hall, his saviour and deliverer. After this there could be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Marshall was restored to his old eminence and popularity.

It is significant that when he first accepted the brief he was absolutely convinced of Wood’s innocence. But many years afterwards, on one of the rare occasions when he discussed his work with his daughter Elna, he told her that he had since reversed his opinion.

It certainly seems odd to the student of this baffling case that Wood should have been at pains to conceal his association with Dimmock from his family when they must have known about his friendship with Ruby Young-whose mode of life was much the same. Again, it cannot be ignored that the murderer, whoever he was, searched through the postcard album looking for something he suspected to be there, something which might incriminate him, and which could not have been anything else but the Rising Sun postcard. Marshall Hall’s theory that the charred letter found in the bedroom grate existed only in Roberts’s imagination was generally unsupported. Wood’s own explanation of it was totally unbelievable. He said that the fragments were of some sketches and writings of his which Emily had appropriated. In that case, what was her reason for burning them-especially in the presence of Roberts? They were quite innocuous, according to Wood.

Out of this jumble of admission and denial, charge and countercharge, only one thing emerges plainly, that Robert Wood was the only possible suspect once Roberts and Shaw had been eliminated. He had the opportunity, but what was the motive? Poor little Emily Dimmock represented no danger to him. Her few belongings were hardly worth stealing, even had he been so short of money as to contemplate robbing her. It is most unlikely that he was in love with her and swayed by jealousy. One is thrown back on the suggestions of a schizoid personality and a long association with Dimmock as a regular client. Given these factors, it is not difficult for anyone familiar with the elements of psychopathology to visualize a possible sequence of events-the young man of unblemished reputation in his own circle, with his church school education and repressive Scottish upbringing, waking in the small hours in a sleazy bed beside a woman who meant nothing to him and to whom he was merely a customer for the night, the uprush of shame and disgust and the uncontrollable impulse to destroy the partner of his guilt. But here again one is faced with an insoluble problem. If the crime was the result of a sudden impulse to violence he would not have had with him the means to commit it. It takes a very sharp blade to cut a woman’s throat so savagely that her head is almost severed. Shaw’s two razors were in the bedroom, but it was established through microscopic examination that neither of these had been used.

From that day to this the Camden Town murder has fascinated criminologists, both amateur and professional, but they are no nearer a solution than the clientele of the Rising Sun who discussed it so avidly during that sultry autumn of 1907.

Ernest Raymond used it as the theme of a novel, [42] inventing for his murderer the character of an elderly lover of Dimmock’s who met her by appointment after she left the Eagle on 12 September, and went home with her.

Someone else has advanced an ingenious theory whereby Shaw, by catching an earlier train and jumping from it while it was halted outside St Pancras Station, could have walked into the house, guessed what Emily had been up to and killed her in a wave of jealous fury. This of course presupposes that Shaw had previously been ignorant of Emily’s activities, which is not very probable. Returning as he did each morning to a disordered room, to a bed in which the girl often lay sleeping off the weariness of the night’s business in soiled and rumpled sheets, he must have been blind if he did not know what had been going on. Undoubtedly he knew about and condoned Emily’s trade for the sake of the benefits it brought him; in which case to kill her would be killing the goose which laid the golden eggs.

Was there anyone who had the means, the opportunity and a possible motive? If so, it must have been someone who had access to the house or lived in it. It is worth considering the other inmates of 29 St Paul’s Road. There was another lodger, a Mrs Lancaster who rented the upper floor. Mrs Stocks, the landlady, lived in the basement, and Mrs Stocks had a husband, a railway carriage cleaner. Stocks said in evidence that he heard nothing unusual on the night of the murder. He had wakened at five o’clock when the alarm went off but had fallen asleep again.

This is interesting because it argues a break in pattern. He had to report for duty at the railway yard at five-thirty and had done so for many years. If he had been liable to oversleep, in those days he would have got the sack for unpunctuality. Why did it happen on that particular morning? Had he perhaps had a disturbed night? Both he and his wife deposed at the trial that they knew nothing of Dimmock’s nocturnal activities. She was out every evening and seldom returned before they had gone to bed. Whether they slept in the back or the front room of the basement it seems impossible that they could have been ignorant of what was taking place in their house. Emily Dimmock had lived there some eight or nine weeks.

If in fact Stocks did know the truth about her, who knows what thoughts may have passed through his head? He might have made advances himself and been repulsed. Did he lie abed listening to the comings and goings overhead and brooding on forbidden joys, the resentment burning and boiling in him till it erupted into action? Possibly. But although McCowan’s identification of Wood had been discounted by Marshall Hall under cross-examination, the man could not be shaken on the point that he had seen someone leave the house early on the morning of the murder-someone who presumably lived elsewhere. But again, this could have been some chance caller, a client of Emily’s returned from abroad, who entered the house in the usual way, knocked on her door and, obtaining no answer, went out again. In any event the front door was not the only means of access. Emily’s room had a french window that opened on to the garden and formed a convenient entrance for those of her clients who preferred to visit her surreptitiously. In hot weather the french window was sometimes left ajar. The murderer could have come and gone unseen by McCowan or anyone else.

When all the possibilities have been eliminated, only the impossible remains. One theory that has not so far been advanced is that Emily Dimmock was killed not by a man but by a woman. It does not require any great strength to sever a throat with a sharp instrument. The fact that no murder weapon was found on the scene argues that the crime was premeditated. Jealousy is the motive that therefore springs to mind. The trouble between Robert Wood and Ruby Young had begun when she found out that he had been associating with other women. There were presumably others besides Emily Dimmock, and Ruby may not have been the only jealous one. One can theorise indefinitely but in the end one is thrown back on the fact that, circumstantial though it was, the Crown’s case against Wood was defeated only by the exceptional brilliance of the defence put up by Marshall Hall.

Up to a few years ago Robert Wood was alive and living in Australia. Many of the sketches that he made in court and in prison remain in this country. They are proof of exceptional talent, but what do they tell us of the enigmatic personality of the artist? Preoccupation with the symbol of the rising sun is obvious in one. But in the other the sun is not rising. It is setting. Of what state of mind is this brilliantly executed and imaginative picture indicative? The old man, moribund, lying in the snow, the desolate scene, the forlorn and shivering dog and the stark caption Silence- what would a psychologist have made of this? There were no psychiatric experts in 1907. Perhaps this was as well for Robert Wood.