The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes

[1] W. H. Auden, The Guilty Vicarage, reprinted in The Dyer’s Hand (Faber and Faber, London, 1948)

[2] Wendy Lesser, Pictures at an Execution (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1993)

[3] Thomas de Quincey, On Murder Considered As One of the Fine Arts (Blackwood’s Magazine, London, 1827)

[4] Thomas de Quincey, ibid.

[5] J. B. Atlay (ed.), The Trial of the Stauntons (Wm. Hodge, Edinburgh, 1911)

[6] John Dryden (1631-1700), Mac Flecknoe (1684)

[7] Rebecca West, Mr Setty and Mr Hume in A Train of Powder (Macmillan, London, 1955)

[8] Educated at Charterhouse and Oxford, Vickers (18881-1965) was a journalist and author of more than seventy novels.

[9] Who wrote the lyrics of Thompson’s campaign song “Big Bill the Builder”.

[10] In some areas of the US and overseas it was called Super Dad. We will refer to it by its shorter title.

[11] I discovered this myself by experiment.

[12] During the Eastbourne hearing Superintendent Hannam reported that he had mentioned his concern over the number of legacies received from patients to the doctor. The reply had been: “A lot of these were instead of fees. I don’t want money. What use is it? I paid £1,100 super-tax last year.”

[13] The Crown cannot have been entirely satisfied with its case. After the doctor’s arrest, they exhumed two more of his former patients about whose deaths suspicions had been entertained. The deaths were found to have been entirely natural. Of course, this fact was never brought out in evidence.

[14] There was a further indictment, for the murder of Mrs Hullett. However, no attempt was made (as there had been at the Eastbourne hearing) to introduce it. Evidently the Crown had no wish to burden itself with the obligation of proving “system”.

[15] See All the Year Round, 29 June 1867, and Celebrated Crimes, by Alexandre Dumas.

[16] Bassardus Visontius (ant Philos) commends to one troubled with heart-melancholy “Hypericon or St John’s Wort” gathered on a Friday in the hour of Jupiter, “When it comes to his effectual operation (that is about the full moon in July); so gathered, and borne or hung about the neck, it mightily helps this affection and drives away all phantastical spirits.” (Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, Part II., sec. 5.)

[17] Bertrande was now just twenty years old.

[18] Arnold Tilh had mysteriously disappeared about the same time as Martin Guerre.

[19] In addition to this rather damning testimony, it was known that the youthful Martin Guerre had been a good swordsman and could speak Basque, his father’s native tongue, whereas the accused had been proved to be a poor swordsman and to be utterly ignorant of Basque.

[20] This statement is important as disposing of one of the defence theories as to the cries, namely, that they were those of the boatman and Mr Kirwan, calling for his wife during their search for the missing lady.

[21] So cries from one end of the island were audible at the other.

[22] The case of Dr Pritchard in 1865 affords a sufficient answer to this argument. During the four months in which he was torturing his wife to death the doctor habitually slept with her, and she died in his arms. At the funeral he caused the coffin to be opened that he might kiss her for the last time.

[23] In fact the Court was the Court of Crown Cases Reserved which had jurisdiction under the provisions of the Statute 11 & 12 Victoria, c. 78.

[24] These gentlemen had not the advantage of inspecting the body or of hearing the evidence. The “testimony” on which they rely was, as we shall see, not “sworn”. It is also to be noted that Mrs Crowe says nothing about the manner of her husband’s death.

[25] This is the “sworn testimony” which weighed with the ten physicians. It is remarkable that Mr Kirwan omitted at the inquest to mention these seizures, and that he did not instruct his counsel to adduce at the trial evidence of such importance.

[26] See his Rogues Walk Here, pp. 259-85 (Cassell, 1934).

[27] So called because it was built on the land of Dr Lay: his son succeeded him as village doctor and gave evidence at the trial. The chapel was subsequently disused for religious purposes and was used as a schoolroom for the doctor’s children.

[28] It does not appear who Bob was and no witness at the trial possessed this Christian name. It appears from my own inquiries, half a century later, that he was not one of Rose’s five brothers.

[29] Evidence of James Rickards: this clearly refutes any suggestion of serious delay on the part of the police.

[30] But I am told that it is not the practice in Peasenhall to eat rabbit except between the months of October and February since their meat, when they are “struck”, produces intestinal disorders. At the trials Gardiner agreed that the rabbit was inedible and had to be buried.

[31] But, according to local tradition, Gardiner had a “pepper-and-salt” suit that was committed to the flames, together with his third shirt. Unfortunately Mr Stammers, who rejoiced in the local style of “Old Hardeye”, could not see what was burned that morning.

[32] This seems to be corroborated by Gardiner’s second letter to Rose.

[33] I find that his lordship told the jury that tried Chapman in March 1903, “This case is unique, not only from a medical point of view or a chemical point of view, but also unique from a legal and criminal point of view.” When trying Robert Wood of Camden Town in December 1907 he told the jury “You have been engaged in one of the most remarkable trials that is to be found in the annals of the Criminal Courts of England for many years-certainly the most remarkable in my time, which has not been a short one.” Such words certainly flattered the vanity of the jury and, it may be, the vanity of the man who uttered them.

[34] The theory is open to the objection that no person in his senses would seek to burn a body with one newspaper and a tiny bottle of paraffin, but presumably the intention was to incinerate the girl in her bed, for which purpose there was sufficient to start a fire. It is doubtful if Gardiner ever realized that his name was on the bottle, but in any case he may have lost his head when Rose screamed, for fear the Crisps should come down to investigate. In 1946, one Arthur Clegg threw a baby in the Thames after carefully removing all clothing to avoid identification: he forgot the existence of a tape round its wrist which had been attached in hospital to prevent confusion: the tape bore the words “Baby Clegg” and its grandfather paid for his negligence on the scaffold.

[35] Presumably a brother-in-law of the accused, whose wife’s maiden name was Cady, a point that has previously been missed and which was not taken at the trial.

[36] In fairness to Gardiner, it must be conceded that his other shirt was dirty and ostensibly of the previous week. In his summing up, the judge said cryptically, “The accused had had a clean shirt on that morning, and how, after a fortnight’s wear, that could be managed, I do not know.” Mrs Gardiner washed fortnightly.

[37] Speaking of Davis, Wild had earlier observed, “If ever you wish to minimize the importance of a man, you call him a lad: he is twenty.”

[38] B. Leeson: Lost London (Stanley Paul). Mr Leeson left Scotland Yard after being wounded in the Battle of Sidney Street.

[39] A reference to Hawthorne’s grim story, The Scarlet Letter.

[40] Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton (Constable, 1936).

[41] The Trial of Robert Wood, edited by Basil Hogarth (Notable Trials Series. William Hodge and Co. Ltd, Edinburg).

[42] For Them That Trespass by Ernest Raymond.

[43] The State inferred Rothstein was summoned to pay the overdue IOUs given in the high spade game described by Martin Bowe.