The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes (60 page)

The income tax of the period was at the rate of four per cent and there were, even then, mumblings and grumblings on the manner in which the tax hogs were gathering around the trough in an orgy of wasteful spending. The point is mentioned because it appears that Taylor was in the process of performing a very disagreeable task. He was making out his income tax for the year 1921. His partially finished statement showed an income of $37,000.

Henry Peavey, Taylor’s coloured houseman, announced that dinner was served, and the motion-picture director left his income-tax work to go to the table where a simple meal was served to a lonely bachelor.

This was the period in Hollywood’s development when it was unnecessary for the famous to stroll into the night spots and be photographed by reporters for the fan magazines.

Here was an important director dining alone at 6:30 in a relatively small bungalow court. The furnishings, however, were in exquisite taste. The bookcases were filled with books which were well chosen and well read. Such art objects as were in the room were those which could only have been selected by a connoisseur. These surroundings give us a clue to the man’s character. They indicate a modest, simple man with a large income living a simple, unassuming life.

So far there has been nothing to indicate that the life of this man is other than an open book. His associates see in him a grave, dignified, thoughtful executive. Yet he has vision and imagination. His face lights up with a kindly smile. He is a practical philosopher with something big-brotherly in his grave manner.

Adela Rogers St John, one of the most articulate of the associates of film celebrities, and a famous writer in her own right, was later to say of him: “William D. Taylor was the sort of man that revived your faith in the sex . . . He had a breadth of vision and a businesslike understanding of what the screen needed.”

So here is a dignified, magnetic executive sitting down to dinner on this cold February night, his income-tax statement on his desk, his mind occupied with the destiny of the screen.

At about 6:45, Mabel Normand was driven up to the court by her chauffeur.

Mabel Normand was one of the most glamorous, colourful figures of the silent screen. It needs only a glance at the publicity given her to realize something of her dynamic character. For instance, it was mentioned at a somewhat later date that she simply couldn’t be bothered to set her watch backward and forward when, on a transcontinental train trip, she passed from one time zone to another. So she carried several watches with her, presumably set according to the different time zones. When she passed from one time zone into another, she disposed of the watch which was no longer accurate by the simple expedient of tossing it out of the window.

Under cold and careful appraisal, this story bears the unmistakable stamp of the press agent. Mabel Normand certainly was not travelling by day coach. Pullman windows of the period were double and of heavy glass. This was before air conditioning on trains and, while the windows were frequently raised a few inches at the bottom, there were permanent, heavy, close-meshed screens to keep out as much of the dust as possible. But this watch-throwing episode is indicative of the period, of the thinking of the people, and of the star. The mere fact that this would have been considered good publicity at the time is interesting. Nowadays, if a star had the habit of tossing watches out of a train window merely because she couldn’t be bothered to set the hands forward or back, her public relations men would tear their hair in agony lest the idiosyncrasy be discovered and publicized. But in those days this was all a part of the temperament which one associated with a great actress.

On this night of 1 February 1922, Mabel Normand had been sitting in the back of her chauffeur-driven car eating peanuts and dropping the shells on the floor. As she left the car to call on Taylor, she instructed her chauffeur to clean up the car. Then she hurried through the cold chill of the early evening to the rear of the court and the bungalow occupied by the director.

Taylor was engaged in talking over the telephone when Mabel Normand was admitted by the houseman.

Mabel Normand visited with Taylor while the houseman served dessert to the director. Then apparently the houseman went out to visit with Miss Normand’s chauffeur, perhaps helping him to clean up the peanuts. His recollection is that he left around 7:30 and when he left, Miss Normand and Taylor were drinking cocktails.

There is an almost pastoral simplicity about the scene. The motion-picture director, having had his dessert served at around seven o’clock, is now engaged in drinking cocktails with Mabel Normand, who apparently must have dined before she arrived. Therefore the Normand stomach must have contained dinner, peanuts, and cocktail, ingested in that order. William Desmond Taylor, progressing from dinner to cocktails was spared the ordeal of the peanuts.

Now it appears that Taylor was very anxious that Mabel Normand should read a book. In some unaccountable manner an impression seems to have been created that this book was by Freud. There were, it seems, two books that Taylor was very anxious Miss Normand should read, and he had sent one of them over to her house that day. But the other was one for which he had asked her to call in person. On 11 February the newspapers were to contain a statement by Mabel Normand that this book was
Rosmundy
by Ethel M. Dell, and she is at a loss to understand how a rumour started that this was a book of Freud’s.

Did Miss Normand and Taylor discuss this book while they were chatting in the bungalow? It is worthy of note that while Taylor had sent one book over to Mabel Normand’s apartment that day, he had asked her to call for this book in person. Why?

And it was to develop, moreover, that when she left him at 7:45 it was understood he was to telephone her at nine o’clock and find out how she liked the book. Again, why?

Be that as it may, at 7:45 Mabel Normand says she left Taylor alone in his bungalow, and it is to be noted that according to the statements of both Mabel Normand and her chauffeur, Taylor escorted Miss Normand out to her car, a gallant gesture on the part of the director which may have cost him his life; for one of the police theories was that he left the door of his bungalow open while he was escorting Miss Normand and that a shadowy figure who had been lurking in the alley took advantage of this opportunity to slip into Taylor’s little bungalow.

Taylor, blissfully unconscious of what was so soon to happen, stood at the curb, watched the car drive away, turned and walked back to keep his appointment with death.

On the morning of 2 February 1922, Henry Peavey, the houseman, came to the house at 7.30 a.m. ready to begin his day’s work.

He opened the door and stood petrified at what he saw. The body of William Demond Taylor lay stretched out on the floor, lying on its back with the feet toward the door. Over the legs was a chair which had overturned.

Henry Peavey ran out of the door, screaming that Mr Taylor was dead. In his own words, “I turned and run out and yelled. And then I yelled some more.”

E. C. Jeessurum, the proprietor of the bungalow court, responded to the alarm.

What happened after that is very much of a blur. Apparently, from the first newspaper reports, the police were promptly notified and immediately took charge in a routine manner. A physician appeared and diagnosed the death as from natural causes—apparently a hemorrhage of the stomach. The coroner’s office put in an appearance, and it was then found that Taylor had been shot by a .38 caliber revolver. The bullet, of ancient vintage and obsolete design, had entered the left side at about the place where the left elbow would have rested if the hands were hung normally at the side. The bullet had travelled upward until it lodged in the right-hand side of the neck just below the skin.

Later on, two peculiar points were noticed. One, that the body was lying neatly “laid out,” the limbs stretched out straight, the tie, collar, cuffs unrumpled—what was, apparently, a most unusual position for a corpse. There never was any explanation of this, if we can discount the statement of one of the officers, who said the deceased may have done this “in his death struggles.”

The second point, which developed a little later, was that the holes made by the bullet in the coat and vest did not match up. With the arms at the sides, the hole in the coat was considerably lower than the hole in the vest; and it was only when the left elbow was raised that the bullet holes came into juxtaposition.

It was because of this fact that the police promptly advanced the theory which, for the most part, they seem to have stuck with through thick and thin, that there was something in the nature of a holdup connected with the crime and preliminary to it, and that Taylor was standing with his hands up at the time he was shot.

Apparently the bullet was fired from a weapon held within a very few inches of the body.

Searching Taylor’s body, police found jewellery and money of over $2,000 in value. There were seventy-eight dollars in cash in his pocket, a two-carat diamond ring on his finger, and a platinum watch on his body. The watch had stopped at 7:21; and nearly three weeks after the murder, the police suddenly decided this might be a clue. On 21 February they rushed the watch to a jeweller to find out whether it had run down or had stopped because of the concussion of the fall of the body. The newspapers blazoned this shrewd but somewhat tardy idea of the police to the public.

On the twenty-second they carried the answer. The watch had run down.

On the desk was an open checkbook. Nearby was a pen. Also there was the half-completed income-tax blank previously mentioned.

Edna Purviance, Charlie Chaplin’s leading lady, and apparently a close friend of Mabel Normand’s, stated that while she knew William Desmond Taylor, it was a casual, nodding acquaintance and that was all. She had noticed that there was a light on in the Taylor side of the bungalow when she returned home somewhere around midnight on the night of the murder.

At sometime between 8:00 and 8:15 that evening Douglas MacLean, who occupied bungalow 406-B (Taylor occupied 404-B), noticing the “unusual” cold, went upstairs to get an electric stove. While there, he heard what he refers to as a “shattering report,” muffled, yet penetrating to every corner of the room.

His wife went to the door of 406-B and was just in time to see a figure emerge into the light from the Taylor bungalow. This figure paused on the porch, turned back toward the oblong of light from the half-opened door and stepped inside briefly, as though to say some word of farewell. He was smiling. Then he stepped back to the porch, quietly and normally closed the door, walked directly toward Mrs MacLean for a few steps until he came to the opening between the houses, then turned, walked down between the two houses and vanished into the night.

In her first statement, Mrs MacLean described this figure as being that of a man with a cap, and a muffler around his neck. She couldn’t be absolutely certain whether the man did or did not wear an overcoat. She was, however, sure of the cap. Then later on, she said that the figure
might
have been that of a woman instead of a man. A woman dressed in man’s clothing.

At approximately 7:55 p.m., however, Howard Fellows, who was driving Taylor’s automobile and who had been told to get in touch with Mr Taylor that evening, called him on the telephone and received no answer. At 8:15 he went to the Taylor bungalow, rang the doorbell, and got no response. On the other hand, he stated that he had telephoned Taylor two or three times before 7:30 in the evening and had received no reply.

He put up Taylor’s automobile for the night and walked home. He was wearing a cap and a raincoat and so far as he is concerned, he is satisfied he is the man Mrs MacLean saw. But apparently he did not open the door nor was the door open when he was standing on the porch. So, if he was the man Mrs MacLean saw, then she must be mistaken in her recollection of what the man did. Incidentally, it is to be noted that Mrs MacLean apparently is not the type to be hypnotized by her own recollection. It was exceedingly cold and there is probably no doubt but that the figure wore an overcoat. A less scrupulous witness would have said she saw an overcoat. A less painstaking one would have visualized the fact that the man must have worn an overcoat, and so gradually have built up the conviction that he was wearing one. Not so Mrs MacLean. She is sure of the cap, she is fairly sure of the muffler, and there she stops being sure. A most commendable sign. But bear in mind that she is
certain
that she saw this figure on the porch step back to the lighted doorway. She saw him step out and “quietly and normally” close the door.

There were the usual stories of puzzling clues. Mysterious figures slithered through the pages of the newspapers. A streetcar conductor said a man who answered the description given by Mrs MacLean had boarded a car on Maryland Street, at either 7:54 or 8:27 the night of the murder. He was about five feet ten inches, fairly well dressed, weighed about 165 pounds, had a cap of light colour, and the conductor remembers that he wore something tan. He can’t remember where the man left the car. There was also a man who insisted that shortly before the murder he had been stopped on the street by someone who asked first for a fictitious address and then asked to know where William Desmond Taylor lived. The information was given. There were two men at a service station who remembered that shortly before six o’clock a man answering the description of the man seen by Mrs Douglas MacLean had stopped at the service station and inquired where W. D. Taylor lived. The man was described as about twenty-six or twenty-seven, a 165 pounds, with dark suit and a light hat or cap. They directed him to the bungalow court and this was the last they saw of him.