The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes (90 page)

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:

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:

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:

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.