FAMOUS MYSTERIES.

NZ Truth, Issue 140, 22 February 1908, Page 7

FAMOUS MYSTERIES.

The Great H^lfey-stf^t Enigoia.

(By Ladbrolce niacklf^;^, ;T '■ the. more I study the his.ipry^of crime, the more convinced do- I become that London is one of -i\\e .most mysterious places m the world. '...,•■ Persons talk of ; 'the mysterious East, but not even Asia Caii siippH " more astouu-ding mysteries tharijtliose which underlie the, surface of thp vjtSt social area we, call London. ':;':/' I am dealing this week with a case • which reads more like some- '.horrible 'myth than an recount of . anything which actually occurred. The r narrative illustrates my contention that '„%he mysteries of London \ are .so strange and remarkable as tc s,Qmctimes border upon the uncanny. -! Tf a novelist we're. to tell the s'tpivy. Of how a wealthy and respected mprii,ber of ; sciotv, living m one -of; the most fashionable (|ivarters, found one morniKg m the cellar of his. house, where ke had dwelt for twenty years, the - .■."■■•'.• i.-: , DECOMPOSED REMAINS, OF A BODY, ';. ,'V, tlie rca-der would be inclined to smile. But if any imaginary ,-noy.clist was to add that m the . : cellar ; m -.which the remains were foupd,had been used every, day for,... several years, it is more .than, protjabla^tbat his book would have! bean -a?/ thEowai away, as being "altogether T too fdrfetched and ridiculous: j V/ . And yet this is the st«ry "of'wfiat I ibave- called "The Great. <Harleystreet Enigma," and it is absolutely ,:true m every detail. . •.;...-• ', I.t is; th"c remarkaWe part .of;' Lon-. don that, m the most unexpected quarters .these grim tragedies;, crop up. Again and again it f .has been, shown 1 hat the most peaceful-loo^inp: places, the most prosaic; respectable ""and substantial Jiouses, n have"kept hi ddenXfqi-j; years; the • evidences of some terrible rrime. . '■ 111 bedrooms, cellars, lefts,, .warehouses; railway • stations, antt hundreds ;of other, unlikely places these gruesome clues have, been found. ,■ The Harley-strrct Enigma corr£s4 -ponds m .'many details with :.;the re 3 markable mystery which I> dealt with ,m the first of these papers-r -, --^ '.'THE EUSTON-SQU, ARE V : / .■, mystery/? .-:■ :.,l:v. ; It (will be ..remembered' that m ..that "case the mummified' remains- 6C- "Miss Hacker, an eccentric •. spinster ;: •from (.Canterbury; . yfete-. found m a .coal.cellar, which had been used every v.day for the twenty months,, the .body must have rested there. .-.', p-h - ■•: -.The case I am now dealing iwith was made public hardly more :.than a year later, and the similarity -of •'• the two tragedies aroused many: wild' Gorijectiirps. • • . ; r ' :■*-. Within three or four years -nearly a .dozen: murders had been brbugnt' 'to light, but not one of thPir perpetra^ ■ tors had benn disepvered, and the i finding of an unknown woman's- body m an American sugar cask in' a bouse .m Hnrley-street; W., completed the uneasiness and agitation that ".had be«i arouseVl m the public mind>.-i'<? : . '• . I will .let the reader judee. whetli'er j or no he considers at this -diistance of. time the scare to have been justi- ' '• *'.; «■■••• '■>)■- --HERE IS THE STORY.- ', " The house m Harley-street was m

1880 m -the- possession of MrHenriauies, 5 :\Vho had occupied ; it then for more thin twenty years. \ ■■'■'■'■ Mr Henriques 'was "a very wealthy raerclhvnt, who kept' a luxuriouslyappointed establishment arid a ,■■ 'largestaff, of r sc*Vaft!ts: ''■„ The ■ neighborhood/ m which liie'; resided -was even more 'f^hiOnabW'-ihan it is now. ' " '•■ Not Tery c iar .'kway Mi' Gladstone rc^ided/iand; doubtless Mr Henriques nad r 'witnessed from his windows: two "Very remarkable scenes ttrtiich ' occurred 'about t'liis time. Probably he 'saw the roughs i rushya.% down Harley-street to break thereat statesman's windows, and „s.h.C!rtly afterwards Watched •."an,,en■thusiastJc crowd hastening the same iwiy, with cheers; .to welcome the hero ?6t Liberalism back to power. i Me 'ittenrlq-ues? establishment worked ;;smooshty 'and easily, and to judge :fro,m the huniber of servants that heft his employment m the course of three or four years," it is reasonable to assume*- tha-t he:- was a person who was ve"rV particular about Ms domestics. :, He had; to change his butler very .frequently, but at last found himself well suited: -with^S /man' of the- : ' NAME QP JOHN SPENDLOVE. .John Spendipye had been m bis.emiplby \ for f Eighteen hayifig taken over the duties of the previous butler, a, man .named' Smith, on November 21,. 1878, , Though, he seems : to have liked i"! : place, there was one little draw 1 . -v«^ of which he felt, it his duty to eo'mplanr to Ms master. . .■.-',■-••.•.■••■■ ;•..";> v .;y ■.■.-.:•■ He- occupied a room m the basement, which faced three ■cellars, running 6uAv,~under the" pavement of Hair-, ley-stre^t, separated from the house by ihe "area. Two' of these cellar^ vwere used, for coals, the third was set apart for 'domestic purposes and -bob'-t cleaning. ' ''■ • Fronx^hje first; Spendloyp complained of* the very • disagreeable smell that eraanajbed from this ■third cellar. Quite Naturally,' nUisanCe was 'at tcuthe drains,, arid Mr Henriques gave instructions for them to be -thbrbughly overhauled- and :; re^ paired But vthough this was done . THE NUISANCE STILL CONTINUED. '■■ 'Spendldve again complained, arid told, his; master that he 'thought the objectionable odor, must be due to ; the dust-bin. "Steps were promptly taken i;o remedy tMs fancied' defect, but still the disagreeable smell continued, increasing rather than diminishing from day to day. ■■■=■■ _ ' - Spendlove '...- was .... supported . m his statmentj rega-rding the nuisance .by Arthur Kirklah-d, 'the footman, whose businessr; %i was^ to clean the *, boots every Idjiyl m; itoeHoillarl N 'His '.pr6de^ cessor, a man called Tinnup, who had taken the situatidn prior to Spendlove',s arrival. son5 on August 18, 1878, and' had left in^ithe middle of 1879, had. also complained. . On the morning •of June 3, 1880, the smell had become peculiarly offensive, and the butler was determined to have the whole plaoe cleaned out. Having seen his master safely sea.ted at breakfast, HE WENT DOWN INTO THE AREA. In the cellar he found Arthur Kirk-

lanri busy cleaning; the boots, lie told-liim what he inj.er.d2d to do, and. the footmau left his. work to gave j him a hand, ,v .. . ' ' They' first directed their ■efforts to investigating : a barrel, such as is used m the export of sugar from America. This barrel, which both : men. had , seen, every, . day since they '. had been m the house, stood m an; opening underneath . some brick stag- ', ing, which supported a galvanised .• iron cistern. ■.The barrel ; was one or two feet back, in the recess, and. both the butler and footman believed it to be full of empty seltzer-water bottles and gallipots, some of which protruded over the top. Together' they pulled it but into the middle of ■ the cellar floor. Spendlove began to remove some of -the bottles, when all of a sudden the footman, who was standing, by, cried out, , •'THERE'S SOMEBODY H.ERE." 1 Looking down, tlie butler y&s startled to see something which he could not make out, "las it. seemed like some effigy or figure stowed away." Closer investigation showed beyond doubt that it was the remains of a human bodyIn great consternation , Spendlove rushed off to his- master, and asked to lye allowed to speak to him for a few moments. . ' . "We have fom. the remains of something m a barrel downstairs 4 " he said, m great agitation. "Send for a policeman," was the prompt reply. ; "You will find onejat the end of the street.!. 1 . ... .:w- : "As ■ soon as the police were on -the scene, Dr. Spurgin,: the divisional surgeon, was summoned m hot haste •to make a preliminary investigation of the cask a fl its tragic contents. It was impossible, howeyer, there arid then, to come to any decision as to the sex or r~Vof the corpse; All that coyfld be noted was that the body had been . -,' . THRUST HEAD DOWNWARDSV, ""I". INTO TTIE CASE. .. ■' and that a quantity of hair adhered to the top of the .cask.-- . :- ; As ; soon as night fell, the gruesome relic was removed to tj- ..local mortuary, and there a thorough examination was held. ■ . - . The/ body was that of a woman"about 4ft. 7in,, and somewhere, about midd'.o age. When taken frHv '.the cask, the spine was 'bent into a curve arid the . head doubled back., The right hand was clenched, and pressed across the breast 1 ; the left hand was twist ci round to the hack.. /The thighs, were bent backwards, and •he knees doubled down, so that the legs crossed at" the back. The : hair on the head was dark brown, save for a few grey hairs. The body was partly mummified, and the •doctors agreed that it must have been m the cask ■ . ; ]-i FOR MORE 3 THAN A YEAR. ..Chloride . of lime was found tin the cask, . evidently placed there by some ignorant person, who imagined, like the r murderer Wainwright, that the chemical action would destroy all vestiges of the crime. ; . The legs. above the knees were gartered with common metal buckles, and -the discovery of some fragments of very, coarse linen underclothing seemed to justify tite ■ assumption that the victim, whoever she was, bad been m poor circumstances. ; The only other feature which- the doctors thought worth noting was the peculiar shape of the woman's front teeth, which looked as if they had been partially sawn oft, and also the discovery of a piece of coral embedded m one ear. That she had been the victim of a murder was Rroved beyon-d doubt/ for there was a WOUND ABOVE THE HEART, which must have been made wjtth a knife.; ; To .summarise the information .which the doctors Were able to give the police— the victim was a brownhaired, sbjort wotiaan of middle age, who probably wore coral earrings; and had cukously-far>med front teeth. That is all that was then known,, and lis ever likely to be known—of the victim. • ■' -. / - - * ; „• • The enigma which" the police were called upon to solve was briefly as follows-:— H,ow had the. barrel and its gruesome contents " got into the area, cellar of the house m Harleystreet, and when were they placed there ? . . ,■- , Could these two questions be more or less definitely answered, then there was some chance of .bringing . THE MURDERER TO THE GALLOWS. But; without an : answer to either of them, it was hopeless to imagine that justice would be done. There seemed good reasons to suppose, when the police took up the case, that there would be no difficulty m finding these answers, for '-the' eel- 1 lar had been used every day. and the fact that bottles had been placed m the cask seemed to show that it had been: noted by the servants. . But from the very first- the: police •found their hopes frustrated and their investigations doomed to^ disappointment. .From Mr Henriques a list of all the servants he had. employed during the previous four or five years was obtained. They- were sought out, and subjected one by one to a searching examination. I will give m precise form the result of tfieir somewhat CONTRADICTORY AND CO&PUS.- --■ ■■ • ED EVIDENCE. f\ •- ■ George Campbell, who was butler for five months m 1877, remefnibered neither the smell nor the barrel, George Winter, who was. employed from 1877 to the middle of 1878, gave evidence to the. same effect. • : Smith, the butler, whom . Spendlove succeeded, never recollected having seen the cask, though he used to go into the cellar three or four times a week. He left the situation after having been m Mr Henriques' services for eight or nine months, on November 21, 1878., \ Robert Woodroffe', who took care of the house while the Henriques family were absent from town, neither saw the cask nor detected any smell m J August, 1878. - I On the , other hand, Spendlove had noticed the cask and detected the smell from his first entry into the ' house, on November; 21, 1878. • Tinnup, the footman, who had taken up his situation on August 1.8. 1878, also recollected the barrel and the smell, from the very first day of his arrival. •■ Henry- CJoatley, a plumber, noticed, the cask m or "about" July, 1875, ,

while lie- was employed m mending the cistern. But though he saw the. i cask he DID NOT DETECT ANY 1 SMELL This was all the information that the police could obtain. It established nothing, unless the evidence of Smith and Woqdroffe, the caretaker, was discounted altogether. The ex-butler and caretaker both! agreed that the cask was not m the. cellar, and that, the ..smell did not exist during the months from July to November. The plumber's evidence, however, and the statement of Tinnup laid it down that the cask was m the cellar m July, 1878, and that the cask was there and the smell' prevalent from August, 1878, onwards. . ■ With such confused .materials, . the police investigations were doomed to failure. They pretended to be hopeful, but not a single clue as to how the\ mysterious barrel sot' into the cellar ( was ever discovered.: The ' corojlbr's jury brought m a "Wilful mulrder". against some person or persons unknown. The Government offered a reward of a hundred pounds, and there the whole matter stopped abruptly. Who was the brown-havred, short woman of middle age, with those peculiar front teeth, "as' if they had been sawn off •?" How came it that no" one ever missed her from the world she had inhabited ? .She . :'...; . . : . ■••; ■ MUST HAVE LODGED SOJiCE* '" ;_.:; '•';' where. „■ .. .■'• : ;.\j : She must have housed herself under -a roof, however humble ; she jnust have exchanged, an occasional word with. some human companion. „ And yet no one. appears to have given -her a thought, or to have, been disturbed by heir disappearance, or to have felt one regret when she passed from heir circle of acquaintances ■■to that dreadful tomb m the cellar of the house in 'Harleyrstreet. . ■■■■•■■ Though her mutilated remains rested there for evp4tei|.n months at least; —being brought' there by some mysterious person on some unknown 'day m some strange, weird manner— how came it about that no one of ..the inhabitants of" the house, ever^:.suspected that they lived and moved ana "went serenely about their wo irk wit! 'n a few yards of where tliese miserable evidences of a m&nstr/aus crime lay hid ?- ■ 'V ■il think my readers will : agrce with me that I am right m calling :the tragic narrative "The . Enigma of Harley-street."