Murder of the Black Museum 1875-1975: The Dark Secrets Behind a Hundred Years of the Most Notorious Crimes in England

by Honeycombe, Gordon

  They met in September 1898 when she was staying at 37 Elgin Crescent, Bayswater, in a boarding house run by Mrs Florence Pollock, a widow. He visited Miss Holland there twice, posing as Captain Dougal, and once the middle-aged couple spent a weekend together at the Royal Hotel, Southend. Sometime in November, Miss Holland’s dressmaker, Annie Whiting, calling on her one morning before (as she thought) Miss Holland was due to go off to Brighton with her sweetheart, was told: ‘We’ve parted. I’ve found out he doesn’t want me, only my money. What do you think – he wants me to withdraw all my money and let him invest it in his name. But I won’t do it – so we’ve entirely parted.’ Common sense had prevailed.

  Yet so plausible and persuasive was her burly, bearded wooer, and his rude virility so bewitching, that on 2 December Dougal rented a furnished house, Parkmoor, at Hassocks near Brighton, at £6 a month. The money was Miss Holland’s. Three days later she left Elgin Crescent and travelled to Brighton, ostensibly on her honeymoon. ‘We were under the impression that Miss Holland was going away to be married,’ remarked Mrs Pollock later. ‘But some of my gentlemen thought not.’

  The couple spent Christmas and New Year at Parkmoor, during which Dougal devised the scheme that would lead to Miss Holland’s death. It is unlikely that he derived any satisfaction from the association, for his preference was for buxom girls. But he had to humour her, and possibly grimly amused himself in doing so.

  It was doubtless on his persuasion that Miss Holland bought a farm for £1,550. A contract was drawn up in January 1899 by Dougal and an estate agent. It was in his name and he signed it. Then Miss Holland, showing unexpected wariness and independence, caused it to be destroyed and a new one to be made out in her name. This was signed on 19 January. A week later the couple moved to lodgings in Saffron Walden in Essex to be near their property – Coldhams Farm, Quendon near Clavering, soon to be renamed by Dougal as Moat House Farm, a name that would one day become notorious.

  They remained at Saffron Walden for three months while the deeds and furnishing of the farm were finalised, occupying a bedroom and a sitting room in 4 Market Row. Dougal used to frequent local hostelries, including those at Bishop’s Stortford. It is more than likely that he met and socialised with the landlord of The Grapes there, one George Chapman, who was later to be hanged for the murder by poison of his three wives.

  Miss Holland, posing as Mrs Dougal, became quite friendly with her landlady, Mrs Henrietta Wisken, who later described her as follows: ‘The lady I knew as Mrs Dougal, when dressed, looked about fifty years of age, but when in bed ten or fifteen years older. She had golden hair, grey or blue eyes, powdered face. She was about 5 feet 2 or 3 inches in height, and had a good figure for an aged person. She had very small feet, also very small hands. She had a very nice set of teeth.’

  Although Mrs Wisken believed that Mrs Dougal was well educated and a lady, she was not fooled by her guest’s pretences; she knew that the other woman dyed her hair, and without comment pushed letters under the Dougals’ bedroom door that were marked ‘Miss CC Holland’. She liked Mrs Dougal and her little brown-and-white dog called Jacko, and was doubtless intrigued by the middle-aged lovers, who seemed devoted to each other. Although Mr Dougal would sometimes be detained overnight in London ‘by business’, he would dutifully send telegraph messages to this effect, and on his return would greet his spouse most warmly, assuaging her evident suspicions. ‘I don’t believe he need stay up at all,’ Miss Holland once said to Mrs Wisken. ‘He could have come back if he’d wanted.’ But on his return from Moat House Farm (where he was supervising the takeover of the property) he would ring the bell of his bicycle as he entered Market Row, and Miss Holland would leave her little sitting room and go to the front door to let him in, when he would greet her with a kiss.

  On 27 April, she and Dougal left Saffron Walden in a pony and trap and were driven by an ancient farm-worker, Henry Pilgrim, to Moat House Farm. In three weeks’ time, Miss Holland was dead.

  The small, neat farmhouse was surrounded by a wide moat and reached by a little bridge. Fir trees and apple trees screened it from view – unnecessarily, as it was isolated in some bleak countryside, at that time but sparsely peopled. The nearest house, Rickling Vicarage, was about half a mile away.

  Two days after the couple moved in, a twenty-year-old girl, Lydia Faithful, previously engaged by Miss Holland as a domestic servant, arrived. She moved out a week later, perhaps driven away by the attentions of Dougal – as was the next maidservant, Florence Havies, aged nineteen, who was hired by Miss Holland at Bishop’s Stortford on 9 May. She arrived on Saturday 13 May, and departed a week later – the day after her new mistress disappeared.

  Florrie’s story, as told to the court, of her own and Miss Holland’s last days at Moat House Farm, was as follows: ‘The first night I slept in a little bedroom at the back of the house … The next morning I got up about six o’clock and commenced my duties. I was the only one up. About half an hour afterwards the prisoner came down alone and into the scullery where I was. He came up unawares and kissed me. I objected very much, and as soon as I saw Miss Holland I made a complaint to her.’ Miss Holland was even more upset and cried bitterly. She also begged the girl not to leave, probably anxious on her own account, even apprehensive, wondering how she could extricate herself from her uncomfortable situation. However, she was not too timid to upbraid Dougal for his objectionable conduct.

  A few days later, on the evening of Tuesday 16 May, Florrie retired to bed about nine o’clock. She said: ‘Miss Holland went to bed at the same time. The prisoner remained downstairs in the dining room. Soon after, about ten minutes after, someone came to my door, I knew the voice … He called “Florrie” three times in an undertone, and pulled at the door with all his might.’ The door had a bolt and he nearly pulled it off. ‘I screamed for Mrs Dougal. Miss Holland came to my door and I had hysterics. After I came to, I made a complaint to Miss Holland. She took me into the prisoner’s bedroom. He was in bed and pretending to be asleep. Mrs Dougal said: “It’s no use pretending to be asleep.” In consequence of what happened Miss Holland and I slept together in the same bed that night. I had made up my mind to go home, but yielding to pressure from Miss Holland I agreed to stay on.’ Again, Miss Holland burst into tears and begged the girl not to leave her. Florrie felt oddly sorry for her. As she said later: ‘She was so kind to me … I did not like to leave her alone.’

  Reassured by each other’s presence, the two women slept together in the spare bedroom on Wednesday and Thursday nights. During the day Florrie observed that no tradesmen or postmen called at the house, supplies being fetched by Dougal in the trap, and letters being taken by him off the postman at the outer gate.

  On the early evening of Friday, 19 May, about half-past six, Miss Holland entered the kitchen where Florrie was at work: ‘Do you mind if I go into the town to do a little shopping?’ she asked. Replied Florrie: ‘No. Not so long as Mr Dougal goes with you.’ He would be doing so, said Miss Holland – he was driving the trap. She was wearing a dark dress with a bustle and a fall of lace at her throat; on her head was a white sailor hat with a veil. Before they left, Miss Holland called: ‘Goodbye, Florrie. I shan’t be long.’ Florrie watched her go down the path, across the little bridge and get into the trap with Dougal. She never saw her again.

  It grew dark; night fell and there was still no sign of either Dougal or Miss Holland. Florrie must have become very worried. Then at last the trap returned. It was now about half-past eight. Dougal entered the kitchen, alone. ‘Where’s the mistress?’ Florrie exclaimed. He replied: ‘Gone to London.’ ‘What!’ cried Florrie, aghast. ‘Gone to London and left me here all alone?’ ‘Yes,’ said Dougal. ‘But never mind, she’s coming back, and I’m going to meet her.’ He then went out to feed the pony, returning to the kitchen at about nine o’clock, remaining in the house for ten minutes or so. Then he went out again, saying he was going to meet Mrs Dougal at the station. He disappeared, but Florrie did not hear th
e trap depart. He was back half an hour later, saying: ‘She hasn’t come back. I suppose she’ll come by that train something after ten o’clock.’ A few minutes later he again left the house, saying he was going to meet the train. In half an hour he again returned. ‘No, she hasn’t come,’ he said. ‘I suppose she will come by the twelve o’clock train.’ He disappeared yet again, not returning this time until a quarter to one. ‘The mistress has not come,’ he said. ‘You had better go to bed.’

  Florrie said later: ‘I went up to the spare bedroom and stayed there, without undressing, for the rest of the night. I was awake and sat by the window all night’ – ready to leap out should Dougal try to force the door. At 6.30 am he knocked at her door to wake her up. But she did not come downstairs until some farm labourers had arrived. He had made the breakfast: tea, bacon and eggs. He told her he had received a letter from Mrs Dougal, saying she had gone on holiday and that a woman friend would be coming to stay. Florrie paid little attention – she only wanted to leave. She was, in fact, waiting for her mother to arrive. The previous day she had sent her mother a note, which so alarmed Mrs Havies that as soon as she received it she hired a trap to get her from Newport to Moat House Farm.

  On her arrival, she told Dougal what she thought of him and that she had come to take her daughter away. Dougal retorted that he had not harmed her, and relieved, no doubt, to get rid of the pair, put a month’s wages for Florrie on the kitchen table and enough money for their return train fares to Waltham. They departed that morning and Dougal immediately telegraphed his real wife, telling her to come to Moat House Farm. That evening he and Pilgrim picked her up at Newport station.

  Dougal had written to her some time before this, suggesting that she take up residence in a cottage in the vicinity. Instead, as Miss Holland was no longer there, she moved with her little daughter, Olive, into Moat House Farm, and was presented to the vicar of Clavering and his wife as Dougal’s widowed daughter – as she was to the next maidservant to arrive at the farm, Emma Burgess. Not as fearful as Florrie, Emma remained for just under a year, when an ‘indisposition’ caused her temporary absence. In the meantime, all pretence at Mrs Dougal’s kinship was dropped and she became generally known as what she was: Dougal’s wife. For a time, despite frequent quarrels, she made the most of her situation as mistress of Moat House Farm. She wore some of Miss Holland’s clothes, altered by Emma, and told the vicar’s wife that Miss Holland was away yachting.

  At one point the little dog, Jacko, ran away, turning up 6 1/2 miles away at Saffron Walden outside Mrs Wisken’s house. She was delighted to see the dog and presumed she would soon be seeing his mistress, from whom she had heard nothing for over six months. No mistress appeared, and Mrs Wisken duly wrote to Moat House Farm, requesting some instructions concerning the dog. Dougal replied, and it was he who reappeared one night in Market Row to take the dog away. All Mrs Wisken’s enquiries about Miss Holland were ignored.

  Soon after Miss Holland’s disappearance, Dougal had begun to forge her signature on cheques and letters, and by stages over the next two years he acquired the rest of her capital, which he banked in his own name. By September 1901 he had accumulated £2,912 15s. He also transferred the ownership of Moat House Farm to himself. Thus enriched and unthreatened, he dropped the pretence of being a farmer, although he still kept some cows, chickens and pigs. He bought a car, the first ever seen in that part of the country, and pursued the convivial pleasures of a country gentleman – hunting, shooting, smoking, drinking and generally enjoying himself. On one occasion he gave naked girls bicycle lessons in a field behind the farmhouse. Along the way he also sired several children on servant girls and other women, and at one time was pleasuring three sisters as well as their mother.

  Naturally, rumours abounded in the neighbourhood about the goings-on at Moat House Farm, and in due course (January 1902) Mrs Dougal upped and left – in company with an engine driver, George Killick. Divorce proceedings were instituted by Dougal in May and, the suit being undefended, he was given a decree nisi on 1 August 1902. In September another servant girl, Kate Cranwell, aged eighteen, went home to have a child. This time, however, there was a paternity suit, which Dougal foolishly chose to contest, thus inviting the ire of the women in the case and the attention of the local law.

  ‘You have had twelve months for forging cheques,’ said Eliza Cranwell, who had gone with Dougal to Tenby to serve notice of divorce on his wife. ‘You’ll be hung next for the killing of that woman.’ Eliza, a dressmaker, was Kate’s older sister. Another sister, Millie, aged sixteen, who for some months had been a servant at Moat House Farm at the same time as Kate, was taken away from the farm by Mrs Dougal when she left. A fourth sister, Georgina Cranwell, became Dougal’s last female servitor, staying at the farm in the winter of 1902-3.

  In January 1903, a month after the birth of Kate Cranwell’s child, the matter of Miss Holland’s disappearance began to arouse more concern than ever. Where was she? That was the question that now concerned the King’s Proctor, whose representative was investigating whether or not the decree nisi should be made absolute. Miss Holland was missing, allegedly abroad. But many if not all of her personal possessions remained at Moat House Farm. Was the local rumour true that Dougal had killed and buried her true? Fired by these enquries and by his own suspicions, PC Drew wrote to his Chief Constable at the end of January 1903. His letter began: ‘Sir, I have the honour to report, for your information that it is a talk in this Village Clavering about Mr Herbert Samuel Dougal.’

  Official police enquiries were set in motion and Miss Holland’s nephews, her bankers and solicitors were contacted. Superintendent Pryke visited Moat House Farm five days before the decree nisi was actually rescinded on 9 March. He and Dougal had a friendly talk concerning ‘a scandal in the village’ and the whereabouts of Miss Holland. Said Pryke: ‘I thought he had told me the truth, and I shook hands with him on leaving.’ But the financial investigations of DI Bower of the CID at Scotland Yard, and DI Marden of the Essex Constabulary, gave them grounds for much unease. Of particular concern was a cheque dated 28 August 1902, made out to ‘Mr J Heath’ and signed ‘Camille C Holland’. Her nephew, Ernest Holland, said the signature was definitely not his aunt’s.

  Meanwhile, Dougal had determined on flight. The day after Pryke’s visit he withdrew £605 from his accounts and went up to London, where he stayed at the Central Hotel, Long Lane, returning to Moat House Farm a week later. He was only there for one night, his last in the place that had been his home for nearly four years.

  On Friday, 13 March, he moved out with a pile of luggage, staying that night once again in the Central Hotel. Here he was joined on the Saturday by Georgina Cranwell, pregnant and also bearing a quantity of luggage, which she left in the cloakroom of Liverpool Street Station. She and Dougal then travelled on to Bournemouth for a weekend of pleasure, which included a steamer trip to Swanage. They stayed at the Coburg Hotel. On Tuesday they returned to London, where Dougal remained while Georgina went back to Essex and Moat House Farm.

  On Wednesday, 18 March at about 1.30 pm, he entered the Bank of England in the City and presented fourteen £10 notes, which he wanted changed into smaller currency. The cashier, William Lawrence, on glancing at the notes, realised that some bore numbers of notes that had been stopped. He told Dougal: ‘I am sorry, but I shall have to ask you to accompany me to the secretary’s office.’ Dougal demanded: ‘Why? Are the notes stopped?’ ‘Some of them are,’ said Lawrence, adding that the other man would not be detained long. He asked Dougal to endorse one of the notes, and Dougal wrote: ‘Sydney Domwille, Upper Terrace, Bournemouth’.

  As Dougal sat in the secretary’s office, DI Henry Cox, on duty at the bank, was sent for. After a brief discussion with the secretary, Mr Dale, DI Cox approached Dougal and questioned him, concluding with a request that he should come to the detective’s office in Old Jewry. ‘Your name is Dougal,’ said DI Cox casually. ‘Yes,’ admitted Dougal, and accompanied the inspector i
nto the street, where he unexpectedly bolted, running towards Cheapside and then into Frederick’s Place. It was a cul-de-sac. There Cox collared the hapless felon. They both fell to the ground in the ensuing struggle, but with the assistance of a constable, Cox soon overpowered the older, overweight man.

  When Dougal was searched there were found on him eighty-three £5 notes, eight £10 notes, £63 in gold, a £5 gold coin, seven rings (five of them made for a woman and one being Miss Holland’s cornelian ring), five watches, several items of feminine jewellery, six moonstones, a walking stick, a pipe and a cloakroom ticket. He was charged with the forgery of the cheque made out to Mr J Heath and taken the following day to the police station at Saffron Walden. That day, a search for the remains of Miss Holland at Moat House Farm began.

  The police moved in, led by DS Scott, who took up residence in the farmhouse. He and his helpers, having examined every inch of the house, began to dig, concentrating mainly on the moat, which was drained. For five weeks they dug, until the farm looked like a battlefield. Little Jacko roamed about, deaf now and almost blind. Then Inspector Bower heard locally that Dougal had caused a drainage ditch to be filled in soon after his arrival at the farm; it had run from the horse pond to the moat and was full of sewage and manure – ‘black liquid filth’, according to DS Scott. His men opened it up.

  On the afternoon of Monday, 27 April, four years to the day since Miss Holland’s arrival at Moat House Farm, a small boot was unearthed by a pitchfork. Inside was a skeletal foot.

  Slowly, all that remained of Miss Holland’s fully clothed corpse was revealed, partly preserved by blackthorn branches that had been laid on top of her. The remains were dug out in a slab, which was then placed on two chairs in a conservatory. Mrs Wisken managed to identify the body, chiefly through its many garments, some of which she had stitched and altered herself. On the day she died Miss Holland had been wearing, apart from a dress, two pairs of combinations, steel-framed corsets, two underbodices, stockings, bloomers and two petticoats. She had been shot at close range. The bullet from a revolver that was proved to have belonged to Dougal was found inside the skull. It had entered a few inches above and behind the right ear and had been fired, according to the pathologist, Dr Pepper, ‘by a person in a higher position than the deceased’. Evidently Dougal, from his seat in the trap, had leaned over and shot Miss Holland as she stood on the ground with her back to him.