Death Locked In

by Douglas G. Greene (ed)

  “My master Grisly’s chambers, you know,” replied the resourceful Oliphant promptly, “are opposite to Mrs. Duncomb’s. He went away last Tuesday and left the keys with me. Now, I will see if I cannot get out of his chamber window into the gutter, and so into Mrs. Duncomb’s apartment.”

  The intrepid charwoman carried out this program without mishap. Those waiting faintly heard the tinkle as the window-glass broke when Mrs. Oliphant effected her entry, and in another minute they distinctly heard the bolt inside the door grate back. Mrs. Love pressed in, and Sarah Malcolm followed. The first sight that met their eyes was the young maid on her pallet in the passage, wallowing in her blood. In the inner room the old serving-woman in her press bed lay strangled, and in the inmost room, on the best bed, Mrs. Duncomb was found strangled too.

  The mob seemed to spring from nowhere. They pressed into the murder chamber so thick that now the surgeon bending over the bedside was in danger of having his shanks snapped. He scanted his examination a little; but it was plain as a pike-staff; three were dead, and no one of them had done it.

  The mob buzzed with excitement. They looked at the bolted door, and the barred window, and the murdered women, and shook their heads. It must have been a murdering ghost, or the Devil himself in person, to do that bloody work and then walk out through a bolted door.

  The only thing was, what did the Devil want with the silver tankard and the green purse of gold? For the black strongbox had been rifled of Mrs. Duncomb’s whole fortune.

  The three-pair-of-stairs lodgers met in Tanfield Court. Mr. John Kerrel, advocate, was on his way back from Commons. He stared at his friend Mr. Gehagan, and both stared at the mob about their lodging. A writer of their acquaintance was among the mob.

  “What’s the matter?” they called to him.

  “Murder’s the matter,” said he. “Mrs. Duncomb is dead by foul play.” And he added to Kerrel, “That’s your laundress’ acquaintance.”

  The three-pair-of-stairs lodgers stepped over to a coffee house in nearby Covent Garden. The place was agog over the murders. It was the general opinion that the murderer was some charwoman who was acquainted with the chambers. This made Mr. Kerrel mighty uneasy. Charwoman Sarah Malcolm had his key.

  To minister to his malaise, Gehagan and Kerrel adjourned to the Horseshoe and Magpie in Essex Street. What potations they imbibed is not recorded. They returned to Tanfield Court at one in the morning, in a very unlikely condition to break this mysterious case; but break it they did.

  As they stumbled up the dark stair, they saw a light in Mr. Kerrel’s lodging. The door was open; the fire blazed in the grate; the candles burned in the scones; and by the fireside stood Sarah Malcolm. It gave Mr. Kerrel quite a turn.

  “So, Sarah,” says he nervously, “are you here at this time of night?”

  This Sarah Malcolm could not deny.

  “You knew Mrs. Duncomb,” Kerrel went on, “have you heard of anybody that is taken up for the murders?”

  “No,” says she, “but a gentleman who had chambers under her has been absent two or three days, and he is suspected.”

  “Well!” says Mr. Kerrel. “I’ll have nobody here that was acquainted with Mrs. Duncomb, till the murderer is found out; and therefore look up your things, and go away.”

  Mr. Gehagan thought it was time to call the watch. Down he went, and wrestled with the great front door, but he was in no condition to open it; he had to fetch Mr. Kerrel. It was Mr. Kerrel who finally wrenched the door open and bawled: “Watch!”

  The two watchmen had taken refuge from the inclemency of the weather in the near-by watch-house. When they heard Mr. Kerrel’s outcry, they reluctantly took up their staves and their square lanthorns, and came. Presumably they were sober, but they were of little more use than the two crapulous men of the law.

  The four men found Sarah Malcolm obeying Mr. Kerrel’s behest to look up her things. Mr. Kerrel was not so fuddled but he thought he ought to check his possessions. He soon proved to have been wise.

  “Where are my waistcoats?” he demanded.

  “Give me a word in private,” says bold Sarah.

  “No,” says Mr. Kerrel, “I have no business with you that needs be made a secret of.”

  “I pawned them,” confessed Sarah, “for two guineas.”

  Mr. Kerrel was angry.

  “Why,” cried he, “did you not ask me for money?”—a question which, taken with the presence of Sarah’s “things” in the three-pair-of-stairs lodging, suggests that to Mr. Kerrel Sarah was more than a charwoman.

  Mr. Kerrel’s search continued.

  “What’s this?” he demanded kicking a bundle on the closet floor.

  “An old gown,” replied the Irish wench, “with a shift and apron in it; but pray do not look in it, for it is an indecent sight for a man to see.”

  Mr. Kerrel put it down again, and gave Sarah into the custody of the watch.

  “Watch,” says he, “take care of her, and do not let her go.”

  So down she went with the watchmen, and they did the exact opposite. They instructed her to return at ten in the morning, and shooed her off. She went as far as Tanfield Court Arch, and stopped. She turned back.

  “Tis late,” she whined, “and I live as far as Shoreditch, and therefore I had rather sit up with you in the watch-house all night than go home.”

  “No,” said the obdurate watch, “you shall not sit up in the watch-house, and therefore go about your business, and be here again at ten o’clock.”

  Sarah Malcolm went off. Upstairs, Mr. Kerrel and Mr. Gehagan were too agitated to seek repose. What with their potations, and perhaps the thought of the bloody devil upstairs that could walk through a bolted door, they could not rest. Mr. Kerrel looked under the bed.

  “Zounds,” says he, “here’s another bundle of linen that she has left behind her.”

  Upon this discovery he looked into another likely hiding-place, the close-stool, and there he found more linen and a silver tankard with blood on it. The thing began to look thoroughly sinister. The two lawyers pelted down the stairs after the watch.

  “Where’s the woman?” they demanded.

  “We let her go; for we found nothing upon her, and we were not regularly charged with her before a constable—”

  “You dog,” says Mr. Kerrel, “go and find her, or I’ll send you to Newgate.”

  The frightened watchman made off. He was in luck. Sarah had found a pair of more complaisant watchmen at Temple Gate; she was sitting cozily with them. They haled her back. Pot-valiant Mr. Gehagan rated her in a fit of inebrious moral indignation.

  “You bloody murdering bitch!” says he. “Was it not enough to rob the people, and be damned to you, but you must murder them too? I’ll see you hanged, you bitch! You bloody bitch you!’’

  He showed her the tankard. She hastily began to wipe the handle with her apron.

  “No, you bloody bitch,” said Mr. Gehagan, repeating himself with more feeling than variety, “you shan’t wipe it off.”

  “Tis my mother’s,” said Sarah, desisting, “I have but just fetched it out of pawn, I had thirty shillings for it.”

  “You bloody bitch you,” says monotonous Mr. Gehagan, “your mother was never worth such a tankard.”

  “And the blood is my own,” said Sarah; she showed the watchman where she had cut her finger.

  The watch carried Sarah to the Compter, a prison for lesser malefactors. In the dirty common room she met an old acquaintance named Bridgewater, with a fetter on. They exchanged courtesies.

  “Pray give me a dram,” said Bridgewater, “for I have been a great while in prison.”

  Sarah was flush of money. She gave him a shilling and a farthing, and called for half a quartern of rum to make him drink.

  Money bought everything in the prisons of 1733. It is likely that Bridgewater lay on the floor; but Sarah had a room to herself, and a bed with curtains. As she was walking pensively about this palatial chamber, she was surprised to he
ar her name called from the head of the bed. She pulled back the draperies, and there was the grateful Bridgewater peering in through a hole in the wall.

  “Have you sent for any friends?” asked he.

  “No,” said Sarah.

  “I’ll do what I can for you,” said he, and made off.

  Shortly he was back.

  “Here’s a friend,” said he, and presented a typical specimen of Newgate lawyer. Sarah knew him.

  “Is that Will Gibbs?” said she. He owned that it was.

  “And how,” said Sarah, asking after some particular friends, “are Tom and James Alexander?”

  Mr. Gibbs said they were well. Then he began to interrogate her. The question of the locked room was not raised. Mr. Gibbs was more interested in other matters.

  “Who is there to swear against you?”

  “My two masters will be the chief witnesses.”

  “And what can they charge you with?”

  “The tankard is the only thing that can hurt me.”

  “Never fear then,” says Gibbs with brisk confidence, “we’ll do well enough; we will get them that will rap (swear) the tankard was your grandmother’s, and that you was in Shoreditch the night the murder was committed; and we’ll have two men that shall shoot your two masters.”

  This program appealed to Sarah, especially the alibi, so dear to Mr. Tony Weller in after days.

  “You must get someone to swear that I was at their house.”

  “It must be a woman,” said Mr. Gibbs with nice regard for a lady’s reputation, “and she won’t swear under four guineas; but the four men will swear for two guineas apiece.”

  Sarah thought this a bargain. She produced twelve guineas, which Mr. Gibbs seized, promising to deliver the whole package of perjury at the Bull’s-head in Bread-street when called for on the morrow.

  On the morrow they carried her before the alderman to be charged. She was permitted to stop off at the Bull’s head, but there was nobody there. Mr. Gibbs was doubtless drinking up his easy twelve guineas in some other house of resort.

  Left on her own, Sarah Malcolm had to change her whole plan of campaign. She went before the alderman and offered to confess everything. She said that she did not murder the three women; but she knew who did. She named the villains: the two boys named Alexander, and a bold grenadier of a woman who had followed the troops, one Mary Tracey.

  Mary Tracey and Sarah Malcolm, by Sarah’s confession, were two of a kind. They planned to rob old Mrs. Duncomb, and called in the boys to help. On the Saturday night at eight o’clock, Sarah paid the household a visit and made a preliminary survey; she found the old serving woman very ill. At ten o’clock Mary Tracey arrived at Tanfield Court with the two young bullies. She was in a hurry, but Sarah said it was too soon. Tracey pressed her. Before eleven Sarah went upstairs, and her accomplices followed her. On the stair they met the young serving-wench with a blue jug in her hand; she was going for some milk to make a sack-posset. She looked at the accomplices suspiciously, and asked her friend Sarah who they were? Sarah said they were just some people going to call on Mr. Knight on the floor below. As soon as Ann Price was gone, Sarah gave her orders.

  “Now,” said she to Mary Tracey, “do you and Tom Alexander go down. I know the door is left ajar, because the old maid is ill, and can’t get up to let the young maid in when she comes back. James shall slip in and hide himself under the bed.”

  Accordingly the others made themselves scarce, and James did as he was bidden. The young maid returned and made her sack-posset; the door was bolted, and silence fell upon Tanfield Court. It was a very stormy night. The watchmen kept up close in the comfortable watch-house, except just when they cried the hour. “Two o’clock of a very stormy night, and all’s well,” they cried; while James Alexander lay under the old woman’s bed, and his accomplices waited upon the stair.

  “Soon after this,” Sarah confessed to the alderman, “I heard Mrs. Duncomb’s door open; James Alexander came out, and said, ‘Now is the time.’ Then Mary Tracey and Thomas Alexander went in, but I stayed upon the stairs to watch. I told them where Mrs. Duncan’s box stood; they came out between four and five, and one of them called me softly, and said ‘Hip! How shall I shut the door?’ Says I, ‘Tis a spring lock; pull it to, and it will be fast;’ and so one of them did.”

  They said nothing to Sarah about murder; they said they had been forced to gag the people. Sarah cared little for that.

  The alderman asked nothing, and Sarah volunteered nothing, of how they had managed to shoot the bolt on the inside. The law was more interested in the loot. They came out with it, Sarah said, and would have shared it then and there, upon the stairs, but Sarah wanted to be further off. So they went under the arch in Figtree Court, where there was a lamp. There in that little pool of brightness in the stormy night they shared the swag. Sarah had the tankard with what money was in it, and those linens that disturbed Mr. Kerrel, for her whack. They advised her to be cunning; they told her, in their immemorial thieves’ cant, to plant the kale underground, and not be seen to be flush, “for if you be seen to be flush of cole, you will be suspected; and on Monday, be sure, about 3 or 4 o’clock, you come to the Pewter Platter on Holbourn-bridge.”

  Sarah Malcolm failed that rendezvous at the Pewter Platter. She was otherwise occupied, for the alderman sent her to Newgate.

  She went with foreboding. As she entered the old stone keep over the pointed arch of the city gate that was new so many hundreds of years ago, she cried out in despair. “I am a dead woman!” cried she.

  Her apprehensions were well grounded. Of those who went in at that door, many would rot with the gaol fever, and more would lie fettered a short while, and then come out to the hangman’s cart.

  Once inside, Sarah Malcolm recovered her equanimity. She went into the tap-house among the felons on the Common Side. As she pulled off her blue riding-hood, sharp eyes marked her. The eyes were sharper than the mind. The observer, too stupid to see how he might turn his observations to account, went and blabbed to another prisoner, one Roger Johnson:

  “I observe that the wench’s hair bulges behind; she has certainly money hid in her hair.”

  Roger Johnson knew Sarah; she had been in the habit of coming to Newgate in former days, to visit another Johnson, an Irishman, who had been jailed for stealing a Scotch peddler’s pack. He was therefore in a favorable position for taking advantage of her. He called for a torch, and conducted her into the cellars.

  “Child,” said he familiarly, “there is reason to suspect that you are guilty of this murder, and therefore I have orders to search you” (which was a bare-faced lie).

  Thereupon this impudent felon allowed his hands to stray familiarly over Sarah’s buxom person. This little comedy over, he took the money from her hair, where it lay ill hid under the muslin cap.

  “Aha!” said he, “I find the cole’s planted in your hair; pray how did you come by it?”

  “Mr. Johnson,” said the desperate girl, “I’ll make you a present of it, if you will but keep it to yourself, and let nobody know anything of the matter, for the other things that are against me are nothing but circumstances, and I shall come off well enough, and therefore I’ll only desire you to let me have three-pence or six-pence a day till the sessions is over, and then I shall be at liberty to shift for myself.”

  “My dear,” says Mr. Johnson, “I would not secrete the money for the world.”

  Mr. Johnson knew a trick worth two of that. He figured that with this bit of luck he could buy his way out of Newgate. He locked Sarah in, and went for an official of the jail.

  After a while he fetched Sarah.

  “What have you done with the bag?” asked he.

  “I have it,” said Sarah, “but what would you advise me to do with it?”

  “Why,” says he, “you might have thrown it down the necessary house, or have burnt it, but give it me, and I’ll take care of it.”

  Sarah produced the green purse, and this pe
tty Judas of Newgate took it. Then forth from a dark corner stepped the jailer, who had been planted there for a witness, and Sarah knew that her life was gone. They took her to the shadowy stone condemned hole, and I suppose fettered her with the long X-shaped wrist-to-ankle fetters they used for murderers. I am happy to say that Mr. Roger Johnson for all his sharpness stayed in Newgate.

  Let no one take the adventures of Sarah with the watch, and among the prisoners, for romancing. They are typical of the slackness and venality of officialdom in the eighteenth century world of crime. Anything could happen in Newgate. Drunkenness and debauchery, extortion and petty thieving, bullying and fighting, were common among the prisoners herded into the dirty, nasty halls, and the jailers took part in all with gusto. Anything went, short of breaking jail, and for a price a man could do that too, for a brief vacation now and then.

  Mary Tracey and the Alexanders were soon laid by the heels. Inefficient as the law was, it did not fail to make the Pewter Platter rendezvous.

  Sarah Malcolm smiled with satisfaction to hear it. “I shall die now with pleasure,” said she, “since the murderers are taken.”

  When confronted with them, she identified them at once:

  “Ay, these are the persons that committed the murder.”

  She looked Mary Tracey in the eye with a boldness which surprised all the spectators.

  “So, Mary,” burst out her erstwhile friend bitterly, “see what you have brought me to; it is through you and the two Alexanders that I am brought to this shame, and must die for it; you all promised me you would do no murder, but to my great surprise I found the contrary.”

  They took the trio away. I hope they lodged them out of Sarah’s sight.

  Sarah’s time in Newgate was short. In barely two weeks they haled her to the Sessions House in the Old Bailey, and set her in the dock. She was indicted for making an assault upon seventeen-year-old Ann Price, “with a knife made of iron and steel, of the value of three-pence, which she, the said Sarah Malcolm, then and there in her right hand held.” I cannot say what difference the material and monetary value of the weapon could make; but both were always carefully specified in indictments.