Heaven Knows Who

by Christianna Brand

  Even this simple story, which she probably had decided upon in advance, showed her as a poor liar. ‘A quarter-past eleven,’ she said; but from the Gushet House to the Broomielaw was a ten-minutes’ walk and even allowing for her farewells to Mrs Fraser and the children, she should have been home by at any rate half-past ten.

  The police by now had talked to Mrs Campbell: they knew all about the key. They knew that Mrs Campbell had not admitted Jessie at a quarter-past eleven that night. ‘How did you let yourself in?’

  There could be no rational answer. She simply lied blindly. ‘By means of a check lock key.’

  ‘Where did you get the key?’

  ‘I had it with me. It’s one of the keys from the cupboard in the passage; there are two keys to the cupboard.…’

  ‘Did you see anyone that evening?’

  John M’Donald, said Jessie, had been going up the stairs ahead of her. He had stayed in only a minute and then gone off out again. (John M’Donald was Mrs Campbell’s lodger; by the time this fib came before the Court, most conveniently absent, in a place described by Mrs Campbell as Karashae; but at any rate in the East Indies, and out of contradiction’s way.)

  And she had gone straight to bed, without seeing Mrs Campbell, and half an hour later had heard Mrs Campbell open the door to John M’Donald (but that would have been nearly midnight, and Mrs Campbell’s evidence was that M’Donald came in and went to bed at eleven). And she, Jessie, had remained in bed all night, with her little boy; and sometime before eight next morning had got up and dressed and popped round the corner to get some coals from the house of an old woman in West College Street; and, said Jessie, now feverishly elaborating, had come back with a large basket containing the coals over which she had draped a piece of old carpet which she had taken out with her. Mrs Campbell had not seen her go out, but she was up and let her in when she got back.

  ‘Why—if you had a check key?’

  ‘I had forgotten to take the check key with me,’ said poor Jessie.

  At five o’clock that morning, Mrs Campbell had told them, she had been wakened by the child’s crying and gone in and dressed him and put him to bed again. But no, said Jessie; this must have happened during the quarter of an hour—at about eight—while she had been out for the coals.

  Very well. And then?

  She had given him breakfast and stayed in her room with him till about noon.

  And then?

  Well, and then—and then she had gone round to the pawn office of Mr Lundie in East Clyde Street.…

  What for?

  ‘To pawn something,’ said Jessie, wretchedly. ‘To pawn some silver plate.’

  How their hearts must have leapt!—Andrew Strathern, Sheriff-Substitute, and all his merry men. ‘What silver plate?’

  She was coming to a part of her story now that definitely had been prepared. She said: ‘I received it from old Mr James Fleming.’ Mr James Fleming was at this time in the custody of the police.

  Under what circumstances?

  She recited her piece. She had received the plate from him on the evening before the murder, Friday. ‘He came to my house about a quarter-past eight that evening and I let him in and took him into our parlour. He carried a parcel wrapped tightly up in a white cloth, and laid it down on the table. He asked me if I would go a message for him, and he would pay me well for it. I asked him what it was and he said he wanted me to pawn some silver plate which was in the parcel. I said the pawnbroker would know the plate did not belong to me. He said I was to say it was rent I had to pay. I asked what name I would give as a pledger and if I would give Mr John Fleming’s name and he said no, not to put down Mr Fleming’s name, as it would be in the directory. I then said, “What name will I give?” and he said I was to give the name of Mary M’Kay or M’Donald, No. 5 or No. 35 St Vincent Street, and that I was to seek three pounds ten upon the plate, or as much as I could get. He said he was short of money and had to go to the Highlands, and did not like to lift money out of the bank.’ She had agreed to pawn the plate and he had gone off, saying he would see her again the next afternoon.

  Very well. Now, had anyone else been present at this conversation? Had anyone seen Mr Fleming at the house?

  No, they had been alone together, said Jessie. Mrs Campbell had been at home, but might well not have seen him.

  ‘So you went to the pawn?’

  She had gone to the pawn. ‘It was then between twelve and one o’clock on the Saturday. I laid down the parcel, rolled up, as old Mr Fleming had given it to me. The pawnbroker’s young man who attended me opened down the parcel and then it was I saw for the first time what it contained.’ The young man had offered her more than the three pounds ten, and she had said she would take as much as he could give her, ‘as the articles would not lie long in pawn.’ She had said the money was for rent; and gave the name of Mary M’Kay or Mary M’Donald ‘as old Fleming had told me.’ ‘I got the money and a pawn ticket and left the silver plate in the same cover which old Fleming had brought the articles in.…’

  And so on. She had recognised the articles, she said, having, known them when she worked in the Fleming household. They were shown her and she identified them. She returned straight home from the pawn office and was there at about a quarter-past one.

  And then what?

  The interlude at the pawnbroker’s had been a little respite when she could stick to facts uncomplicated by part untruths. Now poor Jessie must start fabricating again. She even threw in a little embellishing detail. ‘I remained in the house and at about a quarter to three old Fleming came there. I was at the moment cleaning the brasses of the door and he and I turned into the parlour.’ She had explained that she had got more for the silver than he had expected; and she handed over the money—six pounds, fifteen shillings—and the pawn ticket. ‘He thereupon offered me five pounds for having done the message and not to mention it to any person. I told him that five pounds was too much for me and I took four pounds from him. He repeated that I was to tell no one of what I had done for him in case it would come to his son’s ears; and that a pound or two would do him when he was away in the Highlands. On this Fleming left the house.’

  He must have reflected rather ruefully as he went that he had been to a great deal of trouble and put himself in a very awkward position—all for thirty-five shillings; and even that was a lot more than he had been prepared to retain.

  So Jessie had gone off to Mr Caldwell, the factor, arriving there about four o’clock; and paid over the whole of the money Mr Fleming had given her.

  ‘I am shown a man,’ the declaration adds at this point, with apparent insouciance, ‘who calls himself James Fleming, and I declare and identify that man as the person who gave me said silver plate on said Friday, and to whom I gave the money and pawn ticket on the Saturday.’

  With what fearful eyes must they have gazed upon one another, those two: suddenly confronted in that bleak and menacing place, both under the threat of a penalty of death, both fighting for safety through the webs of their falsehoods, each at the other’s expense … Ecce homo! ‘I am shown the man.…’

  Perhaps after this encounter Jessie felt that she could not use old Fleming’s ill-gotten money for her rent, even in fancy; for she amended and said she had had money enough of her own to have paid the rent anyway: if she had seen the factor on the Friday, she could have paid it then, she had five pounds ten of her own in the house which she had got from her brother ‘in the end of May last’. She went off into details of money her brother had given her in the past.…

  ‘On the Friday night, when you went out to convey Mrs Fraser as far as the Gushet House—what were you wearing?’

  ‘I was dressed in a brown merino dress with three large flounces, a large light-grey cloth cloak and a brown velvet bonnet.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  She had taken them next day to Mr Murray, the dryer’s shop, said Jessie, to have the cloak cleaned; and had left the dress to be dyed black. She
had given her own name. ‘I took the velvet off the frame of the said bonnet because it was old and I gave it to a salt and whiting girl at the door of my house on Tuesday last.’

  This alas, is all we ever hear of the salt and whiting girl; and said bonnet vanishes as completely from our sight.

  ‘Have you a brown merino dress without flounces?’

  She must have searched her mind for what this question foreboded. She said at last that she had had one but she had given the skirt of it to her washerwoman, last summer.

  ‘Did you open down the merino dress you left to be dyed?’

  Whatever this may have meant, Jessie said that she had not.

  ‘Is the washerwoman referred to, Mary Adams? And has she been in the habit of washing for you for the past three years? And did she call at your house on the afternoon or evening of Friday, July the fourth …?’

  ‘No,’ said Jessie.

  ‘You didn’t see her on July the fourth—?’

  ‘No,’ said Jessie.

  ‘—and ask her to come in and take care of your little boy, James, while you went and saw the late Jess M’Phersoh on that Friday night?’

  ‘No,’ said Jessie.

  ‘Does Mary Adams stay with a Mrs Rainny in Holm Street? And did you call at Mrs Rainny’s house on Saturday, July the fifth.…?’

  ‘Yes, that I did do,’ said Jessie.

  ‘Did you call there twice?’

  ‘I called there once. I wanted Mrs Adams to go a message but she wasn’t in and Mrs Rainny said that she would go the message. The message was to redeem a black and blue check poplin dress, which I have on now, as an under-dress. Mrs Rainny went and got it for me from the pawn.’

  ‘What dress were you wearing at that time?’

  ‘The brown dress,’ said Jessie.

  ‘But hadn’t you taken the brown dress to be dyed?’

  ‘Not at that time,’ said Jessie; and indeed it was true that it was not till after the poplin had been redeemed that she had taken the brown dress to be dyed—only it hadn’t been a dark brown dress with big flounces.

  ‘Did you leave word for Mary Adams to call at your house?’

  There’s nothing they don’t know, Jessie must have thought, wearily starting off on this new tack. Who could have dreamed that anyone would track down Mrs Rainny—who, after all, was only one’s washerwoman’s landlady—and winkle out all these details? She said that yes, she had left word; and Mrs Adams had come and she had given her two pounds to redeem some things from the pawn for her. And had come again next day and been given eleven shillings to redeem some further articles. ‘I gave her no more money.’

  ‘Have you two crinolines?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. I’ve got one.’

  ‘At that time—Friday and Saturday—had you two crinolines?’

  ‘Yes, but one was burnt on the Saturday, in an accident.’

  ‘Where are the wires of that crinoline?’

  ‘I gave them to Mary Adams.’

  ‘Have you a black bonnet?—a new black bonnet?’

  Yes, she had a new bonnet. She had bought a new bonnet on Wednesday last, the ninth, and paid four and six for it. ‘I now see and identify the said bonnet,’ acknowledged Jessie, confronted with her one poor little self-indulgence out of all this spending spree. It was ‘in the same state as I purchased it’. (It must be admitted that in this respect it was somewhat remarkable; so many of the clothes which had passed through Jessie’s hands since that Saturday had suffered considerable changes.)

  ‘Has Mary Adams a young daughter named Sarah?’

  She must have known what was coming; she must have known that Sarah had broken her undertaking ‘to tell no person that she had been to the station.’ She admitted that Mrs Adams had a daughter, Sarah.

  ‘And did you on that Saturday send her with a trunk to the Hamilton railway?’

  Jessie, who had blankly denied other undeniable facts, admitted this one.

  ‘How was it addressed?’

  ‘I addressed it with the name, “Mrs Bain, Hamilton; to lie till called for”.’

  ‘What was in it?’

  Ah, that they couldn’t know! And in fact they didn’t. It was not till the following Thursday that P.C.s Stewart and Cooper collected the blood-stained clothes from the Tommy Linn park. The trunk had been empty, she said. She had intended to go up to. Hamilton on the Saturday and stay for a day or two with a Mrs Shaw there, ‘but who I, through mistake, understood was called Mrs Bain.’ (Only Jessie, with her disposition to make use of kindly strangers, would have contemplated a day or two’s visit to someone whose name she did not even know; and anyway, Mrs Shaw or Bain, by whatever name would have awaited her in vain, for she did not turn up on the Saturday as arranged, but went on the Tuesday instead ‘and called at Mrs Shaw’s house but found she was not within’: enquiring the way, if we remember, of Master James Chassels; after having learnt from his mother—no doubt for the first time—of the existence of a Mrs Shaw.)

  What then of said empty trunk?

  She had got said trunk from Hamilton station on said day and returned home with it, reaching Glasgow about six o’clock that evening. Said trunk was now in her house—a leather trunk with a glazed cover (how did Jessie propose to produce said trunk?—we know that it was with Mr Cherry, the saddler, having its straps and hinges attended to. In fact Superintendent M’Call collected it from him the following day. It was certainly empty by then).

  But why send an empty trunk to Hamilton, anyway?

  ‘I meant the empty trunk to lie at the Glasgow station; but through some mistake of Sarah’s—’

  ‘That is the little girl, Adams?’

  ‘The little girl, Adams—through some mistake of the little girl Adams, it had been sent on to Hamilton.’

  ‘What was the use to you of an empty trunk?’

  ‘I meant to have put my clothes in the trunk at the station,’ said Jessie, ‘because the little girl couldn’t have carried the trunk and the clothes together.’ That was a neat one!

  ‘How then were you going to get your clothes to the trunk?’

  ‘I carried them to the Glasgow station in a bag: a black leather bag.…’

  ‘But the trunk had gone on to Hamilton?’

  ‘Yes, so I took them in the black bag to Hamilton.’

  The police at this time, as we have noted, did not know what had happened to the contents of the trunk. They dropped that line of enquiry for the moment and for some reason confronted her with two sheets: ‘I am shown and identify as my property two sheets to which a sealed label is attached and which is docquetted and subscribed as relative hereto. My attention is called to the mark or impression of a key appearing on one of said sheets. I declare that the impression was made upwards of a twelvemonth ago, and while I resided in a house in Stobcross Street.…’ If anything be needed to contradict an impression of a sustained narrative statement on the prisoner’s part, it is these rolling sentences, so obviously police reported and compressed. They conclude rather touchingly: ‘The impression is of the check key of the outer door of that house and was made by my child making water on it as it lay on the sheet, which left an impression of iron-mould on the sheet.’ (The princess who had a pea put under her seven mattresses never thought of this form of reprisal.) Jessie’s sister, Ann M’Intosh, could testify to the occurrence, she added. It seems unlikely that she was called on to do so, however, for the iron-mould impression played no part in the trial after all.

  After this diversion, they returned to the empty trunk and to Mrs Shaw in Hamilton. The trunk, Jessie said, she had taken downstairs from her ‘house’ on the second floor to the cellar door at the foot of the stair, intending to send a boy with it to the station; but at that moment ‘the girl Adams’ had turned up and she had sent it with her. The trunk had not been in the cellar that day (whether it had or not seems of little significance). As to Mrs Shaw, her husband was cutter to a tailor in Hamilton and lived, Jessie thought, in Castle Street (unfortunately
Mrs Chassels, when innocently supplying her with the name, had not added an address).

  Confronted with the chemise and flannel petticoat she had been wearing on admission to prison, she identified them as her own and made the following rather muddling statement: ‘I put on said chemise and petticoat on the evening of July the third. I had two chemises, but one of which I have since put on; that now shown me I have torn up, having been destroyed by my child. I had no flannel petticoat except that now shown me. I washed it on Wednesday, the day before I put it on. All which,’ she adds abruptly, ‘I declare to be the truth.’ It may have been the truth, but it is difficult to follow. She presumably meant that she had washed her chemise and petticoat and put them on clean on the Thursday, and worn the same until now, the following Monday week (from the amount of time Mary Adams spent at the Broomielaw washing, however, Jessie was particular about cleanliness). How the chemise ‘now shown me’ can have been ‘the one I have torn up, having been destroyed by my child’, one doesn’t quite see. Master M’Lachlan seems to have been a destructive small boy in the matter of his mother’s clothing. But perhaps it all happened in the one apocryphal holocaust where the crinolined petticoat was also destroyed.

  She adds, further, that she had still owed Jess M’Pherson the sum of twenty-five shillings for groceries, a debt hanging over from the time two years ago when Jess had had her shop; but Jess had said not to return it, because she had always meant to give a present to the baby—so to buy something for him with it instead. (Had Jessie remembered this when she bought the little bonnet for him that Mrs Campbell had seen the day after Jess died?)

  And now the confrontations came thick and fast. ‘On being shown a black shawl or plaid—that shawl or plaid is not my property and I never had it in my possession and I did not leave it at Murray’s (the dyer) before mentioned, to be dipped in black dye, on Monday last, the seventh July current, nor did I send it.’ Well, that seems true enough; in court Miss M’Crone of Murray’s testified only to a grey cloak for cleaning and a brown dress to be dyed—Jessie had gone away after arranging for the cloak to be dyed, and returned wearing a black plaid and handed over the cloak; and that evening showed a black plaid to Mrs Campbell and told her she had bought it for three or four shillings. Was there some confusion here? The grey cloak, now cleaned, she acknowledged, though it had not been in two pieces when she left it at Murray’s—this also was true, for she had gone there wearing it. And she admitted the brown dress, now dyed black, but ‘its flounces were wanting’. She denied giving a false name—M’Donald—to the dyer. She had received a ticket for the garments which she supposed was somewhere about the house. And finally, ‘I dyed said dress black to get further use out of it as, in its brown state, it was a good deal soiled and faded. And this I also declare to be truth.’