The Maul and the Pear Tree

by P. D. James

  The rumours, allegations and snippets of information continued to pour in. One hopeful lead led to great excitement, and The Times reported that the police officers ‘were despatched in every direction’. It appeared that about half past one on the Sunday morning of the murders a man in the employ of Messrs Sims of Sun Tavern Fields, having received his pay of eight shillings, returned to his lodgings wearing a smock frock which was seen by the woman of the house to be very dirty. She inquired where he had been, and he replied that an oil cask had burst over him and that he had endeavoured to wash off the oil. The woman pointed out that cold water would not take away the oil and said that she could not smell it. Shortly afterwards the man went to bed with his fellow lodger, but very early the next morning he had made an escape from his lodgings, and had not been heard of since. He was thought to have taken the Portsmouth Road. He was described as being about middle stature, thirty years of age, with only one eye and wearing a smock frock which was much washed in the front, and dark trousers. This exciting news provoked a great deal of activity which was surprisingly effective. On the following Sunday an express message arrived in town from Lord Middleton, a magistrate at Godalming, to the magistrates at Shadwell Public Office, informing them that the man they sought, whose name was discovered to be Thomas Knight, had been taken and safely lodged in Guildford Gaol. Two police officers were immediately dispatched from Shadwell to bring him back to London.

  Meanwhile news of the missing one-eyed lodger in the stained frock coat quickly spread, and before Thomas Knight had been identified and taken into custody a number of unfortunates were arrested on suspicion. Information was received at Bow Street from a cook shop in St Giles, stating that a one-eyed man answering Knight’s description, and wearing a smock frock and dark trousers, was there. He was arrested and brought to Bow Street, where he said he was a journey-man carpenter residing in Shy Lane. However, he was unable to give a satisfactory account of himself at the time of the murders, so the magistrates committed him for further examination. When he was again brought before the magistrates his landlord proved that he did indeed lodge with him in Shy Lane, and that he had been at home and in bed at the time of the murders. So he was discharged, although The Times tartly notes that it was his stupid manner of giving an account of himself that resulted in this inconvenience to himself and his betters.

  On Saturday morning yet another report arrived at Bow Street of a man wearing a smock frock with blood, who had been seen with some soldiers in Windmill Street. It is apparent that, at this stage, the police in their confusion were busily hunting for anyone in a blood-stained smock who bore the least resemblance to Thomas Knight. An officer was sent to bring the new suspect to the Office. He found the man with some marines, who said that he had enlisted with them and had taken seven shillings in part of the bounty. This they considered to be a fraud, since he must know he was not fit to serve as he had a bad leg. However, he was taken to the Office, where he accounted for the blood on his smock frock by saying that he had been carrying a sheep’s head. So he too was discharged; but at the same time a further significant find was reported. A man named Harris, with a friend, evidently Quakers, had been on their way to a Penn Street meeting on Sunday morning, when – they now remembered to tell the Shadwell magistrates – they had seen a guernsey frock shirt and a handkerchief, all very bloody, lying in the middle of Ratcliffe Highway near the watch house of St George; so the magistrates had yet another hand-bill posted up:

  MURDER!

  WHEREAS, certain information has been received at this office that on Sunday morning last, about quarter-past eight-o-clock a Guernsey frock (or shirt) very bloody, and also near it a handkerchief in the same state, were observed lying in the middle of Ratcliffe Highway near Watch House in the parish of St George, Middlesex.

  Any person or persons, having picked up, or may be in possession of such shirt or handkerchief are earnestly requested to bring the same without delay to this office, it being conceived that this may afford a clue to the discovery of the late horrid murders in Ratcliffe Highway. Also any person or persons who may be able to give any information respecting the said shirt and handkerchief are desired immediately to communicate the same to the magistrates of this office by whom they will be handsomely rewarded for their trouble. By order of the magistrates.

  J. J. Mallett

  Chief Clerk.

  3 The funeral of the Marrs

  The rewards offered were indeed handsome. By this date they totalled over £600, a considerable fortune in the days when the weekly wage of an artisan could be as little as one pound. On 14 December the Government had increased their reward from £100 to £500 – an unprecedented sum; in addition there was fifty pounds by the Overseers of St George’s-in-the-East, twenty pounds by the Thames Police and a personal reward of fifty guineas offered by The Honourable Thomas Bowes, and advertised on 14 December.

  On the next day, Sunday, almost exactly a week after their deaths, the Marr family were buried. A single grave was prepared in the churchyard of St George’s-in-the-East. The week had been bitterly cold and the spades of the grave diggers struck earth as ringing hard as iron. But the day of the burial was milder and the breath of the waiting crowd, who had lined Ratcliffe Highway from early morning, rose like a thin mist, through which one could hear the stamping of frozen feet on the cobbles, the murmur of hushed voices, the whine of an impatient child. Promptly at half past one the bodies were borne up the steps, under Hawksmoor’s splendidly individual tower with its coronet of columns, and into the church of St George’s-in-the-East, where the Marrs had worshipped and where only two months earlier they had stood proudly at the font for the christening of their child. The weeping figures of Mrs Marr’s mother and sisters, heavily veiled in black, were greeted with groans of pity as the crowd recalled how they had come up from the country on the Sunday of the murders to spend the day with the young family, and had known nothing of the tragedy until their arrival.

  John Fairburn’s contemporary pamphlet describes the scene:

  This day the neighbourhood of Ratcliffe Highway presented a scene of mournful sorrow and lamentation, and perhaps there was never an occasion in which general melancholy was impressed with stronger feelings of dejection than on the awful scene of this family being conveyed to the dreary mansion of mortality. It is almost impossible to give an adequate idea of the solemnity observed by all ranks on this occasion. The people formed a complete phalanx from the house to the door of St George’s church, waiting with patience for some hours.

  The crowded congregation in the church that attended Divine Service remained in their stations to witness the afflicting spectacle. At half-past-one the procession entered with some difficulty. The Reverend Dr Farrington officiated and performed the funeral rites almost overwhelmed with his impressive duty. The procession entered the aisle of the church in the following order:

  The body of Mr Marr;

  The bodies of Mrs Marr and infant;

  The father and mother of Mr Marr;

  the mother of Mrs Marr;

  the four sisters of Mrs Marr;

  the only brother of Mr Marr;

  the next in relationship to the deceased;

  the friends of Mr and Mrs Marr;

  in the whole, eighteen mourners, among who, was the servant girl.

  The affliction of the aged parents, and the brothers and sisters of the deceased was the most heart-rending spectacle; and the tears of the crowded congregation universally mingled in compassion. After the church ceremony the corpses were conveyed into the burial ground and deposited in one grave. Notwithstanding the immense crowd the spectators conducted themselves with the utmost decorum, although they could not restrain from the impulse of strong language in the universal prayer for the vengeance of heaven upon the heads of the unknown murderers.

  There is a small and pathetic postscript. After the verdict of the Coroner’s inquest the relatives of the servant lad removed his body from Marr’s house and had it buri
ed at another place. The Marrs were buried in the south side of the graveyard and a tall tombstone was erected over them:

  Sacred to the memory of Mr Timothy Marr, aged twenty-four years, also Mrs Celia Marr his wife, aged twenty-four years, and their son Timothy Marr, aged three months, all of whom were most inhumanely murdered in their dwelling house, No. 29 Ratcliffe Highway, Dec. 8, 1811.

  Stop mortal, stop as you pass by,

  And view the grave wherein doth lie

  A Father, Mother and a Son,

  Whose earthly course was shortly run.

  For lo, all in one fatal hour,

  O’er came were they with ruthless power;

  And murdered in a cruel state –

  Yea, far too horrid to relate!

  They spared not one to tell the tale:

  One for the other could not wail

  The other’s fate in anguish sighed:

  Loving they lived, together died.

  Reflect, O Reader, o’er their fate,

  And turn from sin before too late;

  Life is uncertain in this world.

  Oft in a moment we are hurled

  To endless bliss or endless pain;

  So let not sin within you reign.

  So, a week after the Marrs’ murders, nothing had been accomplished but their burial. Wapping was unchanged. The murderers were still at large. The great vessels still sailed out of the marvellous new London Dock, majestically with the tides, their horizons infinite, their crews indifferent to local gossip, their affairs encompassing the world. And London’s poetical magistrates, too, had had an opportunity that week of voyaging beyond their own familiar shores. Bemused as they might be by examining Portuguese and Irish, beset by idiots and drunkards, busy perhaps (as it is tempting to suppose that Pye had been) with the composition of the Marr’s epitaph, all might have found time during the week to attend a series of lectures delivered in Fleet Street by a true poet. Coleridge, tormented during the week that followed the murders by the overmastering power of opium, had been delivering a series of lectures on Shakespeare’s plays; and all week the London Chronicle had offered its news in adjacent, incongruous columns. While one headline shrieked, ‘Murder of Mrs Marr and Family’, the next announced, ‘Mr Coleridge’s Lectures’. Readers aghast at lurid stories of battered brains and spilt blood could turn to gentler, more lasting themes. The ‘orations on Shakespeare’, the journal declared, ‘are advancing rapidly in public favour, and the poetic Lecturer is taking effectual means to render them delightful to those whom we presume him particularly anxious to please – the Fair.’

  On Monday afternoon there was a renewal of excitement when Thomas Knight was brought up from Godalming in a post-chaise to the Public Office at Shadwell. The circumstances of suspicion alleged against him were reiterated. ‘On Saturday fortnight he had retired to his lodgings apparently very much dejected. He had taken off his smock frock and began to wash and dry it before the fire; it had upon it stains a good deal resembling blood, and on the following morning he had left his lodging early without telling his landlady where he was going.

  The prisoner denied all but the last allegation, and told a consistent story from which he never subsequently deviated. He said that he was a Portsmouth man born and bred who had come to London about six weeks ago, and remained in the service of Messrs Sims & Co rope-makers, as a hackler, until Saturday fortnight. His wife had been ill for some time and he determined to go down to Portsmouth where she was living with her father and bring her up to town. On the evening of Saturday fortnight he went to the King’s Arms public house kept by Mr Edwards to get paid his weekly wages which amounted to twelve shillings. He remained at Mr Edwards’s until about eleven o’clock, drinking with some of his fellow workmen. He then went home to his lodgings and soon to bed. He denied that he had washed his smock frock, or even that he took it off until he went to bed. He had not been dejected; on the contrary he had been rather merry in consequence of the liquor he had drunk and had laughed with his landlady, who bantered him for keeping such late hours at night during the absence of his wife. Next morning he rose about half past seven and went to Mr Dodds, the overseer of Mr Sims’s work, and told him he was going down to Portsmouth to bring up his wife, and requested that he would take care of his tools until his return. He then went to the King’s Arms public house in hopes of getting one and sixpence halfpenny which Mr Edwards owed him, and he remained there a short time with some of his workmates. After that he walked about Shadwell for about an hour, when he met two men named Quinn, father and son, and went with them to a wine vault for some gin. He remained with them until ten o’clock on Sunday morning when he started for Portsmouth. He rode for only twelve miles of the journey, and arrived in Portsmouth on Monday evening, where he remained with his wife and child at Gosport until Thursday morning when they set off, all together, for London. On Thursday night they arrived at Peats Field, where they slept together. The next day, when he was walking through Godalming, he was apprehended by two officers ‘on a charge of which he protested to God he was as innocent as an unborn child’. The reason why he did not tell his landlady of his intention to go to Portsmouth was because he owed her three shillings, and having only twelve shillings in the world, he was afraid that she would insist on being paid if he told her he was going to leave the lodgings.

  The Shadwell magistrates cross-examined Knight rigorously, but he adhered to the first statement and they quickly concluded that he had no connection with the Marrs’ murder. However, they decided to remand him for further examination, apparently in the belief that having brought him at public expense all the way from Godalming, it would be extravagantly generous to let him go after so little inconvenience.

  The magistrates at the different Public Offices were keeping the Home Secretary informed of any developments as and when it seemed necessary to them, although there was no organised system of exchanging information, and no evidence that John Beckett or anyone else at the Home Office collated the reports or attempted either to direct the investigation or to co-ordinate the various activities. On the Monday, while the Shadwell bench were examining Thomas Knight, the magistrates at the Queen’s Square Public Office (now Queen Anne’s Gate) offered Beckett yet a further promising lead: ‘Under cover I send you for the information of Mr Ryder an information upon Oath of a private in the Guards, subjecting two persons unknown to a considerable degree of suspicion. I have sent copies of the information by this post to the Chief Magistrates at Southampton, Newport, Isle of Wight, and Plymouth, requesting their attention to the description of the two men and to have them apprehended and arrested.’

  The enclosure was as follows:

  The deposition of George Judd, a corporal in Lieutenant Colonel Cook’s company of the Second Battallion of Coldstream Guards. On Saturday evening the 14th instant, about half-past six o’clock I was passing by the Old White Horse cellar, Piccadilly, and was accosted by two men in great-coats. Each had a bundle and a stick. One of them was about 5´ 10˝ in height who was a few yards distant in the dark. The other man was middle aged, about 5´ 5˝ with a scar on the right cheek who came up to me and asked if I knew of any coach that was going to Plymouth. I answered him no. He desired me to go into the coach office and make the enquiry and he would give me something to drink. I did so and communicated to him the answer that there would be no coach to Plymouth until the next morning at four o’clock. He then went to his companion who still stood at a distance as if he was afraid to come to the light, and spoke to him, and returned to me and gave me the price of a pint of beer, and said that will not do, we must take the Mail. On his turning his back to me I saw a paper drop from him which I picked up and put in my pocket. They then went away together towards Hyde Park Corner. Taken by James Bligh, Officer of Police, Queen’s Square, Westminster, December 15th, 1811.

  A copy of the mysterious paper is attached to the deposition.

  The note is unpunctuated, and was obviously written by someone almost illiterate. Th
e first word is undecipherable.

  … To the Isles of Wight

  After I have settle my affairs her, My Dear Frands, proceed home by Monday morning as I hear the rumour is great of our transaction to leave England imedty is the best way. The dead is greatly done Dont fail come if you will meet me at Air Old Van de Vose your sworn friend, M M Mahoney.1

  These two men were never identified and we hear no more of them. It seems probable that they had been involved in some criminal enterprise, but if they had murdered the Marrs, it is unlikely that they would have lingered in London for a week before making their escape to the Isle of Wight. Subsequent events proved that if they did, indeed, leave London on 15 December, they were most unlikely to have been concerned in the Ratcliffe Highway murders. At the time, however, this deposition by a corporal of the Guards, his unexpected meeting, and the mysterious paper so fortuitously dropped at his feet, suggested that providence might at last be taking a hand in bringing the murderers to justice, and it was with considerable hope that the magistrates awaited from their colleagues at Southampton, Newport and Plymouth the news that never came.

  The magistrates at Whitechapel were having no better luck: Two Portuguese sailors named Le Silvoe and Bernard Govoe were brought into the Public Office, and with considerable difficulty on both sides were examined for two hours. They had been seen drinking at the Artichoke public house2 near Marr’s home at half past eleven on the night of his death, and had been seen in the street adjoining as late as one o’clock. Le Silvoe alleged that he came home for admittance at one, knocked at the door, and was let in by his wife just as the watchman was crying half past one. His landlord supported his story. Mrs Le Silvoe offered to prove that her husband was at home at eleven o’clock, but her testimony was not admitted. A woman who lived with Govoe wanted to prove his alibi but her evidence was regarded as very doubtful. The magistrates, in some frustration and perplexity, committed both the Portuguese for another hearing.