The Maul and the Pear Tree

by P. D. James

  Whatever it was that Trotter knew remained his secret. His evidence – the evidence of the man who had assured Mrs Vermilloe that Williams ‘would soon be cleared’ – was never sought. The Shadwell magistrates had had nearly enough. They had been examining suspects for more than a fortnight. There had been no time to take stock, weigh the evidence, assess the credibility of this or that witness. Working under extreme pressure in a constant glare of publicity, unaided by competent staff, Capper and Markland were left at the end with a blur of names and faces, foreign as well as English and Irish – Harrison, Cuthperson, Cobbett, Vermilloe, Trotter, Hart, Fitzpatrick, Ablass, Richter, Driscoll. They were also left with a circumstantial case against Williams and the incontrovertible fact of his death, apparently by suicide. Why look further? Their doubts on the eve of the suspect’s death (‘We are not yet certain that he will prove the man,’ they had told the Home Secretary) had, by the end of the morning, totally vanished. The further evidence, beyond the power of Williams to rebut or even challenge, now emboldened them to assert his guilt as an established fact.

  We think it our duty to inform you [they wrote to the Home Secretary at the end of the hearing] that from what appeared in Evidence previously to the death of Williams, together with what has appeared on a very full Examination this morning, that Williams was the perpetrator of the late murders in this neighbourhood; and we have also to add that we have every reason to hope that he alone was concerned.

  The only lingering doubt was whether the man awaited from Marlborough had been Williams’s accomplice in the massacres.

  Later the same afternoon Capper made his third visit that week to prison; not this time to Newgate, but, accompanied by Markland, to Coldbath Fields Prison, where the body of John Williams was laid out. The Coroner, John Wright Unwin, had been hastily summoned to conduct yet another inquest.

  Thomas Webb, sworn. I am surgeon to the prison. I was called to the deceased this morning. I had found him in his cell lying on his back on the bed where he had been placed by the person who cut him down. He was dead and cold and had been dead many hours. On his neck on the right side was a very deep impression of a knot, and a mark all round the neck as from the handkerchief by which he had been suspended. The handkerchief was still on the neck; I saw no other marks of violence on his body. I have no doubt he died of strangulation. He told me the day before yesterday he was perfectly easy and satisfied, for that nothing could happen to him.

  Francis Knott, sworn. I am a prisoner here; I saw the deceased alive and well yesterday about half-past three in the afternoon. He asked me if he could see his friends; I told him I did not know. This morning about half-past seven o’clock, Joseph Beckett, the turnkey, came to me in the yard and desired me to go up to the cell of the deceased and cut him down, for that he had found him hanging. I went up immediately, put my arms around his body, and cut the handkerchief, part of which was round his neck and the other part was fastened to the rail which the bed and clothes are hung upon in the daytime – the rail is six feet three inches from the ground. I laid him on his back on the bed. He was cold and seemed to have been dead for some time. He was ironed on the right leg. He was placed in what is called the re-examination cells and left, as persons in this situation always are; I had no suspicion of anything of the kind happening; he was quite rational and collected when he spoke to me.

  Henry Harris, sworn. I am also a prisoner here. I was standing by my cell door about half-past seven this morning. Mr Beckett came to me to desire me to help Knott with the man who had hung himself. I went up and found Knott standing at the door of the deceased’s cell. Knott observed to me the deceased had hung himself on the rail. I went in and saw him hanging on the rail with a handkerchief around his neck, one end of which was attached to the rail. I assisted Knott in cutting him down. Never saw the deceased before to my knowledge.

  William Hassall, sworn. I am clerk to the prison. I have been so upwards of three years. The deceased was committed here by Edward Markland, Esq. on the 24th December, and was in custody here for reexamination. He was placed in the re-examination cell and ironed on the right leg. I considered him secure. He was placed in the prison as persons for re-examination invariably are. I went up to him on the morning of the 25th to ask him his age – he told me he was twenty-seven years of age. I observed to him his situation was awkward – he said he was not guilty, and hoped the saddle would be placed on the right horse. I asked him his business – he replied he was a seafaring man, and said he was a Scotsman. Williams in person is about five feet eight and a half inches in height. He was dressed in a brown greatcoat, lined with silk, a blue undercoat with yellow buttons, blue and white waistcoat, striped blue pantaloons, brown worsted stockings, and shoes. He was by no means of an athletic make.

  Joseph Beckett, sworn. I am turnkey here. I locked the deceased up about ten minutes before four yesterday afternoon; he was alive and well. I asked him if he wanted anything – he said ‘No.’ He has said during his confinement, he hoped the innocent would not suffer, and that the saddle might be placed upon the right horse. Between seven and eight this morning I unlocked the door of his cell. I discovered him hanging to the rail in his cell with his feet nearly, or quite, touching the ground, with a white handkerchief around his neck, which handkerchief I had seen him wear. I called upon Harris and saw him cut down.

  Mr Unwin, the coroner, then addressed the jury:

  The miserable wretch, the object of the present enquiry, was committed here on suspicion of being one of the perpetrators of the late alarming and most inhuman murders, and that suspicion is greatly increased by the result which has taken place; for how much augmented is the suspicion of guilt against the man who, to escape justice, has recourse to self-destruction! All homicide is murder till the contrary shall be shown. The law ranks suicide in the worst class of murderers, and this is a case of most unqualified self-murder.

  I have applied my attention to the conduct of those entrusted with the custody of this wretched man, as a subject interesting to the public mind, and I leave it with you; I think there is no culpability attaching itself to them.

  It only, therefore, remains that we consign the body of this self-murderer to that infamy and disgrace which the law has prescribed, and to leave the punishment of his crimes to him that has said ‘Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.’

  Throughout the whole of the next day, Saturday 28 December, the Shadwell magistrates awaited the arrival of the man from Marlborough. They were not, however, entirely unoccupied. During the afternoon, the Morning Chronicle reported:

  William Ablass, commonly called Long Billy, a seaman from Danzig, was brought up on suspicion of being concerned in the late murders with Williams. It was charged that on the night of the murder of Mr Williamson, of the King’s Arms, he was in the company of Williams, drinking, at 10 o’clock. He gave the following account of himself –

  Between three and four o’clock of the afternoon of the 19th December he was walking down Pear Tree Alley with a friend, when he met Williams. They entered the Pear Tree public house and had some beer, which the examinant paid for. From thence Ablass and Williams proceeded to Williamson’s, the King’s Arms, where they took a pint of ale. Ablass had seen Williamson once before. Mr Williamson and the maid were present. Williams employed himself reading the papers.

  From thence he and Williams went to Ablass’s lodgings, but not finding tea, as expected, ready, they took a pot of ale at the Duke of Kent public house, which was paid for by Ablass. They left that house about six o’clock and went to the Black Horse in New Gravel Lane and had four glasses of gin and water in company with a tall man dressed in a blue coat, whose name Ablass could not recollect. Much conversation passed, but none of it related to Marr’s murder. They then left the house, and Williams and Ablass parted at the door, Williams taking a direction down the street. This was, as near as Ablass could recollect, between eight and nine o’clock.

  The Captain of the Roxburgh Castle, in which ship A
blass and Williams had sailed from Rio Janeiro, and in which the former had headed a mutiny, enquired of Ablass what had become of his wife and two children? Ablass denied that he ever was married, but said that he had allowed a woman to pass by his name, and to receive a part of his pay. To the question how he had maintained himself since he had left his ship some months since, he replied that having expended his pay he had supported himself by pawning his clothes. He was quite positive that he was at home on the night of Williamson’s murder, and could prove it by several witnesses.

  A messenger was immediately despatched for persons to substantiate these allegations, who returned with a woman, who kept the house in which Ablass lodged, and a fellow lodger, both of whom stated distinctly that Ablass had come home in the first instance to see if tea was ready, and again at about ten o’clock. He remained in the witness’s company until past twelve, when it was reported that the murder had been perpetrated. – Ablass, on hearing it, exclaimed that he knew the people of the house, and went out to make enquiries. He came back soon afterwards, confirming the melancholy news.

  On this satisfactory testimony Mr Markland, the Sitting Magistrate, ordered that Ablass should be discharged.

  Others were later to be less satisfied than was Markland by this convenient alibi. The Shadwell bench, however, were looking elsewhere for Williams’s supposed accomplice; and at nine o’clock that Saturday evening they eagerly resumed the hearing, when the man from Marlborough arrived, having spent fourteen hours on a cold journey. He gave his name as Thomas Cahill.

  The circumstances have a familiar ring. When he was arrested the prisoner had been wearing ‘a shirt a good deal torn about the neck and breast’, and stained with fresh blood. He bore a ‘striking resemblance to the man described in the handbills as being seen to run from the premises of Mr Williamson’. He was a stout man, about five feet ten inches in height, with sandy hair and red whiskers. In fact, The Times declared, as if the fact were in itself incriminating, he bore ‘a remarkably strong likeness to the late unhappy wretch Williams’. Moreover, the new suspect spoke with a strong Irish accent, and it very quickly became evident that he was an accomplished liar.

  The matter of the torn and bloody shirt had already been cleared up by the Marlborough magistrates, on evidence that the prisoner had been in a public house brawl in Reading. But where had he been, Markland demanded, on the nights of the murders? Cahill replied that he had been lodging with a man named Williamson, at 121 Ratcliffe Highway. A messenger was sent to the address, and reported that no such person lived there. Markland was not surprised. Already, he observed primly, he had ‘some doubts of the purity’ of the prisoner’s character. The prisoner cheerfully removed his doubts. He admitted ‘with a good deal of sang froid’ that it was all a lie. He had never lived in London in all his life.

  Mr Markland. Then what am I to think? Can you expect that I shall believe a word you now say, after such a confession?

  Prisoner. I don’t know your worship. You may depend upon it, I am as innocent of the murder as the child unborn. I’ll tell no lie at all. I said many things that were not true, knowing very well that I was innocent, and that I could asily get rid of this charge.

  He was a deserter from a regiment of Irish militia, Cahill now claimed, and had been lodging in Romford Row, in Essex, at the time of the murders. Markland was sceptical.

  Mr Markland. What did you do with your military clothes?

  Prisoner. I met a Jew between Romford and Romford Row, and I bought this top-coat now on me from him, and put it over my regimentals.

  Mr Markland. What day did you say this was?

  Prisoner. Saturday, your worship.

  Mr Markland. Come Sir, I see you are beginning your old tricks. Do you mean to tell me that you bought the coat off a Jew on a Saturday? Sir, that must be false. The lowest Jew will not sell anything on a Saturday.

  Prisoner. I took him to be a Jew. He was a dark man, and he sold old clothes.

  There could have been few Cahills in Hertfordshire or Yorkshire where Markland and Capper gained their experience as magistrates, and parts of the long interrogation, which are irrelevant to the case, reveal the total lack of comprehension between them. Cahill, obviously solicitous for three such credulous gentlemen, tried vainly to convince them that his story of a wife in Bath and his subsequent military misfortunes were all lies. He was obviously as non-plussed by his judges as they were perplexed to encounter such an audacious and unrepentant rogue.

  A watchman named Ingall was next called, one of the thirty-five old men employed by the parish of St George’s-in-the-East. He declared that the prisoner could not possibly have been in bed at his lodgings at Romford Row from nine o’clock until seven on the night the Williamsons were murdered, since he had himself seen Cahill drinking in Mrs Peachy’s public house, the New Crane, which was near by; and the time was then about eleven o’clock. Mrs Peachy was sent for, and told to cast her mind back to the night of the 19th December. Had any strangers been in the New Crane? The woman reflected, then remembered that an ‘ill-looking man’ had called in the tap room for a pint of beer and a penn’orth of bread. ‘Now, Mrs Peachy,’ said Markland, encouraged, ‘look round the room, and try if you can see the man who came that night into your house.’ The woman pointed to Cahill. He was certainly ‘very like’ the man, but she could not be certain. Her daughter Susan, however, had no doubt whatever that Cahill was the man. At this, ‘the prisoner evinced signs of the utmost astonishment, and undertook to try to provide alibis to prove that he had been in his lodgings in Romford Row.’ So, late at night, the court adjourned.

  At the resumed hearing, at midday on Monday, the public examinations at Shadwell finally degenerated into farce. Because they expected a bevy of Irishmen and rumours were being spread about Papist plots, a clergyman, the Rev. Thirwell, was added to the bench; and Story, the senior magistrate, made one of his rare appearances.

  Ingall, the watchman who on Saturday had claimed that he saw the prisoner in Mrs Peachy’s public house on the night that the Williamsons were murdered, now said, on seeing Cahill in daylight, that he was quite sure that he was not the same man. Mrs Peachy was similarly doubtful; but Susan Peachy remained unshakeable in her belief that the prisoner had indeed been at the New Crane. He had then worn a hat.

  The prisoner was ordered to put on his hat.

  Q. Is that anything like the hat the man wore?

  Yes. It came more on his face.

  The magistrates observed that at this moment the man looked uncommonly like Williams.

  Q. Had the man whiskers?

  Yes. They came down nearly to his chin.

  Q. Might it not possibly have been some other man?

  I think not.

  Q. Did you ever see Williams?

  No.

  Susan Peachy, Ingall and Mrs Peachy were all despatched immediately in a coach to view the body of that miserable culprit in Coldbath Fields Prison. On their return they all gave it as their opinion that he (Williams) was the same man they saw at the New Crane public house on the Thursday night the murder was committed in New Gravel Lane.

  Cahill, a much relieved man, then produced his own witnesses. The first was an Irishman named Cornelius Driscoll, the keeper of the lodging house in Romford Row. This reference to Driscoll is interesting as it goes some way to explaining the report in The Times of Boxing Day that the man from Marlborough had been in private correspondence with one of the suspects in custody. Sylvester Driscoll was still held in Coldbath Fields Prison. It seems likely that the unfortunate magistrates of Shadwell, already bedevilled by the complications of the case (it was odd that Cahill should have claimed that he lodged with a Mr Williamson of Ratcliffe Highway) were now to be further confused by a coincidence of two more identical names. Driscoll claimed to remember that Cahill had been at home on the night of the Williamsons’ murder, but was ‘either so stupid, or affected so much stupidity, that no satisfactory answers could be elicited from him’. So the magistrate
s called his wife.

  Q. What are you?

  A poor woman, your honour.

  Q. Who is your husband?

  He is Cornelius Dixon.

  Q. Why, he has just told us his name is Driscoll?

  Oh, it’s all the same, Sir.

  The Rev. Thirwell – Are you a Roman Catholic?

  Yes.

  Q. Cross yourself.

  Mr Story.– That’s her business, not ours.

  Suddenly a sergeant belonging to the Sligo Militia jumped up in court. He said he had seen Cahill’s name mentioned in the newspapers as a deserter. He was on leave, and wished to identify the prisoner; so he was ‘immediately examined’. All that transpired, however, was that, whatever regiment Cahill had deserted – if indeed he was a deserter – it was not the Sligo Militia. The prisoner’s next witness, John Martin, was called.

  Q. Are you a Roman Catholic?

  I have been the chief of my life in His Majesty’s service.

  Q. Of what religion are you?

  Yes Sir, I have been in His Majesty’s sarvice a long while.

  Q. Do you go to mass, or to meeting, or where do you go?

  I go to none Sir, at present.

  Q. Are you a Papist? I don’t speak of Papists by way of reproach.

  I don’t know what a Papist is.