Hardcastle's Quartet

by Graham Ison

  ‘Has the jury reached a verdict?’ enquired the clerk.

  ‘We have,’ said the foreman.

  ‘How say you upon the indictment of murder?’

  ‘We find the accused, Rollo Henson, guilty.’

  Henson, flanked by two warders, gripped the dock rail until his knuckles showed white. His face was ashen and beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. Like so many ‘gentlemen’ murderers before him, he had been convinced that the jury would acquit him. But the jury, as it always did, comprised men of property and professional standing. As such, they were unlikely to be sympathetically disposed in favour of one of their own class who had ‘let the side down’. But to Henson, the shock of his conviction at once sapped his self-confidence and destroyed his arrogance.

  ‘Prisoner at the bar, do you have anything to say before sentence of death is passed upon you?’ asked the judge.

  ‘As God is my witness, My Lord, I am innocent,’ protested Henson, hardly managing to get the words out. ‘I loved her.’

  The judge donned the black cap. ‘Rollo Henson, you have rightly been found guilty of the heinous crime of murder. It is my view, based upon the evidence, that you saw Queenie Rogers as one who had threatened to bring you down. For those reasons, and because of your insatiable greed, you decided to be rid of her and so you decided to dispose of her in the most callous fashion imaginable. It saddens me that a member of the bar should find himself standing before me. The sentence of this court is that you be taken from this place to the place from whence you came and thence to a place of lawful execution where, after three Sabbath days have elapsed, you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul.’

  The judge’s chaplain, an ascetic, skeletal individual of at least sixty summers who appeared never to have smiled in his entire life, intoned the single word ‘Amen’.

  It was Monday the eleventh of November, and outside the Home Office in Whitehall crowds could be heard singing and dancing to celebrate the end of the Great War, and shouting for Lloyd George, the prime minister.

  Seated within this imposing building, the Home Secretary examined the docket containing details of Rollo Henson’s conviction and sentence of death. But he saw no reason to interfere with that sentence, particularly as Henson, in the face of overwhelming evidence, had subsequently admitted to murdering Blanche Hardy, Hazel Lacey and Georgina Cheney. Taking out his fountain pen, Sir George Cave wrote the damning words on the docket: ‘Let the law take its course.’

  At one minute to eight on the morning of Monday the twenty-fifth of November 1918, two weeks after the Armistice, the two warders who had been Henson’s constant companions in the condemned cell moved a cupboard to reveal a door. They pinioned the condemned man’s arms and hurried him through the door to the scaffold. Exactly sixty seconds later, John Ellis, the official hangman, consigned Rollo Henson to the hereafter.

  The customary black flag was hoisted over Lewes prison, and the black-framed notice of execution was posted on the gate.

  Six months later, there being nothing in law to prevent it, Lydia Henson inherited her late husband’s estate. With unseemly haste, she withdrew his ill-gotten gains and returned to her native New York where she set up business as a fashion designer.

  But there was a strange corollary to the case of Rollo Henson.

  Several months after Henson’s execution, during which time the population was slowly coming to terms with the reality of the war’s crippling legacy, a constable appeared in Hardcastle’s doorway.

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  ‘What is it, lad?’

  ‘There’s a Major Crawford downstairs and he’s asking to see you, sir.’

  ‘Did he say what it’s about?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘He said it’s in connection with the Henson case, sir.’

  ‘Show him up, lad, and on your way down ask Sergeant Marriott to step in.’

  Leaning heavily on a walking stick, Major Crawford, attired in civilian clothing, limped into the DDI’s office. His face was badly disfigured on the left side, he wore a black patch over his left eye and the empty left sleeve of his jacket was pinned up.

  ‘I’m Geoffrey Crawford, late of the South Wales Borderers,’ announced the visitor.

  ‘Do sit down, Major Crawford,’ said Hardcastle, as Marriott hurried to position a chair. ‘I didn’t realize you were wounded or I’d’ve come down to see you rather than obliging you to climb the stairs.’

  ‘It’s of no matter.’ Crawford sank gratefully into the chair.

  ‘I’m Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle, and this is Detective Sergeant Marriott. What can I do for you?’

  ‘To begin at the beginning, Inspector, I was badly wounded at the Somme,’ Crawford began, ‘and I lay out in a shell hole in no-man’s-land for what seemed like days. Eventually I was taken prisoner by the Germans and was in one of their hospitals for months before being transferred to a prisoner-of-war camp at Fallingbostel.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Major.’

  ‘Apart from being wounded, I found that I’d lost my memory. Somehow or other my identity discs had been lost and of course we didn’t carry any documents into battle with us; documents that might’ve identified me. In short I had no idea who I was, and neither had the Germans. As a consequence I was posted missing believed killed – not that I knew that at the time. However, my memory returned at about the time I was repatriated when the Armistice was declared. But when I got home, I found that my wife Amelia was dead, and she’d been buried in Chepstow. Both Amelia and I were born and brought up there, you see.’

  ‘What does this have to do with the case of Rollo Henson, Major?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘I’m coming to that, Inspector. Before I joined the army, my wife and I lived on the outskirts of Guildford, but during my absence at the Front she frequently spent time with her married sister in Chepstow. At some time in late 1917, it seems that Amelia had promised to spend a couple of weeks with her sister, but she didn’t arrive. Her sister was concerned that she might’ve been the victim of an air raid, and travelled to Guildford to find out what had happened to her. Amelia’s maid told my sister-in-law that Amelia had fallen down the stairs and broken her neck. Believing me to be dead, my sister-in-law took Amelia’s body back to Chepstow to be buried there.’

  ‘Was the matter enquired into by the Guildford Borough Police, Major?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘I believe so, Sergeant,’ said Crawford. ‘From what I’ve gathered they decided it was a tragic accident and that was the finding of the coroner’s inquest. But the disturbing factor is that when her estate was put into probate it was found that she’d left all her money – a substantial amount, I may say – to someone called Rollo Henson. Until I read the report of the Henson case in The Times, the name had meant nothing to me, and I’d never heard of this Henson.’

  ‘I think I can explain, Major.’ Hardcastle went on to give Crawford details of Henson’s catalogue of murders. ‘As a matter of interest, Major,’ he asked in conclusion, ‘do you happen to know the name of the housemaid who found your wife’s body?’

  ‘I didn’t know the girl personally, and neither did I ever meet her, Inspector, but my sister-in-law told me that the girl’s name was Queenie Rogers.’