Unsolved London Murders

by Jonathan Oates

  Baker Street, 2008. Author’s collection

  He recounted how he found his wife, and believing she was dead, asked his lodgers to call the police. He said that he and his wife had been on good terms, though ‘they had a few words occasionally’. These were over cooking. Both of them liked drinking. He denied ever hitting her, but confessed, oddly enough, to having thrown gramophone records at her.

  If this was a case of burglary, then the thieves would have had to have known the house well enough to have been able to have purloined the cash. The jury at the inquest thought that this might have been so. Yet Elizabeth Madolski and Israel Tendler, the Emms’s neighbours, saw nothing on the fatal night and heard nothing unusual.

  Detective Inspector Smith wrote that ‘The coroner then suggested to the jury that they should return an open verdict, as the evidence failed to disclose the cause of death and this course they finally adopted.’ Privately, he wrote, ‘The enquiry is being continued, and should anything further transpire, a report will at once be submitted.’

  Edith was a woman of admittedly nervous temperament. She may have been frightened to death by burglars, or by another cause. It seems almost impossible that her unpleasant husband was responsible, unless we can imagine he could have returned home and in a few minutes have caused his wife’s death, knowing full well that the two lodgers were on the premises. Burglars seem a more likely explanation, but as to who they were, it is impossible to know. However, the neighbours heard nothing suspicious, so even the existence of the burglars must remain questionable.

  CHAPTER 7

  An Acrobat’s Death, 1924

  he was inclined to quarrel and fight when intoxicated

  In a tourist guide to London of 1927, it was stated that, ‘Leicester Square and Soho have long been famous as the home of a colony of French, Italians and Swiss. Hereabouts are many excellent restaurants frequented not only by foreigners but by Londoners themselves.’ Soho was also the scene of several crimes featured in this book.

  At half past eleven on Friday night, 27 June 1924, PC Thurston was in Sherwood Street and was told of a man lying in a pool of blood nearby. He found the fatally wounded Martial Lechevalier, a 26-year-old French acrobat, on Air Street, near Piccadilly Circus. He died shortly afterwards, before he reached Charing Cross Hospital. Just after the stabbing, one Mary Allen saw the dying man and heard him speaking to another man in French, a language she did not understand. Genazzini Flavio, an Italian waiter on his way home after work, said that he, too, saw the body and when Lechevalier was asked by another who was responsible, he merely answered, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know’ in poor English.

  Air Street, 2008. Author’s collection

  According to his brother, Paul Edward Lechevalier, a tailor of Grafton Street, he had come to England in March of that year, before briefly returning to France and then was in England from early June. He had allegedly supported himself with funds he had with him, and money given to him by his two brothers, one of whom was in France. He was not known to have been in employment. However, Paul had seen little of his brother, did not even know his address and said, ‘My brother was always very reticent and did not say very much about his affairs.’ He had not seen him since 2 June, when he had seen him outside the Palace Theatre on Cambridge Circus.

  Chief Inspector Frederick Wensley of Scotland Yard and Chief Inspector Brown were in charge of the case and they requested that Samuel Ingleby Oddie (1869–1945), the Westminster coroner, adjourn the inquest which had opened on 1 July, for two weeks. After the official identification of the body, their wish was granted.

  Piccadilly Circus, 1920s. Paul Lang’s collection

  On the following day, the police issued a statement that they wanted to talk to one Alfred Sauvaget, a 29-year-old Frenchman. He was five feet nine inches tall, of stout build, clean shaven, with dark hair and was last seen in a grey suit and a trilby hat. Apparently he had been seen with Lechevalier on the evening of his death. In the early hours of 28 June, he and another man had gone to an address in Gerrard Street in a taxi. He had also been seen at an address in St Martin’s Lane on 30 June, but was said to have been usually found in Torrington Square.

  The adjourned inquest concentrated on the medical details of the case. Dr Henry Weir submitted his report of the post mortem. There was a wound in the right side of the neck. It was four inches deep. Part of the bone was exposed. Death had resulted from a haemorrhage from this wound. A sharp weapon, such as a razor or knife, must have been used by his attacker. Given that Lechevalier was right-handed, the injury could not have been self-inflicted. The blow had been delivered from behind the victim, probably by a man who was right-handed. It was alleged that the crime had been witnessed by a woman who lived near Manchester and she was urged to tell the police what she knew.

  More information was found out about the victim. Lechevalier had been born on 3 October 1897 at Asnieres, and later resided in Lille. He had a criminal record in France, for four charges. He had deserted from the army in 1918 twice, though was pardoned at the Armistice. Then he was charged with living off prostitutes’ earnings in the same year and finally with brawling in 1922. He was fined and spent time in prison for the last offence.

  He was registered in London as an alien, i.e. a foreigner. He claimed he had come to England ‘to study the English language’. Although registered as living at Castle Street, he actually lived with a Mrs Burns, aged 24, at Albany Street (the two had first met in 1922). Mrs Burns had been born Helene Charheure in France and was a prostitute. She had arrived in England on 2 October 1923 and went through an arranged marriage with a John Burns on 2 April 1924, in order to become a British subject. When questioned, the woman claimed she had no knowledge of Lechevalier, but eventually confessed she had lived with him. As was said, ‘Mrs Burns, as she then became, continued her immoral life and there is no doubt that she helped to support Martial Lechevalier’.

  Albany Street, 2008. Author’s collection

  It would seem that Lechevalier was a criminal who was involved in the vice trade. Certainly, his associates, Sauvaget and Raymond Mathieu, a 29-year-old ‘salesman’ of Grafton Street, were arrangers of marriages between foreign prostitutes and British men. This arrangement was necessitated by the Aliens Act of 1905 which allowed undesirable foreigners to be deported. Foreign prostitutes who married British men could not be deported, and the women became indebted to the gang members who then made money out of them. Frank Keller was also associated with the gang and said, ‘This gang numbers about 20. They are all desperate men. They are better known in France and the majority have been convicted there.’

  Grafton Street, 2008. Author’s collection

  Another month was to pass before further evidence was presented to the coroner. This was because the police needed time to find crucial witnesses. Various accounts of Lechevalier’s last hours were eventually recounted by a number of men. It was Mrs Burns who told of his activity during the daytime. At 2 pm he had left her lodgings to go to the cinema. He returned at 7.30 pm, having been elsewhere, as he was clearly the worse for wear and was very excited. She ‘asked him not to go out any more as I knew that he was inclined to quarrel and fight when he was intoxicated’. But he refused to heed her and left their rooms shortly afterwards, at about 7.45 pm.

  Auguste Guilleaume Pascall, a Frenchman who had lived in England for 24 years, who described himself as a hotel keeper of the New North Road, Theobald’s Road, was the first to give his story. He said that he was with Lechevalier on the fatal night. They had met at Belmont’s pub on Dean Street at half past eight. Mathieu was the first there, and then Lechevalier. Another man known as Fredo later appeared. Pascall had been acquainted with him for seven months. They spent the evening talking and drinking, in at least four other pubs. The last to be visited was the Cock on Shaftesbury Avenue, which they left at about ten to eleven. Earlier, he claimed that Lechevalier talked about a man who he meant to fight later that night, but Pascall told him not to be silly, fo
r if he did the police would be after him. Pascall then went home to an address in St Martin’s Lane. He claimed that none of them were drunk.

  The Palace Theatre, 2008. Author’s collection

  Although he went to bed, he was awoken at two by Fredo, who asked for Mathieu’s address. Pascall told him that the man lived in Grafton Street (where Lechevalier’s brother also resided), but asked why he needed to know that information at such an hour. Fredo said that there had been a fight.

  Mathieu was the next to speak, and he spoke little English, so an interpreter had to be used. He recalled meeting Lechevalier at a pub on Old Compton Street. Fredo and Pascall were with him, as well as two other Frenchmen. When the group split up, Mathieu, Lechevalier and a man known only as ‘the little fellow’ went up Shaftesbury Avenue. When they reached Rupert Street, ‘the little fellow’, who was walking behind Lechevalier, said, ‘He has got on my nerves with his language’. He then hit Lechevalier across the mouth and drew blood. Mathieu calmed them down and suggested they had a drink. Reaching Little Pulteney Street, Mathieu left them for a time and when he returned he saw a shocking sight.

  The ‘little fellow’ raised his hand, which held a knife or razor, and drew it swiftly across Lechevalier’s neck. He then swiftly ran off. Lechevalier pulled his handkerchief across his neck and told Mathieu, ‘Raymond, take me to hospital’. He then collapsed to the ground and said ‘I want to sleep’. He said no more. Mathieu remained with him until the police arrived and he gave them his name and address. He then went home and in the early hours was awoken by Fredo, who wanted to know exactly how much the ‘little one’ knew. Apparently this unknown man had told Fredo ‘Lechevalier had struck me on the nose and I gave him a good cut’. Fredo apologised on the man’s behalf that he had left Mathieu with the body. Mathieu was asked to describe the ‘little one’. He said that he was fat, with a round face and a broken nose. His complexion was yellow and he was wearing a brown suit and a soft hat.

  Mrs Marie Pugh of William Street told the jury that she did charring for a French woman, Mrs Yvonne Harper, a prostitute of Shaftesbury Avenue. Mrs Pugh knew that Fredo was a frequent visitor to Mrs Harper’s abode. She recollected that on the 29 and 30 June, the two had been together in Whitfield Street and that Fredo had had blood on his clothes. Mrs Harper explained that Fredo had sent her a note telling her to meet him there. Apparently Mrs Harper had married one Edwin Harper in January 1923, but denied she had paid him to do so in order to remain in the country. She had not seen her husband for some time and did not know his current whereabouts.

  The police wanted to talk to Fredo, and this they were unable to do until after this third sitting of the inquest had been adjourned. Fredo, whose real name was Albert Sauvaget, mentioned above, appeared at the final hearing of the inquest on 18 September, bringing a solicitor with him. He had been previously interviewed at Vine Street police station on 29 August and had signed a statement in the presence of Detective Inspector Charles Tanner. On 27 June, Sauvaget recalled being with a group of men including a fruit merchant called Frankau and an estate agent by the name of Streuser, and one Alexander. They had met Lechevalier, Pascall and Mathieu and two other men not known to him.

  They had several drinks in a variety of pubs, before parting. He recalled having last seen Lechevalier at about a quarter to eleven in the Cock on Shaftesbury Avenue. He thought that previously Lechevalier had seemed nervous and had been drinking heavily. He claimed not to know about the assault until about half an hour after midnight when, on leaving a cafe, a man came up to him and made a gesture like the cutting of a throat and said ‘Your friend’. He then took a taxi to see Pascall in order to find out what had happened.

  Sauvaget said that he had known Lechevalier for ten years and had not quarrelled with him on the night of the murder. He explained that the reason why he had not come forward earlier was because he had been in France about the revision of his pension for a war wound. As soon as he knew the police wanted to see him, he returned to London, or so he said.

  Oddie was unsatisfied with the evidence given by Pascall, Mathieu, Mrs Harper and Sauvaget, believing much of it to be a tissue of lies. The police agreed, ‘owing to the bad character of the available witnesses they were most reticent’. The killer, if we believe Mathieu, was the anonymous fat man called ‘the little one’. Whether it was or not, he was never traced. Why Lechevalier was killed was another matter and it may have been because the killer became annoyed with his would-be victim on the night of his death and the fight followed a quarrel between the two men. Or it could have been prearranged, as Lechevalier had mentioned having to fight someone later that evening. He seems to have been disposed to do so, with not only Mrs Burns remarking upon it, but also his brother, saying that he was ‘very exciteable and quarrelsome’ when drunk. Yet no one would come forward, despite the fact that ‘it seems to be common knowledge among certain members of the French colony in Soho who the actual culprit is’. Yet, ‘there is none upon which any charge can be made against any person now in this country’.

  One suspect was an Algerian, aged between 27 and 30, five feet eight inches in height, with a pale complexion, dark hair and with a scar on his chin. He was well dressed and had apparently threatened Lechevalier, saying ‘I have got it in for you’. One Fred Clarke claimed he had seen this man with Lechevalier on the night of the murder.

  As a footnote to this case, in October 1925, one Giovanni Pergilore, a 37-year-old acrobat was accused of witnessing the stabbing. Pergilore was himself a criminal, being involved in a gang which extorted money from cafe owners. An accomplice of his was Wilfred Cooper, a 28-year-old waiter. Both were allegedly involved with the Sabini gang. Nothing came from this lead, however.

  Finally, one D Lester of Duke Street apparently wrote to the police in 1928, telling them that the killer was still at large and associated with prostitutes at Jermyn Street. Yet on investigation it was found that there was no such man as D Lester. PS John Sands wrote, ‘The murder of Martial Lechevalier was thoroughly investigated at the time and has been the subject of numerous enquiries since but no information has come into our possession upon which a charge could be substantiated against any person.’ There was another anonymous letter found by one Victor Gillett, stating, ‘The murderer of the Frenchman in Glasshouse street is a tall dark haired man in a white smock in a fish shop at the top of Beak Street. He is an Italian. THE MURDERER. VRG’. As with the other information sent to the police following the murder, it proved of no use.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Death of a Landlady, 1924

  I feel strongly that this man should be under observation.

  To the north of Euston railway station is a little square called Harrington Square. Since the 1890s, at least, one house on that square had been held as leasehold property by a Mrs Grace Goodall. It was in rather poor repair. In 1924, she was aged 73 and had been living apart from her husband, John Edward Goodall (said to be an artist and living in Berkhamstead, aged 71) for some years. Indeed, the two had not met since 1917. He rarely came up to London. She made money by renting out the eight rooms in her house. To do this, she advertised vacancies in the YMCA Journal, doubtless to attract a moral type of young man. She also owned three cottages in Chipping, near Buntingford, had £54 in savings and £20 in ready cash. According to PC Thurley, she was eccentric and often complained to the police about children and dogs causing a nuisance near her home.

  We now turn to her lodgers. One was James Charles Kellaway, an elderly piano tuner who was only occasionally in employment. He had lived at Mrs Goodall’s for about 25 years. Just before Mrs Goodall went to the Middlesex Hospital in 1912 for a serious operation, she made her will and the principal beneficiary was Kellaway. Another lodger was Louis John Midgley, a chef at the Hotel Russell. Another was Minno Lally, an Indian. In early December 1924, Mrs Goodall and Lally had quarrelled, when she had found that he was betting. This resulted in him finding new lodgings. However, he returned on 18 December to retrieve a p
hotograph he had left behind.

  Mrs Goodall had made an appointment at noon on Tuesday 23 December with one George Edwin Adams, a young electrical engineer of Hampstead Road, in order to discuss the installation of electricity in the house; apparently on 27 October she had contracted with him to have the work done. He arrived and broached the topic with Mrs Goodall in the house’s lobby. To his surprise, he found that she no longer required his services for the London house, but might have some electrical work in one of her country properties. Adams told her that she might still have to pay for the work that she had agreed to have done, even if it were not. The two argued, and Adams later recalled, ‘She got out of temper with me and I think I did with her.’ After about five or six minutes (although on one occasion, he declared the meeting took twenty minutes), Adams said that he left the house and then went to the Horse Shoe pub on New Oxford Street.

  Harrington Square, 2008. Author’s collection

  Kellaway was in the house just after noon, and he was passing through the hall when he heard a conversation between Mrs Goodall and a young man, 20–23 years old, about five feet four inches in height and dressed in black. Kellaway recalled that Mrs Goodall had said that she had made an appointment to see two young men about current vacancies and doubtless he thought that this man was a prospective tenant. He, too, left the house, at about 12.30 and went to King Street Baths, leaving there at 2. He then had lunch with a Mr Lacey, finishing at about 3 pm.