Unsolved London Murders

by Jonathan Oates

  Before examining the crime, we must first introduce the principal characters involved in it. The little Page family consisted of three members. There was Charles William Page (born in Fulham in 1892), a painter employed by the Great Western Railway Company. Isabel was his wife (born in 1895, née Essex), and they had married in the summer of 1918 in London. Their only child was Vera Isobel Minnie (born in Hammersmith on 13 April 1921). They moved from Chapel Road to a house in Blenheim Crescent in January 1931. Also living with them was Maud Essex, Isabel’s 23-year-old niece and her boyfriend, Harry Lovatt, aged 24. Vera’s grandmother and aunt lived nearby.

  Blenheim Crescent, 2008. Author’s collection

  As with many working-class people in this era, they did not occupy the whole house, but rather lived in rooms in part of it, in this case, on the ground floor. Other occupants were Arthur Orlando Rush, a 71 year old who had once run his own florist’s shop in Kensington, and his wife, Annie, who was one year his junior. After living in Charlotte Terrace and Hesselway in 1891 and 1901, respectively, by 1931 they had lived in Blenheim Crescent for at least 20 years and occupied the top floor. They had been married in London in early 1891 and a few weeks later, their first child of at least four was born. This was Percy Orlando. He was the only one who was still living with them by 1920. In 1921, he married Daisy Lilian Wheeley, who had been born in Kensington in 1890. The newlyweds lived with his parents until about 1925. Then, the young couple who were childless began to live in the three rooms at the top of a house in the nearby Talbot Road, and Percy visited his parents once or twice a week, letting himself in with his own key.

  Talbot Road, 2008. Author’s collection

  It is deeply to be regretted that we do not know what the relations between the two families were, nor what they thought about each other, or even how the different family members interacted with each other. It certainly seems that both families were close knit.

  Vera, who was 10 years old by December 1931, was four feet seven inches high and attended the nearby Lancaster Road School. According to her mother, ‘She was very shy in front of strangers, and not likely to speak to them. If she knew anybody, she would speak to them.’ On the afternoon of Monday 14 December, she came home from school as usual. Then she left home to visit her aunt, Mrs Minnie Maria Essex, who lived a few minutes walk away on the same street (about 200 yards away). Vera was wearing black shoes, stockings, a blue gymslip with black braid, a blue jacket coat and a red woollen jersey. She also had a red beret. When she left home, her clothes were clean. Her mother reminded her not to be late home, for her tea was being prepared for 5.30 pm. Vera needed no second warning as she was hungry and wanted to eat.

  Vera arrived at her aunt’s house at 4.30 pm. She collected her school swimming certificates and carefully put them into a large envelope. She then began her short walk home, at about 4.45 pm and was apparently eager to get home. Yet, despite her hunger, she walked past her house. She was next seen, by the 12-year-old Charles Hewett and the 13-year-old Irene Stegman, looking into Taylor’s, a chemists’ shop at the junction of Portobello Road and Blenheim Crescent at about 5 pm. Vera liked looking at the Christmas gifts displayed there, especially the soap in the shape of dominoes. A man and a woman were also standing outside the shop (we do not know their identities). At 6.30, one John Barden, a ship’s steward, said she was looking at a shop window. It is unknown what she did in the intervening hour and a half. Fifteen minutes later, Robert Ritches, a salesman, saw her in Montpelier Road, walking in the direction of Lansdowne Crescent. He used to know her, having lived in the same house as the Pages for nearly two years. He recollected that she had her beret and her certificates. That was the last time she is known to have been seen alive. Yet Ritches was seen by the police as an unreliable witness, ‘a shifty individual; who had been convicted for embezzlement eight years ago’ and so they thought he may not have seen her.

  Vera certainly never returned home. Her parents and neighbours began the search for her that evening and continued on the following day. All Vera’s relatives were visited, but to no effect. They had her reported missing at Notting Hill Police station at 10.25 pm. The police took the matter seriously and acted promptly. On the following day, her description was circulated among the local police and the women police were also notified (their role was seen to be among children and women, of course). By the evening, the press had been given details, too. Broadcasts were made on the wireless, one stating: ‘it is feared some harm may have befallen her’.

  Meanwhile, Kathleen Short, who lived in a house in Stanley Crescent, found a red beret outside the property at 9 pm on Tuesday 15 December. She evidently took it into the house and put it to one side. She also found scraps of paper and swept these up without looking at them. These may have been the remains of the school swimming certificates, which were never found. These items had not been there that afternoon.

  Stanley Crescent, 2008. Author’s collection

  On the morning of Wednesday 16 December, Mrs Margaret Key of Goldhawk Road, Shepherd’s Bush, was on her way to work. It was 6.40 am. She was walking along Holland Park Avenue in order to get to Shepherd’s Bush. At the junction with Holland Park Gardens, she saw a man crossing the main road, from Addison Avenue, and walking southwards. He was wheeling a coster’s barrow, in which a large bundle was covered by a red cloth with a knitted fringe. She proceeded on her way to work. Men pushing coster’s barrows were not an uncommon sight in Notting Hill.

  At 9.50 that morning, there was a major development. Joseph Smith, a milkman, was making his rounds near Holland Park. He was delivering milk to Silwood, a large house on Addison Road, which is just south of Holland Park Avenue and is a continuation of Addison Avenue, which is north of the main thoroughfare. This was about a mile and a half from Blenheim Crescent. The house belonged to the wealthy widow of Charles Smith, who lived there with three servants. The milkman had previously been to that house at 5.30 am, to make his deliveries to the tradesmen’s entrance, when it had been dark. At 10.20 pm, on the previous day, Mrs Smith had returned home, leaving at 7.50 am the next day, and saw nothing unusual. By ten to ten, on 16 December, it was light, and Joseph Smith, making his second delivery there, made a most terrible discovery. He saw a pile of earth and leaves. These partially concealed the corpse of a little girl. He recalled:

  The moment I stepped into the garden. I saw the body. The child was lying on her right side, and the lapel of her coat almost covered her face. She looked as if she were lying asleep under the bushes, except that her face was like marble. I told the cook at the house, and then went out and found a policeman [PC Wager].

  Addison Road, 2008. Author’s collection

  Wager contacted Notting Hill Police Station and they rang Paddington station. Here were Superintendent George Cornish, one of Scotland Yard’s ‘Big Five’, and Detective Inspector Mallett. They went to Silwood and there found the body of Vera Page. She was fully clothed, though lacked her beret and her certificates. There were a number of clues. First, there were spots of candle grease on her clothes. Secondly, there were traces of coal dust on her face. Thirdly, and perhaps most important, in the crook of her right elbow was part of a bandage and lint, which had been on someone’s finger. Finally, there was a smell of ammonia on the bandage. Unfortunately, after a search of the grounds, no other clues could be found. It was deduced that the corpse could not have been put there before early that morning, as it had rained the night before and the body was dry.

  Dr William Kirkwood, the divisional surgeon, was called and arrived at 10.20 am. Spilsbury carried out a post mortem at 4 pm. The cause of death was manual strangulation. She had also been sexually assaulted before death. Spilsbury was uncertain when the child died. He thought that death occurred ‘Not very long after the child was missing, I think on Monday night.’ He also noted that the body was warm and that there was some decomposition. He deduced that the corpse must have been kept in a warm place, perhaps inhabited rooms in a house, rather than a coa
l cellar or outhouse. Marks of a cord were found around Vera’s neck after death, too, perhaps it had been used as an aid for carrying. We do not know whether Vera was given a meal by her killer or their accomplice (if any); there is no surviving record of the examination of her stomach contents which must have been made (as it was with a child murder in 1914). This would have been an important clue and it must be regrettably assumed the report was discarded.

  Meanwhile, that evening, Kathleen Short found a partially used candle near her house. She brought this and the beret to the attention of the police. The beret was identified as being that of Vera’s and it was noted that there was paraffin on it.

  Vera’s father told of his distress, ‘She was our only girl, a fine little lass and I could not imagine anyone wanting to do her harm. She was full of fun and life, and was the joy of our hearts.’ There were also tributes from her schoolfriends and teachers, who described her as a popular girl, being bright and fun. The mental strain proved too much for his wife, who fell ill soon after the discovery of the murder. So much so that a policeman was stationed outside the house to deter any callers. However, they received many sympathetic letters from people from all over the country, many of whom were complete strangers.

  The murder investigation could now begin. Cornish took command and Mallett was another key detective in the case. About 200 detectives were assigned to the task. They issued a statement which was published in the press on 17 December, briefly stating the known facts of the case and encouraging anyone who had seen her or had seen anything suspicious to come forward. As usual, the police were painstaking in their investigation and over 1,000 statements were taken (none of these now survive – documents being weeded routinely). Sheds, garages and unoccupied flats were searched. Photographs of the victim were also distributed to jog people’s memories. They also questioned all the usual local suspects: men with known ‘indecent tendencies’.

  At least three such men were questioned at Ladbrooke Road Police Station. One was a labourer, who spent an hour with the police. Unreported (by name) in the press, one of the three was the forementioned Percy Rush. He was interviewed by Mallett at Notting Hill Police Station on 18 December. He was ‘a short thick set man with a fresh complexion, and wears horn rimmed spectacle. He has thick black eyebrows and a heavy moustache.’ Although we know little about his family life, education and career, there are a few pertinent facts. Like many young men, he had volunteered for military service during the Great War. He had been a private in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps 1914–20, though his military career was apparently inconspicuous. By 1931 he was aged 40 and had been employed at Whiteley’s Laundry, Avonmore Road, Olympia, as a flannel washer for two years, and was described by a colleague as a workmate, rather than as a friend. More pertinently, he had been convicted of indecent exposure in 1923 and 1927, receiving a month in prison for each offence. Between 1929 and 1931, a man answering his description had been reported as exposing himself to various women, including Rose Napper and Queenie Marshall at Rosemead Road. Although he was picked out of an identity parade and charged at West London Magistrates’ Court in January 1932, he pleaded not guilty and was discharged. It is worth noting that in June 1931 he had exposed himself to two schoolchildren, or in the words of a newspaper, ‘behaving indecently with intent to insult females’. He was seen as suspicious in the locality, too, ‘His conduct for some time past in the neighbourhood has been the subject of much local gossip.’ It was claimed that Rush had been seen loitering about the neighbourhood in the evening, having been identified by his attaché case which contained his lunch. Rush denied he ever went about at night without his wife, but did admit that he did sometimes loiter on his way from work.

  His lodgings were searched and his clothes taken away for testing in the laboratory. The results were certainly interesting. Semen was found on his coat, as was coal dust. He could not explain the presence of the former. It may have been a result of his ‘flashing’ or could have resulted from a violent sexual crime.

  One crucial clue was the bandage and lint. These smelt of ammonia, a substance commonly used in laundries and indeed it was used at Rush’s workplace. Rush had recently injured the little finger of his left hand at work (about two weeks before the murder); there were two sores there. He said he had made a rough bandage for his finger at work and once home, his wife made a better one, with their domestic supply. This was so the ammonia at work would not irritate the cut. However, he claimed that he had thrown it on the fire on Friday 11 December, in order that the fresh air might heal the wound and so was not wearing it on the crucial Monday 14 December. His workmates, when questioned, thought that he might have been wearing it on Monday, but they were uncertain. Dr Roche Lynch examined the bandage found with Vera’s corpse and wrote, ‘After the examination of photographs, examination by ultra violet light and other tests I have come to the conclusion that the lint and the bandage forming the finger bandage are different from the samples found at Rush’s house.’ The bandage was thought to fit Rush’s injured finger, but again, this was not certain. Others were questioned who had injured fingers, but none lived in the vicinity of the murder. Enquiries were made at hospitals and to doctors and chemists about anyone who had been treated for an injured finger.

  The police searched Rush’s rooms. Rush carried a pyjama cord around with him, allegedly to keep his trousers up. This could have been used to make the marks around Vera’s neck. Then there was the question of the paraffin, the coal dust and the candle. A paraffin rag was found in his flat and they had a coal cellar; Rush took coal from the cellar to the house and so his clothing would naturally bear traces of coal dust. Hundreds of thousands of other households had coal cellars, so the coal evidence is hardly conclusive. Candles were not uncommon in homes of the time, too, and Rush’s had some. The paraffin rag had apparently been there for months and was used for cleaning the stove. Although a red table cloth was found there, similar to the one seen by Mrs Keys over the barrow, it was shown to the witness and she did not think the two were one and the same. The colour was the same but the fringe was different. She also failed to pick out Rush from an identity parade on two occasions, though her initial description of the man she had seen was not unlike Rush.

  Rush was questioned about what he knew of Vera. He often visited his parents, at least once a week and often more (he had visited them on Sunday 13 and Thursday 17 December). He had a key to the house. As said, Vera had lived in this house since January 1931. According to him,

  I knew Vera Page. She was a pretty sweet little kid. I liked her. I always looked upon her as a nice little girl. I have never given her sweets, money or toys. I have seen her playing in the streets outside her own home, I last saw her about three weeks ago.

  He said he recognized her picture in the newspaper. Yet later, he claimed, ‘I have seen her and have only said good evening to her’ and would not have recognized her in the street. How well did he really know her?

  He gave an account of his movements on 14 December. He had been at work in the daytime, starting at about 8.30 and taking a lunch break between 1 and 2. He left work at about 5.55 pm (though we only have his word for this), but, knowing his wife was visiting her mother on that evening, and not wanting to be at home by himself for long, decided to walk home and to take a longer route, arriving home much later than usual. Normally he would have caught a bus to Notting Hill Gate and then walked home. Instead, he bought collar studs from Woolworths, leaving there at 7 pm. He walked along Kensington High Street, looking at the contents of shop windows, then went up Church Street to Notting Hill Gate. Rush then walked up Kensington Park Road, which took him near both Stanley Crescent and Blenheim Crescent. He arrived back home at 8.15; his wife was there and they went to bed at 10.45. He did not visit his parents on this day or the following, though he normally did so on Monday or Thursday). On the following Tuesday, he left work at the same time and travelled by bus to Notting Hill. He reached home at 7.15 and remained there for the res
t of the night, so he said. He said that he could not have got out of bed without his wife knowing it. No one was ever called upon to verify his statements about his movements.

  Kensington High Street, 2008. Author’s collection

  Another question was the location of the murder. Could it have been in the coal cellar of the house in Stanley Crescent where the beret and candle were found? The cellar door was unlocked (the previous tenant, Thomas McDougall O’Connor, who left on 9 December, had taken away the padlock with him), so was accessible to anyone. Furthermore, the Short family, who now lived there, played gramophone records in the evenings and had the wireless on at full blast. Experiments showed that they would not have heard Vera scream had she been there that night. Yet the body would have had to be stored in warm rooms after the killing, because the corpse’s decomposition was relatively advanced.

  The inquest was opened at Paddington by Oddie on 18 December, but was adjourned. The coroner was enthusiastic to bring it to a successful conclusion, later writing of his ‘fixed determination to spare no effort which might lead to the discovery and apprehension of this terrible monster’. Rumours in the local press initially suggested that a motorist, a small, dark young man, wearing a black overcoat and a bowler hat, had abducted and killed her. Apparently he had been offering sweets and toys as an inducement to children, whilst driving around the streets in a small saloon car. Another rumour was that Vera had been seen riding the handle bars of a bicycle, ridden by a well-dressed man, with a black moustache and a scar on his cheek. Yet it is rare for a stranger to have committed crimes of this nature and these theories were soon discounted. The police made a search of neighbouring garages and sheds. A few days later, an Underground official gave rise to a search being made at Holland Park tube station. Vera’s funeral took place on 23 December, at the Presbyterian Mission Hall (where Vera attended Sunday School) on Kensington Park Road. The Revd Guthrie said ‘There is nothing I can say to you who mourn in bitter sorrow, except that your grief is being borne today by the whole nation.’ Four days later, many people visited her grave at the newly opened Kensington Cemetery in Gunnersbury Park. Police attended the service and the burial, suspecting that the guilty party might have been there, too.