The Lady in the Cellar

by Sinclair McKay

  Throughout the day, there was constant movement in the yard workshop at the back of the house in Euston Square, and high-spirited noise and joking. Severin’s brothers, Joseph and Anton, went in and out of the main house, through the back door which led to the kitchen and through to the scullery, which in turn looked out to the front of the house, light spilling down from the street above. Immediately outside this downstairs scullery was a small paved area, with some steps leading up to the pavement; and then, in the area beneath the pavement itself, was a door leading to two large cellars. In the main, these were used for coal; the delivery men would open a manhole in the paving stones and throw the order down into the sooty darkness. The Bastendorffs kept timber and bamboo there, as well as imported wine.

  The kitchen and the scullery were largely the domain of the Bastendorff’s young maidservant, Sarah Carpenter, who was 13-years old. At that point, she would have been responsible for all the cleaning and the cooking; she would also have been required at certain times to help with the young Bastendorff children. But in some ways, Sarah’s Euston Square situation might have been more congenial than many of her peers; at present, without lodgers, the workload of the house was not heavy, and the pay, while not lavish, was also far from miserly. Added to this, Sarah was the only servant, which actually gave her a certain amount of flexibility that would not have been allowed in grander Belgravia establishments. There was no hierarchy of servants for her to fit into at 4, Euston Square; just the instructions she received from Mary Bastendorff. And Mary’s diffidence meant that Sarah Carpenter was able to use her initiative more than many young servants in her position.

  In the three years since Severin and Mary had taken on the lease of the house, they had had a wide variety of paying guests and servants; some regular lodgers who came and went, men and women alike. Perhaps when they had first arrived in 1876, their noticeably smart neighbours on the Square might have been a little alarmed at the prospect of a house filled with transient people. There may have been a fear that such tenants might give the Square a louring appearance. Yet the Bastendorffs had never received complaints from other residents. The house was always known as respectable.

  For all the difficulties that Mary and Severin had faced – the aching sadness from the loss of their children – there was more family support than simply from Bastendorff’s jocular brothers. Mary’s mother, Elizabeth Pearce, lived around the corner in her own lodging house in Charrington Street, a rather dowdier area, which lay close to the busy canal abutting the good yards and the old graveyard and was an easy ten-minute walk for her daughter. Elizabeth was a frequent and welcome visitor to number 4, Euston Square as well. Severin Bastendorff seemed rather fond of his mother-in-law, and she was certainly rather fond of him. The warmth, from her point of view, might have been partly generated by contemplation of his secure prospects. Added to this, perhaps as a foreign national, he was difficult to pinpoint in terms of class; and that might have been a terrific advantage in a city where anyone English-born was instantly betrayed by speech and manners. If Severin Bastendorff chose to dress as a swell gentleman, who was to say that he had no claim to such a station?

  There was only one sense in which 4, Euston Square might have been seen as a less than proper house; and that was on those Sunday evenings when Severin Bastendorff would gather friends together for card games, played for money. Throughout those contests, alcohol was drunk; Severin, in particular, had a lively appetite for it, especially the imported wine which he kept in his cellar. But even in such instances, when the Bastendorff’s immediate neighbours might have been able to hear through the walls any unusual high-spiritedness, they would have seen nothing that would have brought disgrace to the square.

  In all, Mr and Mrs Bastendorff, their children and the respectable men and women who formed their ever-changing roster of paying guests, were a testament to the city’s atmosphere of social mobility and unselfconscious diversity: from wildly differing and modest backgrounds, this young couple had made an enviable home, only a little apart from London’s more fashionable streets.

  By the following morning, however, that secure home – and the lives of all within it – would be under the most macabre and terrible of shadows.

  2

  ‘There Is Something in the Cellar’

  The weather was wet and disagreeably chilly on 9 May 1879. Mary Bastendorff was making sure all was in final readiness for the new tenant Mr Brooks, even as her young children were having their breakfast in the downstairs parlour. Severin Bastendorff was not in evidence.

  Sarah Carpenter had already been out to procure milk and bread and any viands that the landlady had ordered. They were curiously spoiled for choice for milk-sellers; large numbers of Welsh dairies had set up business along the Euston Road, sometimes having the milk sent from Wales on the overnight train or indeed keeping a few cattle on their London premises, occasionally in the basements.

  To make the best impression upon Mr Brooks, fresh supplies of groceries were necessary. There were boarding houses that had a reputation for rather indifferent food and even more indifferent cooking; but 4, Euston Square was slightly more sensitive to its residents’ needs. In general terms, their paying guests tended to be men of business; merchants who were often away attending to deals in other parts of the country, or ensuring that goods imported from Europe were fetching the best prices from wholesalers.

  Mr Brooks’ first-floor rooms had been prepared: the bed freshly changed and aired, surfaces dusted and cleaned, a cupboard cleared in the kitchen specifically for his own non-perishable food. All that was left now was to make space in the cellar for his fuel. That was quite the usual arrangement at the time: the cost of the rooms did not include food, drink or coal for the resident’s fire. And so it was that Mary Bastendorff needed a portion of the coal cellar that lay at the front of the house to be cleared to make way for Mr Brooks’ supplies.

  The family’s 15-year-old errand boy, William Strohman, who lived some three miles away in Providence Street, Whitechapel, had arrived for work that grey morning; and Mary directed him immediately to the cellar.

  Coal deliveries were made via a coal-hole: that is, a small, round iron manhole in the pavement. When opened, the requested weight of fuel would be dropped down there as if through a chute. It was important that the area beneath was sufficiently cleared so that there would be room for a delivery of some two tons. Even in the warmer summer months, coke and coal were indispensable for the heating of water and for cooking three main meals a day.

  The sky was heavy that morning, and in the scullery, the light was subdued. William Strohman went out into that basement area, opened the cellar door, and manoeuvred his way through the increasingly thick darkness of the coke and coal stores. His eyes adjusted. With the door open, and the angled grey daylight from above, the boy did not require a lamp, although there was one permanently kept there.

  The coal cellar was a cramped place: five-feet high and ten-feet by eight-feet wide and deep. The grey suffused light would have made the great mounds of coal glitter a little. The boy had with him a basket and a small shovel; the coal delivery man was due to arrive shortly. As well as the mounds of coal, there were some very old broken bottles and other small items of rubbish.

  Strohmann had dug his way through some of the black pile, and he abandoned the shovel, finding it quicker to work by hand, the basket filling steadily. With each load, he moved the coals across through the dusty gloom to the other cellar section. Returning to the coal pile with his empty basket, he started in on the greater pile again, using the shovel once more. And as he did so, the implement pulled out something from beneath the coal. It was ‘a large bone’.1

  Even in the dim light, and even though it was part smothered with coal dust, it was quite clear that the bone was that of a human foot.

  The boy, in his shock, thought quickly; and his first impulse appeared to have been not to disturb the lady of the house. Instead, with some speed, he backed out of t
he cellar, briefly back into the open air, and then crossed through to the scullery. From there he ran out of the back of the house, across the rear yard to the furniture-making studio. There, Strohmann anxiously caught the attention of one of Bastendorff’s employees, Joseph Savage, bidding him to come and see what he had found. Savage, a ‘fancy cabinet maker’, thought the boy was imagining things.

  Savage’s brother, Albert, was in the workshop too: and unsettled by the boy’s obvious urgency, Joseph told Albert to go with him to have a look.

  They tracked back through the scullery, through to the cellars, and the boy pointed to where he had struck the bone. Albert leaned forward and received the same shock as the boy. They returned through the scullery to the workshop and Joseph, hearing confirmation from his brother, came back with them to investigate further.

  In the cellar, Joseph now took the lead, observing what seemed to him to be a ‘black mound’. There was fabric of some kind, darkened by the coal. Savage pulled at it a little, gingerly at first and then more adamantly. As the coal fell away, more of this mound was disclosed and the fabric gave way too. Savage found that he had been pulling at the legs of an almost completely decomposed body.

  The decay was so very advanced, it appeared, that there was no noticeable smell; whatever odour there might have been was masked by the coal dust. Perhaps that is what enabled a fascinated Joseph Savage to go further: he pulled at the leg bones until, at last, from beneath the dust and the tattered clothing and the scraps of skin, a skull became visible. Some ‘pieces’2 of the skeletal structure had come loose. Its limbs were hardly attached at all. Now, Joseph, his brother and William the errand boy could see, without any ambiguity, they were staring at a human body.

  The symptoms of shock or fright can produce curious effects on people. In the case of Joseph Savage, he suddenly became most concerned that the revelation of this corpse would now cause the cellar to become suffused with its foul stench. So, while William Strohmann was sent up the basement steps into the street at the front to try and find a policeman, Joseph went back through the scullery, found Mrs Bastendorff and told her what they had found. His next immediate concern – almost unheeding of her blankly disbelieving reaction to the news – was to ask her for some ‘chloride of lime’;3 it was his intention to sprinkle it around the cellar to mask any offensive smell.

  There might have been a mistaken element of hygiene in Joseph’s actions; despite all the scientific advances of the previous two decades, there were still many who believed that the very scent or ‘miasma’ of the dead carried the power to kill those overcome by its fumes.

  Joseph Savage found what he wanted in the scullery; he returned to the coal cellar and began, with a small implement, to throw powder around liberally on the floor, although not, as he was to emphasise later, anywhere near the body. Joseph’s first instincts had an almost neurotically domestic aspect to them: to preserve the peace of those upstairs from the reality of the rotting horror below. But he also knew that the body could not be disturbed further.

  As all of this was unfolding below stairs, the coal delivery man, George Fulcher, who worked for Mssrs Woods, had pulled up at the property with his horse and cart, containing a ton of coals. Fulcher had gone up the steps to the front door to announce his arrival; he had forgotten the name of the customer at number 4, but he had a ‘ticket’ confirming the order of the coal.

  The door was opened by Sarah Carpenter. When apprised of his business, Sarah confirmed that Fulcher was ‘quite right’ and then added that the cellar was not quite ready for him. It is not clear whether she was fully aware of what was happening in the cellar. By that point, Mary Bastendorff had gone downstairs, still incredulous at the news, and the coal delivery man was left waiting on the front doorstep.

  Fulcher was impatient to get on, however; all he required was the opening of the pavement cover to tip the order down into the property’s coal-hole. And since he was being paid by delivery, he could not afford to be left hanging around. Perceiving that there was some activity in the cellar, he made his way down the basement steps and saw figures moving lumps of coal by hand. Exclaiming that it would be quicker to use a shovel, he joined the Savage brothers there.

  As Fulcher leaned forward, he too quite clearly saw the shape of the skull, with some auburn hair still attached to the scalp. It is not certain, but it seems that Mary Bastendorff may have already swiftly withdrawn from the scene of horror. The coal delivery man’s reaction was swifter than the brothers had been; he immediately decided to run up the stairs and find a police constable.

  Fulcher ran out on to the square; then across it and, as he was looking about, in nearby Drummond Street, he happened across a police constable, Thomas Holman. Fulcher’s account of what he had seen, as they strode back across Euston Square, through the unheeding traffic, must have been daunting for the policeman: PC Holman wondered aloud if perhaps this was going to require someone more senior than himself.

  On reaching the cellar of number 4, PC Holman asked Joseph Savage if he was ‘the governor’; before Savage could put him right, Fulcher pulled the policeman towards the remains with the words ‘look here’.4 PC Holman gazed upon the putrefied skeletal remains which he observed appeared to be partially covered up in some kind of domestic oilcloth, of the type used in flooring.

  Yet as all of this had unfolded, no-one – not Joseph Savage, Mary Bastendorff or Sarah Carpenter – had tried to find or summon ‘the governor’, Severin Bastendorff. PC Holman now wanted to know where he might find him. The policeman was told, possibly to his surprise, given that it was now 9.30a.m., that Mr Bastendorff was still in bed. But his wife, Mary, galvanised out of her initial stupor, ran upstairs to fetch him, rousing him from his bed by informing him that ‘a human being has been found in the cellar’.5

  Very shortly afterwards, Bastendorff came downstairs to find PC Holman, the Savage brothers and Fulcher standing over the hideous discovery. He seemed as bewildered as everyone else. Certainly, in the confusion, he made no effort to establish what was happening under his own roof. Instead, he stood on the sidelines, saying and doing nothing. By this time, the errand boy, William Strohman, had also found a policeman in the vicinity – a constable, Isaac Dowling – and he, too, came down the steps to the cellar. Together, the men stooped under the low ceiling, their boots crunching in the coal dust, as above their heads, the hiss and clatter of passing traffic continued.

  It was PC Dowling who went out to search for the nearest doctor: Henry Davis lived several doors along the road at number 1. Duly summoned, Dr Davis hurried to join everyone in the cellar. His first impression was that the body might have been burned; but then he realised he was simply looking at the cumulative effect of coal dust. He also swiftly ascertained, beneath the remaining clothes, that the body was not whole; the bones of the arms had become dislocated from the trunk, as had the legs. One of the feet was missing.

  There was a rope tied around what had been the neck of the corpse. Indeed, it had been tied around twice. It seemed all too clearly to confirm that this was foul play. Dr Davis was reluctant to carry out further detailed examination in the cramped, dim cellar. He sent instructions, via the police, that the remains should be gathered up with the utmost care and removed to the nearby St Pancras mortuary.

  Before this could be done, however, word was also sent to the Albany Road police station. This station then sent a communication to Scotland Yard. The body would not be moved until seen by a senior detective.

  Several hours later, Inspector Charles Hagen arrived at number 4, Euston Square. By the time he came, the men in the cellar had long dispersed and the general area had also cleared, the better for the Inspector to take a preliminary look at it. He, too, stooped under that low cellar ceiling. He observed the ‘small quantity of coals’ and assorted ‘rubbish’.6 Moving close to the body, he saw the scraps of clothes adhering to it. Among them were the tattered remains of an elegant black silk dress.

  There was more too, obscured
by the coal: the ‘remains of a large circular cloak’ which had a ‘hood lined with silk and ribands’. There were also fragments of a ‘quilted silk petticoat’ and a ‘large quantity of black lace’.7 There appeared to be no linen or crinoline. But there was a decorative brooch with a ‘red stone in the centre and white stones around it’.8

  Swiftly, the constables had fetched a ‘shell’ (in essence, a wooden casket) and manoeuvred it into the cellar; with enormous care, the remains – some in a near liquid state – were lifted by means of the oilcloth, and placed within. Despite all efforts, no-one was able to find the missing foot.

  They then carried the casket out through the scullery and to a cart; this would most likely have been via the back of the house, where the property opened up on to Seymour Mews. For by this time, a crowd of curious onlookers had begun to gather outside the front door of Euston Square.

  St Pancras mortuary lay half a mile to the north-east; a brick construction favoured with large gothic windows, which helped with the light. It stood near the edge of the churchyard of the ancient St Pancras Old Church. As soon as the remains were carried within, Inspector Hagen continued his initial examination. There did not appear to be marks of violence to the skull; but the remains of the rope twisted around the neck seemed to tell their own violent story. Where the rope was touched, it disintegrated.

  Dr Davis summoned his sons, also medical practitioners, to set to work immediately under the flames of the gaslights. It was as if the body had been partially mummified. There was very little flesh left anywhere, except on the legs. The patches of hair that remained on the head were of a brown/auburn colour. The doctor found no ‘marks of violence’ on the head.9 Whoever the woman was, she had lost the greater number of her teeth. There were four centre teeth remaining in the upper jaw, seven in the lower. And it was from these remaining teeth that the doctor made an estimate of this woman’s age: she had been somewhere between 55- and 60-years old.