The Lady in the Cellar

by Sinclair McKay

  There had been Hannah’s claim that while supposedly on holiday, she had crept back into Euston Square (to continue her relationship with Severin). ‘She remembered Dobbs going away in August for a month. Dobbs never slept in the house to her knowledge during the time she was on her holiday.’

  Then there was the minor – yet seemingly important – claim that the arrival of Matilda Hacker warranted a change of rooms. ‘It was untrue that when Miss Hacker came there was any question of changing bedrooms,’ continued the reported affidavit. Added to this, she ‘knew Miss Hacker as Miss Uish and never heard the name of Hacker until it was mentioned by the police.

  ‘The story of Miss Hacker’s interview with herself and her husband in the dining room was wholly untrue, as also was the statement with regard to the pawning of a bracelet. The only money she received from Miss Uish was one payment for three weeks, which was on Monday October 15th, 1877. Dobbs said Uish was going presently, and an hour afterwards she said she was gone.’

  This was clearly intended to place Hannah Dobbs back into the position of the person who had apparently last seen Matilda Hacker alive. Mary Bastendorff’s affidavit, as reported, concluded with several other refutations. ‘The only time Dobbs took the children to Hampstead was long before Miss Hacker came to 4, Euston Square, to lodge … she never employed Dobbs to sell anything or to pawn anything whatever.

  ‘Dobbs was a most efficient servant, and she found her so useful in looking after the house that she gave her the entire control over the lodgers. Mrs Bastendorff’s health at that time was such that she was incapable of much exertion. She declared many other statements in the pamphlet to be wholly untrue.’5 The document had been signed ‘Mary Snelson Bastendorff’.

  And quite where did Scotland Yard stand on this extraordinary new flurry of claim and counter-claim? Inspector Hagen was presumably maddened with frustration. ‘The Detective Department of Scotland-yard, acting under the direction of the Crown authorities, have within the last few days been making enquiries,’ reported the newspapers, ‘which are still proceeding into the truth or falsehood of Hannah Dobbs’ allegations.

  ‘Efforts are being made by various parties, in view of the pending actions-in-law (the forthcoming libel case), to ascertain the whereabouts of Mr Findlay, the former lodger at 4, Euston Square, who is supposed to have been a wealthy gentleman from America and whose present residence, if he is alive, is up to the present entirely unknown.

  ‘It is alleged that he had in his possession a considerable amount of property, including railway shares and bonds. He lodged on several occasions at Bastendorff’s house and is described as between forty and fifty years of age, tall, thin, with a stoop, very fair hair and beard. It is, we understand, intended to send notices to some of the chief American papers to see if any relatives of Mr Findlay can be found.’6

  The forthcoming libel case brought by Bastendorff against Dobbs and her publisher, George Purkess, would once more require all parties to be sworn in on oath. It was reported that ‘at the request of the Home Office authorities, Hannah Dobbs was directed to reduce her statement (the pamphlet) to writing for the consideration of the Crown legal advisers’. They understandably demanded more particulars about the little boy who was apparently murdered; and Dobbs obliged, telling them in a written statement that he was ‘about ten years old’, ‘dirty and ragged’ with clothes that had been patched. ‘His hair was flaxen and his eyes were blue.’ She also stated that she had ‘started to get a doctor’ to attend to him; though there was no indication of what stopped her.

  In short, the authorities most certainly had to investigate these nauseating accusations; but this in turn might have been a broader stratagem to catch either Dobbs or the Bastendorffs out over the murder of Matilda Hacker; it was highly damaging to have such a widely publicised crime go unsolved, and its perpetrator unpunished.

  Indeed, within days, the police issued their own statement with regard to the alleged child murder; that it was little more than a ‘tissue of lies’. And once more Hannah Dobbs was in danger; this might have been construed as perjury, since she had made her sworn statement to the Home Office.

  Yet the implacability of Dobbs, and to an extent her fearlessness, had sparked another layer of conflict; that between Bastendorff and the publisher George Purkess, himself also apparently quite without fear.

  For when it came to circulation of the pamphlet, the court found – strikingly – that it was not its responsibility to restrain publication. The portrait of Hannah Dobbs could continue to be seen staring out from the nation’s bookstands. The sale of it could only be prevented, legally, by Severin Bastendorff winning a case of libel.

  But Purkess had been arming himself against this possibility. He had obtained a copy of Bastendorff’s sworn affidavit, and had examined it with a pitiless scrutiny; and he could see a vulnerability. To prove that vulnerability in a court would require the co-operation of many witnesses, but then it was worth it for the sake of his own reputation as publisher of the hugely popular Illustrated Police News.

  In particular, there was one part of Hannah Dobbs’ story that could be exploited and turned against Bastendorff; a key element that Purkess was willing to wager on. And to this end, he was in continued contact with both Hannah Dobbs and her solicitor.

  It is not difficult to imagine the darkened rooms of 4, Euston Square in the thick nights of the gathering autumn; the young children having much greater freedom to run around and play in a house that was quite free of any paying lodgers. Equally, it is not difficult to imagine Mary Bastendorff, crushed with anxiety, trying to keep her home looking respectable and fresh, always ready to take in new guests, and her husband, whose drinking never seemed to have been moderate, spending more time in the pubs of Bloomsbury and St Pancras.

  So when the summons was brought to the door, it must have been an even worse shock than the publication of the pamphlet. Bastendorff found himself accused by the Crown Prosecutors of perjury in his sworn statements. He himself would now be required to stand trial.

  22

  ‘I Have Disgraced You Before all the Country’

  If Severin Bastendorff felt a prickling sixth sense of paranoia in the weeks before his trial, it was perfectly justified; the publisher George Purkess and Hannah Dobbs were preparing for the forthcoming court case with deadly seriousness, and with methods that were devious. Bastendorff had denied any sexual relationship with Hannah; the journalists from the Central News Agency were employing a range of furtive tactics to prove otherwise.

  On one Saturday afternoon in September 1879, it was Severin Bastendorff who, having just returned home, went to answer the persistent knocking on the front door of 4, Euston Square. Standing on the step was a young woman, simply dressed. He did not recognise her; and she did not give her name.

  Her request was curious: she very much needed to get to an address on the Caledonian Road, she told him. Could he oblige her by giving directions?

  A little bewildered, Severin Bastendorff did so; he told her to go back to the Euston Road, turn left, walk on for a little past St Pancras and Kings Cross stations, and she would find Caledonian Road branching off to the left.

  The young woman told him she was grateful; and with that, she turned and left.

  Given the pervasive anxieties that he and his wife faced, Bastendorff may not have given any further thought to this curious encounter. The meaning of it, however, would become clear in court some weeks later.

  He was not being entirely passive himself though: part of Hannah Dobbs’ pamphlet had alleged that she and Bastendorff had gone to Redhill for an illicit weekend; and he and his lawyer understood that it was now important to reach the landlady of the inn that Hannah had named. It transpired that this landlady, Mrs Anne Carpenter, had recently moved a few miles away to Reigate, Surrey, to manage another tavern and hotel called The Beehive.

  It is not known whether Bastendorff or his lawyer first had the inspiration; but when summonsing Mrs Carpenter
as a possible witness in the forthcoming trial, the idea was to suggest to her that it was not Severin Bastendorff she had seen with Hannah Dobbs – but his brother, Peter.

  Both Bastendorff and his lawyer caught the train down to Reigate; and a horse-drawn cab took them to The Beehive. But they were too late.

  Mrs Carpenter had already been summonsed: by journalists and a lawyer employed by George Purkess. Beside the large roaring fire of that comforting inn, they had outlined to her the parameters of the coming case, and the importance of remembering that it had definitely been Severin Bastendorff she had seen in Redhill two years previously.

  Other witnesses were gathered by the defendant; friends of Bastendorff, many from the German community, all hard-working and respectable and articulate. They would be there first to attest to his fine nature and his happy marriage; and also to account for his movements on certain key dates. These were men with whom he enjoyed shooting and fishing.

  During this pre-trial period, the strain must have told on Hannah Dobbs too; it must have felt as though she and Bastendorff were now locked in a lethal duel. She and the lawyers were acutely aware of the new hazards that cross-examination in such a case would bring; the way that Inspector Hagen and associates in Scotland Yard would be poring over every word of testimony, alert to any inconsistency.

  She was specifically tutored how to respond to any questions concerning her story about the murder of the small boy, and about the child’s flesh being fed to Riggenbach’s dog. Hannah was told to say: ‘I decline to answer.’

  Aside from avoiding pitfalls, George Purkess and his lawyer wanted the limelight kept very firmly on the relationship between Hannah Dobbs and Severin Bastendorff.

  During this period, Hannah had either bought for herself – or more likely had Purkess and his journalists pay for – some new and ever more elegant clothing. The time for penitential display was past: the new clothes – which would lead to newspaper reporters describing her as ‘showily-dressed’ – were clearly intended to emphasise that she was not a common serving girl, but rather a lady who commanded respect.

  And so, in the well-lit court at Bow Street, at the end of October 1879, there was a pre-trial hearing before the magistrate Mr Flowers.

  At this, Hannah took the stand as the central witness; and immediately, under questioning, she was insistent that she and Bastendorff had first met when she was cleaning windows at Torrington Square in 1875; and she was very much more explicit now about the intimacy of their relationship. She even detailed occasions at Torrington Square and elsewhere when such intimacies took place.

  In applying for an injunction to have Hannah’s pamphlet withdrawn, Bastendorff’s solicitor Mr Sims had declared that it ‘had seriously injured his client in business, by destroying his credit’.1 But this court seemed not interested in Bastendorff’s legal grievance; there was only time for his alleged perjury.

  And indeed, the court was told, that intimacy continued after Severin had arranged for Hannah to get the position as maid-of-all-work at 4, Euston Square in June 1876. Very shortly after this, Bastendorff had arranged to take her away for the weekend to the town of Redhill in Surrey. She ‘had occupied a room with him from Saturday to Monday’ at the Red Lion Inn.

  Hannah told the court that Bastendorff’s appearance had changed a little over the years; for that weekend, he ‘wore a long beard and a light suit of clothes’.

  Mr Poland stepped up to cross-examine her. She told him that before Bastendorff, she ‘had never been in the habit of going out with gentlemen’ though she added that she was ‘not a chaste woman’.

  So what then of her relationship with Severin’s younger brother Peter? She told Mr Poland she had made the younger man’s ‘acquaintance’ and ‘had been guilty of immorality with him’. She added that ‘he had a key of 4, Euston Square and was in the habit of letting himself into the house at night and leaving before the family was up in the morning’. She added that Severin was ‘well aware of this’ as she herself ‘used to tell him’; conversely, Hannah did not tell Peter ‘what had occurred’ between herself and Severin.

  Here was a world of illicit nocturnal assignations, according to Hannah Dobbs, who seemed to experience no awkwardness or embarrassment in relating these adventures to the court.

  Mr Poland focused on the final paragraph of Hannah Dobbs’ pamphlet: her sworn statement to the truth of everything within it. On the back page of the pamphlet, this was accompanied with a reproduction of what was apparently her signature. ‘This, I see, purports to be a facsimile of your writing,’ said Mr Poland. ‘Is it so?’

  Hannah Dobbs said: ‘I decline to answer.’

  The unspoken subtext of his question was: who was the real perjuror here? Mr Poland took her through the list of her previous offences, even though this made the magistrate Mr Flowers uneasy: ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘we need not go into that matter?’ But for Mr Poland, this was about establishing character. And for her own part, Hannah Dobbs was happy to answer him defiantly, despite her defence counsel Mr Montagu Williams objecting to this trawl through ‘the whole of the pamphlet’ when Bastendorff’s alleged perjury only featured in one paragraph.

  Mr Poland asked Hannah about her statements concerning Mr Findlay being murdered; about apparently being given his watch; about the possessions of Matilda Hacker that she acquired; and about her account of the murder of Matilda Hacker, and how she herself came to leave 4, Euston Square. In her responses, Hannah Dobbs adhered broadly to the published text.

  Then there was the molten core of Dobbs’ astonishing pamphlet: the mystery over the murder of Miss Hacker was one thing. The sensational allegation concerning the frenzied killing of a small boy was another.

  ‘You speak of having seen a boy murdered,’ said Mr Poland, ‘so of course you were present?’

  Hannah Dobbs hesitated, and then said: ‘I decline to answer.’

  ‘Then’ said Mr Poland, ‘you decline to say whether that story is true or not?’

  Hannah remained silent. Poland then found the relevant passage, and he read it out to the court in full, including the ‘crushing blows’ of the poker, and ending with the little boy’s clothes being destroyed ‘at the workshop fire’.

  ‘After this,’ said Mr Poland, ‘you go on to say that you smelled a strong odour like the boiling of grease and other matter, and you say you are ‘obliged to suppress all names’. Do you refuse to give us any particulars about this boy?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hannah, ‘I do.’

  ‘Was he employed at Mr Bastendorff’s?’

  ‘I decline to answer.’

  ‘Do you mean to insinuate that Mr Bastendorff, your master, murdered him?’

  ‘I decline to answer the question.’

  ‘And you won’t even say whether the boy was in his employ?’

  ‘No, he was not,’ said Dobbs. ‘I decline to answer anything.’

  ‘How long was this,’ persisted Mr Poland, ‘after the murder of Miss Hacker?’

  ‘I decline to answer,’ said Dobbs, adding sharply: ‘It has nothing to do with this case.’

  The magistrate Mr Flowers ‘remarked that this was no doubt the fact – but if the object was to test the credibility of the witness, the learned counsel might infer that she was not a credible witness.’ Mr Poland said that ‘he was satisfied with that intimation’. Yet there was little comfort to be drawn from this by the Bastendorffs.

  For there were other witnesses: Hannah Dobbs’s former colleague Selina Knight was called. She declared ‘to the best of her belief’ that four years ago she saw Severin in Torrington Square and that he and Hannah first met then. But Mr Poland forced her to admit that journalists from the Central News Agency had recently persuaded her to ring the bell of 4, Euston Square to see once more the face of Severin Bastendorff. She was the woman who had randomly asked Bastendorff for directions to the Caledonian Road. It was obvious this was to ensure that she would corroborate the pamphlet.

  When probed a little furth
er about the reliability of her memory, she said: ‘I recognised his voice from the German accent … I believed when I first saw him that he was the man who courted Hannah Dobbs and I believe so still.’

  Also called was Mrs Carpenter, former landlady of the Red Lion Inn in Redhill, Surrey. She remembered in August 1877 that Hannah Dobbs came to stay there and ‘she had a gentleman with her’. She added: ‘I have seen him today. I have learned since that it was Severin Bastendorff.’

  They had, said Mrs Carpenter, arrived on the Saturday evening and they stayed until the Monday morning. ‘They occupied the same room,’ she said, to ensure there could be no doubt on this matter. When they arrived, ‘I carried their black bag and parcel upstairs. He was dressed in rather a light suit. They sat in the smoking room before going to bed.’ He had a glass of ale; they shared a plate of biscuits. The recollections were strikingly acute.

  Was there any chance, the defence counsel asked, that she might have played host to Peter, rather than Severin? She insisted not, adding that Severin might have had ‘a longer beard’ back then.

  The beard was important to the defence; for Mr Poland was still hopeful of proving that the older brother might in fact have been mistaken for the younger. But in fact it was going to cause further confusion. The next witness, John Aldolphus Dicke, a ‘cabinet maker’ in Charlotte Street, told the court that he knew both Peter and Severin Bastendorff. He ‘knew the former [Peter] in 1875, when he could hardly speak English to be understood, and had no beard. He was,’ said Dicke, ‘little more than a boy at the time.’

  At this, a photograph of Peter, taken around 1875, was produced by the prosecution. It showed him as ‘a beardless boy’ and Dicke agreed that it was very ‘like him’. Dicke ‘knew Severin a year before’ he knew Peter. ‘He had a fine beard always,’ he told the court, ‘and longer … than it appeared to be at present.’