by Jan Bondeson
The magistrates still received large amounts of anonymous letters. Many of them came from people who confessed they had committed the murder. One of these individuals, who called himself ‘Captain P.L. Roberts, Kennington’, said that he would have come forward if Hubbard had been remanded for trial, but now he would remain quiet, although he was an unhappy man after committing the murder. Captain Roberts did not exist, however, so the letter was the product of some joker who wanted to waste police time. Two more letters, from a man who called himself ‘Philip Jardine’ and claimed to be on his way to Van Diemen’s Land to escape the police, were more detailed. After cutting Eliza’s throat, ‘Jardine’ had wiped his bloody hands on a towel, which he had thrown into the Thames from the middle arch of Waterloo Bridge, together with the murder weapon. The letters were sufficiently compelling for Mr Jeremy to send Inspector Field on another wild goose chase to try to track down ‘Jardine’ in Hornsey.2 Another letter came from a psychic named James Holman, who had dreamt that he was present when Eliza Grimwood was murdered, and that the killer had hidden the murder weapon by thrusting it down her throat. Another busybody claimed that it was possible to cut someone’s throat without becoming stained with blood, if the victim was grasped hard from behind. The surgeons who had committed the autopsy pooh-poohed both these notions.3 Another anonymous letter writer asked himself why Eliza’s dog had not attacked the murderer: had the faithful animal been remiss in its duty, or did the dog in fact know the murderer?4 Inspector Field knew that the dog was just a small spaniel, however. Even if the dog had been of a larger and more ferocious breed, the parlour door would have impeded it, since it had its sleeping quarters in the kitchen. The absence of prolonged and angry barking from the animal still puzzled him, however.
In late June, Inspector Field was kept busy trying to find the owner of the lavender-coloured gloves. Today, it would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack to find the owner of a pair of gloves found somewhere in London. It cannot have been much easier back in 1838, although the canny inspector did have one vital clue. The gloves were marked ‘S.K.R.’.
It was not known whether this referred to the owner or the manufacturer, but it at least offered some help for the detective. Not unreasonably, he deduced that if there was such a thing as an expert on the marking of gloves, it would be a professional glove-cleaner. On 20 June, the inspector went to see one of these individuals, but all the glove-cleaner said was that he had a very good idea who had not cleaned them, namely himself. There were not more than eight or nine regular glove-cleaners in London, however, and he gave Field their addresses. For three days, the inspector went from glove-cleaner to glove-cleaner, but without success. As he later told his friend Charles Dickens:
On the evening of the third day, coming over Waterloo Bridge from the Surrey side of the river, quite beat, and very much vexed and disappointed, I thought I’d have a shilling’s worth of entertainment at the Lyceum Theatre to freshen myself up.
Having gone into the pit, for half-price, the inspector sat down next to a young man who thought he was a stranger to London and explained who the actors were. The two became good friends and went together to a pub nearby, bought some beer and lit their pipes. After they had spoken for a while, the young man said that he must soon go home, since he had to work all night. When Field asked if he was a baker, he replied that he was in fact a glove-cleaner!5
Having recovered from his astonishment after this great coincidence, the inspector pulled out the lavender-coloured gloves and asked if he could tell who had cleaned them. The crafty detective had not introduced himself to his new acquaintance. Presuming that the hope of financial reward would act as a stronger stimulant than the risk of becoming involved in a criminal investigation, he invented a story about a pair of gloves left behind at a party and a bet that he would be unable to find their owner. The glove-cleaner had a good look at the lavender-coloured gloves, before exclaiming that he had seen dozens of pairs just like them at his father’s shop. Field lost no time before accompanying his young glove-cleaner friend back to the father’s shop nearby, where they found an old man in a white apron and his two daughters rubbing and cleaning away at a lot of gloves in the front parlour. The old glove-cleaner immediately identified the lavender-coloured gloves: they belonged to Mr Skinner, the great upholsterer in Cheapside. This magnate did not handle his dirty laundry himself, but always sent it through a certain Mr Phibbs, a haberdasher opposite his shop.
The day after, Inspector Field went to see Mr Phibbs, with high hopes of a vital breakthrough. The haberdasher also recognised the gloves: indeed, he had sent them to be cleaned, but they did not belong to Mr Skinner the upholsterer, but to his son, young Mr Skinner the tobacconist. Having spent some time pondering how to proceed, the inspector decided not to confront young Skinner directly, but instead to make some inquiries about his habits and situation in life. It turned out that just like his father, young Skinner was a wealthy and successful tradesman; a newspaper article refers to him as ‘the extensive tobacconist near Temple-bar’. He was in the habit of seeing loose women, however, and ‘partly kept a woman in East-street, Red Lion Square’.6
On 24 June, Inspector Field went to confront young Mr Skinner, carrying with him the lavender-coloured gloves. The startled tobacconist had to admit that they were his, although he had not seen them for several months. He thought he might have left them in the house of his mistress in Red Lion Square, but he was not sure. He vehemently denied ever having seen Eliza Grimwood, or having anything whatever to do with the murder. After having made sure that Skinner was secretly watched by a police constable, Field went to Red Lion Square to find the ‘gay woman’ the promiscuous tobacconist was in the habit of visiting. Although having already had his fill of strange coincidences since the start of the Grimwood murder investigation, it must have given him quite a turn when he discovered that this woman was none less than Harriet Caroline Chaplin, the niece of Eliza Grimwood, who had given such dubious evidence at the inquest.
Harriet Chaplin could well remember the incident with the gloves. Mr Skinner had left them behind and she had not seen fit to return them, instead using them to clean her teapot. She had then given them to her friend Rebecca Ryan, who had shared her lodgings at the time. Inspector Field remained suspicious, however. Had the promiscuous Mr Skinner murdered Eliza Grimwood, left the gloves behind, and then persuaded or bribed his mistress to concur with his story? Or could it be that Harriet Chaplin had nourished some secret grudge against her aunt? The inspector managed to track down Rebecca Ryan to a house of ill repute at No. 2 Ann Street near Waterloo Road. She could not recognise the gloves, although she might well have seen a similar pair in Harriet Chaplin’s possession. She had herself had nothing to do with them, and had certainly never taken them anywhere near the murder house. Thus the stories of the two ‘loose women’ contradicted each other, which was bad news for Mr Skinner. Although he did not resemble the description the Strand Theatre witnesses had given of the Foreigner, the inspector began to regard the tobacconist as a serious suspect.7
There were three ways for Inspector Field to tighten the net around this latest suspect. Firstly, he made further inquiries into the habits of Mr Skinner. It soon became apparent that for several years, the tobacconist had been in the habit of spending money on prostitutes all over London. Secondly, the inspector kept visiting the two women to keep up pressure on them. It turned out that Rebecca Ryan had actually been the servant of Harriet Chaplin, although they had parted on good terms. Poor Rebecca had since sunk low to become a miserable whore in a brothel, whereas Harriet remained a better class of prostitute, entertaining fun-loving gentlemen like Mr Skinner in her rooms at Red Lion Square. Thirdly, the inspector leaked the news about the gloves to the press, making sure that it became known that the new suspect, who was not named, was the owner of the lavender-coloured kid gloves marked ‘S.K.R.’ that had been found in the murder house. There were no tips from the public regarding the gloves, alt
hough a prostitute told him that in a house of ill repute not far from Red Lion Square, a gentleman had left behind a white pocket handkerchief marked ‘Eliza’. When she had read the story of the gloves, she thought the search should be widened to include other suspicious garments. But as Inspector Field expressed it, he ‘traced out this gentleman who gave a satisfactory account of the same that it belonged to his cousin which upon inquiry turned out to be correct’.8
On 2 July, Inspector Field called at Skinner’s house, inviting the tobacconist to join him for a series of witness confrontations. Happy to clear himself of any suspicion, Mr Skinner willingly joined him. The result was that neither witness thought him at all like the ‘Foreigner’ they had seen with Eliza Grimwood the night of the murder.
On 7 July, Mr Skinner was taken to Union Hall, where he was questioned by Mr Jeremy and Mr Traill in their private room. He said that in January 1838, he had been in the habit of visiting the woman Harriet Caroline Chaplin at her lodgings at No. 39 East Street, Red Lion Street, Holborn. He was not certain he had left the gloves there, but thought he might have. In February, Mr Skinner had suffered from an illness that prevented him from visiting young ladies. He had not seen Harriet Chaplin again until after the murder. When this excitable young lady fell down on her knees and cried violently, he enquired the cause and she told him that the murdered Eliza Grimwood had in fact been her aunt. The glover Mr Cording deposed that he had sold the gloves to Mr Skinner, and that he had cleaned them twice since that time. The marking ‘S.K.R.’ had been done by him.
Harriet Chaplin testified that she could recollect having the gloves in her possession, although at the time, she did not know where they had come from. They were too large for her to use herself so she had cleaned a teapot with them instead. She could now recollect that, in February, Eliza Grimwood had come to see her, which was the only time she had visited her niece’s lodgings in the last three years. Whether Eliza had taken the gloves with her to Wellington Terrace she could not say with certainty. Just like at the inquest, she then made the most of her few seconds of fame by adding some quite sensational new material. The Sunday after the murder, she had visited Hubbard and his mother at Wellington Terrace. William Best and Mary Glover were also there. When Hubbard saw her enter, he threw himself to his knees, seized her by the hand and exclaimed, ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ He told her that he presumed that Eliza had brought home some foreigner, who had wanted to ravish her against her will, and that her refusal had led her to be murdered. Hubbard had also said that he had heard the little dog bark at night, and that it made him feel so strange that he could not sleep. At four o’clock he had come downstairs and seen that Eliza had been murdered. She had put her hands to her breast and her eyes had moved. When Best interposed, saying that Hubbard must be mistaken, the bricklayer angrily exclaimed, ‘I tell you that her eyes were open; she looked at me, and I never shall forget the look she gave me!’
According to a newspaper reporter, this new and startling evidence made an evident impression on the magistrates, who made a pause to discuss it. The misogynist Inspector Field, who knew Harriet Chaplin’s histrionic tendencies, probably took the opportunity to inform them that, at the inquest, she had in fact given some equally dubious evidence incriminating Hubbard as the murderer. The magistrates went on to question Rebecca Ryan, who assured them that although she had seen the gloves in Harriet Chaplin’s possession, she had no idea how they had come to Wellington Terrace.9
As the meeting ended at this unsatisfactory note, Mr Skinner was free to go. The magistrates sagely commented that it was now placed beyond doubt that the Cavendish letter was a wicked fabrication. The fact that a pair of gloves had been found in the murder room had given it some spurious authenticity, although these gloves had not been black, but lavender-coloured. The finding of the gloves was probably just another coincidence and Mr Skinner had steadfastly denied any involvement in the murder. Inspector Field had to agree with these deductions, although his diary hints that he still had some doubts about the tobacconist. As late as 14 July, he ‘saw Mr Skinner in the afternoon the owner of the Gloves wished him to try all in his power to ascertain how the Gloves got to the deceased house’.10 But the inspector later told Charles Dickens that although the finding of the lavender-coloured gloves had been ‘a singler story’, it had not brought him any closer to solving the mystery.11 The most likely explanation was that Skinner had left the gloves behind with Harriet Chaplin and that Eliza Grimwood had taken them away to give them to her servant for use in cleaning the stoves.
While Inspector Field had been investigating the lavender-coloured gloves and their owner, Hubbard’s miseries had continued. Although he had been set at liberty by the magistrates at Union Hall, he remained a marked man among the Londoners. To avoid someone calling out, ‘There he is – the murderer!’ he stayed in his mother’s house and always kept indoors. When Inspector Field went to see him at his lodgings, he was always keen to hear of the new developments in the hunt for the murderer, but since the inspector still disliked and distrusted him, he told him very little.
When Hubbard was told the shameful news of the brothers Grimwood selling the entire contents of his house at auction, he became almost apoplectic with rage. His bed, his chest of drawers, and even his clothes had been disposed of. His solicitor applied to the Union Hall magistrates, but although he managed to recover Hubbard’s writing-desk, which had been confiscated by the police along with its contents, there was no way of dealing with the covetous Thomas Grimwood, who was openly crowing at his cleverness in outfoxing the dismal Hubbard. But Grimwood would not have long to exult at his success. Just a few days later, he was run over by a carriage in the street and carried to the London Hospital with several broken ribs. One day, Hubbard and his two brothers came bursting into the ward. They cursed and abused the injured builder in a shameful manner and swore that they would be damned if they did not recover the property he had stolen from Hubbard. They left behind a highly threatening letter signed by the solicitor Wooler, saying that if the Grimwoods did not pay Hubbard full compensation for the effects sold at auction, they would be sued for their last penny. Most imprudently, this letter also threatened Inspector Field, saying that for his role in these shameful proceedings, he would also face a lawsuit. It was thanks to the inspector’s prejudice and lack of judgement that William Hubbard’s character had been injured and his personal safety put at risk.
The ailing Thomas Grimwood consulted the solicitor Pelham, who applied to the Lambeth Street magistrates to protect his client against the violent and threatening Hubbards. The magistrate objected that it was surely the task of the house surgeon and porters of the hospital to protect the patients against unprovoked assaults and blackguarding. The solicitor retorted that Thomas Grimwood was 47 years of age and that the surgeon had put him on a very low diet; the excitement of being blasted and damned by the Hubbards while lying in his hospital bed could have had potentially dangerous consequences. When the ill-advised threatening letter written by the solicitor Wooler was read aloud, it further strengthened the anti-Hubbard bias. In particular, the unfounded accusations against Inspector Field angered the magistrate, who commented that he did not think the inspector had much to fear from this threat. He ordered Inspector Field to liaise with the hospital staff to make sure that Thomas Grimwood received proper protection against the Hubbards.12 But the solicitor Pelham was still not done. He handed over two anonymous letters addressed to himself, signed ‘Philippe de Sasseau’. The first one, written in French, was translated thus:
Mr Lawyer – Indeed you are a fine subject for the worms. Take care of your precious throat! The stiletto is yet further capable, and your person pretty well known.
The second letter seemed to imply that the writer, whose crime was very dark and for whom there was no peace on this side of the grave, wanted to give himself up for murdering Eliza but could not find the courage to do so.13 The magistrate and Inspector Field had had enough of anonymous letters for the t
ime being, however, and treated them with scorn.
In spite of the rebuff at Lambeth Street, Hubbard continued his struggle against the Grimwood brothers, who had deprived him of all the furniture in his house, even his own bed. He had found out, through large advertisements pasted up throughout London, that Eliza Grimwood’s dog was to be seen at the Gun public house in Shoreditch. This was a cunning ploy by the landlord Mr Chamberlayne, since the beer barrels were speedily emptied by the crowd of curious Londoners who came to admire the pretty little spaniel dog, the purported murder witness, whose lack of barking the night of the murder remained a mystery. Hubbard went to the pub and accused the landlord of being a damned scoundrel: not only was it indecent to exhibit Eliza’s dog in this manner, but the animal was his own property and had been stolen from him by the brothers Grimwood. Since the publican refused to give up the dog, Hubbard summoned him before the Worship Street magistrates.
On 4 July, the magistrates asked the publican to explain himself. As cool as a cucumber, Mr Chamberlayne said that, although he had exhibited the dog in his public house with a mind to improving the trade, he was not the owner of the animal. It had been lent to him by the shoemaker Mr Sparrow, who was also present in court. The shoemaker said that he was a friend of the brothers Grimwood, and that he had greatly desired to buy some of Eliza’s jewellery as a curiosity, but he had been outbid at the auction. Instead, Thomas Grimwood had given him the dog. The angry Hubbard objected that Grimwood had had no right to dispose of the animal in the first place, but the magistrates adjourned the case until next week, when the ailing Thomas Grimwood would have been discharged from London Hospital.
When the parties again met before the Worship Street magistrates on 11 July, quite a crowd of onlookers had assembled to see Hubbard. Thomas Grimwood was also present, along with the solicitor Pelham. The latter individual effectively demolished Hubbard’s claims, stating that Thomas Grimwood had acquired his right to the dog by virtue of letters of administration. Just like the remainder of his late sister’s effects, the animal was his to dispose of. Mr Pelham produced a witness who had heard Hubbard admit that he had purchased the dog, as a puppy, and given it to Eliza as a present. This settled the case in the minds of the magistrates, who took no further action except to censure the publican Chamberlayne for pandering to the depraved curiosity of the public by making a show of Eliza’s little dog. Aided by the solicitor Wooler, both Hubbard and his brother objected. Charles Hubbard declared that Thomas Grimwood had lured his brother away from the murder house with a shabby trick, before availing himself of William Hubbard’s imprisonment to take possession of all his effects, including the dog. Thomas Grimwood ‘denied this assertion with some warmth, upon which a loud and wrathful altercation ensued between them, in the course of which sundry scurrilous epithets were applied on either side’. The magistrates had to dispatch an officer to prevent a fight breaking out, before the Hubbards and Grimwoods went wrangling out of the office.14
