A Cold Wind Down the Grey

by Wendy M Wilson

  Like everything else in Greymouth, the hospital was doing a brisk business. Dr. Foppoly ran it like a military hospital, dressing wounds, removing limbs, bringing children into the world or watching them leave.

  Dr. Foppoly had a practice on Albert Street as an Accoucheur and would help Elizabeth when her time came. James preferred a doctor to a midwife although Elizabeth didn’t agree. She was nervous about the chloroform Dr. Foppoly might administer, afraid she would fall asleep and never wake up. She had been through childbirth without chloroform before, and would be happy to do it again. Generations of women had suffered, she told him, and she saw no reason to change the old ways now.

  They both knew that the death rate for children in town was horrific and the chances of survival for a child in the first three years of life in Greymouth were as low as any town in the colony, which made him worry about his wife. Another lost child would send her to the insane asylum, especially one born alive who survived past infancy. That was something he had blocked from his mind and hoped never to experience again. If it happened to Harry or Louisa, God help them both.

  As he passed the lying-in ward he turned away. He could hear the groans and screams of a woman in labour. Elizabeth would have to wait until the last minute for her dose of chloroform. There would be some pain to get through first, despite the soporific…if she decided to take it

  The lunatic ward was busy as well; the isolation of the diggings and frequent deaths of young children drove both men and women from their minds. Mr. Rees might have done better to commit himself here, rather than to slash his own throat. But as he passed by the locked doors he heard wailing, groans and guttural sounds. Perhaps Mr. Rees had made the right decision.

  He found Dr. Foppoly, a heavy-set, dark-haired, dark-eyed Italian, in his autopsy room, accompanied by Dr. Strehz, the new young doctor who had recently set up a surgery on Richmond Quay, offering vaccinations on request, doing his best to reduce the numbers of smallpox deaths. Why weren’t there vaccines against typhoid, and pleurisy, and scarlatina and thrush, and teething pains, and all the other things that killed so many children? Was someone working to develop those right now? The thought of vaccination, with a needle piercing his skin, was unsettling. He’d rather be hit in the arm by a bullet.

  Dr. Foppoly nodded to James, tied a heavy cotton butcher’s apron over his clothes, then washed his hands briskly with carbolic soap. He was meticulously clean and insisted that everyone in his operating room or autopsy room was as well. He’d taken over temporary management of the hospital in May, and had made it known to the hospital committee that he believed the typhoid outbreak at that time was caused by lack of cleanliness, pointing to the way typhoid and bilious fevers had almost entirely disappeared once winter set in, “confirming,” he said, “the theory on malaria during the summer season, and the necessity of the people adopting all the sanitary measures repeatedly suggested by the resident professional men and by the local press.”

  George Dobson’s partially-clothed body lay on a stretcher in the centre of the room, still covered with a layer of soil. A young orderly sat in the corner of the room with a notepad and pencil, ready to take notes. Nearby lay an empty wooden box, while another wooden box, with closed lid, lay on the floor beside the wall. Mr. Rees, probably.

  The two doctors started by removing the dirt from the face and body and placing it in a bucket. Then they removed a necktie from around the neck.

  “Black silk,” commented Dr. Foppoly, glancing at the note taker. “Tied in a sailor’s knot by the look of it. Loosely tied.” The note taker licked his pencil and began to write furiously.

  Foppoly leaned over the body, his face near its face. Dr. Strehz followed suit, almost bumping heads with the older man.

  “The muscles have been destroyed from the eye to the chin,” Foppoly said, touching the face with his hand and pushing down firmly, causing the face to look as if it was grimacing. “Destroyed to the bone.” He pulled apart a wound on the face. “Rats, I should say. Look at these cuts. Caused by the teeth of rats, and not by decomposition. Note that.” He nodded in the direction of the note taker.

  He took hold of the head and moved it from side to side, staring intently. “Not as much decomposition on the rest of the face as I would expect.”

  “Something in the soil?” suggested Dr. Strehz tentatively.

  Dr. Foppoly shrugged. “Possibly. Help me turn him on his side, if you would.” He prodded the head on the left side. “Egg-sized contusion on the temporal bone, extending to the external ear. And here is another one on the top of the head and down the left side. And a third on the back of the head…”

  “What size?” asked the note taker.

  “I beg your pardon?” asked the doctor, distractedly.

  “What size is the contusion on the back of the head?”

  “Hmmm,” he rolled the body over the other way “The size of a half crown piece, I should say. In the occipital region. And another the size of a crown piece on this - on the left side.”

  He picked up a knife and James closed his eyes briefly, knowing what was coming. When he opened them again the scalp had been cut through and pulled partly over the face. He took a few deeps breaths to stop himself from gagging. The doctor seemed to sense his unease and grinned at him wolfishly. “Feeling all right, Inspector James?”

  “Very well, thank you,” said James. “Although I’ve never cared for that particular sight.”

  “The contusions pass right through the skull integuments,” the doctor continued. “The skull is discoloured, see that Strehz?”

  “Most of the body is discoloured,” said Strehz, stating the obvious. “Decomposition?”

  Dr. Foppoly nodded and pushed back the head, his knife in hand, and started to cut into the neck.

  “Here’s another wound, you can see from the darker colour on the left side of the neck.”

  “Exactly where the jugular passes through,” said Dr. Strehz, somewhat triumphantly.

  “Size?” asked the note taker.

  “About the size of, well, I would say about the size of a sixpenny piece,” said Dr. Foppoly, continuing his monetary theme. “Made by a thumb, perhaps. And look here, these red stripes running down towards the shoulder.”

  “More of the same on the right side of the neck,” said Dr. Strehz. “About a quarter of an inch apart. But no thumb print on that side.”

  Foppoly inserted four fingers into the mouth and pried it apart.

  “A tooth missing from the upper jaw. Gone for some time I believe. And another one from the lower jaw. The stump still remaining on that one.”

  “What has happened to the tongue?” asked Dr. Strehz.

  “Looks like he bit some of it off,” said Foppoly. He let the mouth go and lifted his knife again, making a long cut down the throat. James wondered briefly if Edward Dobson had already seen his son. He hoped he would not have to look at the ruined body on the table.

  “Adam’s apple has been flattened and pushed up to the chin.”

  James leaned forward. He’d heard that one before, in Victoria.

  Foppoly picked up a small mallet and chisel and attacked the skull, pried it open and commented on the fluid nature of the brain, which was apparently normal.

  James’ mind started to wander. Dobson had been beaten about the head, probably with the stock of a gun, until he was half senseless, and then someone had strangled him. Someone with a dominant left hand who knew that pushing the larynx up into the throat was an effective way to kill someone. A neophyte would assume merely blocking off the breath with a tight grip would do the job.

  Where this man—or these men had purchased - or stolen - their guns was something he should investigate. No place in Greymouth to buy them. He only half heard the rest of the autopsy, with vague words floating in and out of his consciousness: “No skull fracture…lungs congested with blood, especially on the left…intestines, bowel, liver, all healthy.” The sight of the doctor removing all these parts caused
him to avert his eyes, but he couldn’t escape the sound of the shears clipping at the skin and muscle, or the smell of blood and bodily fluids that permeated the room.

  He started to pay attention again when the doctor began to state his conclusions, slowly and clearly to allow the note taker time to get it all down: “The alteration we found in the respiratory organs are visibly the effect of the violent pressure of a hand on the throat. The mark on the jugular vein may be caused by a thumb, and the person who committed the deed must have used the left hand. The cause of death was the blows to the head and the pressure on the larynx in an upward direction until suffocation ensued. The handkerchief was not used to strangle the deceased, for if it had it would have caused a circular mark round the neck, but would not have displaced the larynx as was done.”

  James had one question, which he would ask again at the inquest. “Any use of acid or vitriol on the face that you can tell?”

  Dr. Foppoly shook his head firmly. “Definitely not. Now, Strehz, if you can just put the gentleman back together again so we can show him to the jury without all of them fainting, I would be most appreciative. And have the men take him over to the Union Hotel for the inquest. Put him in the lean-to beside the kitchen. I think I shall take some lunch before I’m due in court. Jack’s perhaps.” He looked at James from the corner of his eye, smiling slightly. “A steak and kidney pie would hit the spot.”

  He took off his apron and hung it on a hook in the corner, washed his hands in a bowl of water with carbolic soap once more, and carefully selected a clean area of the blood-soaked apron to dry his hands.

  5

  Greymouth, 1866: The Inquest: Day One

  Inspector James was not quite as hungry as the doctor, but decided he would at least have a cup of tea at the Jack’s Nonpareil Pie House, and perhaps a small fish pie – or anything that didn’t involve organs – if his stomach could handle it, before going to the Union Hotel. The inquest would take some time, possibly even more than a day, as a jury had been empaneled and there were several witnesses who would be taking the stand. The task of the jurors was to deliver a finding about the fate of George Dobson. Had he been murdered, died by accident, or by his own hand? Inspector James knew the answer, but could not lay charges without a finding of murder by person or person unknown.

  John Heron, proprietor of Jack’s, and owner of the pigs illegally kept within the town limits, served him his pie and hovered by his table, seemingly wanting to say something. “Mr. Inspector James…”

  James looked at his pie and waited, his fork poised for action.

  “I heard…is the inquest for Mr. Dobson today?”

  “I’m going there as soon as I finish my pie,” said James, hoping Heron would take the hint.

  “Those murderers,” said Heron hesitantly. “They were in here back in May – around the time Mr. Dobson disappeared.

  “Which ones?” asked James, not wanting to put words into Heron’s mouth. He took up his fork and began to eat. No time to be polite. He had an inquest to attend.

  “Burgess and Sullivan – I knew them both – and two fair men. Small men they were, the other two.”

  Burgess, Levy and Kelly were all short, while Sullivan was an above average height. But both Burgess and Kelly were dark. Levy was short and fair, and the only other short fair man connected to the gang was Wilson.

  “Would you recognize the other two if you saw them?”

  Heron shook his head. “I don’t think I would. I see so many people in here. But the two short fair men stuck in my head for some reason.”

  “I don’t suppose you heard them say anything,” said James, wiping up the last of the gravy from the pie with a chunk of bread. If he had an identification he could put Wilson together with the gang in an interesting way, but a comment implying foreknowledge would be very useful.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” said Heron. “But they asked me to do something for them. They asked me to take care of a swag and a shovel. When I picked up the swag to move it behind the counter it was fearfully heavy.”

  Guns, most likely. “Have you been called as a witness at the inquest?”

  Heron picked up James’ empty plate. “No. This is the first time I’ve said anything. Do you think it’s important?”

  “You’re sure you can’t identify the two fair men?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “We may call you at pre-trial,” said James. “But unless you’re willing to identify all four men I’m not sure how useful you will be. Thanks for mentioning it, however.”

  He stood up to leave, but Heron was not done.

  “About my pigs,” he said. “Mr. Warden Revell says…”

  “You’ll have to take it up with Mr. Revell,” said James, beating a hasty retreat before Heron tied his pig problem to an identification of the short fair men.

  As he entered the Union Hotel later, one of his constables handed him a letter from the police in Nelson that had arrived while he was searching for Dobson. He scanned through it quickly. This was what he had been waiting for. He had half an hour before court was to begin, so went into the billiard room and found himself a seat. He would read as much as he could before the magistrate arrived.

  Half an hour later, pleased with how things were going, he entered the room where the inquest was to be held and found himself a seat at the end of a row, a few rows from the front. The letter, as he had hoped, contained a confession from Joseph Thomas Sullivan, one of the murderers from the Burgess gang – the same man who had turned Queen’s evidence on the murders up in Nelson. Major Shallcrass had attached a note saying the police in Nelson found Sullivan’s description of the murders highly credible and that he expected to bring the other three gang members to justice using Sullivan’s statement.

  When he came to the murder of George Dobson, the one that now occupied Inspector James, Sullivan had pointed his finger at Jamie Wilson, alias Murray, saying that Wilson, a sometime bellman and petty thief from Nelson, “was concerned with Burgess, Kelly and Levy in the murder.” Actual participation – that was more than James had expected, and he felt a strong sense of satisfaction.

  Sullivan claimed they had initially left Dobson at the foot of a tree to make it appear he had died of exhaustion, but later decided that would not do and had returned and buried him, adding some details about the contents of the grave, which matched what James himself had seen as the body was uncovered. James knew that Sullivan could tell a good story. He’d arrested Sullivan back in Victoria, for the murder of two Jew hawkers on the Wedderburn Road. The men had been tied to a tree with leather straps, and then burned to death. He hadn’t been able to connect Sullivan to that crime and would hate to see get away with another one. But at the time he’d been impressed with Sullivan’s memory for the details; in James’ experience most criminals were caught out by their own feeble attempts at perverting the truth. Sullivan knew to stick to the truth most of the time.

  Wilson was in the courtroom, guarded by one of James’ constables, his wrists fastened with cuffs; he’d been brought up from Hokitika, as per James’ instructions. If the inquest went as he expected, he intended to charge Wilson with the murder. He would ask for a remand as well to give him time to make his case. The rest of the gang were beyond his reach in Nelson, but Wilson would pay for what he had done. Wilson tried to catch his eye, looking for understanding and sympathy, but James kept his eyes fixed ahead; he had read Sullivan’s confession and knew what he knew.

  Mr. Revell, the magistrate, entered and everyone rose. William Revell had started life in Greymouth as the government storekeeper, and was now the government agent, goldfields warden, resident magistrate, coroner, and returning officer.[ii]As a young man, “Big Bill” Revell had been a member of the armed constabulary in Kaiapoi, near Christchurch, and still fancied himself as a police detective. Sometimes that notion of his interfered with James’ work.

  Once they were all seated again, Revell addressed the jury: “You have been assembled
to inquire how, where and when, and by what means the deceased man came by his death,” he said, the seriousness of his face signaling the importance of the task before them. “I would ask you to discharge from your minds anything which you might have read or heard outside this room touching this matter, and to return a verdict strictly in accordance with the evidence which will be laid before you.”

  The jurymen nodded their agreement. They were serious men, shopkeepers, clerks, and landowners, British subjects over twenty-one, with voting rights, which now included anyone with a mining license, although there was a move afoot to stop goldfields suffrage.

  “Now, you must proceed to view the body of Mr. Dobson,” said Mr. Revell.

  As the jury left, James looked around the court. He could see Charles Todhunter seated at the front of the room, with Mr. Edward Dobson, father of the victim, beside him. Dobson was a fit-looking man a few years older than Inspector James, probably no more than fifty. He’d arrived quickly. James wondered if it was he who had brought the letter from the Nelson gaol, or at least a companion. If so, the Nelson police would have provided him with an armed guard for the journey, no one wishing to see another murdered Dobson.

  After some time, the jury returned, some with somber faces, others looking pale. A body that badly decomposed was not easy for a man to look at, even in a town where unexpected deaths were commonplace. He hoped Dr. Strehz had done his best work putting the face back into a semblance of normalcy.

  Mr. Warden Revell watched as the jury filed in, then spoke to the court.

  “Inspector James, if you would please take the stand?”

  James glanced at his notes and addressed the court, as he had done so many times before: “On Tuesday, the 3rd instant, I proceeded up the Grey river, with a party, to search for the body of George Dobson, at a spot about one mile on the Canterbury side below the coal-pits, on the Arnold track. The instructions where to find the body had been received by telegram from Nelson, and were said to have been given by the prisoner Sullivan. For the first three days we were unsuccessful, and on Friday, the 6th inst., I commenced the search at a point a mile below the spot indicated on a tracing which I received from Nelson by special constable O’Brien on the previous day, as the tracing indicated the locality which we had already searched for three days.” He paused and looked up from his notes; the members of the jury were taking in every word. “At five minutes to twelve o’clock I was in the act of crossing a log which lay over a blind creek or gully, when I felt a strong smell, and I called Constable Mcllroy’s attention to the spot, and told him to make a strict search near it.”