“He’ll certainly be hanged if he’s sent back to France.”
“I don’t know if there’s anything we can do for you, Mrs Hirsch. But I can discuss it with my superior.”
“Do it now. I’ve come a long way to talk to you. I ain´t going home until I have a deal.”
Billings thought about this. “I’d have to get a constable to sit with you. We don’t want you running away.”
“I ain’t going nowhere.”
“Very well.” Billings got up. “It may take a while.”
“I don’t suppose you could give me something to eat. A bit of bread would do. I ain’t had nothing to eat all day, and it was a long walk from Bethnal Green.”
“I’ll ask Jack to get you something.”
“Do you believe her?”
England was sitting at his desk. Billings was standing opposite him.
“Yes, I do. And anyway, we can easily check the marriage register at St John’s Chapel.”
“Why did she come forward?”
“Well, she’s destitute. She’s skin and bone. And she has a baby to feed. The baby’s in there now with her. She’s had to pawn her wedding ring. She needs the reward money. I suppose her husband is looking for a way out of their predicament.”
“Where’s her husband hiding?”
“I believe he’s hiding somewhere in Bethnal Green. She tried concealing this from me, but she slipped up a couple of times.”
“What does she want precisely?”
“She wants a pardon.”
“For what?”
“I think it was her husband who killed Joseph Hirsch.”
“We can’t offer her a pardon.”
“She also wants us to promise we won’t send him back to France.”
“That’s a matter for the politicians.”
“That’s what I said. She’s afraid he’ll be executed if he goes back to France.”
“There’s no doubt about that.”
“She’s trying to save his life.”
“What were her precise words?”
“She said that her husband would tell us who killed Joseph Hirsch and where to find his brothers, but we had to promise that we would not send him back to France and that he would not be hanged.”
“Well, you can promise her the latter.”
“That he won’t be hanged?”
“Yes. I believe they still use the guillotine in France. And you can tell her that the judge will give her husband a lenient sentence if he helps us find his brothers.”
“Will he?”
“Of course not, Billings. He’s wanted for murder!”
“So you want me to lie to her?”
“I want you to mislead her.”
“I can’t do that, sir.”
“Why not?”
“The poor woman is relying on us to save her husband. I can’t betray her like that. If she is to give up her husband, I want her to know the full consequences of her actions.”
England stared at Billings before replying. “Flynt warned me about you. He said you were a sentimentalist.”
“I just think that it’s imperative that the police are trusted by the public. You’re asking me to play a dirty trick on an ignorant woman.”
“Your sense of righteousness is laudable, Billings, but you’re in the wrong job if that’s how you think. Criminals are dishonourable people. We must do whatever we can to catch them.”
“Well, I don’t think I can do that, sir. Not with this woman. She came here in a state of despair. She came here looking for help. I don’t think I can trick her.”
England got up from his chair. “Well, then I’ll do it myself,” he said, and he rushed out of the office.
Billings jumped up from his seat and followed him out.
England barged into the interview room.
“Mrs Hirsch? I am Chief Inspector England from Special Branch.” He marched towards Ada and grabbed her hand. “My colleague tells me you know where Judah Hirsch is.”
Ada cowered back and tried removing her hand from his grasp, but England would not let go.
“Judah is my husband,” she said. She turned to check on her baby, who was still sleeping in her arms.
Billings watched the proceedings with concern.
“You will take us to your husband straight away,” England said, still holding on to her hand.
“But what about the deal?”
“The deal, Mrs Hirsch, is that we will not arrest you if you do as you’re told.”
Ada looked confused. She turned towards Billings.
“Don’t look at Detective Sergeant Billings. I’m the one talking. You are harbouring a suspected criminal. That is a criminal offense. But don’t worry. You can still get the two-thousand-pound reward.”
“But what about my husband? What will happen to him when you catch him?”
“He will be dealt with by the court of law.”
“Will he be sent back to France?”
“Possibly. That’s not for me to decide.”
“But they’ll hang him if he’s sent back to France!”
“He won’t be hanged, Mrs Hirsch. I can assure you of that.”
“But they always kill anarchist terrorists in France.”
“I’m telling you that he will not be hanged.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise on my mother’s grave.” He finally let go of the woman’s hand. “Now get up. Bethnal Green is a long way away, and I’d like to get there before dusk.”
“How do you know my husband is in Bethnal Green?”
“We know everything.” England turned towards Billings. “Go get Clarkson and get us a paddy wagon. Oh, and a couple of constables to come with us, in case Judah Hirsch puts up any resistance.”
11. Judah Hirsch
There were a lot of strange looks as the paddy wagon rolled down Bethnal Green Road. Billings and Clarkson were sitting in the back, holding tightly to their hats, lest the wind should blow them off. England was sitting on the front bench next to the driver. Ada was snuggled in between them, clasping her baby to her breast, doing her best to conceal herself from the public gaze by hiding between the men on either side of her. It wouldn’t do, in Bethnal Green, to be seen sitting on the front bench of a police van. That place was reserved for snitches and traitors.
“You can drop me off here,” Ada said to England. “I’ll go fetch me husband and bring him to you.”
“Is this where you live?”
“I live on Tinney’s Way. A side street.”
“We’ll come with you.”
“There’s no need for that, Inspector. You’ll draw looks from the people.”
“Let them look.” England signalled for the driver to halt the horses.
Ada looked unhappy as she disembarked from the carriage. People were stopping on the street and staring at her. She kept her head down and averted her eyes. “I really think it’s best if I go and fetch me husband on me own,” she whispered to England.
“Think of the reward money, Mrs Hirsch. You can move away from this slum once you have that, and it won’t matter what people think. Now, take us to your house.”
Ada reluctantly led the policemen across the road and into a small lane. She stopped at a dilapidated wooden shack.
“Shall I go in first?” she asked.
England nodded his consent.
As Ada opened the door, the policemen saw Judah Hirsch sitting at the table. The bushy beard, the curly copper-coloured hair and the small eyes confirmed to Billings that this was the man they were looking for. Although he looked considerably thinner than in the mugshot. They followed the woman in.
Judah looked alarmed as the detectives barged in with his wife. “What is the meaning of this?” he said, looking around at all the people who had invaded his house.
“I am Chief Inspector England. You are to accompany us back to Scotland Yard for questioning.”
Judah turned towards his wife. “Did you make
a deal?”
“He says you won’t be hanged. And he says you won’t be sent back to France.” Ada looked at England for confirmation.
England shook his head. “I didn’t say won’t, Mrs Hirsch. I said mightn’t. But that isn’t the important thing. The important thing is the reward money.” He turned towards Judah. “Do you know who killed Joseph Hirsch?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then you will receive two thousand pounds, and no matter what happens to you, your wife and child will be cared for. That’s the important thing, don’t you think? That should be reason enough for you to cooperate and confess all you have to confess.”
Judah didn’t respond. He kept looking around him, searching for an escape route.
“There’s no point putting up any resistance, Mr Hirsch,” England said. “You can see you’re outnumbered. Now, why don’t you get up and accompany us calmly to the paddy wagon? There’ll be a nice cup of tea waiting for you at headquarters.”
Statement given by Judah Hirsch
July 9th, 1894
First of all, I’d like to talk about my father. The press have made him out to be a sadistic brute who beat my brother Simeon into lameness, who forced my brother Levi to sleep in the kennels and who locked me up in the cellar with a hornet’s nest. None of these allegations are true. My father was an angry man, he was cold and hard-hearted, but he was not a sadist. It is true that he didn’t like us. We were a disappointment to him. None of us had the strength and courage that he had – to break away from his Jewish village in the Alsace and start his own empire. We all took after our mother, at least the four eldest. We were soft and timid. So he was disappointed in us. And his disappointment led to bitterness. And this led to the bottle. When he drank, he became aggressive. Sometimes, late at night, he would come into our bedroom, where I used to sleep with Ruben, Simeon and Levi, and pick a fight with us. He’d tell us how useless we were. He’d say that we were weak, and lazy, and dumb. And he’d go on and on. Riling us up until one of us would finally talk back. And then all hell would break loose. He’d pull whoever it was that talked out of bed (it was usually Simeon) and beat him with a wooden club. A club he had carved himself out of oak especially for that purpose. Simeon was the most sensitive of us, but also the most fiery. My father would beat Simeon more than the rest of us, but he knew where to hit without causing permanent damage. Simeon’s lameness was due to polio and nothing else.
As for Levi, well, he was petrified of my father. More so than the rest of us. He couldn’t bear to be in the house when my father drank, so he slept in the kennels instead. It was out of his own free will that he slept there. Not because my father made him.
And with regard to the hornet’s nest –well, I was stung quite badly by a swarm of hornets, but that was my own fault. I was poking their nest with a stick. It had nothing to do with my father. I don’t know who made up these wild stories about us, but whoever it was, they haven’t served us well. These stories have turned us into legendary figures, hated by some, admired by others. But we are not legends. We are not heroes, and we are not villains. We are just seven scared little boys running away from our father’s wrath.
My younger brothers, Issachar, Zebulun and Joseph, fared better. They were born after my father returned home. He had left my mother for several years. He set up housekeeping with his mistress in an apartment in Paris, but ill health forced him to return home and try once more to get a suitable heir. We called my younger brothers the second-chancers. My father was as disappointed in Issachar, Zebulun and Joseph as he was in the rest of us, but he had stopped drinking by then, and he no longer had the strength to wave his club around, so they were saved the severe beatings.
Another lie I want to address is that my father didn’t want us to succeed him. It was his heart’s desire that one of his sons would succeed him and, although we hadn’t turned out as strong as he would have liked, he did everything he could to teach us the ropes. When Ruben came of age, he was put in charge of one of the mills. My father had always made out that Ruben was dim witted, but, in fact, the contrary is true. Ruben is very learned and intelligent. The problem is that his views on life contrasted too much with those of my father. But despite all of that, my father still made Ruben manager of the factory. Perhaps he was afraid of what his associates might think of him if he snubbed his own sons. Perhaps he was hoping Ruben would shoot himself in the foot and give him an excuse to dismiss and replace him. And that is indeed what happened. Ruben took pity on the workers and the dismal conditions in which they were forced to work. He gave in to the workers’ demands for fewer hours and higher wages, which in turn led to a loss in production and profits and forced my father to replace him with my cousin.
Disgruntled, Ruben then declared war against my father by trying to get the factory workers to form a union. My brothers and I all sided with Ruben, and that’s when the estrangement with my father began. We made no inroads into uniting the factory workers. My father saw to it that we and our socialist friends stayed well away from the factory by putting armed guards all around it.
Joseph is the one who escalated the battle against my father. He was always rebellious and belligerent by nature, and I think that it was the thrill of the fight, rather than hatred against my father (or concern for worker conditions, for that matter), that spurred him on. He had made friends with a member of an anarchist group and had sold us all on this new ideology. Joseph came up with the plan of bombing the factory, to which we all agreed on the condition that nobody would get hurt. The idea was to bomb the factory at night, when it was deserted. We were all involved in buying the dynamite and smuggling it in from Germany. We had all arranged to flee the country that same night and travel to England, where we had set up a relationship with an English anarchist group who would shelter us. But my younger brothers, Joseph, Zebulun and Issachar, insisted they do the bombing on their own, as there would be less chance of being caught if they acted with a small team.
It wasn’t until we read the news in London that we learned that twelve people had been killed. We had assumed the factory would be empty. How could we have known that my father and my cousin had forced the workers to continue throughout the night in order to make up for the losses incurred under Ruben’s management? But Joseph, Zebulun and Issachar must have known. They must have seen the lights on in the window when they detonated the dynamite.
Ruben, Simeon, Levi and I were devastated by this news and wanted nothing more to do with the anarchists. We shunned the help of our English comrades and left, determined to scrape by on our own. It was not easy. Ruben and Simeon made a bit of money teaching French, and Levi even spent some time working in a textile factory, but I didn’t have the stamina for this kind of lifestyle. We weren’t brought up to live like this. We knew nothing. We couldn’t lay bricks, we couldn’t thatch roofs, we couldn’t weave baskets, we knew nothing about carpentry, we couldn’t bake bread, we couldn’t tan hides, we couldn’t even sing or play any musical instruments. There was no work for me. I relied on my brothers’ charity at first, but that couldn’t last forever. I was at my lowest ebb when I met Ada. I had been kicked out of the boarding house for not paying my rent. I had already pawned my watch, my coat and my boots and had nothing left. I was wandering aimlessly down the street, but I was too weak to even do that. I hadn’t eaten anything for almost a week. So I sat down on the floor, lowered my head between my knees and resolved to stay there until death finally took me. The people on the street ignored me. They simply walked past me; some even stepped over me. But then along came Ada. She had been selling pies on the street. She crouched down beside me and offered me one. She took me in and took care of me with the little money she had. I owe my life to her, and that’s why I’m here.
You were right to tell Ada that I wouldn’t be hanged in France. She would never have given me up if she thought I might die. But you can’t fool me. I may not be hanged, but I will certainly be guillotined if I get extradited to France. And
if I don’t get sent back, I’ll be hanged here for what I’m about to confess. But at least I’ll die knowing that my wife and son will be taken care of.
You are right in your suspicion, Chief Inspector. It was I who killed Joseph. But I didn’t kill him on my own. I killed him with my brothers, Ruben, Simeon and Levi. We fired a shot each. It was him or us, you see? We knew Joseph had killed Issachar and Zebulun in order to inherit our father’s money, and we knew that we would be next.
My father changed his will after what had happened. Now only one of us would inherit his money. The one who outlived the others. It was his idea of vengeance. He wanted to humiliate us. To show us up. To make us turn on each other the way we had turned on him. His lawyer arranged for details of the will to be published in an anarchist periodical. That was the only way of informing us about it. I wanted nothing to do with the money then. I was poor and destitute, but I still had my principles. But that was before my son was born. I could bear to starve myself, but I couldn’t bear to hear my son crying his little lungs out because he was hungry.
When we read about Issachar’s death in the newspapers, Ruben, Levi, Simeon and I instantly suspected Joseph. He was the only one of us who lacked morals. Ruben looked him up. He met him at a meeting Joseph had organised to plot the bombing of a train. Joseph was there with Zebulun and some Englishman called Jeremiah Quick. He warned Joseph not to continue with this betrayal. He showed him the pistol he had acquired and warned him that he’d pay if another brother ended up dead. But that very same day, after the meeting had ended, Joseph slit Zebulun’s throat. We know it was him, because there was no one else there when Ruben left.
Ruben placed a coded announcement in the Liberty for Joseph to meet us in Tower Hamlets Cemetery. It was the only way we knew of contacting him. In the announcement, Ruben pretended to be someone who was interested in joining his plot, but who was too afraid to be seen in public. Ruben asked Joseph to meet him at the grave of a certain Wilber Cockerel. That grave was chosen because it was on the edge of the graveyard, near to the forest. We were all there, hidden behind the trees, when Joseph wandered in. Ruben fired the first shot, then passed the pistol on to Simeon, who passed it on to Levi, who passed it on to me. Ruben then sent an anonymous letter to Detective Sergeant Billings informing him of where to find the body.
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