Heaven Knows Who (14 page)

Jessie knew nothing of the discovery of the black japanned box. She thought it was still the trunk they were asking about, and she now filled in a few details of yesterday's story. When she got to Hamilton on that Tuesday, the day after the murder was discovered, she elaborated, she had gone to a shop to enquire for Mrs Bain, with whom she was to stay, and had asked the woman in the shop for some tea and ham and eggs, and at the same time had arranged for a boy to go to the station with her and carry her trunk. She had found that the hinges of the trunk were broken, which must have happened on the journey for it hadn't been like that when she sent it off. On the way back the boy had stopped by the roadside, and she opened the trunk and put in the black bag in which she had carried her clothes from Glasgow—the trunk having been sent on to Hamilton through Sarah's error. But back at the shop, while she waited for her tea, she had taken the bag out of the trunk again as the trunk had to go to the menders, and, the bag being rather small, transferred the clothes to a kerchief and tied them up in that.

Why had she asked for her friend as Mrs Bain if the name was really Mrs Shaw?

Well, her friend had recently married, said Jessie, and she must have got the name wrong; when Mrs Chassels at the shop told her of a tailor's cutter called Shaw, she had decided to call on Mrs Shaw and see if she was her friend. The boy was to show her the way, which he did.…

‘Did you go to Shaw's house?'

‘Yes, but I found the door locked.'

‘What time was this?'

‘Between four and five o'clock.' She had told the boy to ask the saddler to return the mended trunk to his mother's shop, and she would collect it at the beginning of the following week: she would be up then to look for a room in Hamilton (Mrs Bain—Shaw having failed her) as she wanted to come there for her child's health and her own.

Alas, the air of Hamilton was to prove not very beneficial to Jessie after all.

‘What was in the bundle wrapped up in the handkerchief?'

What was in the bundle? ‘Some shirts of my husband's,' said Jessie desperately, ‘and some baby clothes and my blue and black checked poplin dress.…'

‘What happened to these things?'

‘I brought them back with me to Glasgow.'

‘In what?'

‘In the black bag and the kerchief.'

‘Where is the kerchief now?'

‘This is it—the one I'm wearing round my neck,' said Jessie. But they knew very well that it was not, that it had been given to Mirrilees Chassels with instructions to get it hemmed. We can imagine the ironic triumph with which they made her take the kerchief from her neck and hand it over, then and there. ‘… the handkerchief I have round my neck, and now give up, is that in which I tied the clothes, and a sealed label is attached thereto, which is docquetted and subscribed as relative thereto.'

And so they sprang their trap. ‘Is it not true that in fact you gave the handkerchief to a boy in Hamilton …?'

What was there to do—but to deny it blankly?

And now the questions followed thick and fast, some relevant, some not, so that you must answer them quickly, not appearing to have to think out your answers, never knowing, because you had not time to reflect, whether what you said would do harm or not: whether you had best tell the truth or lie. Had you two crinolines? I had two, as I said before, but one of them was burned. How long had you had the flannel petticoat you wore when you were apprehended? I had had it four years. Has it not been recently hemmed? I re-hemmed it after I washed it—both parts, top and bottom—a fortnight ago. How long had you had the shift you wore when you were apprehended? I've had it for six months. Ann gave it to me, my sister in Edinburgh. The coals you say you got on that Saturday morning—where did you get them? I got them from a woman. What woman? I think she's the wife of the man who keeps the coal depot. How much coal did you buy? Well—a quarter of a hundredweight. How much did you pay? I think it was three-halfpence farthing. Did you
borrow a pair of stockings from Mrs Campbell who lives in your house? Yes, I did; about two months ago. What became of them? I only wore them once, the day I borrowed them; then they got mixed up by mistake with my husband's socks. Where are they now? I suppose they're at home, or with his things aboard his ship. What boots have you? Have you none older than the ones you were wearing when you came here?' ‘I had an old pair, the only pair I had for wearing. Where are they? I threw them out. When? On—on that Friday, July the fourth. Why? I was cleaning out my room: I threw them out with a lot of other rubbish. And bought a new pair? Yes; yes I bought a new pair (which I now see and identify, and a sealed label attached thereto is docquetted and subscribed as relative thereto).

On that evening, the Friday evening when Mrs Fraser came to your house, did you take a bottle out of Mrs Campbell's cupboard? Yes, I did, and went to the public-house and wanted a gill and a half of whisky, but the bottle was too small and one of the shopmen gave me a pint bottle to contain the whisky, and I left Mrs Campbell's bottle instead. The pint bottle was in our house when I was apprehended.…

(Ah yes, Jessie; but Mrs Fraser says it was rum you brought back in the bottle!)

Did the late Jess M'Pherson have a black watered silk dress?

Yes. Yes, she had.

And another dress of silk, a changing colour with flounces and with cotton cloth beneath?

Yes, she had.

And a velvet cloak, the front lined with blue silk? And a drab-coloured cloth cloak? And a black dyed harness plaid? And a black silk polka?

I don't know that she had a black silk polka.

Do you not know perfectly well that she had a black silk polka?

I think she told me she had a black silk polka.

But you never saw it?

No, I never saw it.

The other things, however, you did see?

Yes, the other things I did see.

How recently? When did you see them last?

I haven't seen them recently.

What none of them? None of these articles?

None of these articles; not recently.

Not in her possession?

No, not in her possession—

Or anywhere else?

—not in her possession or anywhere else.

Then what are these two silk dresses (having a sealed label attached), and what are these two cloaks (having a sealed label attached), and what is this piece of twilled cloth? And are they not Jessie M'Pherson's? And what is this black japanned box, with sealed label attached, and did you not despatch to Ayr on Tuesday or Wednesday, the eighth of ninth of this month, the said tin box, containing the said dresses, cloaks and plaid, wrapped in the said cotton cloth and addressed to Mrs Darnley, Ayr, to lie till called for …?

Did it flash through her mind then that James, her own husband, had betrayed her?

The answers that read so slick and coherently in fact were wild impromptu explanations, meeting each crisis as it came: had she had a prepared reply, she would not have denied recent knowledge of the clothes. Tricked into that falsehood and then confronted with police omniscience, she sought frantically to recover. The things had been sent to her by Jess, she said. On the Friday (little knowing she would have no further use for them!) Jess had given them to a little girl to take round to the Broomielaw—Jessie didn't know the name of the little girl, but it was the one who cleaned the knives at Sandyford Place. There was a message with them.…

What message? What about?

Well, about the clothes. ‘Jess asked me to take the watered silk to Anderson's in Buchanan Street and get it dressed; and the changing-coloured silk to be opened down and dyed brown. And the cloth cloak to be dyed black—'

‘Why?'

‘She'd spoilt it by washing it.' She embarked on another of her rather pathetic embellishments, harking back, perhaps, to some past discussion. ‘The black velvet cloak was to have a puffing of silk round the bottom to lengthen it, and which puffing Jess was afterwards to send down to me.…'

‘And the black plaid?'

‘The black plaid was to be re-dyed because it was not well done.'

‘And you got said things—when?'

‘On the Friday, about five o'clock, wrapped up in said cotton twilled cloth.'

‘Did you take said things to the dyer in Buchanan Street?'

‘No, I meant to take them on the Saturday, but I wasn't well enough.'

‘On the Monday, then, or the Tuesday?'

‘No; I couldn't, I had to stay at home with my child; I wasn't out at all on Monday or Tuesday.…”

But she had already admitted to being out on the Saturday, paying her rent, pawning the silver, going to Mrs Rainny's house with the errand about the blue and black poplin dress; had already admitted to the long day at Hamilton on the Tuesday—when, she now said, she hadn't been out of the house.

‘But these clothes have been found in the black japanned box, and your husband has given information about this box.…'

So now she knew. ‘Yes, I put them in the black box. When I heard of the murder—'

‘When did you hear of the murder?'

‘I heard of it on Tuesday, and next day I heard that some of her clothes were a-wanting and, having them in my possession, I got frightened; so I put them in the black bonnet-box and sent them up to Ayr.…'

‘Addressed to Mrs Darnley?'

‘Yes, because I knew Mrs Darnley and I could explain to her. I sent them to Ayr to be out of the way until I could see her and talk to her.'

‘But you changed your mind?'

‘Yes, on Thursday night I got frightened about them lying there where anyone might examine the box, and I told my husband about them and asked him to take them to Greenock, to his sister. He wanted me to go to the Fiscal's office and tell about them,' said Jessie loyally, turning the other cheek to his treachery, ‘but I felt frightened.'

‘Where did you get the black japanned box?'

She had bought it, she said, ‘for general use'—just a Useful Box to put things in as Winnie the Pooh would have said?—and paid five and sixpence for it; and the sealed labels referred to in the
foregoing, etcetera, etcetera: and all of which she declared to be the truth.…

And this also, commented Jno. Gemmel, Peter Morton, Bernard M'Laughlin, old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, was freely and voluntarily emitted by the therein designed Jessie M'Lachlan while in her sound and sober senses: and all the rest of it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

And so the days went by. The world wagged on—a large Monkey or Baboon escaped from a sailor down at the docks and made a Frightful Attack upon a mother and child; the
Glasgow Herald
fulminated against the indiscriminate use of Turkish Baths; the Beautiful very Fast Sailing Clipper ship
Edouard et Julie
, newly coppered, was still actively Loading and would soon set sail for Singapore. In Paris an old gentleman who thought he was Robespierre was visited by a relative unaware of his peculiarity and, crying out ‘He is the gendarme Metra, behind him is the coward Louis Bourdon!' jumped out of a window and killed himself. You could go by Cheap Midday Sail to Renfrew, Bowling, Greenock and Dunoon, fares for the round one shilling, steerage sixpence.…

On the Tuesday, Mrs Reid, James M'Lachlan's sister, who was closest to her brother and evidently devoted to him, decided to go to the Broomielaw and bring back his little boy, who all this time had presumably been still in the care of Mrs Campbell. But her brother met her in Glasgow and warned her not to go near the house; it was swarming with police, she'd only be arrested herself (for her part in harbouring the box of clothes?) and she had better go back home. So she returned to Greenock alone. And poor Jess M'Pherson was buried, up in the Sighthill Cemetery, with, despite all efforts to keep the time secret, a vast mob of people following her coffin out of curiosity—a tiny handful out of respect and love. It is said that her father, who till now had never owned her, turned up and tried to claim her possessions; but Jess was gone now, beyond petty greeds and resentments. Later on in the year a letter appeared in the Press. A stone was to be placed on her grave, ‘Erected by Mary Downie in memory of Jessie M'Pherson, murdered at Sandyford Place, July 5th, 1862'; and the writer asked if the public might not like to subscribe to it. There is no record of any response, so perhaps poor Mary Downie paid the whole cost herself. She had been a great friend, as great a friend as Jessie
M'Lachlan. It was she who had set up with Jess the little grocery shop that failed because their hearts were too kind. She probably didn't mind, even if she did have to pay the whole.

By now, two weeks after the murder, interest in it was already at fever pitch, as it was to remain, with brief intervals, over almost a year. Crowds besieged the house in Sandyford Place, feeling on this side or that ran high. The newspapers, of course, were packed with information, correct or incorrect, with rumour and comment, reports and misreports of the doings and sayings of anyone however remotely connected with the case. The editors bribed the clerks at County Buildings, and their editors waylaid the witnesses at the Fiscal's hearings, which of course were held in secret, and bribed the clerks; full reports of the proceedings were published with editorial comment, biased according to which side the papers had chosen to uphold: it was all M'Lachlan
v
. Fleming. So flagrant were these breaches of official confidence and so biased the comment, that the Sheriff of Lanarkshire had to write round to the editors begging them to refrain from further notice of the case, otherwise the accused would not get a fair trial. ‘Some people,' writes Mr Roughead, ‘treated the “wretched woman” already as a convicted murderess, while shedding tears of ink over the unmerited sufferings of virtuous Mr Fleming; others clamoured for his blood and canonised the prisoner. One journal, being very certain that the rum bottle found in the house contained laudanum, insisted on an immediate analysis. A worse instance occurred with reference to certain superficial marks on the prisoner's hands, caused, as she explained and as the Crown doctors believed, by the bite of her own small dog. This paper knew better—“they had been inflicted by Jessie M'Pherson in her death struggle.”' These factions were led by two rival newspapers, the
Morning Journal
for the ‘M'Lachlanites' and the
Glasgow Herald
for the ‘Flemingites'. Had Jess M'Pherson been savagely slaughtered for the price of a few well-worn clothes and ‘a handful of silver' by a delicate, gentle young woman, her closest friend—or by an old gentleman with no apparent possible motive, confessing to eighty-seven years? The puzzle ‘was to disturb the peace of families and agitate a generation.'