The Chieftain: Victorian True Crime Through The Eyes of a Scotland Yard Detective (22 page)

Clarke’s summary of the main points from the inquest were consistent with the contemporary newspaper reports of events, but greater details were available in these news reports and some are worth amplifying. In support of Perreau’s evidence that Mrs Brigham’s death had been accidental: ‘Dr. Wright concurred in the opinion given by Dr. Bennett, and said that had the pistol gone off at the moment Mrs Brigham turned her head in the way described by Monsieur Perreau, it would have taken the direction described.’
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However, in contradiction to this evidence, ‘Mr Higham, gunsmith, Warrington, said he had had forty years experience as gunsmith, and did not think Mrs Brigham could fire the pistol in the way Monsieur Perreau described’. In his view the pistol at half-cock could not have gone off as it was in perfect order.
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He would not swear, however, that it could not have happened as Perreau had told it. Finally, an assessment of Perreau’s evidence provided by the coroner to the jury stated: ‘It was not for him [the coroner] to say what the impression his [Perreau’s] evidence might have made upon their minds, but his own impression was that he had given his evidence most truthfully … unless there was something in their minds to impress them to the contrary, they ought to receive his statement as an earnest of the truth, and not lightly reject his evidence.’
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Taking these various comments into account, the jury had returned their verdict of ‘accidental death’, adding that they wished ‘to record their strong conviction that Monsieur Perreau had exhibited great carelessness in the use of such a deadly weapon as had been produced before them that day’.
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Clarke, having made his own investigations as requested (though apparently without speaking directly to Perreau), had also decided that there were insufficient grounds to contest the inquest verdict. He returned to London midway through the Clerkenwell explosion trial to report back to Commissioner Mayne, who was still under siege from the criticisms of the press, the public and his political masters for the police-handling of the Fenian conspiracy. The absence of other police reports of the case in 1868 suggest that Mayne accepted Clarke’s report and that no further action was taken. Clarke and Perreau would meet under different circumstances in 1876, however, and there would be a different outcome.

Change at the Top – A New Commissioner

On 26 December 1868 Sir Richard Mayne died while still in post as commissioner. Queen Victoria chose her words carefully when expressing: ‘how grieved and concerned she is to hear of Sir R. Mayne’s death. Not withstanding the attacks lately made upon him, Her Majesty believes him to have been a most efficient head of the Police, and to have discharged the duties of his important situation most ably and satisfactorily in very difficult times.’
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John Meiklejohn, a detective sergeant at Scotland Yard at the time of Mayne’s death, commented in 1890:

The late Sir Richard Mayne was in every sense of the word a thorough and practical policeman. Under his mild and firmly effective way any lawbreaker from the horrible murderer to the contemptible pickpocket, had not a tithe of his present immunity, while neither the police nor the general public were subjected to the constant irritation inflicted upon them in the present day.
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Two days after Mayne died, Assistant Commissioner Labalmondière was appointed acting commissioner, during a short interregnum. For the Metropolitan Police, and particularly for those, like Clarke, who had worked closely with Sir Richard Mayne, it must have been a time of much speculation and uncertainty. On 13 February 1869 it was announced that Colonel Edmund Henderson would be the new commissioner, an unexpected appointment as far as the police were concerned. As Timothy Cavanagh, a serving police officer at the time, was later to record in his autobiography: ‘How it happened that Colonel Labalmondière did not succeed Sir Richard in the commissionership I never heard. I only know that the whole of the Police were disappointed by his non-appointment.’
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Henderson had served in the Royal Engineers, rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In 1850 he had become comptroller of the new convict settlement in Western Australia and, in 1863, was appointed to the Home Office as chairman of directors and surveyor general of prisons. Regardless of the views expressed by Cavanagh, it was undoubtedly appropriate for a new broom to be brought in; Henderson soon started sweeping. By the end of March he had made a start to help improve police morale by easing some of the pettier restrictions, including permitting his uniformed policemen to wear beards and moustaches and, somewhat later, to wear plain clothes when off duty.
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By July 1869 he had also gained Home Office approval for the provision of recreation rooms at police stations, allowing smoking, games such as draughts and backgammon, and other recreational equipment including miniature billiard tables and boxing gloves.
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Equally timely and promptly delivered were changes to the detective department.
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Numbers of staff were increased from fifteen to twenty-seven, composed of a superintendent as head of the department, three chief inspectors, three inspectors and twenty sergeants. Williamson was promoted to superintendent, and Clarke to chief inspector, with his pay increasing to £250 per annum plus a £10 per annum allowance for plain clothes.
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A few days later, and in a radical move, a divisional detective system was established in which a detective sergeant and a number of detective constables were permanently stationed in each division; a total of 20 sergeants and 160 constables.
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Control of these detectives resided with the divisional superintendents rather than with the detective department at Scotland Yard, which remained a bone of contention over the coming years. Nonetheless, over a matter of days the number of detectives in the Metropolitan Police force had, on paper, increased from 15 to 207.

In the next days and months many personnel changes occurred in the department that must have taken some time to settle down. Inspector Richard Tanner finally retired on 3 July 1869 on the grounds of ‘bodily infirmity’ despite being only 38 years old.
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He moved to Winchester to become landlord of the White Swan hotel, but died in 1873 from a stroke and heart disease. Chief Inspector James Thomson decided to further his career by returning to uniform and was promoted to superintendent of E Division (Holborn) on 6 July 1869.
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These two changes created the situation where Clarke was now, on grounds of seniority, second only to Williamson within the department, and from this time onwards whenever Williamson was away Clarke became the acting senior officer. Nathaniel Druscovich and William Palmer were both promoted to the rank of inspector, followed in October 1870 by their further promotion to chief inspector. From which time, with Clarke, they filled these three senior posts until 1877.
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Over the coming months John Mulvany and John Shore became inspectors. The other vacant detective posts at Scotland Yard were filled from recommendations made by divisional superintendents and, to a lesser extent, from external appointments. In the process the department added to its staff a greater linguistic ability (including John Reimers, the German-born sergeant who had lost his way in the London sewers in December 1867), to help deal with an influx of foreign criminals.
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In the meantime, Clarke had already become acquainted with some of the challenges posed by foreign criminals.

Burglary and the Stratford Murder

Towards the end of 1868, the principal emphasis of Clarke’s work switched to an outbreak of burglaries in some well-to-do areas on the fringes of London. One of the first of these, on 1 September, was at Copped Hall, a mansion in the Totteridge area near Barnet and previously the birthplace of Cardinal Henry Manning, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster.
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Other burglaries took place in the Windsor area where various substantial properties had been targeted, including the residences of Equerry to the Queen Lord Bridport, and Sir Edward Sullivan, an Irish lawyer, MP and solicitor general for Ireland.
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A common feature linked each of the robberies:

When the robbery was discovered in the morning it seemed that the entry had been effected through the drawing-room window. A chisel appeared to have been thrust in the window, and a piece of wire inserted with a bent end, which caught the spring catch of the window, and thus the window catch being drawn back the window was opened. The shutter was opened by means of a hole being made by a chisel and the bolt of the shutter lifted-up. It was said by Inspector Clarke that this particular mode of entry is a novel introduction and was introduced from the Continent.
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Given the spate of burglaries at properties owned by wealthy and influential individuals, the investigation took a high priority within the detective department and Inspector Clarke, Detective Sergeants Druscovich and Meiklejohn were put on the case. Clarke and Druscovich soon arrested several foreigners suspected of the burglary at Copped Hall, who they brought before the magistrate at Barnet petty sessions on 5 October 1868. Evidence was presented that holes cut in the drawing room and internal doors were exactly fitted by the gimlet and chisel found on one of the prisoners, Joseph Bleiler. Another, Auguste Blanche, was found in possession of an umbrella stolen from Copped Hall. Clarke had also located a female acquaintance of the two men who had pawned several items stolen in the Copped Hall and Windsor burglaries.
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On 17 October, acting on information received during their enquiries, Druscovich arrested another Frenchman, Charles Maurien, at the Mogul Music Hall, Drury Lane. Maurien was found to be carrying a gimlet and wire and £60 in banknotes, taken from a robbery at a banker’s residence in Leatherhead, and had also been seen by witnesses loitering in Windsor Great Park on the day when one of the Windsor properties was burgled. Bleiler and Blanche were found guilty at the Hertford assizes of the burglary at Copped Hall and were each sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude. Maurien was found guilty of the burglary at Windsor and received the same sentence at the Reading assizes.
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In addition to commendations and £5 rewards that Clarke and Druscovich received from the judge at Hertford, they were also commended and awarded £2 10
s
by Mr Justice Keating at Reading.
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Meiklejohn’s memories present a rather different perspective and, if accurate, are revealing of certain tensions and jealousies in the detective department at that time:

A sergeant from the Yard was detailed to look into the matter. He spent much time examining the scenes of the various robberies and making local inquiries, which brought him no nearer his end, and all the while the burglars were coolly pursuing their avocation, now in one place, now in another … After some time I was ordered to his assistance … I set about looking for my men in London … I learned of the existence of a gang of French thieves in Soho, who, upon further inquiry, involving the expenditure of a good deal of loose cash upon informants, proved to be the very men I sought … With some little trouble I succeeded not only in arresting the lot, but in recovering a considerable amount of the proceeds of their robberies. Unfortunately, I knew no French, so officers who spoke that language fluently, had then to be brought into the case. Next morning on my appearance at the office I was informed that there was no necessity for my going to Barnet to testify against the men I had arrested, as two others had gone down. To complete the farce these two officers were highly commended for their clever capture of the thieves and awarded a gratuity of £5 each and I was left to whistle even for my out-of-pocket expenses … It was always thus.
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Although Meiklejohn’s comments demonstrate an awareness of some of the details of the case, and therefore have a ring of truth to them, his recollections of his time as a detective also include some dubious claims which appear to have no substance to them (e.g. that it was he who arrested the Fenian arms organiser Ricard Burke on 20 November 1867), and should therefore be interpreted with some caution.
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Being foreign wasn’t a prerequisite for Victorian burglars, but for Clarke it must have appeared to be. On the night of 25 October 1869 he was called out to 9 Baker Street, Portman Square, concerning a burglary at the premises of Benjamin Lee, a jeweller and hair-worker, where property to a value of £500–600 had been stolen by burglars who had entered through a fanlight. Working together with Inspector Hinds of D Division (Marylebone), Clarke received information that encouraged them to place under surveillance individuals at 11 Gerrard Street, Soho. They then raided this address on 28 October and found, in rooms occupied by Frenchman Hippolyte Longuet: ‘82 duplicates [pawn-shop receipts], seven bracelets, 31 eardrops, nine hair rings, 19 brooches, nine necklets, two crosses, a key, 21 odd pieces of hair guards, silver coins, 10 pair ear-rings, one ear-ring, 16 watch-guards, seals, fish-slice, rings on keys, jewel cases, indecent photographs and other articles.’
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Several of these were recognised as items taken from the jeweller’s premises. Longuet stated that three other men had asked him to pawn the items for them on the morning after the robbery. Two of the men were known to the jeweller, as he had employed them to paint his premises during the previous summer. All three men were arrested within the next few days, with one being found in possession of a bag containing many items of jewellery, plus the tools of a burglar’s trade: ‘23 skeleton keys, two centre-bits and stock, a keyhole saw, a gimlet, eight common keys and a file.’
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At the Old Bailey the three burglars were found guilty and sentenced to five or seven years’ penal servitude, depending on their previous record.
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Longuet was found not guilty of burglary, but Clarke pursued charges against him of ‘unlawful possession’. At a subsequent Old Bailey trial, Longuet was found guilty on that charge and sentenced to eighteen months’ hard labour.
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So within less than a month of the break-in, the burglars had been traced, tried, convicted and sent to prison; administering justice to the ‘fence’ had taken only two to three weeks longer.