_Jealousy--An Undeveloped Plot--Hare Cheats Burke, and they
Separate--The Foul Work Continued--Murder of Ann M'Dougal._
While all this was going on, these four persons, bound together, as they
were, by the joint commission of terrible crimes, had their little
disagreements among themselves. The women were jealous of each other, and
there is every reason to believe that each man was suspicious that his
neighbour, in the case of discovery, would turn informer, as the result
afterwards proved. To those around them they all appeared to be in a most
prosperous condition. The women dressed themselves in a style that was
considered highly superior in the locality in which they lived; the men
also were better clad than members of the same class usually were; and
their mode of living--the extent of their drinking, too--showed that
somehow or other they had plenty of money in their possession. These
things attracted the attention of the neighbours, but if they had any
suspicion that matters were not altogether right, they did not give
expression to it. Under all this outward appearance of comfort and
well-doing there was a canker. The women, as already said, were jealous,
the men were suspicious, and these feelings joined to produce the plan for
another tragedy in their own little circle, which was prevented either by
the intervention of an accident, or by the fact that Burke had still a
little kindliness left in his blood-stained heart. Hare and his wife could
not trust Helen M'Dougal to keep their secret, because, as Burke himself
expressed it, "she was a Scotch woman." It is difficult to reconcile this
statement with another made by Burke, that the women did not know what was
going on when the murders were being committed. Besides, as we have seen,
the women helped towards assisting the poor victims into a state in which
they could be easily operated upon, and though they may not have been
active participants in the taking away of life, or witnesses of the last
struggle between the men and the creatures whom they so quickly ushered
into eternity, there can be no reasonable doubt that they were aware of
the dreadful adventure in which they were all to a greater or less extent
engaged. Had the women been ignorant of all this there would have been no
need--it would, indeed, have been impossible--for the one to urge that the
other should be put out of the way, on the principle that "dead men and
women tell no tales." However, notwithstanding these minor discrepancies
in Burke's confessions, we have his own definite statement that Mrs. Hare
urged him to murder Helen M'Dougal. The plan suggested was that he should
go with her to the country for a few weeks, and that he should write to
Hare telling him that his wife was dead and buried. No more of the plan is
given, but it is to be presumed that the murder would actually take place
in the little back room which had been the scene of so many tragedies--the
little human shambles in Hare's house--and that the body should be sold
like the rest to Dr. Knox and his fellows. This plan, as has been
indicated, was not carried out. Burke says he would not agree to it. That
may have been, but it is rather strange that about this time Helen
M'Dougal and he should go to Maddiston, near Falkirk, to visit some of her
friends there.
The time at which this visit to Maddiston was made was when the villagers
made a procession round a stone in that neighbourhood--Burke thought it
was the anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn. This would fix the date
as the 24th of June, 1828. They were away for some time, but whether
through scruples of conscience, on the part of Burke, or because no
fitting opportunity of putting her out of the way occurred, Helen M'Dougal
returned to Edinburgh with him. Arrived there they found a very different
state of matters than had existed when they went away. Before, Hare and
his wife were sadly in want of money, some of their goods having been laid
in pawn; but now they were in the possession of plenty of money, and were
spending it freely. There must be some reason for this change, and a
suspicion was raised in Burke's mind that Hare had taken advantage of his
absence to do a little business on his own account, without making him any
allowance from the proceeds. The agreement among them, according to Burke,
was that if ten pounds were obtained for a body, six went to Hare, and
four to Burke, the latter having to pay Mrs. Hare one pound of his share,
for the use of the house, if the murder took place there. This arrangement
was in itself scarcely equitable to Burke, assuming it to be correct, and
it was therefore all the harder on him when he found that his colleague
was attempting to rob him of his due. He consequently taxed Hare with
endeavouring to cheat him, but this was indignantly denied. Not satisfied,
however, Burke paid a visit to Dr. Knox's rooms, and was there informed
that during his absence Hare had brought a subject and had been paid for
it. Returning to the house he upbraided his partner, charging him with
unfairness and breach of honour. Hare still denied the accusation, and
from high words they got to blows. They fought long and fiercely, so that
the neighbours, attracted by the noise, gathered round the door to witness
what was going on; but neither of the combatants allowed a word to escape
them as to the cause of the quarrel between them. At last they were
exhausted--possibly Hare was worsted, for Burke, without mentioning the
fight, stated in his _Courant_ confession that "Hare then confessed what
he had done." He does not say whether or not he received any portion of
the proceeds from the sale of the body of the victim murdered during his
absence.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF BURKE'S HOUSE. (For Explanatory Key See Page
XII.)
SIGNATURE. Wm. Burke]
It was probably owing to this quarrel that Burke and Helen M'Dougal
removed from Hare's house in Tanner's Close to that of John Broggan, whose
wife was a cousin of Burke. This house was not far from their old
lodgings, being but two closes eastward in Portsburgh. Grindlay's Close
was between it and Tanner's Close, and it was entered from a back court to
which admission could be gained from the street either by an unnamed
passage, or by Weaver's Close, still further east. Leighton was able to
gain a detailed description of this place, and it is well worth
quoting:--"In a land to the eastward of that occupied by Hare, in Tanner's
Close, you reached it after descending a common stair and turning to the
right, where a dark passage conducted to several rooms, at the end and at
right angles with which passage there was an entrance leading solely to
Burke's room, and which could be closed by a door so as to make it
altogether secluded from the main entry. The room was a very small place,
more like a cellar than the dwelling of a human being. A crazy chair stood
by the fire-place, old shoes and implements of shoemaking lay scattered on
the floor; a cupboard against the wall held a few plates and bowls, and
two beds, coarse wooden frames, without posts or curtains, were filled
with old straw and rugs." It was in this house that Mrs. Hostler, as
already described, was murdered, and it was in this house that the last of
the long series of tragedies was to be enacted. The criminals were
gradually approaching their doom, but they had become reckless and bold.
They had been so successful in the past, that they hoped to be equally so
in the future, forgetful that the mills of God grind slow, but sure.
We have seen that while Burke, according to his own declaration, had
murdered Peggy Haldane in this house off Weaver's Close, unaided by his
old accomplice (though both these details are doubtful), yet they were
united in the suffocation of Mrs. Hostler. They really could not work
separately--they were so bound together by the crimes they had committed
that an ordinary quarrel, though it should have at first made them live in
different houses, could hardly disjoin their interests. This could only
have been done by one of them informing on the other. But they were again
united in their horrid labours.
In the course of the autumn there arrived in Edinburgh to visit Helen
M'Dougal a cousin of her former husband. This was a young married woman
named Ann M'Dougal, who probably came from the district around Falkirk.
There is no doubt she would be received in the most friendly manner, which
she would heartily reciprocate, for it is more than probable that her
visit was consequent upon an invitation given her by Helen M'Dougal and
Burke when they were in Stirlingshire during the summer. But may not that
invitation, given in all apparent kindness, have been simply a snare to
draw the poor woman from her home so that she might be a more convenient,
victim in Edinburgh? may Burke not have given it so that he might make Ann
M'Dougal a sacrifice instead of his paramour, as had been suggested to him
by Mrs. Hare? But whether this was a premeditated plan, or whether the
young woman came to Edinburgh on a genuine invitation or of her own
accord, is quite immaterial. It is at least certain that once she was in
the house of her relatives her fate, so far as they were concerned, was
sealed. After she had been coming and going for a few days, Hare and Burke
plied her with whisky until she was in an incapably drunken condition, and
had to be put to bed. Burke then told Hare that he would have the most to
do to her, as he did not like to begin first on her, she being a distant
relative. What an amount of feeling this displays! It would have been
interesting to have known how Burke argued with himself in coming to this
decision. However, relative or not, he was not at all averse to allow Hare
to kill her when she was supposed to be under his protection, and what was
more, he was willing to help Hare once a beginning had been made; he was
even anxious to share the price her body would bring at the
dissecting-rooms. Hare then set about his portion of the work. He held the
woman's mouth and nose to stop the breathing, and Burke threw himself
across the body, holding down her arms and legs. Of course life could not
long continue under these conditions, and Ann M'Dougal lay murdered in the
house of a friend, and by the heart and hand of a friend--"a distant
friend," as Burke put it to his accomplice. The murder was committed in
the afternoon. It is surely a remarkable thing that if Helen M'Dougal knew
nothing of the work in which her reputed husband and Hare were engaged,
she should have allowed her relative to be murdered; or that if this was
the first she learned of it, she should have been so ready to let the
matter rest. But of course she was cognisant of it all along. Burke was at
no regular employment, and yet the money was to hand in larger quantities
than they could ever have expected from the cobbling of shoes.
The two men next set about making arrangements for the transfer of the
body to Surgeon's Square. They saw Paterson, Dr. Knox's porter, who gave
them a fine trunk to put it in. When this was done Broggan, who had been
out at his work, came home, and made inquiries about the trunk standing on
the floor-head, for he knew that neither he nor his lodgers possessed an
article like it. Burke then gave him two or three drams, "as there was
always plenty of whisky going at these times," to keep him quiet. He went
out again, Burke and Hare carried the trunk and its contents to Surgeon's
Square, receiving ten pounds for it. On their return they each gave
Broggan thirty shillings, and he left Edinburgh a few days afterwards for
Glasgow, it was thought. This money payment brings out the duplicity of
Hare in a remarkable manner, and shows that the cunning by which he
afterwards saved himself from the scaffold was no new development.
Broggan, it would seem, had practically discovered that there was
something wrong. The murderers saw that it would be necessary to give him
"hush-money," and to endeavour to get him to leave the city. But Hare was
cautioner for Broggan's rent, which amounted to three pounds, so that if
the man left the city there was every probability that the payment of the
rent would fall on him. He therefore proposed to Burke that they should
each give thirty shillings to enable Broggan to pay the rent, and to this
Burke readily agreed, as he was glad to see the man out of the way.
Broggan, however, spoiled this plot by going away with the money, and, as
Burke said in his second confession, "the rent is not paid yet." But Burke
was victimised all the same, as he was afterwards at the trial, by his
more astute colleague who should have accompanied him to the gallows.
The relatives of Ann M'Dougal made inquiries about her, but they could
find no trace; though it is recorded that on seeking her at the house of
Burke's brother, in the Canongate, Helen M'Dougal, under the influence of
drink, no doubt, told them they need not trouble themselves about her, as
she was murdered and sold long before. They did not seem to have taken
much notice of the remark, or if they did they must have concluded that
the disappearance of Ann was due to the workings of the band of
resurrectionists, to whose existence the people of Edinburgh were
gradually being awakened by the numerous and frequent disappearances. But
suspicion had not yet alighted on Burke and his associates.