THE MURDER IN FLEET STREET
Ten A. M. is a comparatively quiet hour in Fleet Street. The sale of
morning papers has practically dropped, and as the second edition
of those afternoon journals, of which no one ever sees a first, has
not yet been served out to the clamouring and hustling mob at the
distributing centres, no vociferating newsboys, aproned with placards
of “Sun,” “News,” “Echo” or “Star,” have as yet taken possession of the
street corners and pavement kerbs.
On the morning of which I am writing, the newspaper world was sadly in
want of a sensation. A royal personage had, it is true, put off the
crown corruptible for one which would press less heavily on his brow;
but he had, as a pressman phrased it, “given away the entire situation”
by allowing himself for a fortnight to be announced as “dying.” This,
Fleet Street resented as unartistic, and partaking of the nature of an
anti-climax. Better things, it considered, might have been expected
from so eminent an individual; and as such a way of making an end
was not to be encouraged, the Press had, as a warning to other royal
personages, passed by the event as comparatively unimportant.
It was true, too, that the Heir Apparent had on the previous evening
entered a carriage on the Underground Railway as it was on the point
of starting, and that the placards of the “special” editions had in
consequence announced an “Alarming Accident to the Prince of Wales,”
which, when H. R. H. had contemptuously remarked that there never had
been an approach to danger, was changed in the “extra specials” to
“The Prince describes his Narrow Escape.”
The incident had, however, been severely commented on as
“sensation-mongering” by the morning papers (badly in want of a
sensation themselves), and was now practically closed, so that the
alliterative artist of the “Morning Advertiser’s” placards had nothing
better upon which to exercise his ingenuity than a “Conflict among
County Councillors,” and the “Daily Chronicle’s” most exciting contents
were a poem by Mr. Richard le Gallienne and a letter from Mr. Bernard
Shaw. Nor was anything doing in the aristocratic world. Not a single
duke, marquis, earl, viscount, or baron was appearing as respondent or
co-respondent in a divorce case, or as actor in any turf or society
scandal, and there was a widespread feeling that the aristocracy, as a
whole, was not doing its duty to the country.
As a matter of fact, one among many results of the sudden cessation,
three months since, of every sort of Anarchistic outrage, had been
that the daily papers could not seem other than flat reading to a
public which had previously opened these same prints each morning
with apprehension and anxiety. Though the vigorous action taken by
the editor of the “Daily Record,” in London, and of the “Dublin
News,” in Dublin, had not, as had been expected, led to the arrest of
Captain Shannon or his colleagues, it had apparently so alarmed the
conspirators as to cause them to abandon their plan of campaign. The
general opinion was that Captain Shannon, finding so much was known,
and that, though his own identity had not been fixed, the personality
of the leaders of the conspiracy was no longer a secret, had deemed it
advisable to flee the country, lest the offer of so large a reward as
£25,000 should tempt the cupidity of some of his colleagues. And as it
always had been believed that he was the prime source and author of the
whole diabolical conspiracy, the cessation of the outrages was regarded
as a natural consequence of his defalcation.
I was thinking of Captain Shannon and of the suddenness with which he
had dropped out of public notice while I walked up Fleet Street on
this particular morning. As I passed the “Daily Chronicle” buildings
and glanced at the placards displayed in the window I could not help
contrasting in my mind the unimportant occurrences which were there in
small type set forth, with the news of the terrible outrage which had
leapt to meet the eye from the same window three months since. Just as
I approached the office of the “Daily Record” I heard the sound of the
sudden and hurried flinging open of a door, and the next moment a man,
wild-eyed, white-faced, and hatless, rushed out into the road shouting,
“Murder! murder! police! murder!” at the top of his voice.
In an instant the restless, hurrying human streams that ebb and flow
ceaselessly in the narrow channel of Fleet Street--like contending
rivers running between lofty banks--had surged up in a huge wave around
him. In the next a policeman, pushing back the crowd with his right
hand and his left, had forced a way to the man’s side, inquiring
gruffly, “Now then, what’s up? And where?”
“Murder! The editor’s just been stabbed in his room by Captain Shannon
or one of his agents. Don’t let any one out. The assassin may not have
had time to get away,” was the rejoinder.
There are no police officers more efficient and prompt to act than
those of the City of London, and on this occasion they acquitted
themselves admirably. Other constables had now hurried up, and at once
proceeded to clear a space in front of the “Record” office, forming a
cordon on each side of the road, and allowing no one to pass in or out.
A messenger was despatched in haste for the nearest doctor, and when
guards had been set at every entrance to, and possible exit from, the
“Record” office, two policemen passed within the building to pursue
inquiries, and the doors were shut and locked. Among the crowd outside
the wildest rumours and speculations were rife.
“The editor of the ‘Record’ had been murdered by Captain Shannon
himself, who had come on purpose to wreak vengeance for the attitude
the paper had taken up in regard to the conspiracy.”
“The murderer had been caught red-handed and was now in custody of the
police.”
“The murderer was concealed somewhere on the premises, and had in his
possession an infernal machine with which it would be possible to wreck
half Fleet Street.”
(This last report had the effect of causing a temporary diversion in
favour of the side streets.)
“The murderers had got clean away and the whole staff of the ‘Record’
had been arrested on suspicion.” These and many other rumours were
passed from mouth to mouth and repeated with astonishing variations
until the arrival of the doctor, who was by various well-informed
persons promptly recognised as, and authoritatively pronounced to be,
Captain Shaw, the Chief Commissioner of Police, the Lord Mayor, and Sir
Augustus Harris.
Every door, window, and letter-box became an object of fearsome
curiosity. People were half inclined to wonder how they could so many
times have passed the “Record” office without recognising something of
impending tragedy about the building--something of historic interest
in the shape of the very window-panes and key-holes. One man among
the crowd attained enviable celebrity by announcing that he “see the
editor go up that passage and through that door--the very door where
he’d gone through that morning afore he was murdered--scores of times,
_and didn’t think nothink of it_,” which last admission seemed to
impress the crowd with the fact that here at least was a fellow whose
praiseworthy modesty deserved encouragement.
Meanwhile no sign of anything having transpired was to be seen within
the building, and people were beginning to get impatient when, from
somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Thames Embankment, came that
sound so familiar to Cockney ears--a sound which no true Londoner can
hear with indifference--the hoarse vociferation of the newsvendors
proclaiming some sensational news. At first it was nothing but a
distant babel, like the husky barking of dogs, but as it drew nearer
the shouts became more distinguishable, and I caught the words, “’Ere
yer are, sir! ‘Sun,’ sir! Murder of a heditor this mornin’! ’Ere yer
are, sir!”
“That’s smart, that is!” said a fellow who was standing next to me in
the crowd. “T. P. O’Connor don’t let no grass grow under his feet, ’e
don’t. Why, the murdered man ain’t ’ardly cold, and ’ere it is all in
the ‘Sun!’”
“Shut yer jaw,” said a woman near him. “’Tain’t this murder at
all--can’t yer ’ear?” And then as the moving babel, like a slowly
travelling storm-cloud, drew nearer and nearer and finally burst upon
Fleet Street, we could make out what the newsvendors were hoarsely
vociferating.
“’Ere yer are, sir! ‘Sun,’ sir! Murder o’ the heditor o’ the ‘Dublin
News’ this mornin’. Capture o’ the hassassin, who turns hinformer.
Captain Shannon’s name and hidentity disclosed. The ’ole ’ideous plot
laid bare. ’Ere yer are, sir!”
Elbowing my way as best I could through the crowd, I succeeded at last
in getting within a yard or two of a newsboy, and, by offering him a
shilling and telling him not to mind the change, possessed myself of a
“Sun.” This is what I read at the top of the centre page:--
“The editor of the ‘Dublin News’ was stabbed in the street at an
early hour this morning. The murderer was captured and has now turned
informer. The police refuse to give any information in regard to what
has been divulged, but there is no doubt that Captain Shannon’s name
and identity have at last been disclosed, and that the whole hideous
conspiracy is now laid bare. Further particulars in our next edition.”