CORONER: I mean did he seem afraid of being robbed?
WITNESS: No, he was always goin' to demonstrations. (Laughter.) I told
him to be careful. I told him I lost a purse with 3s. 2d. myself on
Jubilee Day.
Mrs. Drabdump resumed her seat, weeping vaguely.
The CORONER: Gentlemen, we shall have an opportunity of viewing the room
shortly.
The story of the discovery of the body was retold, though more
scientifically, by Mr. George Grodman, whose unexpected resurgence into
the realm of his early exploits excited as keen a curiosity as the
reappearance "for this occasion only" of a retired prima donna. His
book, _Criminals I have Caught_, passed from the twenty-third to the
twenty-fourth edition merely on the strength of it. Mr. Grodman stated
that the body was still warm when he found it. He thought that death was
quite recent. The door he had had to burst was bolted as well as locked.
He confirmed Mrs. Drabdump's statement about the windows; the chimney
was very narrow. The cut looked as if done by a razor. There was no
instrument lying about the room. He had known the deceased about a month.
He seemed a very earnest, simple-minded young fellow, who spoke a great
deal about the brotherhood of man. (The hardened old man-hunter's voice
was not free from a tremor as he spoke jerkily of the dead man's
enthusiasms.) He should have thought the deceased the last man in the
world to commit suicide.
Mr. DENZIL CANTERCOT was next called: He was a poet. (Laughter.) He was
on his way to Mr. Grodman's house to tell him he had been unable to do
some writing for him because he was suffering from writer's cramp, when
Mr. Grodman called to him from the window of No. 11 and asked him to run
for the police. No, he did not run; he was a philosopher. (Laughter.) He
returned with them to the door, but did not go up. He had no stomach for
crude sensations. (Laughter.) The grey fog was sufficiently unbeautiful
for him for one morning. (Laughter.)
Inspector HOWLETT said: About 9.45 on the morning of Tuesday, 4th
December, from information received, he went with Sergeant Runnymede
and Dr. Robinson to 11 Glover Street, Bow, and there found the dead body
of a young man, lying on his back with his throat cut. The door of the
room had been smashed in, and the lock and the bolt evidently forced. The
room was tidy. There were no marks of blood on the floor. A purse full of
gold was on the dressing-table beside a big book. A hip-bath, with cold
water, stood beside the bed, over which was a hanging bookcase. There was
a large wardrobe against the wall next to the door. The chimney was very
narrow. There were two windows, one bolted. It was about eighteen feet to
the pavement. There was no way of climbing up. No one could possibly have
got out of the room, and then bolted the doors and windows behind him;
and he had searched all parts of the room in which any one might have
been concealed. He had been unable to find any instrument in the room in
spite of exhaustive search, there being not even a penknife in the
pockets of the clothes of the deceased, which lay on a chair. The house
and the back yard, and the adjacent pavement, had also been fruitlessly
searched.
Sergeant RUNNYMEDE made an identical statement, saving only that _he_ had
gone with Dr. Robinson and Inspector Howlett.
Dr. ROBINSON, divisional surgeon, said: "The deceased was lying on his
back, with his throat cut. The body was not yet cold, the abdominal
region being quite warm. Rigor mortis had set in in the lower jaw, neck,
and upper extremities. The muscles contracted when beaten. I inferred
that life had been extinct some two or three hours, probably not longer,
it might have been less. The bed-clothes would keep the lower part warm
for some time. The wound, which was a deep one, was five and a half
inches from right to left across the throat to a point under the left
ear. The upper portion of the windpipe was severed, and likewise the
jugular vein. The muscular coating of the carotid artery was divided.
There was a slight cut, as if in continuation of the wound, on the thumb
of the left hand. The hands were clasped underneath the head. There was
no blood on the right hand. The wound could not have been self-inflicted.
A sharp instrument had been used, such as a razor. The cut might have
been made by a left-handed person. No doubt death was practically
instantaneous. I saw no signs of a struggle about the body or the room.
I noticed a purse on the dressing-table, lying next to Madame Blavatsky's
big book on Theosophy. Sergeant Runnymede drew my attention to the fact
that the door had evidently been locked and bolted from within."
By a JURYMAN: I do not say the cuts could not have been made by a
right-handed person. I can offer no suggestion as to how the inflictor
of the wound got in or out. Extremely improbable that the cut was
self-inflicted. There was little trace of the outside fog in the room.
Police constable Williams said he was on duty in the early hours of the
morning of the 4th inst. Glover Street lay within his beat. He saw or
heard nothing suspicious. The fog was never very dense, though nasty to
the throat. He had passed through Glover Street about half-past four. He
had not seen Mr. Mortlake or anybody else leave the house.
The Court here adjourned, the coroner and the jury repairing in a body to
11 Glover Street, to view the house and the bedroom of the deceased. And
the evening posters announced "The Bow Mystery Thickens."