AN EXAMINATION OF CERTAIN DISCREPANCIES IN THE STATEMENTS
OF THE THREE PRINCIPAL WITNESSES.
"The night of the 16th of January will be long remembered. For three
weeks the snow had fallen, intermittently, it is true, but for hours
together. The roads were almost blockaded, and traffic was carried on
under exceptional difficulties. The season, which in the early part of
December had promised to be unusually mild, suddenly vindicated its
reputation, and we were treated to an old-fashioned, bitter winter of
great severity. On the evening of the 15th of January the frost was
most severe, its intensity lasting until some time after daybreak, the
thermometer showing at eight o'clock A.M. close upon sixteen degrees
of frost. When it began to snow again people, congratulated themselves
that a thaw was setting in. They were mistaken. Had it been possible
the snow would have frozen as soon as it reached the ground, but it
fell in too great quantities for such a result. In the evening a
piercing wind raged through the thoroughfares, and the snow continued
to fall more heavily than during the day. In some places there was a
drift almost, if not quite, man high, and our columns on the morning
of the 17th recorded the discovery of three lifeless persons, one man
and two women, who had been frozen to death during the night. With
these unfortunates we have nothing to do; what concerns us and our
story is that on the night of the 16th, Mrs. Middlemore, a housekeeper
in one of the old houses in Gerard Street, Soho, very imprudently went
out just before midnight to fetch her supper-beer. Even the raging
storm did not prevent her from indulging in her usual habit, the
temptation of beer being too strong for her, and the prospect of going
to bed without it being too appalling to risk. She saw that the street
door was secure when she left the house, and was surprised, upon her
return, to find it open. These, and many other particulars which will
be duly recorded, are statements which have already appeared in public
print, and we are not responsible for them. At the moment of her
reaching the street door the circumstance of its being open was
impressed upon her by the appearance of a man hurriedly leaving the
house. He did not stop to address her, and she had no opportunity of
asking his business there, because he flew by her 'like a flash of
lightning,' she says. Naturally alarmed, she raised her voice and
cried, 'Police!' One, Constable Wigg, happened to be not far distant,
and he responded to her summons. Having heard what Mrs. Middlemore had
to say, he saw that there were two things to attend to--one, to
ascertain whether anything had occurred within the house; the other,
to follow the man who had escaped from it with such celerity. As he
could not fulfil these two duties at one and the same time, he in his
turn summoned to his assistance a brother constable of the name of
Nightingale. This officer pursued the man, and Constable Wigg and Mrs.
Middlemore entered the house.
"Now, with the exception of Mrs. Middlemore, there was only one
regular tenant in the house, M. Felix, who had lived there for nearly
two years, and concerning whom, up to the night of January 16th, very
little appears to have been known, except that he was a retired
gentleman, living on his means, fond of pleasure, and of a generous
disposition to those who served him well. Mrs. Middlemore speaks in
the highest terms of him, but she judges only from one point of view,
that of a landlady who has a liberal lodger. Otherwise, she has no
knowledge of him, and cannot say where he came from, whether he was
married or single (the circumstance of his living a bachelor life
would not definitely decide this question), or whether he has any
relations in any part of the world. There are many gentlemen of the
description of M. Felix pursuing their mysterious careers in this
great city, a goodly number of them under false names.
"M. Felix was a very peculiar gentleman. He paid for the entire house,
although he occupied only three rooms, a sitting-room, a dining-room,
and a bedroom. His stipulation when he first entered into possession
was that under no circumstances should any other tenant but himself be
allowed to occupy a room, and he went so far as to refuse permission
to Mrs. Middlemore for any friends of hers to sleep in the building.
Her duties consisted in attending to him and to his rooms, which she
entered and set in order only when he directed her, and for these
slight services she was extravagantly paid. Such a tenant was a
treasure, and she appreciated him accordingly, not venturing to
disobey him in the slightest particular. He had taken the greatest
pains to impress upon her that she was never, under any circumstances
whatever, to come to his rooms unless she was summoned, and from what
we have gathered of his character, M. Felix was a gentleman who could
be stern as well as pleasant, and was not a person who would allow his
orders to be disobeyed without making the delinquent suffer for it.
These imperative instructions rendered Constable Wigg's course
difficult. Mrs. Middlemore had left M. Felix in the house when she
went to fetch her supper-beer, and it was in the highest degree
improbable that he should have quitted it during her absence. He was
not a young man, he was fond of his ease, and the storm was raging
furiously. Nothing less than a matter of life or death would tempt a
man of M. Felix's disposition from his cosy fireside on such a night.
Constable Wigg suggested that he should go up-stairs to M. Felix's
rooms, and ascertain whether he was in and safe, but Mrs. Middlemore
would not listen to the suggestion, and of course without her consent
Constable Wigg could not carry his proposition into effect. In a
casual examination of those parts of the premises which Mrs.
Middlemore allowed him to enter he saw nothing to excite his
suspicions, and he decided to wait for the return of Constable
Nightingale before he proceeded further.
"We break off here for a moment for the purpose of making brief
mention of one or two peculiar features in this singular affair,
leaving Constable Wigg and Mrs. Middlemore standing in the passage or
the kitchen--(_they_ say the passage, we presume to say the kitchen,
where doubtless a cheerful fire was blazing; policemen are human)--at
half-past twelve or a quarter to one in the middle of the night,
waiting for Constable Nightingale to report progress. Curiously
enough, the time cannot be exactly fixed, because the kitchen clock
had stopped, because Constable Nightingale's watch had stopped also,
and because Constable Wigg did not wear one. In an affair of this
description it is as well not to lose sight of the smallest details.
We arrive at the time, half-past twelve or a quarter to one,
approximately. Even in such a storm as was then raging through the
streets, Big Ben of Westminster made itself heard, and it transpires,
from a statement volunteered by Constable Wigg, that the great bell
was proclaiming the hour of midnight when, tramping half-frozen on his
beat, he heard a cry for help. Three times was this cry sent forth
into the night, and, faithful guardian as he was, according to his own
averment, he endeavored to ascertain the direction from which the
appeal proceeded. It may well be believed that, with the wind blowing
seemingly from all points of the compass at once, he failed to make
the necessary discovery; but it strikes us as singular that when he
was talking matters over with Mrs. Middlemore it did not occur to him
that the cry for help may have proceeded from the very house in which
he was standing. We make no comment upon this singular lapse of
memory. It strikes us also as by no means unimportant that in the
statements of Mrs. Middlemore and the two constables there is
something very like contradiction and confusion. Mrs. Middlemore gives
an answer to a question as to her movements in connection with those
of the constables, and presently, being pressed to be definite, says
something which throws doubt upon her first answer. She excuses
herself by saying that she was upset and worried, but to us this
explanation is not satisfactory, if only for the reason that her
subsequent correction throws doubt upon certain answers given by the
two constables to certain questions put to them. However, in the
present aspect of the matter, these contradictions may simply point to
some dereliction of duty on the part of the constables which they may
wish should not be known, and perhaps to some agreement on the part of
these three witnesses to an invented story which, believed, would
exculpate the constables from any such dereliction. This is mere
supposition, and we present it for what it is worth.
"It is difficult to ascertain the precise time at which Constable
Nightingale returned to the house in Gerard Street after his fruitless
search for the man who had alarmed Mrs. Middlemore by his sudden rush
from the premises. Truly he must have had the greatest difficulty in
making his way through the streets. In explanation of our remark that
in the statements of Mrs. Middlemore and the two constables there is
something very like contradiction and confusion, we append their
answers to a few of the questions put to them. We will deal with
Constable Nightingale first:
"'When you left the house in Gerard Street in pursuit of the man what
direction did you take?'
"'I went in the direction of Oxford Street.'
"'That is, you went to the right?'
"'Yes.'
"'Why not to the left?'
"'That would have led me to Leicester Square and Charing Cross.'
"'Did you choose the Oxford Street route at haphazard?'
"'No.'
"'What induced you to take it?'
"'I was told by Constable Wigg that the man went that way.'
"'Did you meet any person on the road?'
"'No one.'
"'Absolutely no one?'
"'Absolutely no one.'
"'How long were you engaged upon your search for the man?'
"'I can't exactly fix it.'
"'May we say an hour?'
"'That would be near the length of time.'
"We will now deal with Constable Wigg. He was asked--
"'How did you summon Constable Nightingale to your assistance?'
"'I blew my police whistle.'
"'Many times?'
"'Not many. He must have been very near.'
"'But he did not make his appearance immediately?'
"'No; not immediately.'
"'Shall we say that two or three minutes elapsed before he joined
you?'
"'About that.'
"'You explained to him what had occurred?'
"'Yes, with the assistance of Mrs. Middlemore.'
"'You both explained it together?'
"'Well, first one spoke, then the other.'
"'Did you tell Nightingale that the man had fled in the direction of
Oxford Street?'
"'No.'
"'In point of fact, you did not see the man come out of the house?'
"'No.'
"'And? therefore, could not have given Nightingale the direction?'
"'No, of course I could not.'
"Now for Mrs. Middlemore:
"'When the man rushed by you from the house, you screamed loudly for
the police?'
"'As loud as I could.'
"'How many times did you call?'
"'I kep' on calling till Constable Wigg came up.'
"'He did not come the moment you raised your voice?'
"'No, not immediate. Per'aps in two or three minutes.'
"'If we say two minutes we shall be within the mark?'
"'Yes.'
"'Did you inform Constable Nightingale that the man ran away in the
direction of Oxford Street?'
"'No; I was so flustered that I didn't see which way he run.'
"These are all the extracts we need give for the purpose of our
illustration, merely asking the reader to bear in mind that each
witness was examined without the others being present. Is it quite
unreasonable to infer that, had they been examined in each other's
presence, their answers would not have been exactly as they are
reported in the public prints?
"Constable Nightingale has since given an explanation of this
discrepancy by the admission that he must have made a mistake in
supposing that he received from Constable Wigg the information of the
route the man took when he scurried off; but we submit that this
explanation is not entirely satisfactory.
"Another thing. Constable Nightingale states that he was engaged in
the search for an hour, and that during the whole of that time he did
not meet a single person on the road. How is that statement to be
received? He was hunting in some of the busiest thoroughfares in
London, and it bears the form of an accusation that he did not for a
whole hour observe one policeman on his beat. He was on his, he
declares, at the time he heard Constable Wigg's whistle. Constable
Wigg was on his beat, according to his own declaration, when he blew
it. Were they the only two constables in a thronged locality who were
faithfully performing their duty? Doubtless the other constables on
duty would indignantly repudiate the allegation, but Constable
Nightingale distinctly implies as much. We do not wish to be hard on
this officer, who bears a good character in the force. His movements
and proceedings between the hours of twelve and two on the night of
the 16th may have been innocent enough, or, if not quite blameless,
excusable enough on such a tempestuous night, but we unhesitatingly
say that his evidence is suspicious, and that we are not inclined to
accept it as veracious.
"Still another thing. We have ascertained from persons acquainted with
Constable Nightingale, that he was very proud of his silver watch,
which he was lucky enough to win in a raffle, and that he was in the
habit of boasting that it never stopped, and never lost or gained a
minute. It is singular, therefore, that on this eventful night it
should have stopped for the first time, and at a time when it might be
most important to fix the occurrence of events to a minute. Perhaps
Constable Nightingale's watch stopped in sympathy with the stoppage of
Mrs. Middlemore's kitchen clock.
"We are anxious to do justice to the parties, and we hasten to say
that at our request they have allowed a competent watchmaker to
examine Constable Nightingale's watch and Mrs. Middlemore's clock; but
this watchmaker reports that they are in perfect order, and that he
can find no reason why they should both have stopped almost at the
same moment.
"If any of our readers consider that we are straining too hard on
trifles, we reply that the importance of so-called trifles cannot be
over-estimated. The world's greatest poet has said, 'Trifles light as
air are in their confirmation strong as proofs of Holy Writ.'"