All four women pressed into the chambers. All three of the women
occupying them had been murdered. In the passage or lobby little Nanny
Price lay in her bed in a welter of blood, her throat savagely cut. Her
hair was loose and over her eyes, her clenched hands all bloodied about
her throat. It was apparent that she had struggled desperately for
life. Next door, in the dining-room, old Betty Harrison lay across the
press-bed in which she usually slept. Being in the habit of keeping her
gown on for warmth, as it was said, she was partially dressed. She had
been strangled, it seemed, "with an apron-string or a pack-thread," for
there was a deep crease about her neck and the bruised indentations as
of knuckles. In her bedroom, also across her bed, lay the dead body of
old Mrs Duncomb. There had been here also an attempt to strangle, an
unnecessary attempt it appeared, for the crease about the neck was very
faint. Frail as the old lady had been, the mere weight of the murderer's
body, it was conjectured, had been enough to kill her.
These pathological details were established on the arrival later of
Mr Bigg, the surgeon, fetched from the Rainbow Coffee-house near by by
Fairlow, one of the Temple porters. But the four women could see enough
for themselves, without the help of Mr Bigg, to understand how death
had been dealt in all three cases. They could see quite clearly also
for what motive the crime had been committed. A black strong-box, with
papers scattered about it, lay beside Mrs Duncomb's bed, its lid forced
open. It was in this box that the old lady had been accustomed to keep
her money.
If any witness had been needed to say what the black box had contained
there was Mrs Rhymer, executrix under the old lady's will. And if Mrs.
Rhymer had been at any need to refresh her memory regarding the contents
opportunity had been given her no farther back than the afternoon of the
previous Thursday. On that day she had called upon Mrs Duncomb to take
tea and to talk affairs. Three or four years before, with her rapidly
increasing frailness, the old lady's memory had begun to fail. Mrs
Rhymer acted for her as a sort of unofficial curator bonis, receiving
her money and depositing it in the black box, of which she kept the key.
On the Thursday, old Betty and young Nanny being sent from the room, the
old lady had told Mrs Rhymer that she needed some money--a guinea. Mrs
Rhymer had gone through the solemn process of opening the black box,
and, one must suppose--old ladies nearing their end being what they
are--had been at need to tell over the contents of the box for the
hundredth time, just to reassure Mrs Duncomb that she thoroughly
understood the duties she had agreed to undertake as executrix
At the top of the box was a silver tankard. It had belonged to Mrs
Duncomb's husband. In the tankard was a hundred pounds. Beside the
tankard lay a bag containing guinea pieces to the number of twenty or
so. This was the bag that Mrs Rhymer had carried over to the old lady's
chair by the fire, in order to take from it the needed guinea.
There were some half-dozen packets of money in the box, each sealed
with black wax and set aside for particular purposes after Mrs Duncomb's
death. Other sums, greater in quantity than those contained in the
packets, were earmarked in the same way. There was, for example, twenty
guineas set aside for the old lady's burial, eighteen moidores to meet
unforeseen contingencies, and in a green purse some thirty or forty
shillings, which were to be distributed among poor people of Mrs
Duncomb's acquaintance. The ritual of telling over the box contents, if
something ghostly, had had its usual effect of comforting the old lady's
mind. It consoled her to know that all arrangements were in order for
her passing in genteel fashion to her long home, that all the decorums
of respectable demise would be observed, and that "the greatest of
these" would not be forgotten. The ritual over, the black box was closed
and locked, and on her departure Mrs Rhymer had taken away the key as
usual.
The motive for the crime, as said, was plain. The black box had been
forced, and there was no sign of tankard, packets, green purse, or bag
of guineas.
The horror and distress of the old lady's friends that Sunday afternoon
may better be imagined than described. Loudest of the four, we are told,
was Sarah Malcolm. It is also said that she was, however, the coolest,
keen to point out the various methods by which the murderers (for the
crime to her did not look like a single-handed effort) could have got
into the chambers. She drew attention to the wideness of the kitchen
chimney and to the weakness of the lock in the door to the vacant rooms
on the other side of the landing. She also pointed out that, since the
bolt of the spring-lock of the outer door to Mrs Duncomb's rooms had
been engaged when they arrived, the miscreants could not have used that
exit.
This last piece of deduction on Sarah's part, however, was made rather
negligible by experiments presently carried out by the porter, Fairlow,
with the aid of a piece of string. He showed that a person outside the
shut door could quite easily pull the bolt to on the inside.
The news of the triple murder quickly spread, and it was not long before
a crowd had collected in Tanfield Court, up the stairs to Mrs. Duncomb's
landing, and round about the door of Mrs Duncomb's chambers. It did not
disperse until the officers had made their investigations and the bodies
of the three victims had been removed. And even then, one may be sure,
there would still be a few of those odd sort of people hanging about
who, in those times as in these, must linger on the scene of a crime
long after the last drop of interest has evaporated.