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How do you do? This is Clive Rook.
Have you ever thought how often criminal trials hinge on the question of identification?
The more one reflects on this point, the more one marvels at the really extraordinary powers
of observation and memory that the most unlikely people seem to possess.
For instance, a murderer has been committed and a passerby has seen a man hurry away from
the scene. It's probably night time and he's had no more
than a glimpse of somebody under a street lamp. Yet he's able to say quite positively
that he was tall and thin in his middle fifties with a mottled complexion, a broken nose,
and a mole under his left eye. Moreover, he's able to describe his dress
right down to his boots. Not only does he tell the priestess, but he
swears it again in court. Now, this is very good if it helps to send
a guilty man to the gallows, but even with the best or most honest intention, anyone's
liable to make a mistake, and a mistake of that kind may have tragic results.
Let me tell you of such a case, and how only the merest fluke saved a grave miscarriage
of justice.
For many years, Jean Milne Spencer had been a well-known figure in the district of Broughty
Ferry, Dundee. The sole heiress of her brother, a wealthy tobacco
manufacturer, she had, since his death nine years before, lived alone in the family home,
Elm Grove House, a fourteen-roomed mansion standing in about two acres of thickly tree
ground. Now, despite her solitude and her advancing years, she was a woman with a zest
for life. Her clothes were gay, if perhaps a trifle
girlish for a woman of sixty-five, and at least twice a year it was a habit to spend
two or three months in London. Consequently, when in late October 1912, neighbours failed
to see her about, and noted that Elm Grove House was locked and apparently deserted, they
nearly concluded she'd gone off for another jaunt to the city.
But this explanation didn't altogether satisfy the local postman. By November the 2nd, when
more than a fortnight's mail had accumulated in Miss Milne's letterbox, he thought it was
time the police were informed. The local sergeant, I regret to say, did not at first take his
report very seriously.
Oh, man, what are you worrying about? Suppose she's not been home for a fortnight. You ought
to know her ladyship's habits by now. She's gone gadding off again, how about that?
Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you. Every time she's gone off before she's let
me know and left a forward in the drift.
Maybe she forgot this time or left in too much of a hurry to see you.
Ah, but if she had, don't you think she'd have written to the post office?
No, perhaps it's just that...
And I'll tell you something else, sergeant. When she's gone away a fort, she's always
had a word to Constable Bruce on the beat so he'd keep an eye to the empty house.
And she's not done that this morning.
No, she's not. And it's my opinion it's your duty to make a few inquiries. Living in that
big house all by herself, the woman might be ill or dead for all we care.
Well, I'll talk to the constable when he comes in and we'll see what's to be done.
Next morning the two policemen went to the house. All the doors and windows were locked.
There was no sign of life. For five minutes or more they rang the bell and thumped on
the front door. There was no response.
All right, all right, that's enough, that's enough. It's obvious there's no one there.
What are we going to do now, sergeant?
We'll have to force an entry, I suppose. Here, I'll break this window.
Give me a leg up, will you, sergeant?
There you are.
Thanks. I'm right to know. Shant me a minute.
There we are. It's easy as falling off a log.
Smells sort of musty, doesn't it? Are you there, Miss Mellon? Is anyone there?
Miss Mellon, is anyone at home?
It's plain the place is empty. Shall we look around, sergeant?
Aye, come on. Through this hole and up.
Why, what is it?
Good God, it's Miss Mellon.
Aye, oh, much later, you mean. Look at those wounds about the head and all the blood stains.
And the furniture upset and that poker, it's murder.
Aye, and by the look of things, it's happened a long time since.
What do you suppose we should do?
Don't touch a thing. This is no job for us, lad.
You stay here and keep guard and I'll go back to the station and telephone Glasgow.
Lascaux's prompt answer was to send Detective Lieutenant Trench to Broughty Ferry.
By the way, three years earlier, Trench had become famous for his handling of the Oscar Slater case,
and he was recognized as the most capable detective in Scotland.
His first task was to establish the approximate date of the crime.
When would you estimate death took place, Doctor?
Hmm, it's hard to be precise, but I should say about three weeks ago.
It's now November the 3rd. That would take us back to, let's see, about October the 13th, eh?
That's right.
How did that tell you of your inquiry, Sergeant?
Well, sir, the earliest letter in the mailbox was dated October the 14th.
Miss Mellon was definitely seen alive at a home mission meeting in Dundee on October the 15th.
But there was no response when Mr. Kinnear, he's an elder in St. Andrew's Church,
called here at the house to see her the following day.
It seems reasonable to presume she was killed either on the evening of the 15th or the morning of the 16th.
Well, that would seem to be late enough, sir.
Good. I wanted to send some of your men out.
They're to interview everyone in the neighborhood and find out if anyone saw Miss Mellon or anyone else about the house during that period.
Yes, sir. I'll attend to that at once, sir.
Any theories, Lieutenant?
It's a little early for that, I'm afraid.
However, there are a few obvious points that suggest it was a man with whom Miss Mellon was on friendly terms.
How do you work that out?
Well, in the first place, the dining room was set for high tea for two.
That rather suggests the evening of the 15th of the time, doesn't it?
Yes, it does.
In the second place, although I understand she was a tea-totaller herself,
Miss Mellon, on the morning of the 15th, had her grocer deliver a bottle of whiskey to the house.
When she gave the order, she explained she was expecting a gentleman friend of tea.
She may only have said that, of course.
She was a little inclined to romanticize, you know.
Yes, even so.
In the third place, since no entry to the house was forced, we must presume she let the murderer in through the front door.
And he duly let himself out the same way.
In the fourth place, no money or jewelry address had been stolen, which rules out the theft motive.
And finally, I found this in the grate.
A half-smoked cigar.
Well, I'm blessed.
Why does that surprise you so much?
You didn't know Miss Mellon, of course.
But whatever she did in London, I can tell you she led a life of the strictest propriety here at home.
Oh, my dear fellow, you're not suggesting there's anything improper in a woman of 65 entertaining a man to tea, are you?
Me, so, no.
But you know how people talk in these small communities.
And in any case, Miss Mellon was practically a hermit.
Weeks often went by without her having a single caller.
As far as I'm aware, she had no friends in the district at all.
A real friend, I mean.
Male or female.
Perhaps her caller on this occasion didn't live in the district.
Perhaps he was someone she'd met in London.
That could be so, of course.
Well, Lieutenant, you've got the problem before you.
I wish you luck.
Thanks.
Well, then either I'm going to need it before this case is over.
There was precious little else in the way of clues to reward the painstaking trench.
There were no identifiable fingerprints discovered in the house,
nor even on the murder weapon itself, the poker that had been found by Miss Mellon's body.
Her private papers yielded nothing that might give a lead, except one or two rather coy references,
for dashing but anonymous Americans she had met in London.
And most of the unclaimed mail in the box was either business correspondence or begging letters.
The few of her male acquaintances at Broughty Ferry, who might conceivably have visited her for tea,
were able to establish their movement satisfactorily.
And in any case, most of them were connected with the church,
and therefore hardly liked to drink whiskey and smoke cigars.
It wasn't until the police offered a reward of a hundred pounds that things really started to happen.
The first to come forward was one, Margaret Campbell.
Same as Campbell, you're a maid employed in the house next door to Miss Mellon's.
Aye, that's right, sir.
And from the upper windows you can see part of the grounds of Elm Grove House.
Aye.
In fact, on October the 15th or 16th, did you see anyone or anything there?
Not in those days, sir, but a few days earlier, around about the 12th it would be,
I happened to look out and I saw a gentleman walking in the garden.
Did you take particular note of him?
Aye, sir, I did.
It was so unusual to see anyone but Miss Mellon, the gardener, you understand.
Hmm, quite.
Could you describe him, do you think?
Well, he was a tall, handsome man of about 40, I would say.
He had round features and fair hair, and he was wearing a dark suit, sir.
Was he clean-shedden?
Oh, that I couldn't say, sir.
I was looking down on him, you understand.
Yes, I see.
Did you mention to anyone else that you'd seen him?
Aye, sir.
When I went downstairs, I told mistress.
You didn't see this man again?
No, sir.
Oh, thank you very much.
I will get you to put what you've told me into the form of a statement, if you don't mind.
So far, so good.
Of course, the fact that this man had been seen there three days before the murder
didn't necessarily implicate him in it.
Still, it was a start, and more was to follow.
The next volunteer information was John Dunn, a garbage collector.
I was at work about 4.30 in the morning on October 16th on Grove Road,
when I see the man come out the small door of the main entrance gate at Elm Grove.
Oh, what did he do?
He stopped for a moment and looked up and down the road.
Then when he saw me and realized I'd seen him,
he walked off briskly and disappeared during the bend in the road.
Did he get a good look at him?
Aye, good enough.
It was near a dark morning, and he walked right under a gas lamp.
I'd say he was between 30 and 40,
tall and well built, where I saw a pale face and a fair mustache.
He wore a bowler hat and a dark overcoat.
Would you recognize him again if you saw him?
Aye, easy, I think I would.
Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Hello.
It seemed the search was narrowing, but more was to follow, much more.
Next to volunteer a sight of the mysterious stranger was John Wood,
who had worked occasionally for the murdered woman as a gardener.
All right, Mr. Wood, let's hear what you have to say.
Well, sir, I used to understand the smell more than most people, as you might say,
and she used to talk to me and tell me things she'd never owned to others.
Yes, go on.
Last August, when she returned from London,
she told me she'd been staying at a hotel in the Strand,
and she'd met a foreign gentleman there, a tea planter, I think it was.
Did you say what nationality he was?
A German, I think it was, so I'd not be sure.
Might it have been an American?
It might have been. I didn't pay much heed at the time.
Well, on the 19th of September, I know the date
because I've got it in the little book where I keep my note of my wages.
I was in the house doing odd jobs for Miss Milne when the doorbell rang.
I answered it, and there was a gentleman, sir, who said to me,
Is Miss Milne in?
Did you notice his accent?
Just foreign, sir, that's all I can say.
So I told Miss Milne, and she skipped along the passageway,
just like a lassie, to welcome him.
Do you remember what she said?
Something like, you've come, I knew you would.
Then she gave me two shillings and packed me off home.
What did this man look like?
He was about 40, I should say, maybe five foot nine, a well-made man.
Dark or fair?
Fair, with a wee fair mustache and a fresh face.
Well dressed?
High, modern coat and dark trousers, a real gentler, you might say.
And his voice, apart from the accent, I mean, was it deep or pitched high?
It was deep, sir, and sort of, well, sort of guttural, I suppose you'd call it.
Of course, I'm not saying it's the man who murdered Miss Milne.
Still, I thought you should know.
Yes, you did quite the right thing, Mr. Wood.
Thank you very much.
Then there was a taxi driver, Frederick Ewing,
who remembered early on the morning of October the 15th,
taking a fare from the South train to Broughton Ferry
in the vicinity of Elm Grove House.
It was a smart, well-dressed man, well-built, between 35 and 40, I'd say.
A pale complexion, fair mustache.
I didn't notice anything particular about his accent.
I'd have said he was English, seen as the looking sort of fellow.
I was glad to get rid of him, I can tell you.
Hard on the taxi driver's heels came two sisters named Mackintosh.
On October the 7th, they said, they'd been visiting a relative in Grove Road,
and as they were passing Elm Grove about 8.30 p.m., they were surprised,
knowing Miss Milne's reclusive habit, to see a man emerging from the front gate.
Their description of him?
He was a tallish, well-built man in early middle age,
fair-haired, with a small mustache and a rather round, ruddy face.
He looked as though he might be a foreigner.
Judging by his clothes and general manner, he was certainly a gentleman.
So many descriptions that tallied so exactly couldn't possibly be put down to coincidence.
Where the case had seemed hopeless at the beginning,
the prospects of a solution now appeared extremely bright.
Let him once lay hands on the guilty man, French thought,
and he'd had no difficulty about positive identification.
So he circulated to every police station in Great Britain
a full description of the murdered woman's mysterious friend,
and then sat back and waited for results.
They came quickly and dramatically, as you shall hear.
While in Dundee, investigations into the murder of Jean Miller were proceeding,
in Magiston jail, serving a short sentence for having obtained a meal at a hotel without the means to pay for it,
but a man would give him his name as Charles Warner,
and his address as 210 Wilton Avenue, Toronto, Canada.
And to Magiston jail, while he was still a guest there,
came a copy of the circular from Detective Lieutenant Prench,
describing in detail the appearance of the man whom he believed to be Miss Mills' murderer.
Listen to this, Bill.
Age about 40, height about 5 feet 9, weight 11 to 12 stone.
Fair hair, round face, ruddy complexion, fair moustache, deep voice,
well dressed of gentlemanly aspect, maybe German or American.
American? You don't think it could be that fellow Warner, do you?
That's just what I was wondering. He answers his description all right.
Of course, you couldn't say he was exactly well dressed when we brought him in.
Well, he might have been disguised as you know.
Exactly, and anyway, old clothes or no, there's no mistaking from the way he speaks and goes on generally.
He's a gentleman, all right.
Anyone with half an eye could spot that.
What do you reckon we ought to do, Bill?
Report it to the Governor, of course. Let him worry about it from now on.
The Governor of the jail acted promptly.
Within an hour, photographs of Warner were taken, and the same evening they were mailed to Prench in Dundee.
In due course, they were shown to the various witnesses.
One and all agreed Warner was the man they had seen, but Prench was cautious and thorough,
determined to make sure before he took positive action,
and arranged for five of his witnesses to travel down by train to Maidstone.
They were Margaret Campbell the maid, John Don the garbage collector, John Wood the gardener, and the two Mrs. McIntosh.
There the Governor took them separately into an exercise yard at the jail,
where eleven men, including Warner, were standing in line.
First came Margaret Campbell.
Now, Miss Campbell, I want you to look carefully at these eleven men,
and I want you to tell me if you recognize any one of them as the man you saw in Miss Milne's garden.
Aye, sir, I'll do my best.
Well, it's not the tall one in the line.
Nor again the one next to him, sir, nor the known or the next.
It's awful hard when they've all got their hats on, sir.
The man I saw was bareheaded.
We'll soon fix that.
Take your hats off, please.
Well, young lady, does that help you?
Aye, sir, I knew him late enough now. It's this one.
You're quite sure of that?
Well, he's here as a sheer greer than I'd thought he was, but I can't forget his eyes.
Thank you. That's all I want to know.
Then John Don in these.
And so it went on. One by one the witnesses came into the yard, inspected the line up,
and identified Charles Warner as the man they had seen at Elm Grove House.
Warner had begun by treating the proceedings as rather a joke, never suspecting they were directed against him.
But as one after another picked him out, he began to lose his composure.
And finally, when the last of the witnesses, one of the Mrs. McIntosh, pointed to him, he could restrain himself no longer.
It's not fair. I'll protest. I'm the victim of a conspiracy.
What do you mean by that?
I mean they must be telling each other where I stand in the line.
That's not true. No one's told me anything.
They must have. The whole thing's a put-up job. It's a farce.
All the others made me take my hat off. Don't you want me too as well?
No, I don't. I know you quite well without that. I'm perfectly satisfied you're the man.
That's fine. That's swell. What am I supposed to have done? What am I being framed for?
I advise you to moderate your language, my man. You're not being framed, as you put it, for anything.
We don't do things like that in this country.
Oh, no?
No. And as for the rest of it, you'll have due cost.
All right. The parade's over.
Charles Warner was not left wandering for long.
Next morning, his 14 days imprisonment ended, and at the prison gates, as he was about to leave,
technically at least a free man, a plainclothes policeman stepped forward and laid a hand on his arm.
It was Detective Lieutenant Trench.
Charles Warner?
Sure, that's me. I've been wanting to hear the rest.
I've been wanting to hear the rest. Well, for Pete's sake, what am I supposed to have done?
Your Charles was put on on about the 15th of October at Broadway Ferry Dundee.
You did feloniously murder one Jean Mills.
You're crazy. I've never been in Dundee in my life, and I've never even heard of this Dame Mills, or whatever her name is.
You have no need to make a statement now. It's my duty to warn you that anything you say may be taken down in writing and used in evidence.
Okay, okay, I get it, but someone's got to be sorry for this in a few days. I'm warning you right now. I'm warning you.
During the long crane journey on the way up to Dundee, Trench had a good secret with his prisoner, and formed some opinion of his general character.
He couldn't help being impressed by what straightforwardness and frankness.
Trench well knew these are characteristics common to many murderers, so he allowed the Trench to influence him.
Although under no obligation to do so, Warner gave a full account of his recent movements.
You say you've been on this side of the world for about four months, Warner.
Sure, that's right.
What brought you here in the first place? Did you have some prospect of a position?
No, I just got kind of sick of staying around at home in Toronto, so I thought I'd rather have a look at Europe.
Just a holiday visit, eh?
Yeah, I had a few dollars of my own, and my brother offered to stake me when that ran out, so it seemed like he'll got a chance to miss.
Hmm, and what have you been doing since you came here?
Well, first I landed up at Le Havre, then I went to Paris and spent six or eight weeks there.
When did you first come to England?
Around about the first week in September.
Are you sure you weren't here in August, staying at the Strand Palace Hotel in London?
Sure, I'm sure.
Where did you stay in London?
Oh, some little joint in Baysmoor, I forget the name.
And after that?
Well, things got a bit tough, my money went out, you see.
I bet the longship owner was going to send you.
He died in the meantime, so I couldn't count on anything from there.
I see. So what did you do?
Well, I heard some talk of jobs that were going in Liverpool, so I went up there.
I stayed in a boarding house at Seekham, but there was nothing doing in the way of work, so I stayed away on a ship and had a look at Holland and Belgium.
When was this?
Around about the middle of October, I guess.
What cities were you in?
Amsterdam, mainly, and Brussels and Antwerp.
What were you doing? How did you manage to live without money?
Oh, I picked up a few pens here and there doing our jobs.
Most of the time I slept in parks.
And when did you return to England?
Around about the end of October. I wouldn't be sure of the date.
Then I figured it was time I stopped hoboing around and went home to Canada.
I thought if I walked south I might pick up another ship and work my way home as a stoker or something.
Instead of which you finished up in Maidaston jail, eh?
Sure. When I was passing through Tonbridge I thought I might be able to bluff my way to a free meal, but I thought wrong.
There you have it, Lieutenant, the full history of Charles Warner.
You can check on it if you don't believe me.
But that possessed a trouble. It seemed a simple and plain enough story, and yet was shot through and through with gaps.
There were whole days during Warner's pay in Liverpool, for instance, that could not be accounted for, days on which he might easily have gone north to Dundee.
There was a whole period of his second visit to the continent.
When Trench reported progress back to his chief in Glasgow, he was plainly worried about the whole affair.
I don't know, sir. It just about got me bamboozled.
What's the trouble, Trench?
Well, sir, I've always prided myself on my ability to read a man's character.
In the ordinary course of life he'd prepare to stake a month's pay, Warner isn't a murderer.
And yet?
And yet, sir, there are those gaps in his story.
He may be telling the truth, and he may not.
There's no means of finding out either way.
And, of course, the evidence of identification.
Yes. You might expect one person to make an honest mistake, but five?
Well, I mean you can't ignore overwhelming evidence like that.
Well, there are people who were supposed to have seen this mysterious stranger in the neighborhood have brought his fairly.
Oh, many a month of them.
There was a taxi driver, for instance, who took a fare to Grove Road on the morning of the murder.
There were some children who said they saw a man coming out of Miss Milne's house.
There was a barber who said he shaved a strange man.
There were two ladies who claimed to have seen Miss Milne with a man in London.
There was a post office clerk who declares a man was knocking his way to Longo House.
There was a workman traveling on the car from Broughtay Ferry to Dundee on the morning after the murder,
who reported he'd seen another passenger behaving in a suspicious manner.
In fact, if Warner has been on one of these ones, he's managed to get himself seen by almost every person.
Why don't you call all these witnesses in and see if they can identify him in a line-up?
Do you think it'll prove anything, sir?
It might. You never know.
All right, sir. I'll do it.
And so on November the 29th, Warner was paraded from the other men before no less than 22 fresh witnesses.
We don't know the exact figures, but we do know that at least half of them positively identified him as a man they had seen.
By now, the accused man was becoming desperate.
I tell you they're mistaken, every one of them. You've got to believe me, Lieutenant.
You're arguing against a great weight of numbers, you know, Warner.
Maybe so, but they're mixing me up with some other guy.
You're doubly.
Well, why not? Things like that do happen, don't they?
Yes, on rare occasions.
Couldn't this be one of them?
Look, bring me a stack of Bibles and I'll swear to you on the whole lot of them that I'm not guilty of this crime.
I've never murdered anyone in my life. Until you brought me here, I'd never been north of Liverpool in my life.
And I've never cracked eyes in genome in my life.
You ought to know when a guy's telling the truth. Can't you see I'm not lying?
I don't know. I don't know what to think.
You say you were in Antwerp the day Ms. Moon was killed. If only you could prove that, you'd be clear.
But how can I prove it? I've already told you I was broke, scrounging a few odd soo's here and there and sleeping in the park.
Surely there must be someone you spoke to that day, something you did that could be checked on, something to prove your story. Think, man.
Oh, I thought that I'm almost crazy. But tell me there's nothing, not a thing.
Well, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do to help you. If you are, Mr. Warner, you've got yourself in the most incredibly tight corner.
You're telling me.
Five weeks passed with Warner still in jail, then on the 3rd of January, 1913, pending to him with news.
I'm sorry, Warner, but the proper, the fiscal of Dundee has completed his case against you.
What's that mean?
It means you'll have to stand your trial tomorrow week.
Oh, I suppose they've got quite a swagger of evidence against me.
I understand something like a hundred witnesses are to be called.
Ah, their word against mine. I don't suppose I'll have a show.
Frankly, I don't think so. Unless you can find some way between now and then of proving you were in Antwerp on October the 15th.
Ah, what's the good? We've been over that again and again.
Well, if you do think of anything, some person you might have talked to, some documentary evidence, a piece of paper, for instance.
Wait a minute.
What is it?
A piece of paper. That said, I think I've got it.
Well, come in here. The police took an old wallet from me. Where is it now?
Oh, they're holding it for you, I dare say.
Would I have a chance of getting your paper?
In fact, I'll go out to the charge room now and collect it myself, if you like.
Within five minutes, the wallet, containing a miscellaneous selection of papers, was in Warner's hands.
He sorted through it with feverish haste, his hands trembling with excitement, his eyes gleaming with a new hope, and then at last...
Here it is! I know I've kept it!
What is it?
Look for yourself. On the 15th of October, I was so dead broke, I pawned my waistcoat and Antwerp for a friend.
This is the ticket, and it's got the date on it.
You're right. I'll be back in a couple of days.
Hey, where are you going with that ticket?
To Antwerp, of course. Check your story. And redeem your waistcoat.
Three days later, Trench returned to Edinburgh with the perfect alibi, wrapped to the brown paper parcel.
That same evening, the procurator physically telegrammed from the Scottish Crown Office,
In regard to Charles Warner charged with murder,
Crown counsel had considered precognition and decided evidence insufficient.
Please liberate.
And so ended the ordeal by identification of Charles Warner, an innocent man,
who had been charged with murder, and was charged with murder.
And so ended the ordeal by identification of Charles Warner, an innocent man,
against whom more than a dozen honest witnesses were prepared to swear evidence that would have sent him to his death.
And who did kill Jean Mills?
That was never resolved, and our case remains today, and is likely to remain, in the file of unsolved crime.
Well, let's hope now that I'll be back again soon to tell you some more of the secrets of Scotland Yard.
In the meantime, this is Tye Brooks saying goodbye and pleasant dreams.