Walter Dew: The Man Who Caught Crippen Page 6

  Such speculation is little more than childish, for there is no evidence to support one view any more than another.

  Dew was certain that the Ripper was not a medical man:

  I never thought he was.

  There are many people besides doctors expert in the use of the knife. Why not a butcher, or a slaughterman, or even the proprietor of an East End Stall?

  Not even the rudiments of surgical skill were needed to cause the mutilations I saw.

  I did not see all the murdered women, but I saw most of them, and all I can say is that if the wounds they sustained are representative of a doctor’s skill with the knife, it is a very simple matter to become a surgeon. This is certainly true of the case of Marie Kelly, whose poor body had been hacked about in a manner far more suggestive of a maniac than a man with a knowledge of surgery.

  The vexed question of whether Jack the Ripper possessed medical knowledge was always a contentious one. Those who thought that he did not included Detective Inspector Edmund Reid, who said, ‘The Ripper was a man with no skilled knowledge – not even the skill of a novice in butchery. In every instance the mutilation was clumsy in the extreme.’4 Dr Phillips’ assistant, Dr Percy Clark, agreed with Reid and Dew. He said, ‘In one case there was exhibited a certain knowledge of butchery or of killing animals, judging from the way the body was disembowelled. But there was never any justification for the suggestion that the culprit was a professional man.’5 Others disagreed. Dr Phillips had thought that the killer of Annie Chapman possessed some anatomical knowledge, and Dr Brown felt that Eddowes’ slayer definitely displayed anatomical knowledge.

  Another area of contention was the number of victims that could be attributed to Jack the Ripper. Dew thought that the Ripper’s killings began with Emma Smith and ended with Mary Kelly, making a total of seven. Inspector Reid thought there were nine victims, Percy Clark was sure that one man committed three of the murders, but he ‘would not like to say he did the others’. Sir Melville Macnaghten opted for five, while Superintendent Arnold went for four.

  Dew also believed that the Ripper’s guilt was known to at least one person:

  Someone, somewhere, shared Jack the Ripper’s guilty secret. Of this I am tolerably certain.

  The man lived somewhere. Each time there was a murder he must have returned home in the early hours of the morning. His clothing must have been bespattered with blood.

  These facts alone ought to have been sufficient to arouse suspicion, and to cause a statement to be made to the police.

  Suspicion, I have no doubt, was aroused, but that statement to the police was never made.

  Another certainty, by the time Dew wrote his memoirs in the 1930s, was that the Whitechapel murderer was by then dead:

  There is little doubt now that Jack the Ripper is dead. I often wonder what sort of an end he met – whether it was peaceful or whether he did develop into the stark, raving maniac he must have appeared at the moment of striking his victims down. Somehow I cannot picture such a man on a peaceful death bed.

  The identity of Jack the Ripper is as much of a mystery today as it was for Dew and his colleagues in 1888. One thing was certain though: Dew’s hunt for Jack the Ripper indelibly affected the young detective:

  Since I left Whitechapel I have avoided the scenes of the Ripper murders as I would a plague. Enough of those terrible scenes remain in my memory without seeking to recall any incident which may have been forgotten.

  7

  Harry the Valet

  Harry the Valet was a thief with a charming smile and gentlemanly manners.

  Walter Dew

  Dew’s ‘dream as a young detective one day to stand in the witness-box and give evidence against Jack the Ripper’ would never be realised. However, his career progressed steadily. One journalist put this down in part to his physical appearance:

  If a swell ‘mobman’ had to be shadowed the usual order was ‘Send Dew. He doesn’t look like a policeman,’ and Dew went into fashionable houses, restaurants, and theatres. He mixed in society without the slightest difficulty, for no one could suspect the faultlessly dressed, military-looking man of being an emissary from Scotland Yard. Certainly his appearance has helped him considerably.1

  In October 1898 Dew had just been promoted to the rank of inspector and transferred to Scotland Yard – an indication of his talent as a detective – when he was charged with recovering the fabulous collection of jewellery of Mary Caroline, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland. The jewels had been stolen in Paris by a notorious continental thief, William Johnson, known amongst other names as ‘Harry the Valet’.

  On 9 October 1898 the Duchess of Sutherland was on holiday in Paris with her brother, his wife and the Duchess’s maid and footman. She was later joined by her husband, the Member of Parliament for Islington South, Sir Albert Rollit. Amongst her luggage the Duchess had a large dispatch box with a plain cover, fastened by straps and containing jewellery that had a value of around £30,000. She also had an unset emerald and an emerald and diamond ring that she wanted to show a Parisian jeweller.2

  The party prepared to leave Paris and return to London on 17 October. The Duchess and her maid packed the dispatch box with the jewels. It was then locked, and the Duchess left the box on a table in her hotel room instructing the maid to take it to the Gare du Nord railway station and await her arrival. When the Duchess arrived at the station, her maid was waiting for her in the first-class carriage with the jewel box. The maid left the carriage to look for her own luggage. Thinking that the carriage door was self-locking, the Duchess also left the carriage to let her party know where she was. She was absent for around five minutes, leaving the train to meet her husband on the platform.

  The party settled in their carriage, but as the train pulled away from the station the Duchess saw that her jewellery box was gone. Her husband and brother searched the rest of the carriages in vain, but they did not stop the train. When the train did stop, at Amiens in Northern France, telegrams were immediately sent to Scotland Yard and the police headquarters of Paris and Amsterdam informing them of the apparent theft of the gems. The Duchess and Rollit went straight back to Paris, where they informed the rail authorities of the loss before returning to London and giving a full description of the jewels to Scotland Yard.

  Dew was put on to the case along with Inspectors Walter Dinnie and Frank Froest.3 He began his enquiries by checking which known international crooks had been out of the country at the time of the robbery. Although there was no evidence to indicate the nationality of the thief, Dew felt optimistic that there was a chance that it would turn out to be an Englishman who might be linked to London.

  Dew heard that a thief known to operate on the continent had come into some money. That thief was William Johnson – ‘Harry the Valet’. The Valet was already known to Dew who described his quarry as ‘a thief with a charming smile and gentlemanly manners’. Dew thought the Valet was ‘just the type of man for such a job. Handsome, debonair and plausible, no one lacking a knowledge of his past would have taken him for what he was – a clever and audacious criminal. There was something very disarming about Harry. He might easily have been mistaken for a prosperous gentleman farmer.’

  The Valet had indeed been abroad at the time of the robbery, returning to England on 22 October. The next day he had visited a general dealer named Levy in Houndsditch, London. Levy had known the Valet for some time by the name of Jackson. The Valet gave Levy eight brilliant cut diamonds, a large pearl and a large emerald, and asked Levy to make them into a ring, a pin and a stud.4

  The Valet was obviously ‘flush’. He began to frequent the Brown Bear public house in Worship Street, where he drank copious amounts of champagne and whisky. The Valet told the landlord Thomas Hinton that he had a lot of gold which was weighing him down. He gave Hinton 300 gold sovereigns in exchange for a cheque made payable to ‘H Jones or Bearer’.5 But to Dew’s chagrin, the Valet then went to ground.

  The police received a lucky break wh
en an actress went to Scotland Yard to make a statement. Her name was Maude Richardson.6 Dew gallantly and discreetly referred to her as ‘Miss X’, while in a later court case she was referred to as ‘Mrs Ronald’ to protect her identity, for she was described as a woman of means who was married to ‘a gentleman of blameless character’.7

  Her story began in April 1898, when she was living in a hotel in Brighton under the assumed name of Mrs Ronald, where she met the Valet, who told her his name was Williams. He did not tell her what he did for a living. He did no work while he was with her, and Richardson was obliged to pay all the bills at the hotels and pubs where the couple stayed. ‘He was like a leech’, she said. Richardson moved to London in June; the Valet followed. Richardson went to Ostend in July; the Valet followed. In October the pair went to Paris. Mrs Richardson and the Valet fell out in Paris, and they moved to separate hotels. Soon after 17 October (the day of the robbery), Richardson received a letter from the Valet saying, ‘I have everything you require. See me at once’, which she tore up. Later the Valet spotted her in a cab and followed her back to her hotel, where he showed her a pearl necklace and a diamond coronet which he told her belonged to the Duchess of Sutherland.

  The Valet readily admitted that he had stolen the jewellery. He further suggested that he had help from Sutherland’s maid, by saying, ‘If you want to get anybody’s jewels you have only to get round the maid’, but there was never any evidence to support the claim that the maid had been in any way involved in the robbery.8 Richardson immediately forgave the Valet, and was ‘so fascinated by the jewellery’ that she wore some of it that night. The Valet was uncomfortable with this and was angered the next morning by Richardson’s reluctance to return the jewellery.9 The Valet took it back by force, which led to Richardson telling a gendarme the Valet had stolen the jewellery. The gendarme did not act; Dew thought this might have been because Richardson was hysterical or had been misunderstood.

  Mrs Richardson returned to Brighton after making her statement at Scotland Yard. It was there that the Valet caught up with her on 31 October. Richardson’s maid had told the Valet that her mistress had made a statement about him. Richardson tried to claim that she had been to Scotland Yard to make a statement about a man called Halliday, but the Valet did not believe her and physically assaulted her. He said he was going abroad and that she would never see him again.10

  But the Valet did not go abroad. Instead he returned to London and took lodgings at 5 Cathcart Road, South Kensington, where his landlady was a widow named Sarah Morris. It was here that the police finally found him.

  Acting upon information received at 5 a.m. on 28 November, Dew, along with Inspectors Walter Dinnie and Frank Froest, went to 5 Cathcart Road. Inside the house they found Sarah Morris standing outside the Valet’s locked door, which she refused to open. There was no answer from behind the door, so they had to break it down.11 Dew was apprehensive about doing this, for the Valet had a reputation as ‘a desperate character, capable of violence if driven into a tight corner’ (Richardson had claimed that the Valet had attempted to shoot her). However, he was reassured by the fact that Froest was armed with a gun.

  The officers immediately recognised the room’s occupant. At the foot of the bed stood Harry the Valet, fully dressed except for his collar.12 He was unperturbed by their entrance, and Dew was amazed at the man’s calmness, later recalling, ‘He must have known that if we succeeded in pinning the Paris robbery on to him he would get a long stretch at either Dartmoor or Parkhurst, yet he didn’t turn a hair.’ Dinnie, who was the senior officer, questioned the Valet:

  Dinnie You know who we are?

  Valet Oh yes.

  Dinnie We are going to arrest you for stealing and receiving her Grace the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland’s jewels in October last.

  Valet If I had not been a fool and got drunk you would not have found me here.

  He then asked what length of imprisonment he might receive, expecting it to be about a ‘fiver’, adding that if it had not been for women and drink he would never have been caught.

  The Valet was taken to Chelsea police station, where Dew searched him. He found one £200 Bank of England note, one £100 note and two £10 notes, as well as a pearl diamond stud, gold sleeve links and other jewellery with a total value of around £800.13

  Half an hour after the Valet’s arrest, the officers returned to 5 Cathcart Road, where they found a man named Moss Lipman at the door. Lipman had twice visited the Valet during his time at that address, and was charged with being an accomplice of the Valet in the theft of the jewels. Lipman denied any involvement and said he could prove that he was in London at the time of the Paris theft.14

  Froest searched the house and found a cash box on top of the wardrobe in the Valet’s room. Its key was concealed under the bedclothes. The box contained a sapphire ring and other jewellery, although some of it belonged to the landlady and was later returned to her. There was further damning evidence in the room – a diamond stud in the clothes drawer; and in a washstand drawer there was a purse containing four large diamonds and five pearls wrapped in paper.15 The Valet was tried at the West London police court under his real name of William Johnson. He described himself as a 45-year-old dealer. Dew agreed with the Valet’s job description, quipping, ‘He was – in stolen property.’

  Moss Lipman was in fact the Valet’s nephew, and his visits to Cathcart Road had been entirely innocent. This, coupled with the fact that there was no evidence against him in connection with the robbery, led to the charge against him being withdrawn.16

  At the trial it emerged that the Valet had a lot of previous form. In 1891 he had served four months for stealing a pocket book from a diamond merchant. Five years later he was given six months for the theft of a dressing case at Charing Cross Station, and later he spent fifteen months in a French prison for a theft at Monte Carlo.17 Maude Richardson appeared to give evidence against the Valet. Her name and address were not disclosed to the court, but were discreetly handed to the magistrate on a piece of paper.18

  The Valet was under no illusions about his chances at the trial, and had pleaded ‘guilty’, as he was eventually found. His sentencing was postponed, however, because he refused to disclose the whereabouts of the remainder of the Duchess of Sutherland’s jewels. He had earlier been interviewed by Dew while on remand, and he had also refused to talk then. He boasted that he would never say where they were, even under the threat of a five-year prison sentence:

  Valet It would make no difference to me if it was fifty-five years.

  Magistrate It would make a considerable difference to you. You decline to tell anything about it?

  Valet (smiling) Yes, my Lord.19

  The Valet received a seven-year prison sentence. The Duchess of Sutherland was given the £320 found on the Valet, but only between £4,000 and £5,000 worth of her jewellery was ever recovered and returned.20 Years later Dew saw the Valet again. He was in the dock at the Old Bailey for stealing an empty pocket book from someone he thought was a diamond merchant. He was sent back to prison for five years.

  8

  Conrad Harms/Henry Clifford

  It did not take me long to make up my mind that I was up against a criminal of class.

  Walter Dew

  Dew spent two years as an inspector at Scotland Yard before being transferred to T Division, Hammersmith, in 1900. Three years later he was promoted to Inspector First Class, and shortly afterwards transferred to E Division, Bow Street. He spent a further three years there before returning to Scotland Yard as a Chief Inspector, where he replaced Frank Froest, who had just been promoted to the rank of Superintendent.1

  In the year before Walter Dew’s final and greatest investigation he took on what he believed to be a hopeless case – the hunt for an ambitious fraudster named Friedlauski, who called himself both Conrad Harms and Henry Clifford.2 The respective paths of Dew and Friedlauski did not cross until 1909, but the crime which led to their meeting may have been conceived
as early as May 1906. Using the name Conrad Harms, Friedlauski obtained a personal safe in London at the National Safe Deposit in Queen Victoria Street, and then opened a bank account at Parr’s Bank, Notting Hill Gate.

  On 1 December 1906 Harms married Edith Kate Garman in London, and the couple lived together as Mr and Mrs Harms. This lasted until August 1907 when Harms’s business interests in London failed. According to his brother-in-law, Arthur East, Harms was ‘financially broke in London’. He sailed to New York from Glasgow on 17 August on the steamer Furnessia, deserting his wife in the process.

  Harms was next heard of in New York in January 1909. There he visited J.S. Bache & Co. Bank. Harms spoke to Hugo Jacob Lyon,3 the manager of the bank’s foreign department. He asked Lyon to cash a 1,000 rouble Russian draft; but Lyon refused, as he did not know Harms. Harms told Lyon that he had presented J.S. Bache himself with a letter of introduction in August 1907. But Bache was in Cuba at the time, so he could not confirm this.

  Two months later Harms returned to the bank and asked the general manager, Hubert Arthur Hensley, for an advance on a Russian bill. Hensley refused. Later in the day Hensley received a letter from Harms which said that he was in great need. Hensley communicated with his superiors and told Harms to call in at the bank two days later. Harms did so, and was given a cheque for $10, and also offered a position in the bank’s foreign department for a salary of $10 a week.

  Harms started work as a clerk at Bache & co. on 29 March 1909, and his desk was next to Hugo Lyon’s. At the bank the clerks had the authority to draw up bills; they would fill in the counterfoil and then get a senior colleague to sign the bill. One of the banks which Bache were accustomed to draw bills on was the Swiss Bankverein in London.

  On 6 May 1909 Lyon had to go to Europe for a number of weeks. Before leaving he instructed Harms to conduct part of his duties at the foreign department. The very next day a bill was drawn up in favour of Parr’s Bank Limited, London (where Harms had an account), for £1,637 14s on demand. The bill had been handwritten by Harms and apparently signed by Leopold S. Bache. The counterfoil of the bill was also written by Harms, but it was dated 1 May 1909, for the value of £1 10s 2d. Harms resigned from the bank a week later. He sent Hubert Hensley a note saying that he had accepted a job with a higher salary and left without notice. Harms was already on the brink of being fired ‘because the office was not satisfied with his record’.