Great Train Crimes: Murder and Robbery on the Railways (15 page)

The inquest on 7 April was held at the City Coroners’ Court, Golden Lane Court. Dr Waldo presided. It was well attended. The corpse was to be preserved in the mortuary so people could view it in case it triggered any recollections of that fatal Sunday evening. Both the victim’s parents spoke, though her mother broke down in tears. Yet she was pressed to speak and finally examined the cloth which had been thrust into her daughter’s mouth. It had come from her daughter’s own clothing. Margaret’s little friend was asked if she saw her with a strange man on leaving her, but she merely said that she went away alone.

After this, the inquest was adjourned until 22 April. Railway officials at Aldersgate station gave their evidence as has already been described. Yet Edward Spencer, a porter there, gave additional information. He described a man he had seen lurking near the ladies’ cloakroom about six or seven weeks before the murder. This man was 32 or 34, five feet seven, with dark hair and a moustache and a thin face. He looked like a builder’s labourer, wearing a grey overcoat, a muffler and a black cloth cap. Could this man have been the same as the soldier seen with Margaret on the bus on the evening of the murder? There are certainly similarities in the descriptions given. Detective Inspector Thomas told the court that there had been seven alleged sightings of an adult with a child who looked like Margaret on the night of her death. Clearly, most could not be of her. He added that her hat had still not been found. Finally, a good photograph of the girl had been obtained and was to be distributed throughout London. Medical evidence of the girl having had at least one meal prior to death was given. Yet the depressing conclusion was inevitably given at the end of proceedings – murder by person or persons unknown.

The principal theory of what had happened was thus. A man had taken Margaret on or near Carlisle Street. They had then travelled by train from Edgware Road, the nearest underground station to Carlisle Street, or, perhaps, from Royal Oak, and travelled on the Metropolitan line eastwards, through five stations before stopping at Aldersgate. Yet as she left Carlisle Street at 8 pm and did not arrive at Aldersgate until 10 pm, how is the time to be accounted for, such a train journey would only have taken about 15 minutes. Some of the time could have been spent in Margaret walking back home, but most of it might have been spent with her killer in an Edgware cinema or in a restaurant.

Once at Aldersgate, it was thought that it would have been easy for someone to have slipped into the cloakroom without anyone noticing them. Only the porter might see someone and he might not be on the platform at that time. Nor was there a cloakroom attendant on that duty that evening (he was at Farringdon station from 7.30 pm). There would be few passengers on Sunday evening too. This meant that a man could have easily have slipped into the cloakroom unobserved. Once the girl had been taken into the cloakroom, any screams would have been stifled and nothing of what had happened would have been observed by anyone.

The police appealed to anyone who was travelling on that stretch of the Metropolitan line from 8 to 11 pm on the Sunday evening, and who had seen a man and a child, to come forward. They also wanted to see a man who was of medium height, fresh complexion, clean-shaven and dark haired, who had tried to abduct an 11-year-old in Barnsbury, two days before this murder. Could he have been the killer? The police worked hard, as Nicholls related: ‘Hundreds of alleged clues were followed after; days and nights on end were spent in an attempt to track the criminal. It was the biggest manhunt in the City of London.’

Margaret’s killer was never found. He had certainly taken a risk in taking his victim by the Metropolitan line to Aldersgate, though there were few people travelling that evening, so the risk was diminished. It is also worth noting that no one sought to blame the parents for allowing their young daughter to walk about a mile through London’s streets, unaccompanied. Generally speaking it was completely safe enough to do so. Child murders in London in this era (such as the killing of Marie Bailes in 1908, Willie Starchfield in 1914 and Vera Page in 1931) were extremely rare. Unfortunately, sexual perverts were not entirely unknown even then and it was very unfortunate that Margaret met one of these and went with him, unprotesting and unknowingly, to her doom. The murder may have been planned and Aldersgate selected because it would be a quiet and secluded place to commit such a heinous crime and escape unscathed. It is presumed that she did not know her killer, but this cannot be verified. Was he the soldier on the omnibus that Sunday or was he the man seen at the station weeks previously – assuming the two were not the same? Or was he someone wholly different who came and went unreported by anyone? It seems we shall never know the answer.

Nicholls outlined the difficulty facing the police. ‘The man seldom murders twice, and there is no precedent in his methods, and generally speaking, there is a lack of previous planning.’ There were certainly no clues to his identity. He concluded:

The crime was undoubtedly the work of a man who though he knew what he was about and that he was doing wrong, was nevertheless impelled by mental disease and an irresistible impulse to commit that diabolical and criminal act. It was a case of the ancient and dangerous and ‘uncontrollable impulse’.

‘She has had a nasty knock of some kind.’

Florence Nightingale Shore was, like her more famous relation (and godmother), a nurse. Her late father was Offley Bohun Shore of Norton Hall, near Sheffield, and cousin to the ‘Lady with the Lamp’. Miss Shore was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, in 1865. Her brother was Brigadier General Offley Shore, CB, DSO, and late of the Indian Army, having fought in France during the recent war. He was living in California in 1920, presumably for health reasons. Unmarried, and without any near relations in Britain (her parents were both dead), she was almost alone in the world. She was well travelled and well educated, but a mystery to many of her colleagues. She had had a long and varied career in civil and military nursing. During the First World War, she had been in the Queen Alexandria Imperial Nursing Home Reserve and had served in France. Among the men she treated were black soldiers from France’s empire and they called her ‘the white Queen’. Demobilized in November 1919, she began living at the Hammersmith and Fulham District Nursing Association Nursing Home at Carnforth Lodge, Queen Street, Hammersmith. Although she had no close friends there, she and Miss Mabel Rogers, the matron, were old friends, and had been so for over 26 years. Miss Rogers later said, ‘she was very reserved and very quiet, but cheerful’.

At the beginning of 1920, she was clearly in need of some respite. On Sunday 11 January, she travelled to Tonbridge Wells to see her aunt, the Baroness Farina, returning to Hammersmith on the same day. She had arranged with some friends in St Leonard’s to stay with them for a few days, and would meet them at Warrior Square station in St Leonard’s. Travelling with Miss Rogers to Victoria station, on Monday 12 January 1920, they arrived at 3.02. The train she planned to take arrived shortly
afterwards. Miss Rogers then helped her friend choose an empty compartment, opting for the second one they came to. The time was 3.10. Miss Shore took a corner seat, facing the direction of travel, in a third class non-smoking compartment of the 3.20 train. The carriage was the one at the back of the train. Miss Rogers and Miss Shore entered the compartment. Miss Rogers later said:

After we had been seated for a little time, a man got in [at 3.17]. He was about 28 or 30, clean shaven and respectable looking. He was wearing a brownish tweed suit of rather mixed and light material. I did not notice the kind of hat he wore, but he had no overcoat. I do not think he had any luggage, but he might have had a small hand bag.

He looked like a bank clerk or a shop assistant. Just before the train was about to depart, the young man offered to help Miss Rogers from the compartment, but she refused his offer. The man was a stranger to both ladies. At this time the window was down.

The train travelled non-stop to Lewes. This was a trip of about 50 miles and the train passed through several long tunnels en route. Although the train slowed down at Gatwick and the Three Bridges, its speed there was still 30 mph, hardly slow enough for a man to depart safely. It arrived at Lewes, at 4.34 (two minutes late). The next station was Polegate Junction, where the train split; some coaches travelling to Eastbourne and the other to Hastings, via Bexhill. No one saw anything odd at the station. At Polegate, George Cloutt, Ernest Thomas and William Ransom, three platelayers employed by the railway company, entered the same compartment as Miss Shore, having finished work at 4.30. They got into the compartment as soon as the train arrived at the station. It was 5 pm. No one could have left the compartment at that station, therefore.

At first, none of the men noticed anything about the middle-aged lady who was apparently asleep in the compartment they were now sharing. She appeared to have dropped her book into her lap and was in a sitting position. In any case, the light in the carriage – incandescent gas – was poor and the weather outside was dark and raining. The window was now pulled up and the blinds had been pulled down down. Cloutt later recalled, ‘I saw someone there in the further right hand corner facing the engine’.

It was halfway between Polegate and Bexhill that they first noticed that something might be wrong. Cloutt recalled, ‘I saw there was something wrong with her, from the position in which she was.’ He said to Ransom, ‘She has had a nasty knock of some kind.’ They did not think it was too serious; she was breathing and her eyes were open. Cloutts thought she was reading.

However, when the train pulled into Bexhill, at about 5.20, the men contacted Henry Duck, the guard: ‘There appears to be something doing up there.’ Together, they found there was blood on her clothing and a severe injury to the left side of her head. According to the guard:

She was in a sloping position facing the engine. The head was back on the padding, and her legs were pushed forward and showing to her knees, because of her having slipped down. Her hands were in front of her and her fingers kept moving. She put out one hand several times, her fingers moved and she appeared to be looking at her hands.

It was decided that she was so badly hurt that she should not be taken off at Bexhill, but should remain on the same train and be taken to the East Sussex Hospital at Hastings.

He travelled with the injured woman for the rest of the journey. The two suitcases she had as her luggage were intact and on the rack above her head. There were broken spectacles and a fancy hair comb on the floor and her leather attaché case had been opened. Her fur hat was on the seat next to her; it was found to have had a gash in it.

Meanwhile, Miss Shore’s friend, waiting at Warrior Square station, met the 5.32 train and the 6.45 one, but since Miss Shore did not alight from either, she went home. A telegram was sent to Miss Rogers, who was at the theatre that evening. She took the 11.20 train from Victoria and then motored down from Tonbridge. She arrived at the Hastings hospital on the following day. She remained there for the next few days, until the end. Baroness Farina also visited her niece. Although the doctors and surgeons there tried to save her life, they were unsuccessful. On 7.55 on the morning of 16 January, Miss Shore died, without ever having regained consciousness and the mystery of who killed her deepened even more. Miss Rogers paid her friend a fulsome tribute:

Miss Shore was one of the most unselfish nurses I have ever known. When the hospitals were being bombed by Gothas [German aircraft], she was advised to take shelter. ‘No, I never leave my patients’ and she remained with the men, walking up and down the ward, speaking cheerful words to them and keeping up their spirits.

The funeral took place at St Saviour’s church on The Grove in Ealing on 20 January. This was because she had friends living there and was well known to some of the nurses who worked at St Faith’s Nursing Home in Mount Park Road, Ealing. When she had been in London she often attended St Saviour’s and it was assumed that her wish would be that the funeral service be held there. There had been a requiem at Christ Church, St Leonard’s, before the body had been brought to Ealing. The burial took place at Westminster Cemetery, Hanwell, in the grave where her younger sister had been buried a few years previously. Many people lined the route from the church to the cemetery and the church was packed full. The coffin was draped in the Union flag and there were many floral tributes heaped on it, some from nursing organizations. Police on horse and foot were present for crowd control.

Although the combined police forces of Scotland Yard, the Hastings Borough police and the Sussex Constabulary were involved in this case, they found little in the way of clues. The line from Victoria to Lewes was searched in case the criminal had flung his weapon out of the train. Nothing relevant was found. However, a khaki handkerchief was located near the line at Wivelsfield, but if this had any connection with the case, it was not obvious. They also asked that any tailors, launderers, pawnbrokers and sellers of second clothes should report any bloodstained clothes to them.

No obvious suspect emerged. There was a story about a man who bought a drink in a Lewes pub with a bloodstained pound note. Was he the killer? Then a Lewes barber claimed he cut a man’s hair on the day of the attack, and the client resembled the description of the man in Miss Shore’s compartment. One man was arrested in Hastings on a charge of burglary a few days after the murder and was found to have an unloaded revolver with a bloodstained butt in his possession (the murder could have been committed using a weapon of this type). He could not account for his movements on the day of the murder and the clothing he had worn at that time had subsequently been destroyed.