Read The Nightingale Shore Murder Online
Authors: Rosemary Cook
Percy Toplis' life was full of confusion, controversy and crime until the end, when he was shot dead by police at the age of 23.
Born Francis Percy Toplis, son of Herbert and Rejoice Toplis, he started his run-ins with the law when he was birched at age eleven for obtaining two suits of clothing by false pretences. As he was beyond the control of his parents and grandparents, he moved on to the care of an aunt. He left school at thirteen, and lost his first job, as a blacksmith, a short time later. In 1912, following several previous convictions for theft and fraud, he was sent to prison for two years for the attempted rape of a fifteen year old girl.
Then the first World War intervened. Toplis joined the Royal Army Medical Corps; he may have been peculiarly suited to this outfit, since it was known to some regular soldiers as âRob All My Comrades'. In the Corps, Toplis served as a stretcher bearer in Gallipoli, Salonika and Egypt, being wounded and catching dysentery along the way. He went with his unit to Bombay in 1917, before finally returning to England. This last posting was significant, since it casts some doubt on the mythology that later grew up around Toplis. His nickname, the Monocled Mutineer, refers to the story that he led a riot amongst British troops near Etaples in France â where Florence did some of her war nursing â in September 1917. There are different views about this: some see him as a hero of the uprising against overly harsh authority in the army; others point to his service record which shows he was not even in France at the time, but on the troop ship
Orantes
, bound for Bombay. However, the mutiny, together with the gold monocle he used in deceptions after the War, have become part of the Toplis legend.
Back in England at the end of the War, Toplis deserted from the RAMC at Blackpool, and was soon sentenced to another two year prison term for fraud. On his release in 1920, he joined the Royal Army Service Corps at No 2 Depot at Bulford, which gave him the opportunity to operate a black market in rationed petrol. He also adopted an officer's uniform and manners, and the famous gold monocle, when he went into the City to impress society women in smart hotels.
His freedom did not last long. Late at night on Saturday 24
th
April, a young taxi driver called Sidney Spicer was shot through the head by his fare, on the London to Exeter road at Thruxton Down near Andover. His body was thrown into a hedge, and the murderer drove away in the car. The car was later found abandoned on the outskirts of Swansea; and two soldiers were reported to have been seen in the car at various points in its journey to Wales.
There were military units all over Salisbury Plain, close to the site of the murder, and the General Officer Commanding ordered a full parade of all units, which resulted in the detention of one private soldier at Bulford Camp, and a full-scale police search for another: Percy Toplis.
The detained soldier, Private Fallows, matched the description of the second, younger person in the stolen grey car, when it called for repairs at Cirencester en route to Swansea at 8am on the Sunday morning. The soldier convinced the police that he had not been in the car at the time of the murder of the driver, Sidney Spicer, but admitted that he had shared a lift to Swansea. According to his story, Toplis had arrived at Bulford Camp in the grey car at around 11pm, and asked Fallows to come for a ride with him, promising to pay his fare back. This was corroborated by the Provost Sergeant, who saw Fallows in the mess quarters where he worked at 11pm, and by others who had seen the car in the camp at 11.20pm. Fallows was in the car with Toplis for the journey to Swansea, from where he had returned to his unit by train. It was he who identified the driver of the car at that time as Percy Toplis. His cooperation did not exonerate him entirely from blame, however; Fallows was later charged with being an accessory after the fact of the murder. The inquest on Sidney Spicer named Percy Toplis as the murderer, and a full police hue and cry was raised to find the wanted man.
The police issued a description of Private Percy Toplis, number E.M.T. 54262, M.T., R.A.S.C., at Bulford Camp: âHeight 5ft 8in or 5ft 9in. Medium build. Fair complexion. Slight fair ginger moustache. Fair eyebrows and hair. Smart appearance. Had posed as an officer of the Royal Air Force and is believed to be a deserter from the RAF. Was in possession of a Mark VI Webley revolver.'
The police warned that Toplis was quite likely to use the revolver. He was also in possession of a casualty pay book, the dead taxi driver's driving licence, and another licence which was endorsed âfor driving to common danger.' He also had a passport, and the police believed he was planning to flee the country. He was thought to be wearing a blue suit, a fawn soft felt hat, and a gold monocle.
On 29
th
April, the Daily Mail printed a photograph of the wanted man, said by the Andover police to be a good likeness. It shows a young man with a square chin, a rather grim, down-turned mouth and his eyes shadowed by a peaked cap. The picture had been taken at the end of 1918 when Toplis was arrested in London and sentenced to six months' imprisonment for being a suspected person. At the time of his arrest he was calling himself Williams; he was caught loitering at a London railway station, with a loaded revolver in his possession.
Toplis's breathtaking audacity â or reckless disregard for risk â was evident throughout the period of the crime and investigation. It became apparent that, although he was technically a deserter from the RASC, he had recently joined the RAF at Wendover as an air mechanic, and was posted to Uxbridge. To even greater astonishment â and embarrassment â it transpired that the deserter had spent the four days prior to the murder of Sidney Spicer in and around Bulford Camp. And three days after the murder, he wrote a letter to Private Fallows from the Union Jack Club in London, asking how things were going, and suggesting Fallows reply to the Club. He was even reported to have been seen in London, asking a hairdresser to provide him with a false moustache. The Daily Mail called Toplis âa master of disguise' and said that he had used aliases including Edmondson, Robinson, Wilson P. Grant âof the Strand Palace Hotel', and Thompson. His disguises included the uniforms of a 2
nd
lieutenant in the RASC, a sergeant major in the same Corps with the addition of a Distinguished Conduct Medal ribbon, and an RAF officer.
Early in May, Toplis was being spotted regularly in London. The police mounted two abortive arrest attempts, after reported sightings in Westminster Bridge Road and Vauxhall Bridge Road, to their frustration and the public's. By 10
th
May, the Daily Mail was again complaining about the diligence and competence of the police at Scotland Yard:
âPercy Toplis, wanted for the murder of the taxicab-driver Sidney Spicer, is still free, although it is fifteen days since the crime. This reflects no credit on the alertness of New Scotland Yard. When there was every reason to believe that he was in London, the metropolis was not promptly and thoroughly searched, work that could have been accomplished in a day and night. The organisation is there; the men are there; but the machinery was not set in motion. Three days after the murder, thanks to the activity of the provincial police, two very useful photographs of Toplis reached the Daily Mail office, and a third was on its way. His antecedents and character were well known; yet not one of these photographs was officially circulated among the police until three or four days later.
Extremely able detective work has lately been done in various parts of London, but in this hunt for Toplis there has been no display of that initiative, energy and resource usually associated with our premier detective department. The Home Secretary and the Commissioner of Police will be expected to look for a remedy.'
Meanwhile, the suspicion that Toplis had driven to Swansea after the murder with the intention of leaving Britain by ship led the police there to mount a constant watch on the port. Thinking he might be hiding in the mountains within reach of Swansea, police stopped motorists and cyclists, and kept watch on railway stations, in case he made a dash for the port. At one point they set up a cordon around the North Dock in Llanelly, ordered all seamen ashore and lined them up for examination on the dock. But Toplis was not in Wales; he was in Scotland.
On 1
st
June, smoke from a fire in a remote gamekeeper's âbothy' in North East Scotland drew the attention of a farmer, who investigated with a gamekeeper and a police constable, George Greig. Toplis, who had been hiding out in the building, fired his revolver at the men, wounding both the policeman and the farmer, before escaping on a bicycle. He hitched a lift from a clergyman en route to Aberdeen, from where he caught a train and arrived in Carlisle, in the North West of England, four days later.
On Sunday 6
th
June, Police Constable Alfred Fulton encountered Toplis in the village of High Hesket, near Penrith, whilst on his way home at half past four in the afternoon. Amazingly, he survived not one but three meetings with the fugitive that afternoon, in spite of his incredible lack of caution in dealing with the armed and desperate man. PC Fulton later described the events of Toplis's last hours in detail to the ubiquitous reporter from the Daily Mail.
âI saw a soldier in RAF uniform lying on a grassy bank by the roadway', he said. âHe was reading intently the Weekly Dispatch. He looked up quickly as I approached, stretched himself, then stood up. As I always do in passing a soldier, I passed some remark, but then something about him made me suspicious. He seemed so far from anywhere that I asked him where he was making for and how he came to be walking the road. He said he was on duty warrant. I asked him if he could show me anything to identify himself and he produced a railway ticket from Aberdeen dated June 2. I asked him if he had not got a pass and he said “No; a duty warrant serves that purpose.” I then asked him what he had in his kit bag and he replied “Nothing but clothes. I am going to Penrith. I missed my train to London and I am going to pick one up there.” I then asked him something else, which I forget, and he said “I admit I am a few days over my leave, and I suppose I am really an absentee, but I am making my way back to barracks.” I said “Let me look in your kit bag.” To my astonishment he threw it on the ground and stepped back a few paces. I then felt certain of my man but knowing what a dangerous ruffian he was, and as we were quite alone, I said in a tone suggestive of a joke “You might be the likes of Toplis.” He smiled grimly and replied “I am not that fellow.”
By this time I had made up my mind that this man before me was Toplis but desiring to make sure, I bade him a hasty adieu and hurried home. Over my tea, I studied again the description of the wanted man, and, mending a puncture in my bicycle, I pedalled hurriedly after the soldier. Just beyond Thiel's Side, and near to Old Town, nine miles from Penrith, I saw some women, and in answer to a question, they told me that a soldier had gone down a lane close by. The lane on either side was fringed with thick bushes and as I left the women, I heard a cracking of twigs. I searched all down the lane in vain and made enquiries at the only house in the district.
Then I retraced my steps and examined the bushes with greater care. I was surprised to see the soldier hidden completely away. “Hello, old boy” I said and rattled the bush with my staff. “Is this all the distance you have got yet?” In a twinkling the man was on his feet and I found myself looking down the barrel of a big Webley revolver. He said: “You are a smart man. I am the man you are looking for. I am Toplis”, stepped back two paces and again said “I am Toplis, and I shot a farmer and a policeman in Banffshire. If there is any hanky panky, you go. Up with your hands!”
I put up my hands and remarked “I have no chance against a chap like you.” He kept me covered with the revolver for what seemed hours, but it was only a few seconds and we were both lost for words. At last he said “Throw down your handcuffs and your staff.” I did so, and at that moment, the church bells rang out. “You have got to promise”, said Toplis, “That you will never come my way again” and having given him this assurance, he stepped one pace forward and ordered me away. I proceeded to my station, and from an eminence I saw a khaki figure leave the line and enter the Carlisle-Edinburgh road and suddenly break off and turn down Lazenby road.
I hastened to my station, changed into breeches, sporting jacket and cap. I got out my motorcycle, and, pulling my cap down over my eyes, I went âhell for leather' to Penrith, calling at Plumpton station, where I gave the first alarm. Throughout the whole of that mad ride I never saw the soldier, but if I had and he had recognised me, he would have shot me down. I reported the occurrence to my superiors and requisitioned a motor car. Inspector Ritchie, Sergeant Bertram and myself left for Thiel's Side. Ahead of us rode Mr Charles de Courcy Parry, son of the Chief Constable of Cumberland and Westmoreland, on a motorcycle. We were travelling at nearly 40 miles an hour, when on a lonely stretch, where the banks come down to the macadam, I saw a civilian carrying a brown paper parcel under his arm. His military gait and his brown shoes led me at once that this was the man disguised. I shouted “That's him. That's Toplis.” In a bend in the road we stopped and turned round, and as I stood up in the car I saw Toplis stop and watch us.
We gave chase, and drove ahead of our man round another bend leading direct to Penrith. Then the struggle began. We got out of the car and as we did so Toplis changed the parcel from his right hand to the left, and I shouted “Look out, he's getting his revolver.”
Inspector Ritchie and Sergeant Bertram, who had armed themselves with revolvers, rushed at Toplis, who retreated rapidly, fumbling with his revolver. He fired three shots then halted to steady himself for accurate aim. He was a second too late, for two revolver shots rang out, and Toplis reeled and fell dead, shot through the heart. We picked up his body and, placing it in the motor we brought it to the police station. It was a dreadful experience all through.'