The Nightingale Shore Murder (3 page)

‘In late September 1905 in the mile long tunnel just north of Merstham Station a horrific discovery was made when a member of the permanent way, William Peacock, found the mutilated body of a young woman, later identified as Mary Sophia Money, about 400 yards into the tunnel. This is thought to be the first recorded murder on a train in England. Finding the body was still warm Peacock hurried back to the station to report his discovery to the stationmaster. The police were called to the scene and when they examined the area they decided that the death was a suicide. They figured that the young woman had wandered into the tunnel and been hit by a passing train. This theory changed when the tunnel wall next to where the body lay was examined. A number of marks were found where the soot had been rubbed off. The highest of these marks was at about the level of a person standing up in a railway carriage. It seemed certain that Mary had fallen from a passing train. A discovery, which turned the theory from suicide into murder, was that forced firmly into the unfortunate Mary's mouth was a white silk scarf. It became obvious that she had been pushed from the train and had not jumped. The body was removed to The Feathers Hotel in the High Street where a local doctor, Henry Crickett, examined it. Apart from the obvious injuries, Dr. Crickett's examination revealed several bruises and scratches to body, arms and face which he considered may have been caused during a struggle with the murderer, prior to her being thrown from the carriage. No means of identification was found on the body. As the body was still warm when discovered, it was reasoned that she must have been thrown from the train within an hour of William Peacock finding her and the position of the body showed that she had come out of a southbound train. On the afternoon of the following day, Monday 25th September, the mystery of the girl's identity was solved, when Robert Henry Money, a dairy farmer from Kingston Hill, viewed the body. The body was that of his sister, Mary Sophia Money, aged 22, a bookkeeper at Bridger's Dairy, Clapham Junction. Mary Money had gone out at about seven o'clock that evening saying she would take a little walk and would not be long. Emma Hone, another employee at Bridger's Dairy, had no knowledge of any male friends that Mary might have been going to meet. She said that Mary had taken her black knitted cotton purse, which Emma thought was well filled with money, for Mary had just been paid. The purse was never recovered. A few minutes after leaving home, Mary called at Frances Golding's sweet shop at 2 Station Approach, Clapham Junction where bought some chocolates in a white cardboard box. She told Frances Golding that she was going to Victoria. She appeared happy and left the shop laughing. Suspicion fell on a number of possible admirers named by Mary's brother Robert. He claimed to have last seen his sister on that date but there seemed no question that he was involved in the crime. What really did happen to Mary Money on the evening of Sunday 24th September 1905? This is left only to supposition. She seems to have had every intention of keeping a rendezvous with someone, presumably of the opposite sex, at Victoria that evening. A signalman who was in charge of the Purley Oaks Signal Box north of Merstham Tunnel recalled that as the London Bridge train passed, he remembered seeing a couple standing up in a first class compartment. They appeared to be struggling. It seems possible that during this struggle, Mary Money began to scream, her attacker then pushed her scarf into her mouth to silence her and, when the train was in the tunnel, he opened the door and threw her out into the darkness and to her grisly death. The guard of the train reported that he had seen a couple in a first class compartment when his train stopped at East Croydon. His description of the woman fitted that of Mary Money. At Redhill the couple had gone and the guard thought he saw the man but not the woman leaving the station. Over 100 interviews were taken and many railway carriages examined but no arrest was ever made.

The mystery remains unsolved but there is a postscript. Seven years later, in August 1912, at a house in Eastbourne, Mary Money's brother, Robert, shot two sisters and their three children, of whom he was the father, poured petrol on the bodies, set light to them then turned the gun on himself. One of the women managed, however, to escape despite being wounded. Was this the result of a twisted mind turned by the memories of the earlier killing of his sister, Mary?'

‘When the 2pm train from London Bridge arrived at Preston Park Station just outside Brighton on the afternoon of Monday 27 June 1881, a ticket collector saw a man step unsteadily on to the platform from a first class carriage. He was covered in blood, hatless, without a collar and tie, and very distressed. The collector went to his assistance and he told the collector that he had been attacked just before the train entered Merstham Tunnel. He gave a description of two men who had travelled in the same compartment and said that after receiving a blow on the head he remembered nothing more until the train reached Preston Park. The collector saw nobody else alight from the compartment but he observed that a piece of watch chain was hanging from one of the man's boots. He pointed this out and the passenger remarked that he had put it there for safety. The condition of this strange and somewhat battered passenger, who gave his name as Percy Mapleton Lefroy, was such that the station master arranged for the platform inspector to take him to the police station at the Town Hall, while the collector was sent to advise the railway police. Thereafter the situation developed in such a way that the obtuseness of the railway officials and of the borough and railway police became the subject of editorial comment in The Times while other newspapers said unkind things in less polite terms.

Lefroy made an official complaint at the police station and was then taken to the county hospital for his injuries to be treated. The doctor wanted to detain him but Lefroy insisted upon returning to London where he had an important engagement (although he had only just arrived in Brighton). However, he went to the police station first (buying a collar and tie on the way) and was interviewed by several officers, including the chief constable. Lefroy made a statement and also generously offered a reward for the capture of his assailant. He then went to Brighton station and at this stage somebody seems to have been a little suspicious because he was taken into an office and searched. Two old (counterfeit) coins were found in his possession. He denied all knowledge of these.

In the meantime the carriage was shunted into a siding and an examination made. Three bullet marks were found and there was blood everywhere – on the footboard, mat, door handle, and also on a handkerchief and newspaper left in the compartment. There was, in fact, every sign of a fierce struggle. There were also some coins similar to those found on Lefroy.

In spite of obvious inconsistencies in his story and of the highly suspicious circumstances, neither the Brighton Police, nor the railway police considered it necessary to detain Lefroy. But they were uneasy and although Lefroy was permitted to join a London train, arrangements were made for him to be accompanied by a detective named George Holmes.

At this period some of the railway undertakings, including the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, supplemented their own police staff by the employment of Metropolitan Police officers who were seconded by Scotland Yard for the purpose. The salaries of these officers were paid to Scotland Yard by the railways concerned. Detective Sergeant George Holmes was one of these officers and the widespread criticism of his negligence in this case caused Scotland Yard to disown him by issuing a public statement to the effect that he had been a Metropolitan Police officer for eleven years but was now working for the railway. It is always easy to be wise after the event but perhaps poor Holmes was a little slow as will be seen.

While Lefroy and Holmes were travelling back to London a search of the line was organised. In Balcombe Tunnel, railway staff found the body of an elderly man, later identified as a retired corn merchant named Gold, who lived in Brighton. Gold had been shot and stabbed and near his body was found a knife smeared with blood. It was soon learned that he had been robbed of his watch and chain and a considerable sum of money. The news of the finding of the body was passed along the line and at Three Bridges the station master told Holmes what had happened. Holmes was also instructed by telegram from Brighton not to let Lefroy out of his sight. Lefroy had recovered his balance by this time and on the pretext that he wanted to change his clothes he talked Holmes into accompanying him to an address at Wallington, Surrey where a relative kept a boarding house. They arrived at the house at 9.30pm and Holmes waited outside. He waited a long time because, while his attention was otherwise engaged, Lefroy left the house and disappeared.

A countrywide search was made for Lefroy and his description was published in all the papers. The Daily Telegraph made newspaper history by publishing the portrait of a wanted man for the first time. As usual, men answering the description were seen all over the country and one man was arrested but later released. A conference was held at London Bridge Station and all the railway staff involved were questioned by detective officers. The inquest on Gold was opened on 29 June and lasted several days. Holmes and other officers had a bad time in the witness box and a verdict of wilful murder against Lefroy was returned. The railway company then offered a substantial reward for information leading to his arrest.

Great interest was taken by the public in the daily hue and cry for the missing Lefroy and at last on 8 July he was found in a house at 32 Smith Street, Stepney, where he was lodging in the name of Park. He had kept the blinds down in his room all day and gone out only at night. Bloodstained clothing was found in his room and since he had already been identified as a man who had exchanged some counterfeit coins and also pawned a revolver, the evidence against him was overwhelming. He was a journalist by profession and a plausible type. When arrested, he said: “I am not obliged to say anything and I think it better not to make any answer.” The arresting officer wrote this down in his note book and read it over to Lefroy who added: “I will qualify that by saying I am not guilty.”

Lefroy appeared at Cuckfield Police Court and in due course was tried at Maidstone Assizes before Lord Chief Justice Coleridge. The jury found him guilty after a retirement of ten minutes. Evidence was given by a number of railway witnesses including Holmes, the booking clerk who issued a ticket to Lefroy, the guard of the train, the ticket collector at Preston Park, and also by a woman living at Horley who saw two men struggling violently in a train as it passed her cottage.

Lefroy (whose real name was Mapleton) was hanged at Lewes on 29 November, 1881. At the time of the murder he was desperately short of money and went to London Bridge for the purpose of robbing a passenger. He had hoped to find a lady who would yield to threats but he met a courageous old gentleman who compelled him to murder. Lefroy was a poor specimen and incredibly vain. He asked for permission to wear full evening dress in court because he thought it would impress the jury. He was allowed to take his silk hat and took more interest in this than he did in the proceedings.

It was a long time before the press and public forgot the strange lapse of the officials concerned in the case. The LBSC railway was subjected to a great deal of ridicule and no doubt many police officers were urged to take greater care in future. But they had little cause to worry because it was sixteen years before the next murder on the railway.'

‘The problem of the woman medical student' he wrote, ‘does not consist in questions of delicacy in lecturing. There is no embarrassment involved in the lecturing to mixed classes on the physiology of reproduction, nor on the diseases and accidents incidental to the reproductive functions, nor even in the demonstration of patients suffering from such diseases and accidents.

A certain delicacy in thought and language is called for. Undoubtedly in the past some teachers have been prone to consider that audiences of men students were amused by a flavour of coarseness in the discussion of subjects which since the time of Rabelais had been thus flavoured. Times have changed; even the men students look upon lecturers of this kind as survivals from a less civilised past.

Women students have compelled us teachers to abandon the rustic Rabelaisian humour as well as the leering suggestiveness of Stern. The teaching of medicine has not suffered, nor are the teachers or the taught a penny the worse off...

But those problems of delicacy are not those that cause some of us our chief anxiety.

There is no little difficulty in finding employment for newly qualified women.

Rightly or wrongly they shrink from going into private practice. A few seek the mission field or work among the women of India. The majority however look to Government and municipal service to provide them with whole time appointments and fixed salaries. If they are successful in creating a demand for their services in anything like extent to which they are prepared to offer these services, the wages of a woman doctor will approximate to those of a well-trained stenographer-typist.

Women students and their parents will be well advised carefully to consider the prospects that the medical profession offers before embarking on the long and costly training required for qualification.

There is room for a few exceptional woman doctors. Is there a living for women of average ability? The difficulties my own students are encountering in finding work of any description at all makes me wonder.'