Behind Closed Doors

The Body at Aldgate

The Body at AldgateApproximately four hours before Constable Fry knocked on Albert Norris's front door, at just after 2 a.m., twenty two-year-old Arthur Ward, employee of the Metropolitan Railway, began his systematic check of the carriages of the last train of the night to have arrived and terminated at Aldgate station. Ward's job entailed opening each carriage door and making sure that all passengers had safely alighted and vacated the train, and to check for any property left behind on the train, which he would then deliver to the lost property office. At such a late hour, it wasn't unusual for the odd late-night reveller to fall asleep in their seat and either miss their stop, or carry on to the end of the line where Arthur Ward, or someone like him, would gently awaken them and coax them from the train.

Each carriage could hold a maximum of ten people, on somewhat uncomfortable bench seats covered in a bare modicum of cloth material that added little in the way of comfort for those travelling on board this latest innovative mode of travel within the capital. As he reached the third carriage of the late night train, Ward opened the door and quickly spotted the reclining figure of a young woman in the corner of one of the bench seats, her head resting against the window of the carriage. She wore a green dress, with a pale brown shawl covering her shoulders. Her boots were well-soled, almost new in appearance and she had the appearance of a respectable young working woman, perhaps a nurse or a midwife, he thought, on her way home from a late shift at one of the local hospitals. He knew that not all nurses lived on the premises in some of the city's larger hospitals. His own cousin, Maude, was a nurse at Charing Cross, and `lived out' at her parents' home.

“End of the line, my dear.” Ward spoke loudly, wanting to wake the woman and see her on her way. “This is Aldgate, lady,” he tried again. “We don't go no further tonight. This is the end of the line.”

When his repeated entreaties received no reply from the apparently sleeping woman, Arthur Ward stepped briskly into the compartment and placed a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently.

“Please, Miss, it's late and you ought to be getting off home, now,” he appealed. Receiving no response, he shook the woman a little harder. This time, he was shocked as, instead of waking and perhaps reproaching him for his familiarity in touching her while she slept, the woman instead slipped slowly away from the window, off the seat itself, then rolled in ungainly fashion onto the floor of the carriage.

Up to that date in his young life, Arthur Ward had never seen or been in close proximity to a dead body. Yet, as he stared down at the figure lying at his feet on the carriage floor, he was in no doubt whatsoever that the young woman was indeed deceased. The blank, staring eyes and pallid appearance of her face were unmistakable clues, and if they needed reinforcing in his mind, that reinforcement came from the small but significant red stain, almost centrally placed on her chest, which was revealed as her shawl slipped back with the movement of her body onto the floor. Arthur knew blood when he saw it; he'd seen enough accidents amongst some of the labourers on the railway to recognise it for what it was. Strangely, his first thought was that there should be more blood, if what he was looking at was a fatal wound, but then, he was no medical expert.

He realised he was shaking. Shock perhaps, he thought, and his legs felt like lead, though he knew he couldn't stand there staring at the woman's body all night. He had to get help, to report his grisly find and so, with a superhuman effort, Arthur Ward forced his legs to move, as he beat a retreat from the carriage and made his way along the platform to the station master's office. The station master, Edgar Rowe, had long since left for the night and his office was currently occupied by the night-time supervisor, Maurice Belton. Belton was also preparing to finish work for the night, as soon as Arthur Ward reported to him that the train was clear and the station could be locked up until the early morning shift arrived, in little less than two hours' time.

Belton smiled as young Arthur entered the office, but the smile soon turned to a look of worried puzzlement as he saw the shocked look and pallor clearly apparent on the younger man's face.

“Arthur? What's wrong? You look as if you've seen a ghost.”

“Worse than that, Mr. Belton, I've found a body!” Arthur shouted.

“A body? What sort of body?” asked Belton, realising as he spoke that it was probably the stupidest question he'd ever asked in his life.

“The dead sort, Mr. Belton. A woman, a young one, in one of the carriages. It's horrible, really. She's got a red bloodstain on her chest. I think she's been shot.”

“All right, Arthur, calm down a bit, there's a good lad. I think you'd better show me this body of yours before we go any further.”

“T'ain't no body of mine, Mr. Belton, that's for sure.”

“Yes, well, anyway, you'd better show me,” said Belton. He extricated his slightly ponderous bulk from the space behind the desk and made his way with Arthur Ward to the carriage where the recumbent body of the young woman lay.

After confirming what Arthur Ward already knew, in other words, that the woman was beyond any help from the living, Belton sent the hapless young man to find a constable, or, if one couldn't be found, he instructed the young man to run to the nearest police station, some ten minutes' walk away, and bring back a policeman.

Glad to be out of the claustrophobic atmosphere of the underground station concourse, Arthur Ward gulped in huge lungfuls of air as he arrived on the street outside Aldgate station. He was glad to escape from the all-pervading smell that always lingered within the confines of his place of work; a mixture of stale smoke, steam, coal dust and other noxious elements that hung like a pall on every yard of the railway. As luck would have it, within two minutes of leaving the station he turned a corner to find himself face to face with a uniformed police constable, and the young man quickly blurted out his story.

“There's been a murder, on the train, in the station,” he babbled at the surprised police officer, who, seeing the man's agitated state, took hold of his arm.

“Now, then,” the officer said, soothingly. “What murder is this you're referring to? Which station do you mean? Give me the facts, man, and we can sort this out sooner.”

“Aldgate station. Yes, of course, I'm sorry. I found the body in a carriage. It's a young woman and there's a big red wound in her chest.”

“Is there anyone with her now?” asked the constable.

“Yes, Mr. Belton the night station supervisor's with her.”

“Right then, here's what I want you to do, young fellow. What's your name, by the way?”

“Ward, sir. Arthur Ward.”

“Right, Arthur. I want you to run to New Street police station, it's not far from here. D'you know it?”

Arthur nodded.

“Good. Tell the sergeant on duty that Constable Wilkinson sent you to report the murder of a young woman. Give him all the details you can, and he'll send someone to Aldgate as soon as he can. I'll be there, waiting for them.”

“Yes, right. I'll be as fast as I can,” Arthur replied.

Police Constable Bob Wilkinson quickly made his way to Aldgate, where he found Maurice Belton standing on the platform, outside the carriage that Wilkinson assumed held the body of the deceased. Indeed, Belton had seen enough of the corpse and had spent little time with the body after sending Ward on his mission. Rightly, he'd also suspected that the less he encroached upon the scene, the less chance there was of him compromising any evidence the killer might have left behind.

“Mr. Belton, is it, sir?”

“Maurice Belton, yes, that's right, Constable.”

“The body, sir?”

“In there.” Belton pointed at the appropriate carriage door.

Wilkinson stepped past the night supervisor, into the murder scene and within minutes, he was joined by both a uniformed sergeant and a young plain clothes detective, accompanied by Arthur Ward, who waited on the platform with Belton. The detective, a Sergeant Dove, appeared to take charge of the scene, and it was he, a short time later, who soon sent Wilkinson back to the station with instructions that would see the crime reported to higher authority in rapid time.

Even Dove was unaware just how high his message would be passed in a short space of time, or that within hours, he would be joined at the scene by Detective Inspector Albert Norris, who himself was being summoned from his home and given some rather unusual instructions regarding the investigation that was being handed to him.

For now, Detective Sergeant Dove and Sergeant Lee made sure the scene was as secure as they could make it, and Constable Wilkinson was put to work taking preliminary statements from both Arthur Ward and Maurice Belton, though Dove was certain that whoever arrived to take charge of the case would need to speak to both men, too. For that reason, the sergeant forbade the two men from leaving the station until an inspector arrived.

“But my wife will worry,” Belton protested. “I'm already late home from work and if I have to hang around here for hours, she'll be certain I've been murdered or met with an accident.”

“Too right,” added Arthur Ward. “And my mum and dad will wonder what's become of me, too.”

Dove pondered for a moment.

Sergeant Lee provided the solution they required.

“I'll run back to New Street and arrange for a constable to get messages to their homes, if they'll provide me with their addresses,” he volunteered. “I can do that and be back here in no time.”

Belton and Ward provided the information Lee required and he set off to arrange for their families to be told simply that there'd been an incident at work and that they were both assisting the police with their inquiries and would return home soon.

Tobias Dove was soon hard at work, searching the carriage and inspecting the woman's body to the best of his ability. He wanted to locate as many clues as possible, to present to whichever inspector might arrive to take charge of the case. He quickly found himself baffled by the apparent lack of any substantive evidence, either on the body of the deceased, or in the carriage itself.

Joined soon afterwards by Sergeant Lee, who'd brought two more constables with him to help in the search for clues, Dove continued in his investigation until the arrival, an hour later, of the police surgeon, Doctor Roebuck. The surgeon had been summoned from his bed by a uniformed officer, sent by Lee as soon as he'd returned to New Street with confirmation that a body had indeed been discovered, and that foul play was suspected.

Doctor Roebuck busied himself with an examination of the body, during which time Constable Fry had been despatched by the chief inspector, himself woken from his slumbers by a runner, to bring Inspector Albert Norris into his office for a briefing on the case. As the ever-growing official contingent assembled on the platform at Aldgate, Albert Norris found himself seated opposite his superior officer, receiving a rather strange briefing. It was certainly one such as he'd never heard the like of before, in all his years on the force.