Next in Line (William Warwick, #5)(2)

‘It can’t be worse than four days at Ascot,’ replied the Princess, ‘when I regularly want to faint.’

William wanted to laugh, but managed to prevent himself. ‘The first exhibit,’ he said as they approached a large glass cabinet, ‘includes the early pieces of memorabilia collected by Neame and Randall.’

The Princess looked closely at a collection of weapons used by seventeenth-century criminals to murder their victims, including a walking stick that, with a twist of its knob, became a sword, along with various flick knives, heavy wooden cudgels and knuckle-dusters. William quickly moved on to the next cabinet, which was dedicated to Jack the Ripper, and included a handwritten letter he’d sent to the London Central News Agency in 1888 at the height of his serial killings, taunting the police by predicting they would never catch him. But then, as William reminded his guest, that was before the Met had begun to use fingerprinting to identify criminals, and more than a century before the discovery of DNA.

‘I haven’t fainted yet,’ said the Princess as they moved on to the next cabinet, which contained a pair of antique binoculars. ‘What’s so special about them?’ she asked.

‘They weren’t designed for Ascot, ma’am,’ said William. ‘They were a gift from a particularly unpleasant individual to his fiancée a few days after she had jilted him. When she held them up to her eyes and adjusted the focus, two nails shot out and blinded her. At his trial the accused was asked by prosecuting counsel why he’d done such an evil thing, and he simply replied, “I didn’t want her to look at another man ever again.”’

Diana covered her eyes and William quickly moved on.

‘This next exhibit, ma’am, is particularly fascinating,’ said William, pointing to a small, plain metal box. ‘It provided the vital clue in the first case solved by the Met using fingerprints as evidence. In 1905 the brothers Alfred and Albert Stratton were arrested for the murder of a shop owner, Thomas Farrow, and his wife, Ann. They would have got away with it if Alfred hadn’t left a single thumb print on the empty cash box. They were both found guilty and hanged.’

They moved on to the next cabinet, where the Princess glanced briefly at a photograph before turning to William and saying, ‘Tell me about him.’

‘On the eighteenth of February, 1949, John Haigh killed Olive Durand-Deacon, a wealthy widow, while she was visiting his engineering workshop in Crawley. After Haigh had removed everything of value she had with her, he dissolved her body in a drum of sulphuric acid, believing that if the police were unable to produce a body, he couldn’t be charged with murder. However, he didn’t take into account the expertise of a certain Dr Keith Simpson, a pathologist who discovered three gallstones and a couple of the victim’s false teeth in a pile of rubble at the back of the workshop. Haigh was arrested, convicted and hanged.’

‘You do like to take a girl somewhere romantic on a first date, don’t you, Chief Inspector?’ said the Princess, which caused William to relax and laugh for the first time.

‘Another first,’ he continued as they stopped in front of the next cabinet, ‘was the arrest of Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen, an American homeopath who murdered his wife Cora in London before fleeing to Brussels accompanied by his lover Ethel Le Neve. From Brussels they went on to Antwerp, where Crippen purchased two tickets on the SS Montrose, a steamship bound for Canada. Ethel disguised herself as a young boy, so they could pose as father and son. The captain of the vessel had been shown a wanted poster before the ship set sail, and became suspicious when he saw Crippen and Le Neve holding hands and kissing. He telegraphed Scotland Yard, and Chief Inspector Walter Dew, who was in charge of the case, immediately travelled up to Liverpool and boarded the SS Laurentic, a much faster vessel, which reached Montreal some time before the Montrose. Dew, disguised as a pilot, boarded the ship as it sailed into the St Lawrence river, arrested Crippen and Ethel, and brought them back to England to face trial. The jury only took thirty minutes to find Crippen guilty of murder.’

‘So he also went to the gallows,’ said the Princess cheerfully. ‘But what about Ethel?’

‘She was acquitted of being an accessory after the fact. However, the jury did take considerably longer reaching their decision.’

‘Interesting how it’s so often the women who end up getting away with it,’ said the Princess as they moved into the next room, which didn’t look any more inviting than the previous one.

‘You will now get to meet some well-known East End gangsters,’ declared William. ‘I’ll start with the most notorious of them all, the Kray brothers, Reggie and Ronnie.’

‘Even I’ve heard of them,’ said the Princess, standing in front of black and white mugshots of the notorious twins.

‘Despite committing countless vicious crimes over many years, including murder, on more than one occasion, they proved almost impossible to charge, let alone convict, because no one was willing to come forward and testify against them, being too frightened of the consequences.’

‘So how were they eventually caught?’

‘The police finally arrested them after Reggie murdered a criminal associate called Jack the Hat McVitie in 1967. The Krays were both sentenced to life imprisonment.’

‘And the person who gave evidence?’ asked the Princess.

‘Didn’t celebrate his next birthday, ma’am.’