Heaven Knows Who (5 page)

M'Quarrie was surprised and so was George Paton. No. 17 never took ‘nae milk'. Paton had been serving other customers but keeping an eye on his boys, and he had observed that the door of No. 17 was opened with very little delay, though only a ‘small bit', so that he had not seen who was inside it. (A milkman's ‘very little delay' would allow for a minute or two—the customer would not commonly be crouching in the hall ready to spring out for milk: most of the maids on his round would have to make their way up from the basement). He asked M'Quarrie who it was that had answered the door and refused milk. M'Quarrie said it was old Mr Fleming.

They had now finished in Sandyford Place and were ready to move on. George Paton looked at his watch and saw that it was just twenty to eight.

And at 182 Broomielaw Street, Mrs. Campbell also was taking in the milk. The mistress of the house had not yet come home.

¹
See p. 31

CHAPTER THREE

At nine o'clock, Mrs M'Lachlan knocked at the door of her ‘house' in the Broomielaw. Mrs Campbell opened to her and, with only a murmured greeting she passed straight on down the corridor to her own room. She was wearing her brown bonnet and the grey cloak; and under the cloak she carried a very large bundle.

She reappeared shortly afterwards, carrying a clothes basket, and went downstairs to the cellar where she was in the habit of keeping some of her things—no doubt those displaced when she let her two rooms; and now Mrs Campbell saw that she was wearing a dress she had not been seen wearing before, a dress of reddish merino, trimmed with blue velvet, pleated at the back. She returned to her own room and later called out to Mrs Campbell asking her to kindle a fire in her room for her. She then went out, taking her little boy. It was hardly an hour since she had come home.

She was back some time between one and two and Mrs Campbell followed her down to her room and asked for the return of the little black basket she had borrowed the night before. She was now wearing a dress of her own which Mrs Campbell recognised; a dress of blue and black shaded poplin.

Poor Jessie had had a very active morning. She had been first to an ironmonger's and there asked to see a bonnet-box, with a lock to it. She was shown several and chose one of them, a black japanned box, of a popular model. She was carrying a bundle and she put the bundle into the box and locked the padlock and kept the key. The assistant serving her was a young man named Nish who at the time of the trial was in Antigua; but the proprietor recognised their private mark on the bottom of the box and his son had overheard the whole transaction. She asked Nish to put an Edinburgh address on the box: the witness understood her to say that she would be taking it to Edinburgh or at any rate taking it to the Edinburgh station. Meantime, she said, she would
leave it and come back for it later: before four o'clock—they closed at four on Saturdays. But she did not, in fact, come back for it that day.

Mary Adams lodged with a Mrs Rainny. Mrs Adams was the woman who did Mrs M'Lachlan's washing, who had pawned the looking-glass for her the evening before, and who had forgotten to give the message to the locksmith. She had been too unwell to keep her promise to go round and sit with the baby, but this morning by six o'clock she had duly got herself up and gone off out to work. She was still out when Jessie called at the house some time after eleven.

A small child opened the door.

Mary Adams being out Jessie asked Mrs Rainny ‘if she had a wee boy to go a message for her.' No suitable wee boy being available she asked if Mrs Rainny would go herself (she seems—perhaps because her constant ill-health had accustomed her to relying upon assistance, perhaps because she herself was always kind and obliging and she took it for granted in others—to have been very ready to ask such favours of people).

Mrs Rainny agreed, and was given a pawn ticket and a ‘paper note'—a pound, or ten shillings—and instructed to go round to Hutchinson's pawn in Argyle Street and ‘lift' a bundle.

It seems probable that it was while Mrs Rainny was away on this errand, or before she left, that Jessie went out again. Some time in the morning she bought herself a new bonnet—paying four and tenpence for it, which seems not expensive considering that ‘it was to be sent home to her'. She had on no bonnet while she was at Mrs Rainny's; and it may be said here that the pale brown velvet she had worn when she set out the evening before, and still wore when she came home the next morning, was from that hour never seen again.

According to Mrs Rainny it was between eleven and half past that Mrs M'Lachlan came to her house. It was after eleven but certainly before twelve—they banked their takings at twelve that day—that the accountants collecting the rents for the Broomielaw estate received a surprise visit from their habitually errant tenant, with four pounds to pay off on her arrears. She was at this time almost five pounds in their debt, but had been given till the end of August to settle.

From their office in West Nile Street it was a fifteen minutes'
walk to Lundie's pawnshop in Great Clyde Street—up through Mitchell Street and across the Cowcaddens. Jessie arrived there some time after twelve. She had at that time no child with her: she had perhaps left it at Mrs Rainny's?—she had told her she was wearied with carrying the boy about the streets. She went into one of the booths and the pawnbroker's son, Robert Lundie, attended her. She gave her name as Mary M'Donald of 5 St Vincent Street and said that her mistress was behind in her rent and had sent her to pawn some silver. She produced it—six silver tablespoons, six plated dessert spoons, six silver toddy ladles, a silver fish slice, a silver soup divider—whatever that may have been—and two silver teaspoons, a plated sauce spoon and six plated forks. She asked six pounds ten shillings for them but was offered and accepted six pounds fifteen.

All the silver was marked with an ‘F'.

Mrs Rainny, meanwhile, had been to the pawn and redeemed the bundle and brought it home unexamined. Mrs M'Lachlan opened it out in front of her. It contained a ‘black and blue shaded poplin gown'—this explains why it was later described by some witnesses as blue and by some as black—and she asked leave to change into it there: she was ‘going down the water wi' her man' and wanted to wear it, and besides she was taking the one she had on, to the dyer's. Mrs Rainny thought this was a pity: it was a nice dress, a cinnamon brown merino—but Jessie said no, she would prefer it black. She gave Mrs Rainny a penny for her two elder children and a shilling for the youngest: presumably the small boy who had opened the door for her but was too young to be sent to the pawnshop.

A glance at Jessie's curious finances may at this time be profitable. She had the night before sent out to pawn a mirror for six shillings to raise money to redeem her cloak; because she couldn't go out without the cloak. Of this she had paid out four shillings and sevenpence ha'penny to lift the cloak, sevenpence ha'penny for rum, and whatever was the cost of the biscuits. Since ten o'clock this morning, however, she had paid for the black japanned box (from later events one may deduce this to have cost four and six or five shillings) and four pounds off her arrears in rent. She had handed Mrs Rainny ‘a paper note' to redeem the poplin dress from Hutchinson's pawn; and she had probably bought her four-and-tenpenny bonnet, though this may have
been done later. But all this had come
before
she went to the pawnshop with the silver; she herself in a statement made later agreed that it had happened before she pawned the silver. It was afterwards that she was able to be so liberal to the youngest Rainny; but in any event Mrs Rainny had had change to give her back from the paper note out of which she had paid the three shillings and a penny ha'penny on the poplin dress.

She left a message for Mary Adams with Mrs Rainny and went on.

Miss M'Crone in the dyer's shop in Argyle Street was surprised when the client—the same ‘Mrs M'Donald', that had gone to the pawnshop—wanted her nice cinnamon-coloured merino dyed black. But the woman insisted, and she further drew her attention to the grey cloak she wore and said she wanted it cleaned; she was going out to buy a plaid and would bring the cloak back. She was away about half an hour and came back in a black plaid, carrying the cloak (a plaid is a big, heavy, woollen shawl, as much like an ordinary carriage rug as anything else, worn folded into a triangle over the shoulders, which was common in Scotland and is still worn in out of the way parts). Miss M'Crone remarked that the tassels on the cloak were ‘no use' and suggested that she should cut them off. She did so and gave the tassels to the customer who took them away with her. Miss Crone fixed the letters ‘M'D' on a corner of the dress and sent it off to the dyers. The dress had no flounces.

Whatever time Jessie may have got home for her lunch, at two o'clock, according to Mrs Campbell's evidence, taking the little boy with her, she was off out again. She was back very soon and left again at some time about three or four o'clock, taking a black leather trunk with her. But Mrs Campbell's memory does seem to have become a little confused, as well it might with all this to-ing and fro-ing; for someone else had in fact dealt with this famous black trunk. (Mrs Campbell further says that when Jessie again went out, later that night, she was wearing her customary grey cloak; but we know that this cloak had been left that afternoon at the cleaner's).

Miss Sarah Adams was a highly experienced young woman. At twelve years old, she had already quite a record of servitude to her credit: she had been with Mrs M'Lachlan at her three past addresses. Moreover, she had been mixed up in a court case
before this, having two years ago been called to give evidence on behalf of the pursuer, a Miss Mackay. This grateful lady had presented her with a dress and a bonnet in gratitude—as previously promised; whereupon Sarah's evidence was discovered by her mother to have been a prearranged tarraddiddle. That a child of ten could be bribed to tell a false story may be sad but seems, perhaps, not so very heinous; her mother, however, thrashed her and very rightly ‘put her back to tell the truth'. Her mother was the Mary Adams of the washing, the pawned mirror and the forgotten message to the locksmith.

Sarah Adams is the only witness to have found an unkind word to say about Jessie M'Lachlan. ‘Was she a good tempered woman?'

‘Yes.'

‘Was she kind to you?'

‘Yes.' She qualifies, ‘She never struck me; but she has flyted on me; she flyted on me more than anybody else in the house. When I went a message and did not come back quick, I used to get a flyting.'

‘But she was not a cross, ill-tempered woman, was she?'

‘No,' says Sarah. But she again qualifies. ‘Sometimes she was.'

‘But she never lifted her hand?'

‘No, not to me.' And now she flat out contradicts herself. ‘I cannot say that she was very good tempered.'

Poor little, pitiful veteran slavey of only twelve years old: and poor, harassed, ailing, exasperated Jessie—who after all was only twenty-eight herself.

Sarah had left the Broomielaw some weeks before the murder and gone into service elsewhere; but on that famous Saturday, the day after the murder, it being her day off, she called in at about half past three in the afternoon to see Mrs M'Lachlan—whether by arrangement to do some work, or merely as a visitor, is not apparent. Mrs M'Lachlan, at any rate, immediately requested another of her favours. She was writing in her room when Sarah arrived—writing an address which, however, Sarah did not understand for though she could read print she ‘couldna read writing.' She asked if Sarah would go a message for her—would she carry a trunk to the Hamilton station? This was agreed, and, picking up the written label and a little hammer, she told the child to come down to the cellar with her; and to bring
the baby. By the time twelve years old had struggled down three flights of stairs humping three years old, she was already fixing the label to the trunk, presumably with the aid of the little hammer. She told Sarah to ‘pass by the cellar' but later called to her to come and see if the trunk were not too heavy for her. It was a small black leather trunk of her' own which Sarah had often seen before, now tied up with a thin twine. Sarah found that she was able to carry it.

She was given a shilling and told to take the trunk by way of the Broomielaw Bridge to the station of the Hamilton railway. She was not to open it, and she was to say nothing about it to her mother—Mrs M'Lachlan thought for some unspecified reason that her mother might be angry. In fact she had better not tell anyone at all about it.

So Sarah staggered off with her burden which the clerk at the station, David Barclay, found to weigh twenty-one pounds. It was labelled: ‘Mrs Bain, Hamilton station: to lie till called for.' He charged her fourpence on it and it was duly sent off and on the same day duly arrived at Hamilton. Sarah went back to the Broomielaw and was rewarded with threepence.

No sooner can Sarah have left, than her mother Mary Adams arrived, having received the message left with Mrs Rainny. She noted, somewhat to her surprise, for she knew it to have been in pawn, that Mrs M'Lachlan was wearing her black and blue shaded poplin. She made no comment but merely said she had heard Mrs M'Lachlan had been asking for her, adding, ‘Had you to go on your own errand?' This she said because she knew that Mrs M'Lachlan never went herself to the pawnshop. Since she presumably can have known nothing of the adventure with the silver, she must have been referring to the poplin dress, not yet having heard that Mrs Rainny had gone to lift it. Jessie made no direct answer; but now asked her to go to Clark's and redeem whatever was in pawn there. She handed over the three tickets, and two pounds in money.

Mrs Adams, who only last night had raised six urgently needed shillings on the looking-glass, was naturally somewhat puzzled. She said, joking: ‘Who have you been robbing?' Jessie said it was money that her husband had left for the tailor. Mrs Adams went off and redeemed a silver watch, a dress coat and two shirts of James M'Lachlan's, and a ring of Jessie's, and was rewarded
with the crinoline wires of a petticoat which, Jessie suggested, she might be able to cut down for Sarah: the little boy had pushed them against the fire and damaged them.