On a Sunday, the 5th of February, 1733, there came
toddling into that narrow passage of the Temple known as Tanfield
Court an elderly lady by the name of Mrs Love. It was just after one
o'clock of the afternoon. The giants of St Dunstan's behind her had
only a minute before rapped out the hour with their clubs.
Mrs Love's business was at once charitable and
social. She was going, by appointment made on the previous Friday
night, to eat dinner with a frail old lady named Mrs Duncomb, who
lived in chambers on the third floor of one of the buildings that had
entry from the court.
Mrs Duncomb was the widow of a law stationer of the
City. She had been a widow for a good number of years. The deceased
law stationer, if he had not left her rich, at least had left her in
fairly comfortable circumstances. It was said about the environs that
she had some property, and this fact, combined with the other that she
was obviously nearing the end of life's journey, made her an object of
melancholy interest to the womenkind of the neighbourhood.
Mrs Duncomb was looked after by a couple of
servants. One of them, Betty Harrison, had been the old lady's
companion for a lifetime. Mrs Duncomb, described as "old,'' was only
sixty.[16] Her weakness and bodily condition seem to have
made her appear much older. Betty, then, also described as "old,'' may
have been of an age with her mistress, or even older. She was, at all
events, not by much less frail. The other servant was a comparatively
new addition to the establishment, a fresh little girl of about
seventeen, Ann (or Nanny) Price by name.
[16] According to one account. The Newgate
Calendar (London 1773) gives Mrs Duncomb's age as eighty and that of
the maid Betty as sixty.
Mrs Love climbed the three flights of stairs to the
top landing. It surprised her, or disturbed her, but little that she
found no signs of life on the various floors, because it was, as we
have seen, a Sunday. The occupants of the chambers of the staircase,
mostly gentlemen connected in one way or another with the law, would
be, she knew abroad for the eating of their Sunday dinners, either at
their favourite taverns or at commons in the Temple itself. What did
rather disturb kindly Mrs Love was the fact that she found Mrs
Duncomb's outer door closed--an unwonted fact--and it faintly
surprised her that no odour of cooking greeted her nostrils.
Mrs Love knocked. There was no reply. She knocked,
indeed, at intervals over a period of some fifteen minutes, still
obtaining no response. The disturbed sense of something being wrong
became stronger and stronger in the mind of Mrs Love.
On the night of the previous Friday she had been
calling upon Mrs Duncomb, and she had found the old lady very weak,
very nervous, and very low in spirits. It had not been a very cheerful
visit all round, because the old maidservant, Betty Harrison, had also
been far from well. There had been a good deal of talk between the old
women of dying, a subject to which their minds had been very prone to
revert. Besides Mrs Love there were two other visitors, but they too
failed to cheer the old couple up. One of the visitors, a laundress of
the Temple called Mrs Oliphant, had done her best, poohpoohing such
melancholy talk, and attributing the low spirits in which the old
women found themselves to the bleakness of the February weather, and
promising them that they would find a new lease of life with the
advent of spring. But Mrs Betty especially had been hard to console.
''
As she stood in considerable perturbation of mind
on the cheerless third-floor landing that Sunday afternoon Mrs Love
found small matter for comfort in her memory of the Friday evening.
She remembered that old Mrs Duncomb had spoken complainingly of the
lonesomeness which had come upon her floor by the vacation of the
chambers opposite her on the landing. The tenant had gone a day or two
before, leaving the rooms empty of furniture, and the key with a Mr
Twysden.
Mrs. Love, turning to view the door opposite to
that on which she had been rapping so long and so ineffectively, had a
shuddery feeling that she was alone on the top of the world.
She remembered how she had left Mrs Duncomb on the
Friday night. Mrs Oliphant had departed first, accompanied by the
second visitor, one Sarah Malcolm, a charwoman who had worked for Mrs
Duncomb up to the previous Christmas, and who had called in to see how
her former employer was faring. An odd, silent sort of young woman
this Sarah, good-looking in a hardfeatured sort of way, she had taken
but a very small part in the conversation, but had sat staring rather
sullenly into the fire by the side of Betty Harrison, or else casting
a flickering glance about the room.
Mrs Love, before following the other two women
downstairs, had helped the ailing Betty to get Mrs Duncomb settled for
the night. In the dim candle-light and the faint glow of the fire that
scarce illumined the wainscoted room the high tester-bed of the old
lady, with its curtains, had seemed like a shadowed catafalque, an
illusion nothing lessened by the frail old figure under the
bedclothing.
It came to the mind of Mrs Love that the illness
manifesting itself in Betty on the Friday night had worsened. Nanny,
she imagined, must have gone abroad on some errand. The old servant,
she thought, was too ill to come to the door, and her voice would be
too weak to convey an answer to the knocking. Mrs Love, not without a
shudder for the chill feeling of that top landing, betook herself
downstairs again to make what inquiry she might. It happened that she
met one of her fellow-visitors of the Friday night, Mrs Oliphant.
Mrs Oliphant was sympathetic, but could not give
any information. She had seen no member of the old lady's
establishment that day. She could only advise Mrs Love to go upstairs
again and knock louder.
This Mrs Love did, but again got no reply. She then
evolved the theory that Betty had died during the night, and that
Nanny, Mrs Duncomb being confined to bed, had gone to look for help,
possibly from her sister, and to find a woman who would lay out the
body of the old servant. With this in her mind Mrs Love descended the
stairs once more, and went to look for another friend of Mrs
Duncomb's, a Mrs Rhymer.
Mrs Rhymer was a friend of the old lady's of some
thirty years' standing. She was, indeed, named as executrix in Mrs
Duncomb's will. Mrs Love finding her and explaining the situation as
she saw it, Mrs Rhymer at once returned with Mrs Love to Tanfield
Court.
The two women ascended the stairs, and tried
pushing the old lady's door. It refused to yield to their efforts.
Then Mrs Love went to the staircase window that overlooked the court,
and gazed around to see if there was anyone about who might help. Some
distance away, at the door, we are told,
"Prithee, Sarah,'' begged Mrs Love,
By now both Mrs Love and Mrs Rhymer had become
deeply apprehensive, and the former appealed to Mrs Oliphant. "I do
believe they are all dead, and the smith is not come!'' cried Mrs
Love.
Mrs Oliphant, much younger than the others, seems
to have been a woman of resource. She had from Mr Twysden, she said,
the key of the vacant chambers opposite to Mrs Duncomb's. "Now let me
see,'' she continued,
The other women urged her to try.[17] Mrs
Oliphant set off, her heels echoing in the empty rooms. Presently the
waiting women heard a pane snap, and they guessed that Mrs Oliphant
had broken through Mrs Duncomb's casement to get at the handle. They
heard, through the door, the noise of furniture being moved as she got
through the window. Then came a shriek, the scuffle of feet. The outer
door of Mrs Duncomb's chambers was flung open. Mrs Oliphant,
ashen-faced, appeared on the landing.
[17] One account says it was Sarah Malcolm who
entered via the gutter and window. Borrow, however, in his Celebrated
Trials, quotes Mrs Oliphant's evidence in court on this point.
All four women pressed into the chambers. All three
of the women occupying them had been murdered. In the passage or lobby
little Nanny Price lay in her bed in a welter of blood, her throat
savagely cut. Her hair was loose and over her eyes, her clenched hands
all bloodied about her throat.
It was apparent that she had struggled desperately
for life. Next door, in the dining-room, old Betty Harrison lay across
the press-bed in which she usually slept. Being in the habit of
keeping her gown on for warmth, as it was said, she was partially
dressed. She had been strangled, it seemed,
In her bedroom, also across her bed, lay the dead
body of old Mrs Duncomb. There had been here also an attempt to
strangle, an unnecessary attempt it appeared, for the crease about the
neck was very faint. Frail as the old lady had been, the mere weight
of the murderer's body, it was conjectured, had been enough to kill
her.
These pathological details were established on the
arrival later of Mr Bigg, the surgeon, fetched from the Rainbow
Coffee-house near by by Fairlow, one of the Temple porters. But the
four women could see enough for themselves, without the help of Mr
Bigg, to understand how death had been dealt in all three cases. They
could see quite clearly also for what motive the crime had been
committed. A black strong-box, with papers scattered about it, lay
beside Mrs Duncomb's bed, its lid forced open. It was in this box that
the old lady had been accustomed to keep her money.
If any witness had been needed to say what the
black box had contained there was Mrs Rhymer, executrix under the old
lady's will. And if Mrs. Rhymer had been at any need to refresh her
memory regarding the contents opportunity had been given her no
farther back than the afternoon of the previous Thursday. On that day
she had called upon Mrs Duncomb to take tea and to talk affairs. Three
or four years before, with her rapidly increasing frailness, the old
lady's memory had begun to fail. Mrs Rhymer acted for her as a sort of
unofficial curator bonis, receiving her money and depositing it in the
black box, of which she kept the key.
On the Thursday, old Betty and young Nanny being
sent from the room, the old lady had told Mrs Rhymer that she needed
some money--a guinea. Mrs Rhymer had gone through the solemn process
of opening the black box, and, one must suppose--old ladies nearing
their end being what they are--had been at need to tell over the
contents of the box for the hundredth time, just to reassure Mrs
Duncomb that she thoroughly understood the duties she had agreed to
undertake as executrix
At the top of the box was a silver tankard. It had
belonged to Mrs Duncomb's husband. In the tankard was a hundred
pounds. Beside the tankard lay a bag containing guinea pieces to the
number of twenty or so. This was the bag that Mrs Rhymer had carried
over to the old lady's chair by the fire, in order to take from it the
needed guinea.
There were some half-dozen packets of money in the
box, each sealed with black wax and set aside for particular purposes
after Mrs Duncomb's death. Other sums, greater in quantity than those
contained in the packets, were earmarked in the same way. There was,
for example, twenty guineas set aside for the old lady's burial,
eighteen moidores to meet unforeseen contingencies, and in a green
purse some thirty or forty shillings, which were to be distributed
among poor people of Mrs Duncomb's acquaintance.
The ritual of telling over the box contents, if
something ghostly, had had its usual effect of comforting the old
lady's mind. It consoled her to know that all arrangements were in
order for her passing in genteel fashion to her long home, that all
the decorums of respectable demise would be observed, and that
The motive for the crime, as said, was plain. The
black box had been forced, and there was no sign of tankard, packets,
green purse, or bag of guineas.
The horror and distress of the old lady's friends
that Sunday afternoon may better be imagined than described. Loudest
of the four, we are told, was Sarah Malcolm. It is also said that she
was, however, the coolest, keen to point out the various methods by
which the murderers (for the crime to her did not look like a
single-handed effort) could have got into the chambers.
She drew attention to the wideness of the kitchen
chimney and to the weakness of the lock in the door to the vacant
rooms on the other side of the landing. She also pointed out that,
since the bolt of the spring-lock of the outer door to Mrs Duncomb's
rooms had been engaged when they arrived, the miscreants could not
have used that exit.
This last piece of deduction on Sarah's part,
however, was made rather negligible by experiments presently carried
out by the porter, Fairlow, with the aid of a piece of string. He
showed that a person outside the shut door could quite easily pull the
bolt to on the inside.
The news of the triple murder quickly spread, and
it was not long before a crowd had collected in Tanfield Court, up the
stairs to Mrs. Duncomb's landing, and round about the door of Mrs
Duncomb's chambers. It did not disperse until the officers had made
their investigations and the bodies of the three victims had been
removed. And even then, one may be sure, there would still be a few of
those odd sort of people hanging about who, in those times as in
these, must linger on the scene of a crime long after the last drop of
interest has evaporated.
Two further actors now come upon the scene. And for
the proper grasping of events we must go back an hour or two in time
to notice their activities.
They are a Mr Gehagan, a young Irish barrister, and
a friend of his named Kerrel.[18] These young men occupy
chambers on opposite sides of the same landing, the third floor, over
the Alienation Office in Tanfield Court.
[18] Or Kerrol--the name varies in different
accounts of the crime.
Mr Gehagan was one of Sarah Malcolm's employers.
That Sunday morning at nine she had appeared in his rooms to do them
up and to light the fire. While Gehagan was talking to Sarah he was
joined by his friend Kerrel, who offered to stand him some tea. Sarah
was given a shilling and sent out to buy tea. She returned and made
the brew, then remained about the chambers until the horn blew, as was
then the Temple custom, for commons. The two young men departed. After
commons they walked for a while in the Temple Gardens, then returned
to Tanfield Court.
By this time the crowd attracted by the murder was
blocking up the court, and Gehagan asked what was the matter. He was
told of the murder, and he remarked to Kerrel that the old lady had
been their charwoman's acquaintance.
The two friends then made their way to a
coffee-house in Covent Garden. There was some talk there of the
murder, and the theory was advanced by some one that it could have
been done only by some laundress who knew the chambers and how to get
in and out of them.
From Covent Garden, towards night, Gehagan and
Kerrel went to a tavern in Essex Street, and there they stayed
carousing until one o'clock in the morning, when they left for the
Temple. They were not a little astonished on reaching their common
landing to find Kerrel's door open, a fire burning in the grate of his
room, and a candle on the table. By the fire, with a dark riding-hood
about her head, was Sarah Malcolm.
To Kerrel's natural question of what she was doing
there at such an unearthly hour she muttered something about having
things to collect. Kerrel then, reminding her that Mrs Duncomb had
been her acquaintance, asked her if anyone had been ``taken up'' for
the murder.
"That Mr Knight,'' Sarah replied, "who has chambers
under her, has been absent two or three days. He is suspected.''
''
Kerrel's suspicion thickened, and he asked his
friend to run downstairs and call up the watch. Gehagan ran down, but
found difficulty in opening the door below, and had to return. Kerrel
himself went down then, and came back with two watchmen. They found
Sarah in the bedroom at a chest of drawers, in which she was turning
over some linen that she claimed to be hers. The now completely
suspicious Kerrel went to his closet, and noticed that two or three
waistcoats were missing from a portmanteau. He asked Sarah where they
were; upon which Sarah, with an eye to the watchmen and to Gehagan,
begged to be allowed to speak with him alone.
Kerrel refused, saying he could have no business
with her that was secret.
Sarah then confessed that she had pawned the
missing waistcoats for two guineas, and begged him not to be angry.
Kerrel asked her why she had not asked him for money. He could readily
forgive her for pawning the waistcoats, but, having heard her talk of
Mrs Lydia Duncomb, he was afraid she was concerned with the murder.
A pair of earrings were found in the drawers, and
these Sarah claimed, putting them in her corsage. An odd-looking
bundle in the closet then attracted Kerrel's attention, and he kicked
it, and asked Sarah what it was. She said it was merely dirty linen
wrapped up in an old gown. She did not wish it exposed. Kerrel made
further search, and found that other things were missing. He told the
watch to take the woman and hold her strictly.
Sarah was led away. Kerrel, now thoroughly roused,
continued his search, and he found underneath his bed another bundle.
He also came upon some bloodstained linen in another place, and in a
close-stool a silver tankard, upon the handle of which was a lot of
dried blood.
Kerrel's excitement passed to Gehagan, and the two
of them went at speed downstairs yelling for the watch. After a little
the two watchmen reappeared, but without Sarah. They had let her go,
they said, because they had found nothing on her, and, besides, she
had not been charged before a constable.
One here comes upon a recital by the watchmen which
reveals the extraordinary slackness in dealing with suspect persons
that characterized the guardians of the peace in London in those
times. They had let the woman go, but she had come back. Her home was
in Shoreditch, she said, and rather than walk all that way on a cold
and boisterous night she had wanted to sit up in the watch-house. The
watchmen refused to let her do this, but ordered her to "go about her
business,'' advising her sternly at the same time to turn up again by
ten o'clock in the morning. Sarah had given her word, and had gone
away.
On hearing this story Kerrel became very angry,
threatening the two watchmen, Hughes and Mastreter, with Newgate if
they did not pick her up again immediately. Upon this the watchmen
scurried off as quickly as their age and the cumbrous nature of their
clothing would let them.
They found Sarah in the company of two other
watchmen at the gate of the Temple. Hughes, as a means of persuading
her to go with them more easily, told her that Kerrel wanted to speak
with her, and that he was not angry any longer. Presently, in Tanfield
Court, they came on the two young men carrying the tankard and the
bloodied linen. This time it was Gehagan who did the talking. He
accused Sarah furiously, showing her the tankard. Sarah attempted to
wipe the blood off the tankard handle with her apron. Gehagan stopped
her.
Sarah said the tankard was her own. Her mother had
given it her, and she had had it for five years. It was to get the
tankard out of pawn that she had taken Kerrel's waistcoats, needing
thirty shillings. The blood on the handle was due to her having
pricked a finger.
With this began the series of lies Sarah Malcolm
put up in her defence. She was hauled into the watchman's box and more
thoroughly searched. A green silk purse containing twenty-one guineas
was found in the bosom of her dress. This purse Sarah declared she had
found in the street, and as an excuse for its cleanliness, unlikely
with the streets as foul as they were at that age and time of year,
said she had washed it. Both bundles of linen were bloodstained. There
was some doubt as to the identity of the green purse.
Mrs Rhymer, who, as we have seen, was likelier than
anyone to recognize it, would not swear it was the green purse that
had been in Mrs Duncomb's black box. There was, however, no doubt at
all about the tankard. It had the initials "C. D.'' engraved upon it,
and was at once identified as Mrs Duncomb's. The linen which Sarah had
been handling in Mr Kerrel's drawer was said to be darned in a way
recognizable as Mrs Duncomb's. It had lain beside the tankard and the
money in the black box.
There was, it will be seen, but very little doubt
of Sarah Malcolm's guilt. According to the reports of her trial,
however, she fought fiercely for her life, questioning the witnesses
closely. Some of them, such as could remember small points against
her, but who failed in recollection of the colour of her dress or of
the exact number of the coins said to be lost, she vehemently
denounced.
One of the Newgate turnkeys told how some of the
missing money was discovered. Being brought from the Compter to
Newgate, Sarah happened to see a room in which debtors were confined.
She asked the turnkey, Roger Johnson, if she could be kept there.
Johnson replied that it would cost her a guinea, but that from her
appearance it did not look to him as if she could afford so much.
Sarah seems to have bragged then, saying that if
the charge was twice or thrice as much she could send for a friend who
would pay it. Her attitude probably made the turnkey suspicious. At
any rate, after Sarah had mixed for some time with the felons in the
prison taproom, Johnson called her out and, lighting the way by use of
a link, led her to an empty room.
To the best of his knowledge, said this turnkey,
having told the money over, there were twenty moidores, eighteen
guineas, five broad pieces, a half-broad piece, five crowns, and two
or three shillings. He thought there was also a twenty-five-shilling
piece and some others, twenty-three-shilling pieces. He had sealed
them up in the bag, and there they were (producing the bag in court).
The court asked how she said she had come by the
money.
Johnson's answer was that she had said she took the
money and the bag from Mrs Duncomb, and that she had begged him to
keep it secret.
"She told me, too,'' runs Johnson's recorded
testimony, "that she had hired three men to swear the tankard was her
grandmother's, but could not depend on them: that the name of one was
William Denny, another was Smith, and I have forgot the third. After I
had taken the money away she put a piece of mattress in her hair, that
it might appear of the same bulk as before. Then I locked her up and
sent to Mr Alstone, and told him the story. 'And,' says I, 'do you
stand in a dark place to be witness of what she says, and I'll go and
examine her again.'''
Sarah interrupted: "I tied my handkerchief over my
hair to hide the money, but Buck,[19] happening to see my
hair fall down, he told Johnson; upon which Johnson came to see me and
said, `I find the cole's planted in your hair. Let me keep it for you
and let Buck know nothing about it.' So I gave Johnson five broad
pieces and twenty-two guineas, not gratis, but only to keep for me,
for I expected it to be returned when sessions was over. As to the
money, I never said I took it from Mrs Duncomb; but he asked me what
they had to rap against me. I told him only a tankard. He asked me if
it was Mrs Duncomb's, and I said yes.''
[19] Peter Buck, a prisoner.
The Court: "Johnson, were those her words: 'This is
the money and bag that I took'?''
Johnson:
Johnson's evidence was confirmed in part by
Alstone, another officer of the prison. He said he told Johnson to get
the bag from the prisoner, as it might have something about it whereby
it could be identified. Johnson called the girl, while Alstone watched
from a dark corner. He saw Sarah give Johnson the bag, and heard her
ask him to burn it. Alstone also deposed that Sarah told him (Alstone)
part of the money found on her was Mrs Duncomb's.
There is no need here to enlarge upon the oddly
slack and casual conditions of the prison life of the time as revealed
in this evidence. It will be no news to anyone who has studied
contemporary criminal history. There is a point, however, that may be
considered here, and that is the familiarity it suggests on the part
of Sarah with prison conditions and with the cant terms employed by
criminals and the people handling them.
Sarah, though still in her earliest twenties,[20]
was known already--if not in the Temple--to have a bad reputation. It
is said that her closest friends were thieves of the worst sort. She
was the daughter of an Englishman, at one time a public official in a
small way in Dublin. Her father had come to London with his wife and
daughter, but on the death of the mother had gone back to Ireland. He
had left his daughter behind him, servant in an ale-house called the
Black Horse.
[20] Born 1711, Durham, according to The
Newgate Calendar.
Sarah was a fairly well-educated girl. At the
ale-house, however, she formed an acquaintance with a woman named Mary
Tracey, a dissolute character, and with two thieves called Alexander.
Of these three disreputable people we shall be hearing presently, for
Sarah tried to implicate them in this crime which she certainly
committed alone. It is said that the Newgate officers recognized Sarah
on her arrival. She had often been to the prison to visit an Irish
thief, convicted for stealing the pack of a Scots pedlar.
It will be seen from Sarah's own defence how she
tried to implicate Tracey and the two Alexanders:
"I freely own that my crimes deserve death; I own
that I was accessory to the robbery, but I was innocent of the murder,
and will give an account of the whole affair.
"I lived with Mrs Lydia Duncomb about three months
before she was murdered. The robbery was contrived by Mary Tracey, who
is now in confinement, and myself, my own vicious inclinations
agreeing with hers. We likewise proposed to rob Mr Oakes in Thames
Street. She came to me at my master's, Mr Kerrel's chambers, on the
Sunday before the murder was committed; he not being then at home, we
talked about robbing Mrs Duncomb. I told her I could not pretend to do
it by myself, for I should be found out. 'No,' says she, `there are
the two Alexanders will help us.' Next day I had seventeen pounds sent
me out of the country, which I left in Mr Kerrel's drawers. I met them
all in Cheapside the following Friday, and we agreed on the next
night, and so parted.
"Next day, being Saturday, I went between seven and
eight in the evening to see Mrs Duncomb's maid, Elizabeth Harrison,
who was very bad. I stayed a little while with her, and went down, and
Mary Tracey and the two Alexanders came to me about ten o'clock,
according to appointment.''
On this statement the whole implication of Tracey
and the Alexanders by Sarah stands or falls. It falls for the reason
that the Temple porter had seen no stranger pass the gate that night,
nobody but Templars going to their chambers.
The one fact riddles the rest of Sarah's statement
in defence, but, as it is somewhat of a masterpiece in lying
invention, I shall continue to quote it. "Mary Tracey would have gone
about the robbery just then, but I said it was too soon. Between ten
and eleven she said, `We can do it now.' I told her I would go and
see, and so went upstairs, and they followed me. I met the young maid
on the stairs with a blue mug; she was going for some milk to make a
sack posset. She asked me who were those that came after me. I told
her they were people going to Mr Knight's below. As soon as she was
gone I said to Mary Tracey, `Now do you and Tom Alexander go down. I
know the door is ajar, because the old maid is ill, and can't get up
to let the young maid in when she comes back.' Upon that, James
Alexander, by my order, went in and hid himself under the bed; and as
I was going down myself I met the young maid coming up again. She
asked me if I spoke to Mrs Betty. I told her no; though I should have
told her otherwise, but only that I was afraid she might say something
to Mrs Betty about me, and Mrs Betty might tell her I had not been
there, and so they might have a suspicion of me.''
There is a possibility that this part of her
confession, the tale of having met the young maid, Nanny, may be true.[21]
And here may the truth of the murder be hidden away. Very likely it
is, indeed, that Sarah encountered the girl going out with the blue
mug for milk to make a sack posset, and she may have slipped in by the
open door to hide under the bed until the moment was ripe for her
terrible intention.
On the other hand, if there is truth in the tale of
her encountering the girl again as she returned with the milk--and her
cunning in answering
So that she may have waited her hour in the empty
rooms, and have got into Mrs Duncomb's by the same method used by Mrs
Oliphant after the murder. She may even have slipped back the
spring-catch of the outer door. One account of the murder suggests
that she may have asked Ann Price, on one pretext or other, to let her
share her bed. It certainly was not beyond the callousness of Sarah
Malcolm to have chosen this method, murdering the girl in her sleep,
and then going on to finish off the two helpless old women.
[21] This confession, however, varies in
several particulars with that contained in A Paper delivered by Sarah
Malcolm on the Night before her Execution to the Rev. Mr Piddington,
and published by Him (London, 1733).
The truth, as I have said, lies hidden in this
extraordinarily mendacious confection. Liars of Sarah's quality are
apt to base their fabrications on a structure, however slight, of
truth. I continue with the confession, then, for what the reader may
get out of it.
"I passed her [Nanny Price] and went down, and
spoke with Tracey and Alexander, and then went to my master's
chambers, and stirred up the fire. I stayed about a quarter of an
hour, and when I came back I saw Tracey and Tom Alexander sitting on
Mrs Duncomb's stairs, and I sat down with them. At twelve o'clock we
heard some people walking, and by and by Mr Knight came home, went to
his room, and shut the door. It was a very stormy night; there was
hardly anybody stirring abroad, and the watchmen kept up close, except
just when they cried the hour. At two o'clock another gentleman came,
and called the watch to light his candle, upon which I went farther
upstairs, and soon after this I heard Mrs Duncomb's door open; James
Alexander came out, and said, 'Now is the time.' Then Mary Tracey and
Thomas Alexander went in, but I stayed upon the stair to watch. I had
told them where Mrs Duncomb's box stood. They came out between four
and five, and one of them called to me softly, and said, 'Hip! How
shall I shut the door?' Says I, ` 'Tis a spring-lock; pull it to, and
it will be fast.' And so one of them did. They would have shared the
money and goods upon the stairs, but I told them we had better go
down; so we went under the arch by Fig-tree Court, where there was a
lamp. I asked them how much they had got. They said they had found
fifty guineas and some silver in the maid's purse, about one hundred
pounds in the chest of drawers, besides the silver tankard and the
money in the box and several other things; so that in all they had got
to the value of about three hundred pounds in money and goods. They
told me that they had been forced to gag the people. They gave me the
tankard with what was in it and some linen for my share, and they had
a silver spoon and a ring and the rest of the money among themselves.
They advised me to be cunning and plant the money and goods
underground, and not to be seen to be flush. Then we appointed to meet
at Greenwich, but we did not go.[22]
[22] In Mr Piddington's paper the supposed
appointment is for ``3 or 4 o'clock at the Pewter Platter, Holbourn
Bridge.''
"I was taken in the manner the witnesses have
sworn, and carried to the watch-house, from whence I was sent to the
Compter, and so to Newgate. I own that I said the tankard was mine,
and that it was left me by my mother: several witnesses have swore
what account I gave of the tankard being bloody; I had hurt my finger,
and that was the occasion of it. I am sure of death, and therefore
have no occasion to speak anything but the truth. When I was in the
Compter I happened to see a young man[23] whom I knew, with a
fetter on. I told him I was sorry to see him there, and I gave him a
shilling, and called for half a quartern of rum to make him drink. I
afterwards went into my room, and heard a voice call me, and perceived
something poking behind the curtain. I was a little surprised, and
looking to see what it was, I found a hole in the wall, through which
the young man I had given the shilling to spoke to me, and asked me if
I had sent for my friends. I told him no. He said he would do what he
could for me, and so went away; and some time after he called to me
again, and said, `Here is a friend.'
[23] One Bridgewater.
"I looked through, and saw Will Gibbs come in. Says
he, 'Who is there to swear against you?' I told him my two masters
would be the chief witnesses. 'And what can they charge you with?'
says he. I told him the tankard was the only thing, for there was
nothing else that I thought could hurt me. 'Never fear, then,' says
he; 'we'll do well enough. We will get them that will rap the tankard
was your grandmother's, and that you was in Shoreditch the night the
act was committed; and we'll have two men that shall shoot your
masters. But,' said he, 'one of the witnesses is a woman, and she
won't swear under four guineas; but the men will swear for two guineas
apiece,' and he brought a woman and three men. I gave them ten
guineas, and they promised to wait for me at the Bull Head in Broad
Street. But when I called for them, when I was going before Sir
Richard Brocas, they were not there. Then I found I should be sent to
Newgate, and I was full of anxious thoughts; but a young man told me I
had better go to the Whit than to the Compter.
"When I came to Newgate I had but eighteenpence in
silver, besides the money in my hair, and I gave eighteenpence for my
garnish. I was ordered to a high place in the gaol. Buck, as I said
before, having seen my hair loose, told Johnson of it, and Johnson
asked me if I had got any cole planted there. He searched and found
the bag, and there was in it thirty-six moidores, eighteen guineas,
five crown pieces, two half-crowns, two broad pieces of twenty-five
shillings, four of twenty-three shillings, and one half-broad piece.
He told me I must be cunning, and not to be seen to be flush of money.
Says I, `What would you advise me to do with it?' 'Why,' says he, `you
might have thrown it down the sink, or have burnt it, but give it to
me, and I'll take care of it.' And so I gave it to him. Mr Alstone
then brought me to the condemned hold and examined me. I denied all
till I found he had heard of the money, and then I knew my life was
gone. And therefore I confessed all that I knew. I gave him the same
account of the robbers as I have given you. I told him I heard my
masters were to be shot, and I desired him to send them word. I
described Tracey and the two Alexanders, and when they were first
taken they denied that they knew Mr Oakes, whom they and I had agreed
to rob.
"All that I have now declared is fact, and I have
no occasion to murder three persons on a false accusation; for I know
I am a condemned woman. I know I must suffer an ignominious death
which my crimes deserve, and I shall suffer willingly. I thank God He
has given me time to repent, when I might have been snatched off in
the midst of my crimes, and without having an opportunity of preparing
myself for another world.'' There is a glibness and an occasional turn
of phrase in this confession which suggests some touching up from the
pen of a pamphleteer, but one may take it that it is, in substance, a
fairly accurate report. In spite of the pleading which threads it that
she should be regarded as accessory only in the robbery, the jury took
something less than a quarter of an hour to come back with their
verdict of "Guilty of murder.'' Sarah Malcolm was sentenced to death
in due form.
Having regard to the period in which this
confession was made, and considering the not too savoury reputations
of Mary Tracey and the brothers Alexander, we can believe that those
three may well have thought themselves lucky to escape from the mesh
of lies Sarah tried to weave about them.[24] It was not to be
doubted on all the evidence that she alone committed that cruel triple
murder, and that she alone stole the money which was found hidden in
her hair.
The bulk of the stolen clothing was found in her
possession, bloodstained. A white-handled case-knife, presumably that
used to cut Nanny Price's throat, was seen on a table by the three
women who, with Sarah herself, were first on the scene of the murder.
It disappeared later, and it is to be surmised that Sarah Malcolm
managed to get it out of the room unseen. But to the last moment
possible Sarah tried to get her three friends involved with her. Say,
which is not at all unlikely, that Tracey and the Alexanders may have
first suggested the robbery to her, and her vindictive maneouvring may
be understood.
[24] On more than one hand the crime is
ascribed to Sarah's desire to secure one of the Alexanders in
marriage.
It is said that when she heard that Tracey and the
Alexanders had been taken she was highly pleased. She smiled, and said
that she could now die happy, since the real murderers had been
seized. Even when the three were brought face to face with her for
identification she did not lack brazenness.
She was, you will perceive, a determined liar.
Condemned, she behaved with no fortitude. "I am a dead woman!'' she
cried, when brought back to Newgate. She wept and prayed, lied still
more, pretended illness, and had fits of hysteria. They put her in the
old condemned hold with a constant guard over her, for fear that she
would attempt suicide
The idlers of the town crowded to the prison to see
her, for in the time of his Blessed Majesty King George II Newgate,
with the condemned hold and its content, composed one of the
fashionable spectacles. Young Mr Hogarth, the painter, was one of
those who found occasion to visit Newgate to view the notorious
murderess. He even painted her portrait.
It is said that Sarah dressed specially for him in
a red dress, but that copy--one which belonged to Horace
Walpole--which is now in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh,
shows her in a grey gown, with a white cap and apron. Seated to the
left, she leans her folded hands on a table on which a rosary and a
crucifix lie. Behind her is a dark grey wall, with a heavy grating
over a dark door to the right. There are varied mezzotints of this
picture by Hogarth himself still extant, and there is a pen-and-wash
drawing of Sarah by Samuel Wale in the British Museum.
The stories regarding the last days in life of
Sarah Malcolm would occupy more pages than this book can afford to
spend on them. To the last she hoped for a reprieve. After the "dead
warrant'' had arrived, to account for a paroxysm of terror that seized
her, she said that it was from shame at the idea that, instead of
going to Tyburn, she was to be hanged in Fleet Street among all the
people that knew her, she having just heard the news in chapel. This
too was one of her lies. She had heard the news hours before. A
turnkey, pointing out the lie to her, urged her to confess for the
easing of her mind.
One account I have of the Tanfield Court murders
speaks of the custom there was at this time of the bellman of St
Sepulchre's appearing outside the gratings of the condemned hold just
after midnight on the morning of executions.[25] This
performance was provided for by bequest from one Robert Dove, or Dow,
a merchant- tailor. Having rung his bell to draw the attention of the
condemned (who, it may be gathered, were not supposed to be at all in
want of sleep), the bellman recited these verses:
All you that in the condemned hold do lie,
Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die.
Watch all and pray; the hour is drawing near
That you before th' Almighty must appear.
Examine well yourselves, in time repent,
That you may not t'eternal flames be sent:
And when St 'Pulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,
The Lord above have mercy on your souls!
Past twelve o'clock![26]
[25] It was once done by the parish priest.
(Stowe's Survey of London, p. 195, fourth edition, 1618.)
[26] The bequest of Dove appears to have
provided for a further pious admonition to the condemned while on the
way to execution. It was delivered by the sexton of St Sepulchre's
from the steps of that church, a halt being made by the procession for
the purpose. This admonition, however, was in fair prose.
A fellow-prisoner or a keeper bade Sarah Malcolm
heed what the bellman said, urging her to take it to heart. Sarah said
she did, and threw the bellman down a shilling with which to buy
himself a pint of wine.
Sarah, as we have seen, was denied the honour of
procession to Tyburn. Her sentence was that she was to be hanged in
Fleet Street, opposite the Mitre Court, on the 7th of March, 1733. And
hanged she was accordingly. She fainted in the tumbril, and took some
time to recover. Her last words were exemplary in their piety, but in
the face of her vindictive lying, unretracted to the last, it were
hardly exemplary to repeat them.
She was buried in the churchyard of St Sepulchre's.
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