10

‘No, Not Me’

He was an expert on the intoxication of greed. Inspector Hagen’s career had been built upon cases where money as a motivation blotted everything else out. But here instead he was confronted with something chillingly nihilistic; the emotional vacuum in which a woman could be murdered, dumped like rubbish and wholly forgotten. The detective was fixing his focus upon the tangible valuables, rather than the absence of love.

The CID had been following the trail of the gold watch. It led to a pawnbroker called Mr Parkinson, who operated from a shop around the corner from Euston Square in Drummond Street. Could Mr Parkinson identify the person who had brought the watch to his shop and exchanged it for money? Inspector Hagen had an instinct that this person would be found at the Tothill Fields prison. And he arranged for a line-up to be staged.

Hagen was thinking of the former maid-of-all-work Hannah Dobbs, serving her sentence for petty robbery; she ‘and over a dozen other criminals were placed in one of the passages of the gaol for this purpose’, reported a local newspaper, ‘and as soon as Mr Parkinson entered and scanned the features of those present he, without a moment’s hesitation, singled out Hannah Dobbs’.

The press was immediately fascinated by Hannah; and most particularly by the question of her physical appearance and allure (although one newspaper noted ungallantly that prison had made her ‘stout’). Her coolness was also a source of fascination. ‘She did not deny having a knowledge of Mr Parkinson,’ one report stated, ‘and indeed it is stated that she was so often in the habit of pawning articles at … Drummond Street, it was merely a matter of formality to visit her at all, as he remembered her perfectly well and indeed knew that the watch and chain had been pawned with him by her.’¹

Inspector Hagen had been alert with interest to this, not least to the detail that Hannah had pawned this item not in her own name, but under the pseudonym ‘Rosina Bastendorff’. This was the name of one of Bastendorff’s daughters.

Added to this, one newspaper report ran, ‘Hannah Dobbs has been questioned as to … £50 she is alleged to have stated she received as a bequest from a dead uncle, but she can offer no explanation. It is well known to the police that she had no relative who was able to make so substantial a bequest.’²

Hagen was freely briefing the press concerning his instincts about Hannah and her acquisitive nature. And the gravitational push of the reporting was linking Dobbs closer and closer with Matilda Hacker’s death. So much so that even before the inquest had had its final session to pronounce on the cause of that death, the police were letting the press know their theories.

‘It is supposed,’ ran one report, ‘that Miss Hacker must have been first struck … by a heavy instrument, which doubtless drew a quantity of blood. Then it is thought either that the half-lifeless body was carried to the cellar, where it soon showed some signs of returning life, and was instantly strangled by the rope which was found on the neck of the victim; or that the rope was attached immediately after the first blow was struck and that she was dragged by the cord down the stairs and thrown into the cellar.’

In addition to this, the report continued, it seemed certain that ‘some kind of acid’ was thrown over the corpse ‘by some person’.³

It was now that the neighbour of the Bastendorffs, one Mrs Talbert, who lived with her husband at number 5, Euston Square, came forward with a curious and unsettling memory of one dark afternoon in the autumn of 1877. She told the police that she had been in her first-floor sitting room, facing the square. It was a Sunday, and the streets were quieter than their weekday bustle, and there was little sign of life in the streets and the gardens below. Mrs Talbert, enjoying the silence, suddenly received a jump-inducing shock.

It was, she said, ‘a scream’; and one that was of a most unnatural kind. It was drawn out, it seemed to be the scream of a lady, and hurrying to the window, she could not ascertain the source of it. Presently, the square returned to the muffled quiet of the dark autumn afternoon. And very soon after, Mrs Talbert had forgotten all about it. Only by reading of the sensation in the newspapers, and observing with some distaste the sightseers who had been gathering and jostling outside 4, Euston Square, had her memory been jolted.

Hagen meanwhile had a further instinct about Hannah; that it would be constructive to have her view the remains of the corpse at St Pancras mortuary. ‘Hannah Dobbs arrived in a carriage with Inspector Hagen and one of the matrons of Tothill Fields prison,’ reported one newspaper. ‘She was attired in deep mourning, which had been supplied by the authorities.’ Again, there was some fascination with her appearance. ‘She was noticed to be in splendid physical condition,’ noted the journalist. ‘She was perfectly calm and collected.’

Once escorted inside the mortuary, white-tiled walls flickering with the reflected gaslight: ‘She walked over to the coffin where the skeleton lies and looked very calmly upon the hideous and foul smelling sight.

‘She shook her head,’ the report went on. ‘She did not remember anyone whom she would expect to see in that state. She was shown a piece of floor cloth marked with a diamond pattern. She recognised it as having been on one of the landings in Mr Bastendorff’s house. This had been thrown over the body in the cellar.’

Another item, this time clothing that had belonged to Matilda Hacker; Inspector Hagen was watching Hannah Dobbs with raptor eyes as these presentations were quietly made. ‘She thought the shawl was much lighter than Miss Hacker’s,’ ran the report, ‘but she remembered the lace shawl, or fichu, which Miss Hacker had worn. During all this time, Hannah Dobbs never lost her self-possession.’⁴

It might have been precisely this apparent insouciance that was causing Inspector Hagen’s instincts about her to grow ever more concrete.

Yet Hannah had her own instincts too; and when she wrote to her parents in Bideford, immediately after this visit to the mortuary, someone in her family ensured that the eager journalists in north Devon and in London knew about it.

‘She has written a letter to her parents from Tothill Fields prison,’ stated one local newspaper report, ‘expressing her deep regret at the disgrace that she has brought upon them.’ But this disgrace, it was to be understood, was for the petty theft that had consigned her to that jail. ‘She makes no allusion in her letter,’ stated the report, ‘to the Euston Square murder.’

Yet Hagen was now ever more certain that he had the killer before him. ‘In consequence of the information which has lately come into the hands of the police-officers who have been engaged in the elucidation of what is known as The Euston Square mystery,’ ran a report in the Daily News, ‘it was decided by the authorities of the Treasury Solicitor’s Department to prefer a charge of murder against Hannah Dobbs.’

There was to be a form of pre-trial hearing, the purpose of which would be to determine if there was enough of a case to bring to full trial. This ‘examination’, was to be heard before a magistrate, Mr Vaughan, at Bow Street court. ‘She was brought to the court in a cab,’ ran the Daily News report, ‘accompanied by the chief warder of Tothill Fields prison, where she is serving her time, but owing to the extreme secrecy which has been preserved in the matter, there was scarcely anyone present to witness her arrival, and in fact she had been in the precincts of the court some considerable time … before it was generally known who she was.’⁵

This meant that the court reporters, as well as public onlookers, were unaware at first; they soon realised. ‘On being placed in the dock,’ wrote one reporter, ‘the prisoner, who is a tall, good-looking woman, showed little sign of nervousness and during the whole time the examination lasted, she had a wonderful self-possession.’

Also present in that small, square, white-walled court at Bow Street, looking on at the proceedings, were Severin and Mary Bastendorff.

After a few minutes of preliminary business in the court, the formal charge was at last read out to the young woman at the stand: that of wilful murder.

Hannah Dobbs’ crisp response to this was: ‘No, not me.’

The prosecutor appointed by the Treasury was Mr Poland. Hannah, for this initial hearing, did not seem to have a defender in court. Looking after the legal interests of Severin Bastendorff was one Mr Jones. And also present were the police inspectors Lansdowne and Hagen.

Mr Poland opened the proceedings, describing Matilda Hacker, her ‘eccentric habits’ and her adopted identity of ‘Miss Uish’. He outlined her tenancy at 4, Euston Square; and then he told the court of the day when it was supposed ‘Miss Uish’ had moved out, information supplied by Hagen.

‘[Hannah Dobbs] had been a servant in that house somewhere about August 1877, when she had left for a month’s holiday,’ said Mr Poland, ‘but she came back, and in October of that year, she was again in the service of Mr and Mrs Bastendorff … [Hannah Dobbs] about that time told Mrs Bastendorff that the lady, Miss Uish, was going to leave, and she brought downstairs to Mrs Bastendorff a 5l note, the bill having previously been made out, and Mrs Bastendorff gave the change for the note.

‘The bill was receipted and there was also a charge made of two shillings for a lamp glass, which it was said this lady had broken.’

Mr Poland told the magistrate that the rent for the room was 12 shillings a week, and that change for the note was procured. ‘Mrs Bastendorff did not see Miss Uish leave the house,’ said Mr Poland, ‘and it was only from the statement of the prisoner that she became aware that the lady intended to give up these lodgings. Shortly after Miss Uish was supposed to have left the house, Mrs Bastendorff went up into the room on the second floor. She found that a lamp glass was broken and there was a stain on the floor, on the carpet, a patch which she describes, I think, as appearing to have been washed out, and she made the remark to the prisoner at the time that if she had noticed it before Miss Uish left, she would have made her pay for the damage done to the carpet.’⁶

He seemed to be emphasising that the lady of the house had placed herself beyond any suspicion. He then moved to make the same point about her husband, Severin. It was Mr Poland’s contention that ‘Mr Bastendorff was not aware at all of what had become of the lady Miss Uish. He never suspected that anything was wrong, and the prisoner remained in his service up to September of last year.’

Without intending to, Mr Poland had evoked a slightly puzzling image: that of a servant having murdered an old lady in cold blood, concealing the crime brilliantly – then brazenly continuing to work in the same house in which the deed had been committed; and doing so without giving either Mr or Mrs Bastendorff any sense that something might be wrong.

But what of the sad fragments of Matilda Hacker’s life? Mr Poland told the court that after the rent money was received, and after ‘Miss Uish’ was supposed to have left, Hannah Dobbs ‘told Mr Bastendorff that the lady had left behind her dream book’. This book of predictions was ‘afterwards given to the children’. Added to this was ‘a cash box’, also given to the children; Hannah Dobbs had claimed that it was hers, but that she had lost the key. ‘Miss Hacker,’ said Mr Poland, ‘had a cash box and also a dream book, and there was no doubt that these were her property.’

As the months passed, said Mr Poland, ‘Mrs Bastendorff had no suspicion that anything was wrong.’ The prosecutor seemed eager to press this point. It was only on that morning several weeks back, when it was decided to have the coal cellar cleared in readiness for the Brook, that the horrific truth was uncovered. Mr Poland described how the remains had ‘a rope round the neck’; he described the lace shawl, the brooch. He discussed possible witnesses, such as Matilda Hacker’s lawyer Mr Ward, who would help to identify her. He described how, on 10 October 1877, Matilda Hacker wrote to her informal Canterbury property manager Mr Cozens, instructing him in her usual cryptic fashion that his reply was to be addressed to: ‘MB, Post Office, 227 Oxford Street.’ And how Mr Cozens did, indeed, reply, enclosing a cheque for £9 and 14 shillings – the letter remained at the post office, ‘never having been called for’ and ultimately it was returned ‘through the Dead Letter Office’ to Mr Cozens in Canterbury.

‘So you have the fact,’ said the prosecutor, ‘that she was last seen alive on the 5th of October 1877.’

Mr Poland, via the offices of Inspector Hagen, had been furnished with some intelligence concerning the movements of Hannah Dobbs in the weeks and months after the murder was supposed to have been committed. When she left the employment of the Bastendorffs in September 1878 – almost a year after the disappearance of ‘Miss Uish’ – Hannah Dobbs went to live in lodgings around the corner from Euston Square in George Street. ‘She left those lodgings in debt, and here she left behind some boxes,’ said Mr Poland, ‘and ultimately these boxes … were found to contain clothing belonging to the missing lady who lived at Euston Square, and also the eyeglass which will be identified as the property of Miss Hacker.’

The trail of purloined possessions did not end there. ‘In November 1877,’ said Mr Poland, ‘a gold watch was pawned in the name of Rosina Bastendorff, at a pawn-broker’s shop in Drummond Street. Rosina is the name of a daughter of Mr Bastendorff. There was attached to the watch a chain and locket. These were pawned in the month of March of the following year in the same name of Bastendorff. The locket will be identified as that of Miss Hacker, and was pawned in March 1878.’ Again, this was some months after her disappearance.

There was one more item which did not go to the pawn shop, but which instead ended up being passed around within the Bastendorff household. It was a basket trunk, also ‘the property of Miss Hacker’. ‘This,’ said Mr Poland, ‘was left behind and was afterwards given by Mr Bastendorff to his brother, and is now in the possession of the police. There is also a tray belonging to the basket, which was found some time afterward in the loft of 4, Euston Square.’ The trap door of the loft had apparently been ‘fastened down’ before Hannah Dobbs left her employment at the house. It was Mr Poland’s intention, he said, to demonstrate that so many of the old lady’s belongings had ended up nefariously in the possession of the servant girl.

He also meant to ensure that the Bastendorff family themselves were considered completely respectable. ‘During the day,’ said Mr Poland, ‘Mr Bastendorff, who is a bamboo cabinet maker, usually works in the back shop. Mr and Mrs Bastendorff occupied the parlour and the kitchen. It would be difficult to believe,’ the prosecutor told the magistrate, ‘that this lady was murdered in the room during the week and the body removed down the stairs to the cellar. But on the Sunday, Mr Bastendorff is always away from home. He goes out to shoot small birds in the country.’ Equally on Sundays, he stated, ‘Mrs Bastendorff also goes out with the children.’ In other words, he said, ‘on such an occasion, the prisoner would be alone with the lodgers in the house.’ Mr Poland added that even though he could not quite fix the date, it certainly seemed that on one Sunday in the October of 1877, both Mr and Mrs Bastendorff were away from the house.

He would also address the puzzling question of motive: why would anyone murder an eccentric old lady? He would, he said, ‘prove that Matilda Hacker was in the possession of certain means, and a person might have been murdered for them. The body was found with a rope around the neck. Whether this was the cause of death I cannot say, or whether there were some other acts of violence.’

There seemed at any rate to be one other sign of lethal struggle. There was, he said, a stain on the carpet of Miss Uish’s room. ‘A piece of the carpet was examined … there are patches of blood upon it,’ declared Mr Poland. ‘Whether death was the result of violence, or by strangulation, it is impossible for me to say. If this woman was murdered, then the rope may have been put round her neck and by these means she may have been dragged down the stairs through the kitchen, into the cellar, where the body would remain concealed to all persons except the person who would be in the daily habit of going into the cellars.’

That person, he emphasised again, was not the lady of the house. ‘Mrs Bastendorff did not go into the cellars herself,’ he said. But Hannah Dobbs did. ‘The prisoner was in the daily habit of going to the cellar, and nobody else,’ said Mr Poland. Moreover, he added, it was ‘impossible for the prisoner, if she was in the habit of going there, not to have seen it’.

This seemed a curious logical jump; for if Hannah Dobbs had concealed the body, then she would not have subsequently ‘seen’ it; and if she didn’t, she wouldn’t necessarily have seen it either. It all depended upon the disposition of the coals. Nor had Mr Poland completely established that Hannah Dobbs was the sole occupant of 4, Euston Square who somehow had access to the cellar.

‘They made inquiries of the prisoner in the House of Correction at Westminster,’ he continued, ‘… as to whether she could give them information relating to this matter.’ And it would appear that during this questioning, Hannah Dobbs was caught out in one key admission about the eccentric old lodger. ‘She stated at first that she could not recollect the lady’s name.’ But then, a little later when being interviewed by Inspector Hagen, she changed her account. ‘She said she had been thinking the matter over and she remembered the lady’s name which was Miss Hacker.’

But the old lady had resided there under the pseudonym ‘Miss Uish’; how did Hannah Dobbs know her real name? ‘It may be that the name of Hacker was in the Dream Book because looking into that book we find that there are two or three front pages torn out, where the true name of Matilda Hacker might possibly have been,’ Mr Poland told the magistrate. ‘Whether she got it from that book or in any other way, there is at least the fact that she did state to the inspector that the name of this lady was Miss Hacker; and she also further said that (Miss Hacker) had gone to the country to collect her rents and left behind her a Dream Book which (Hannah Dobbs) took to her mistress after this lady had left.’

Mr Poland was fixating on one particular Sunday in October 1877 being the day of the murder.

Why? ‘I believe I shall be able to give evidence,’ he told the magistrate, ‘that on a Sunday about this date, a scream was heard by a lady living next door who has seen a photograph of the old lady, which she is able to identify as that of the lodger she had seen at the house … This scream, I am told, is not of an unimportant character because it alarmed the lady so much that it caused her to faint, and she was found in a fainting condition by her servant.’

All that said, concluded Mr Poland, ‘I do not pretend, Sir, to have put before you all the facts I intend to prove. A great many important facts have been ascertained – but I give you a mere outline of them to show that the police are justified in bringing the prisoner before you and charging her with this very serious crime.’⁷

Even though this was the pre-hearing to determine the need for a larger trial, Mr Poland was allowed to call one key witness: a curious proceeding when it is remembered that at this stage, Hannah Dobbs had no-one to represent her defence.

And the witness seemed there not merely for the value of her testimony, but also to present a wholesome image of ordered domesticity, cruelly shattered by the horror brought upon her house. Mary Bastendorff took to the stand.

Possibly it was because of the nervous way that she responded to pressure; but quite quickly, the proceedings – in laying bare the daily life of her household – would make it seem as if Mary Bastendorff was on a form of trial herself, for gross domestic negligence. She swore her oath and declared: ‘We went to live at Euston Square in March 1876. The prisoner Hannah Dobbs was in our service as general servant.

‘She first came to live with us in the summer of 1876,’ said Mrs Bastendorff. ‘She stayed with us until September of last year (1878). She had been away once, but had re-entered our service between those dates. She had the management of the place, and entirely attended to the lodgers.’

Mr Poland’s first question was: ‘Do you remember a lodger named Uish?’

‘She occupied a front room on the second floor,’ replied Mrs Bastendorff. ‘I saw her on two occasions as she was going to church. Those were the only times I saw her.’ The rent she paid was 12 shillings a week.

And how long did she live there? ‘I see by the rent book (which was produced in court) she stayed with us three weeks.’

And when was this? ‘There is no date in the book,’ said Mrs Bastendorff, ‘and I cannot call to mind on what date Miss Uish came to us. A Mr Findlay lodged with me … before the deceased and before him there was a Mr Lefler … The last entry after Miss Uish is Mr Willoughby, 21st November to January following.’

This established 4, Euston Square as a busy and well-used house; landlords and tenants alike apparently unaware of the hideous crime that had taken place. ‘Though I cannot fix the dates exactly,’ continued Mrs Bastendorff, ‘Miss Uish must have been with me between the 25th of July and the 21st of November.’

And what then of these other lodgers? Did Mrs Bastendorff have many dealings with them? ‘Mr Lefler was an American,’ she said, ‘and went back to New York. I don’t know what Mr Findlay was.’

The court heard of Mary Bastendorff’s detachment from day-today housekeeping; the fact that the tenants’ needs were met by others. ‘I have never seen Miss Uish’s luggage,’ said Mrs Bastendorff. ‘From what I saw of her, I should say she was about five feet 4 inches in height, and she wore her hair in curls. It was very light … the prisoner spoke of her as either Miss Uish or the old lady. At the time she was stopping with me, I had another lodger called Riggenbach. He was the only other lodger there when she was there.’

Mr Poland wanted to know a little of her husband’s craft, and of the layout of the house. ‘My husband works in a back (work) shop on the dining room floor,’ said Mrs Bastendorff. ‘There are two cellars, and there is a passage from the kitchen into the cellars. One of the cellars was used for coke and some of my husband’s bamboo.’

Was that the front cellar, she was asked? ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The other was always used by us for coals.’

And was Hannah Dobbs in the habit of going there? ‘Always.’

And could she recall ‘the prisoner’ speaking about the departure of Miss Uish? ‘Yes.’

Was that at the end of the three weeks after she came? ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Bastendorff. ‘The prisoner asked for Miss Uish’s bill for £1 16 shillings, which was due, and gave it to the prisoner … As near as I can tell, (this was) between 11 and 12.’ But she could not remember which day of the week this was. Did Mrs Bastendorff have any prior indications that Miss Uish was going to leave? ‘Only by Hannah telling me,’ she said. ‘She came down and said Miss Uish was going away and then I made out the bill and gave it to the prisoner.’

Shortly afterwards, ‘she brought me a £5 note and I took the £1 16 shillings out of it. I don’t remember how the change for the note was obtained. She brought the bill with the note and I receipted it.’ And that, she was asked, was about 12 in the day? ‘Yes, as well as I can make out.’

‘Now,’ said Mr Poland, ‘that day had you seen anything of Miss Uish?’ ‘No, I saw nothing of her.’

‘Did you see her leave?’ ‘No, I did not see her leave the house, nor did I see anything leave in the way of boxes.’

It was established that it might have been several days before Mrs Bastendorff went into Miss Uish’s former room on the second floor. She could not recall exactly. But she did remember ‘perfectly’ going into the room one morning, accompanied by Hannah Dobbs. ‘She either followed me in or was there before me, I don’t remember.’

There was the matter of a ‘broken lamp glass’; that is, an ornamental gaslight fitting that had been somehow smashed at some point in Miss Uish’s tenancy, for which the old lady had apparently given a small financial consideration to Hannah Dobbs in order to be passed on to the lady of the house.

And when Mary Bastendorff entered the room, what did she notice? ‘A large stain on the carpet.’ Whereabouts? ‘Down by the side of the bed.’ And what sort of stain was it? ‘It appeared as though it had been scrubbed with water.’

Was it, asked Mr Poland, ‘a felt carpet with a good deal of green in it, and had the colour been affected?’ ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Bastendorff, ‘for the colour had come out by the washing. When I saw the state of the carpet, I said, ‘you are a dreadful girl to trust things to. I would much rather have no lodgers at all than have my things destroyed so.’

She added of Miss Uish that ‘if I had seen her before she left, I should have made her pay for the carpet.’

Mr Poland asked her: ‘Do you remember the prisoner showing you a book?’ ‘Yes, she brought me a book. I cannot say how long it was afterwards.’

With this, The Book of Dreams was flourished before the court. ‘The first two or three pages are missing,’ said Mr Poland, ‘but is this the book?’

‘Yes, that is the book she brought to me,’ said Mrs Bastendorff. ‘She said that Miss Uish had left her Dream Book behind. I said, ‘I should think that she will come back for it.’

The book had been in the kitchen of 4, Euston Square until it was acquired as evidence by Inspector Hagen on 19 May. ‘It was in better order when I first saw it,’ said Mrs Bastendorff, ‘for my little girl has since had it to play with, and leaves would very likely come out.’

What of the movements of the accused, Hannah Dobbs? Did Mrs Bastendorff remember her leaving her house at around the time of the disappearance? ‘No, I do not,’ she said. ‘She went away for a few days, around the Christmas of the same year – from a Saturday morning to a Monday night, I think.’ And where was it that Hannah Dobbs went? ‘She said she went to her home at Bideford in Devonshire.’

And when she returned, had she in her possession any item that particularly attracted Mrs Bastendorff’s attention? ‘No, sir.’ Had Hannah Dobbs mentioned anything about her relations – about ‘their position and circumstances’? ‘I always thought they were well-to-do people,’ said Mrs Bastendorff, ‘for she said her uncle had left her some money, and I thought that she had gone home to fetch it.’

And had she said anything else on the matter? ‘Only about the gold watch and the chain, which she said were her uncle’s.’

When, asked Mr Poland, did Hannah Dobbs say that? ‘I could not say when it was,’ said Mrs Bastendorff. ‘I only know I had seen her wear it.’ Was it before she went home at Christmas? ‘I could not say.’ Was it before or after that last rental bill had been paid? ‘I could not say.’

Mr Poland was trying to convey to Mrs Bastendorff the urgent importance of these timings. He said: ‘Have you tried to think this matter over?’ As if in frustration, Mrs Bastendorff replied: ‘I am very irregular over dates and can’t remember.’

Now the magistrate, Mr Vaughan, interceded. ‘When did (Hannah Dobbs) tell you her uncle had left her some money?’ he asked her. ‘I can’t say,’ said Mrs Bastendorff.

Yet, the magistrate said, she had stated ‘just now’ that she thought that Hannah Dobbs had gone down to the country to ‘fetch the money’. Had Hannah Dobbs told her that? ‘I don’t know.’ Then why should she have thought that? ‘I had heard some time before that she expected him to leave her money.’

And afterwards she learned that he had? ‘Yes, sir.’

It was at this stage in the proceedings that this chief witness was starting to seem at best vague about many of the facts that she was being asked to recall. One generous explanation might simply have been that Mary Bastendorff would have understood very clearly that Hannah Dobbs, when put on full trial, would be facing the possibility of the death penalty. An extraordinary weight of responsibility rested on flitting memories of seemingly trifling events that had happened eighteen months beforehand.

But the court had curiously limited patience. Accordingly, the questioning from both Mr Poland and Mr Vaughan became increasingly terse; nothing is recorded concerning the reactions of Hannah Dobbs, who was looking on. Mr Poland, with what sounded like a note of exasperation, tried another angle on Mrs Bastendorff. ‘Just look,’ he said. ‘I think you saw a basket trunk?’

‘Yes, in the cellar,’ said Mrs Bastendorff. ‘I can’t say when, but I have seen it in there.’

‘Just try and think when you first saw it,’ said Mr Poland. ‘Have you seen it since the discovery?’ By this, he meant the disclosure of the corpse.

‘No, I have not.’

‘When did you first see it?’ he asked.

‘I can form no idea,’ said Mrs Bastendorff. ‘At Christmas last, we had it moved into the scullery.’

At this, the basket itself was wheeled into the Bow Street courtroom. It was described in the reports as a ‘large basket trunk of a very ordinary kind, used for travelling, covered with American cloth.’

‘Was that,’ Mr Poland asked Mrs Bastendorff, ‘the basket you saw?’

‘It may be the same,’ Mrs Bastendorff said, ‘but it looked different, and I don’t think it had a cover on when I saw it.’

‘That basket does not belong to you?’

‘No.’

‘Was the one you saw about that size?’

‘It was a different shaped one.’

‘Are you able to say,’ said Mr Poland, once again trying to pin down some certainty, ‘that this was the one or not?’

‘No,’ said Mrs Bastendorff. ‘I have seen one similar to that, but the one I saw looked higher.’

Once again, the magistrate pressed for greater clarity. ‘Is the cellar where you saw it dark?’ he asked her. ‘No,’ she said.

Mr Poland tried again, with what now sounded like angry impatience. ‘Was (the basket) similar to that?’ he said. ‘Yes, it was.’ ‘And it did not belong to you?’ ‘Not that I know of. I did not examine it. I thought it was a wine case.’

‘Now, pray consider,’ said Mr Poland. ‘Have you ever had a basket like that?’

‘We have many cases sent to us.’

‘Like that?’

At this, the magistrate lent in and said to her: ‘Just consider.’ Mr Poland added: ‘Like a clothes basket, you know.’ Mrs Bastendorff then said: ‘No, I have not.’

‘When did you first see that?’ said the magistrate. ‘I could not possibly form any idea,’ said Mrs Bastendorff. ‘Last year?’ pressed Mr Poland. ‘Yes, last year,’ she replied.

‘What time?’

‘I could not tell at all,’ she said. ‘It is twelve months since I went into the cellar. I go there very seldom.’

‘Was the prisoner in your service,’ said Mr Poland, ‘at the time you first saw it?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Did you speak to her on the subject?’

‘I did not.’

And where was this basket-trunk then moved to within the house? ‘It was moved into the scullery,’ said Mrs Bastendorff, ‘and filled with empty bottles.’ Who moved it? ‘I don’t know.’ Was Hannah Dobbs still working at the house when it was moved? ‘I think not.’ So this was after September of the previous year, 1878? ‘It was brought in at Christmas last year,’ said Mrs Bastendorff.

What became of this trunk afterwards? ‘I never knew until the detectives asked for it,’ said Mrs Bastendorff, ‘and then it was found that it had been taken away from the house and that my husband’s brother had it.’

Could she ‘fix the day’ that Hannah Dobbs had left her employment? ‘No, I can’t, but it was some time in September.’

The resident Mr Riggenbach had lodged some complaint? ‘Yes.’ He had ‘lost some things’? ‘Yes.’

When Hannah Dobbs left her employ, said Mr Poland, he understood that Mary Bastendorff was ‘some time without a servant.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘And then Louise Barker came?

‘Yes sir.’ And could Mrs Bastendorff remember ‘one evening her bringing you some towels and drawers – three or four towels and a pair of gentleman’s drawers?’ ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Bastendorff, ‘she said she had found them in the cellar. I looked at them, and saw the drawers belonged to Mr Riggenbach.’

The implication was that these were among the items that had been stolen by Hannah Dobbs from this most respectable of tenants. And the fact of male underwear in this context once more threw a light on the novel intimacy of this sort of living: items that would be normally bundled off to the St Pancras laundress were among those effects that could be purloined from supposedly private rooms. When were these drawers found, asked Mr Poland. ‘Barker was only with us seven weeks,’ said Mrs Bastendorff, ‘so they were found during that time.’

And what servant was engaged for 4, Euston Square after that? ‘A girl named Sarah Carpenter,’ said Mrs Bastendorff.

And did ‘that woman’ afterwards show her ‘a bone’? ‘She brought me a bone,’ said Mrs Bastendorff. ‘I looked at it and I said I believed it belonged to a wild boar my husband had, which he had shot in Germany.’

And thence to the day of the discovery in May 1879: she herself did not go into the cellar? ‘No,’ she said, ‘but I heard afterwards that a human body was found. I went up to tell my husband and during that time, a policeman had been called in.’

There was one last matter that Mr Poland wanted to find out about: the matter of Miss Uish’s eyeglass, which had now been retrieved by Inspector Hagen from a local pawnbroker and which seemed to correspond to an eyeglass sported for a time by Hannah Dobbs.

‘I remember Hannah used to have an eyeglass by a peculiar incident,’ said Mrs Bastendorff. ‘My mother wears glasses … and she compared the sight of hers and Hannah’s on one occasion when she came to visit me.’

And was the eyeglass ‘one of that description’? ‘It was a single glass and it had a gilt frame,’ said Mrs Bastendorff firmly.

Did Mrs Bastendorff ever hear from Hannah Dobbs where ‘Miss Uish came from, or where she had gone to?’ ‘No,’ she said. ‘Very little reference was made to her at all.’⁸

There is no record of how the accused Hannah Dobbs was responding to any of this in the dock. But as this pre-trial examination was adjourned, the magistrate, Mr Vaughan, caught her eye. He said to her: ‘Have you any questions to ask?’

Hannah Dobbs’ answer was shocking – and as a result, greatly relished by all the court reporters.

‘I have no questions to ask of Mrs Bastendorff,’ Hannah Dobbs said, drawing out the ‘Mrs’ with startling contempt, adding: ‘When Mr Bastendorff is present, I shall have some questions to put.’

This elicited no comment from either prosecutor or magistrate; nor is there any record of how Mary Bastendorff responded. A date was set a week hence for one more pre-trial examination. Since Hannah Dobbs was already serving a sentence in Tothill Fields, there was no difficulty about remanding her.

‘Shortly after leaving the dock,’ ran one report, ‘the prisoner, who still preserved her nonchalant demeanour, was placed in a cab, and, accompanied by the warder, driven back to the prison.’ There was also a wry afternote concerning the attractions of such cases to the general public: there were few crowds outside to witness her departure from the Bow Street court that afternoon – the reason being that ‘all those who took an interest in the case … apparently found means to enter the court which was very full indeed while the examination lasted.’

The pre-trial resumed a few weeks later – it appeared that Mary Bastendorff had fallen ill and was in no state to attend until she had recovered. Now back to health, she was present as a new gobbet of evidence was given by Hannah Dobbs’ guards at Tothill Fields; she had been telling them of a previous resident of 4, Euston Square called Mr Findlay. The chief warder of the prison, Robert Vermeulen, said that Hannah Dobbs told him of how Findlay had ‘a seven-chamber loaded revolver’. Dobbs also told him that Findlay ‘had committed a murder and that he wanted to confide his secret to her … he wanted her to go away with him to America and offered her £50 to do so but she refused the offer.’ Mr Vermeulen had not taken a note of this conversation but it was lodged in his memory.

Having heard this – with some interest – the court moved to examination of the movements of Severin Bastendorff; of his visit, that weekend in October 1877 to see a friend in Erith, on the Kent marshes. He and another friend, a ‘Mr Whiffling’, were there for some shooting.

Severin Bastendorff had got his shooting license some two months beforehand; despite that, he had had a minor dispute with a local policeman who accused him of ‘shooting in the roadway’ rather than clearly into the country. Despite this minor vexation, he and his friends continued their marsh shoot that weekend; he arrived back in Euston Square late on the evening of Sunday, 14 October 1877; he remembered seeing his wife Mary in the kitchen in her ‘walking hat’ and dress; she and the children has just returned from a trip to Hampstead. Then, he recalled, all retired to bed.

Following this evidence, there were further witness statements concerning boar bones, rent receipts, the gold chain that Hannah Dobbs had been seen with. The prosecutor Mr Poland now asked for the official ‘committal’ of the prisoner for full trial: and at this point the magistrate Mr Vaughan repeated the charge to her.

‘I am not guilty of it,’ Hannah Dobbs said.⁹

There was, according to reports, the first sign of some agitation from her; but she very quickly recovered; when she was presented with a declaration to sign, she did it with a firm hand.

Though Hannah Dobbs was the one standing accused of the murder of a perfectly harmless and eccentric lady, there seemed much unspoken about the arrangements within number 4, Euston Square. There had been the first suggestion of lodgers like Mr Findlay who could seem rather disconcerting.

Those had not been the only nocturnal footsteps on the stairs in number 4, Euston Square. Journalists picking up gossip were starting to hear of some intriguing and unexpected sexual relationships in that house. There were rumours involving another of the Bastendorff brothers.

And as a result – as Inspector Hagen and his colleagues were still piecing together as much as they could of the earlier life and career of Hannah Dobbs – there were other legal figures who were now anxious to swiftly learn more about the lives and experiences of a family who had emigrated from continental Europe to London and who had, with some dazzling success, reinvented themselves as English middle-class gentlemen.