It was not until the beginning of April 1896 that the police obtained their first clue as to the identity of the person responsible for disposing of the brown paper parcel containing the body of a six-to-twelve-month-old baby girl in the River Thames. The mail clerk at Reading Station was able to identify the parcel as having come by the London and South Western Railway from Bristol and to confirm that it had been addressed and delivered in October of the previous year to a Mrs Thomas of 26 Piggotts Road, Caversham. The parcel had weighed about 15lb. He was also able to inform the police that Mrs Thomas had since moved away from Caversham and now resided at an address in Reading: 45 Kensington Road.
Police Sergeant Harry James, a personable looking man at the height of his career, was as meticulous in his appearance as he was in his work. A well-groomed, thick, walrus moustache complemented his pleasant features and lent him an air of proud authority. His winged collar was pristinely white and creased precisely over a thickly knotted tie; a heavy wool suit, with well-defined shoulders, hugged his neat figure. A photograph of him at the time shows a man who was not entirely strait-laced: the lower buttons of his jacket are left undone to reveal a glimpse of waistcoat and watch chain and his tidy bowler hat sits at a decidedly jaunty angle.
After making a number of discreet enquiries Sergeant James discovered that a Mrs Thomas had indeed resided at 26 Piggotts Road, Caversham, along with a grown-up daughter, a son-in-law, an old woman known as Granny, and a varying number of children whom she was in the habit of adopting. The daughter and son-in-law had by all accounts since left for London, and Mrs Thomas had moved across the river to Kensington Road, where she had become known to the local NSPCC officer, the school attendance officer, and had also been reported to the police for the unregistered adoption of children. A disturbing picture was beginning to emerge, and Sergeant James and his colleague, Detective Constable James Anderson, an earnest young Scotsman, began to make extensive enquiries. They discovered that a woman had been seen leaving Kensington Road on the morning following the discovery of the baby in the Thames. She had been carrying a scruffy looking carpet bag and was heading in the direction of the river. The two officers decided to proceed in their investigations with the utmost caution, wary of alerting Mrs Thomas to their suspicions.
To this end, a young woman (possibly a police matron – these were often the wives of serving officers) was persuaded to act as a decoy. She was instructed to call at the house in Kensington Road on the pretext that she had been recommended to Mrs Thomas by a friend in London (whose name was not to be mentioned) for the purpose of arranging the adoption of a baby. The woman who answered the door, however, was not Mrs Thomas, but a short, stout, bustling woman whose apparent energy belied her seventy-odd years. Her name was Jane Smith, but she was referred to by all who knew her as Granny, a sobriquet which sat comfortably with her soft, kindly features. She informed the young lady caller that Mrs Thomas was away from home for two days or so, but that if she wished she could make an appointment to come back and meet her when she returned. A time was agreed upon.
Two days later the young woman once again knocked upon the door of 45 Kensington Road. This time it was opened not by Granny but by a bulky, middle-aged woman who greeted her in a brusque and businesslike manner; she was at once most anxious to know who had recommended her. The reply she received was that the “friend” in London who wished to adopt out her unwanted illegitimate baby had made it clear that she did not wish her name or address to be given. Apparently satisfied by this answer, Mrs Thomas agreed to take the baby for the sum of £100. The young lady, however, baulked at this: the sum was far too high (it being the equivalent of the yearly salary of a butler), and, after further negotiation, the price of £50 was fixed upon. Mrs Thomas was careful to stipulate that the infant should be brought to her after dark.
The nature of the business being conducted at Kensington Road had become abundantly clear. So, on the evening of Good Friday, 3 April, DC Anderson and Sergeant James made their way to the by now familiar doorstep at precisely the time the fictitious baby was due to be delivered.
Mrs Thomas was in the backyard chatting to some neighbours and it was Granny who, with a gleam of satisfaction in her eyes, admitted the police into the house. She seemed almost to relish their presence and the words spilled from her lips as she willingly answered their searching questions. Her tired old eyes kept flitting toward the back door and when Mrs Thomas came in from the garden to see who the male voices belonged to, Granny quickly shrank back, cowering, into the background.
Producing the incriminating sheet of brown parcel paper bearing Mrs Thomas’s name and former Caversham address, DC Anderson asked the now visibly shaken suspect to account for the fact that it had been found wrapped around the body of a young baby, discovered strangled and dumped in the Thames.
But her real name was not Thomas, mumbled the suspect, it was Dyer – although she sometimes adopted the names Thomas, Weymouth and Harding. Her explanation was that her mother’s maiden name was Weymouth; Thomas was the name of her first husband; and that she had dropped the name Dyer (that of her second husband) because he had treated her very badly, and had broken up two homes, and she did not want him to find her. As for the parcel paper, well it was true that she had received just such a package while she was living in Caversham, but she had recently cleaned out a cupboard full of rubbish, and the paper must have been put out to the dustbins as usual.
Such a faltering response prompted the officers to make a thorough search of the house. In a small tin canister on the kitchen mantelpiece they found some printed forms relating to infant vaccinations. There were also dozens of pawn tickets for children’s clothing, a number of letters and, in a cupboard in the kitchen, more piles of babywear. There was also a rare stench as if something were decomposing there. In a sewing basket the officers also found a quantity of macramé string and white tape similar to the materials found on the body of the murdered baby fished from the Thames. In the woman’s bedroom they discovered a large tin box; it also gave off an almost unbearable odour, and bore the gruesome traces of having at one time been the receptacle for a body. The explanation given by the suspect was that the tin box had once held a quantity of old clothing which had become musty. It was a feeble response, and Sergeant James and DC Anderson had seen and heard enough. They arrested Amelia Dyer and took her, and the suspicious tin box, to the police station.
The familiar blue glass lamp was burning outside the door of the station as Dyer was led up the stone steps and into the outer police office. The walls were plastered with police notices, some of them illustrated with photographs of unsavoury characters wanted for burglary. A duty sergeant manned the desk, stiff-collared in a dark blue, brass-buttoned uniform with a black varnished belt buckled securely around his waist, there to hang his truncheon.
Mrs Thomas, now revealed as “Annie” or Amelia Dyer, was taken into the charge room to wait while the police matron was sent for. (As there were no women police officers at this time, it was necessary to have a matron to deal with and perform searches upon any women arrested and brought to the station.)
Reading Police Station, Weekly Dispatch, 26 April 1896
As she sat quietly waiting, Mrs Amelia Dyer produced from her pocket a small pair of scissors; but before she could do herself any harm – if that had indeed been her intention – they were wrested from her by an officer. The suspect then proceeded, very stealthily, to remove the lace from one of her boots; by the time the police were aware of this, she had tied the length of it around her neck, the knot resting just below her left ear.