Polly put Harold to bed at about six o’clock. Not long after, Arthur came home and enquired if they had fetched the “little nipper”. He was nodded toward the crumpled mound at the head of the couch, mother sitting calmly at the other end. After supper, Arthur, Polly and mother all went out. They had been looking forward to visiting the Sporting and military Show which was currently being staged at Olympia. They locked the sitting-room door leaving the three babies alone in their rooms, only one of them still alive.
The halls at Olympia were brightly lit, and a sea of top hats and pretty bonnets poured through the doors. It is not certain exactly what the Palmers and mother saw that evening, but it would have been very similar to the sights on display at the royal military exhibition held a few years earlier in Chelsea. Here there were displayed a variety of historical artefacts including such items as a helmet worn by Oliver Cromwell, the cloak and sword worn by Wellington and a snuff box fashioned from the breastplates of officers killed at Waterloo. The musical talents of the military bands were shown to their best advantage and the expertise and pageantry of the British empire were demonstrated by spectacular displays of horsemanship, field exercises, drill parades and military tattoos. It was a stimulating evening and mother enjoyed herself enough to purchase a programme to take back with her to reading.
Back in Mayo Road, the Palmers took themselves off to bed while mother made herself comfortable on the couch with a pillow and blanket which Polly had given her. She slept soundly that night, waking only once in the early hours when she fancied she heard the sound of a baby crying. But on checking underneath the couch she saw that the two bundles were quite still.
Charlotte Culham saw the Palmers and Mrs Thomas the following day, Thursday 2 April, at about noon. Mrs Thomas was in the sitting room relaxing in the armchair. There was a carpet bag lying on the floor; it was placed there carelessly, open and obviously empty.
Albert Culham had recently rebuilt the fire grate in the kitchen, and as a consequence the unused bricks had been placed in a heap in the backyard, piled haphazardly under the rabbit hutch. During the late afternoon this pile of bricks was disturbed; a whole one and a second one with the end broken off were removed and taken into the house. The dead bodies of Doris Marmon and Harry Simmons were squeezed into the empty carpet bag. They had to be pushed down to make room for the bricks, and even then the bag would not close. It nonetheless seemed the most convenient way to carry the babies, so a piece of brown paper was laid over the top of the bag to hide them from view and it was tied around the middle with string.
Arthur and Polly accompanied mother to Paddington Station. They left Mayo Road at about twenty past seven, with mother carrying the bulging carpet bag. At the omnibus stop, Arthur held the bag for her while she went into a cookshop to purchase a pastry for the journey. The cookshops of London were manned by white-sleeved assistants who spent their days turning currant rolls and thick slabs of spotted dog on to sheets of greaseproof paper. Mother spent twopence on a package of warm spiced dough.
At Paddington, Arthur bought her a ticket and he and Polly stood on the platform while mother climbed into an empty carriage. A young lady, being seen off from the station by a rather dapper looking gentleman, climbed into the carriage with her and took a seat by the window. After an awkward moment, mother climbed back out of the carriage with her bag and made her way down the platform until she found another empty carriage in which she settled, storing her carpet bag under the seat.
It was a fast train, leaving Paddington at 9.20 and arriving in reading at 10.05. There would nevertheless have been plenty of time for mother to sit back and enjoy her pastry, plenty of time for her to lick every last greasy crumb from her fingers. Part way through the journey mother undid the string around the bag and moved the bricks to the “other side” so that the bag would not “look so large”.
Witnesses were later to report that the night of Thursday 2 April 1896 was particularly dark. Swollen clouds hung low over a wet and miserable reading, blackening the skies and obscuring any moonlight.
The fast train from Paddington had pulled into reading station on time, 10.05, and mother had carried her weighty bag out into the wet, dark streets and down toward the river and the Clappers footbridge. There was someone lurking in the shadows near the bridge and this made mother feel uneasy: she was obliged to wait in the steadily pouring rain for fifteen minutes until she was quite alone. She pushed the carpet bag through the railings of the bridge and was perturbed that the loud smack as it hit the water could be heard over the surging currents of the fast-flowing river. She turned to hurry for home and was startled to hear a “goodnight” from a man she passed near the railway arches.
John Toller was a well-built man in his early thirties. He was not local to reading, but had moved in recent years from Wales to take up a position as an engineer at reading Gaol. He was a man in mourning: he had recently lost his five-year-old son Bertie. On this particular evening he had been to the theatre in a bid, perhaps, to ease the raw pain of his bereavement. The royal County Theatre on Friar Street had been built the previous year to replace the Princess Theatre which had been destroyed in a fire. It was reputedly an exotic place with a luxurious interior which lifted the spirits of all who stepped inside.
John Toller’s journey home to Forbury Road took him past the railway arch near the rising Sun public house. He noticed a woman coming toward him through the arch from the direction of the river. The windows of the rising Sun cast a light into the otherwise dark night, and at the point where the woman passed him a gas lamp at the side of the road lit up her features. She was middle-aged and heavily built, wearing a dark, floor-length cloak which blew open in the wind to reveal a homely apron underneath. John Toller thought he recognized her, so wished her a goodnight as they passed. She did not reply and, as he turned back to look at her, he noticed she was empty handed and walking back in the direction of the railway station and the town.
A few days were to pass before John Toller realized the significance of his encounter.
Mother arrived back in Kensington Road at gone eleven o’clock. She had a strange look about her and seemed somewhat agitated. Granny was used to these moods. No doubt mother had been taking her brandy, alternating nips of burning alcohol with little sips from the brown sticky bottle of laudanum she kept in her pocket. She told granny that the reason she was so late home was on account of missing two trains. The platforms had been crowded with holiday travellers and if it hadn’t been for a “special” train being put on, she never would have got home at all. She’d left the carpet bag in London with Polly, she’d said. Polly didn’t have a bag and she needed one to pack up a few things in to take to Bridgwater. They were all moving to Bridgwater on Sunday, she said. Polly, Arthur, herself and granny. No mention was made of the children.