The unsolved murders are the ones that keep real mystery fans awake nights. The cases in which the slayer confesses or is convicted can be forgotten. But the great classics of crime are those cases in which no one knows, and no one ever will.
For example—who murdered Mrs. Julia Wallace, and why?
Her protesting, easy-going husband was tried for the seemingly motiveless crime, and convicted. Later he was set free. And to this day, what happened to Julia Wallace is a matter of conjecture.
The why of what happened to her is even more baffling. There was no reasonable and acceptable motive. Women of Julia Wallace’s type just don’t go around getting themselves murdered. Yet, it happened.
But before we get into the murder of Julia Wallace, let me ask you a question. You don’t have to answer it, if you don’t want to.
How many times reading about murder, do you say—“Oh well, it couldn’t happen to me!”
Or, how many times, reading about an innocent man who escapes the gallows, or the chair, or the gas chamber, by the thinnest skin on his teeth, do you say the same thing:
“It couldn’t ever happen to me!”
You’re just a person who goes along, minding your own business. You don’t consider yourself a prospective victim of murder. Or a murderer. Or a person accused of murder.
But it can happen to you.
William Herbert Wallace, and his wife, Julia, lived modestly in a pleasant but inexpensive section of Liverpool, England. They were of the same age—52. He was an insurance agent, she was a housewife. They had been married for eighteen years. They had no children, and, since the house was small, the domestic help was limited to a woman who came in for the heavy cleaning.
Their life was peaceful and amiable. Friends described them as a devoted couple. Julia was deeply religious, but William liked to describe himself as an agnostic. Both of them were passionate amateur musicians, and their best friends were a few people who would drop in for an evening of music. William was an excellent chess player, and his favorite away-from-home recreation was to attend the meetings of the Central Chess Club, at the City Cafe—a fact which was to prove important after the murder.
In short, they were the kind of people who simply don’t become involved in murders, save sometimes as innocent bystanders. They are the people who pick up the morning paper, read about a murder and say:
“It couldn’t happen to me!”
Into the lives of these pleasant, unassuming people—this quiet and devoted couple—came, first, a man who probably didn’t exist and who certainly lived in a house that didn’t exist.
No, I’m not being funny, and I’ve not suddenly gone insane from reading too many murder stories. I’m simply giving you the facts. The man’s name was as improbable as his existence—Qualtrough. The night before the murder—January 19, 1931—he telephoned the City Cafe and asked for Mr. Wallace. Since the latter was not in, the stranger left a message for him with the head of the Chess Club. Qualtrough wanted to discuss some insurance business with Wallace, and asked him to come to 25 Menlove Gardens East, at 7:30 on the following night.
Wallace was quite justifiably dubious about the call—for one reason, because, while he knew of a Menlove Avenue, he had never heard of Menlove Gardens East. Nor, though he didn’t know it then, had anyone else.
However, insurance agents are the same the world over, and business is business. He decided to keep the appointment.
On the evening of January 20, 1931, the Wallaces had their customary tea together. The pleasant meal was interrupted once, about 6:30, by a boy who came to deliver the milk. At 6:45, Wallace left the house by the back door. Julia walked with him through the back yard, and, as they parted, he warned her to lock the back door, as there had been robberies in the neighborhood. He said an affectionate farewell, and told her that he wouldn’t be any longer than he could help.
He never saw her alive again.
She went back in the house, and put away the tea things. What happened after that in the Wallaces’ little house—no one knows.
William Herbert Wallace went on a wild goose chase, trying to find 25 Menlove Gardens East. It involved riding a number of street cars, asking questions of policemen and pedestrians, looking through directories. At last, tired and disgusted, he gave up, and went home. The procedure had taken him two hours—it was 8:45 P.M. when he returned.
He tried to open the front door with his key. It would not open. He knocked softly, no one answered. He could not see any light.
Naturally, he went around to the back door. There too, he could not get in. The door appeared to be bolted from the inside. This was not surprising; after all, he had warned Julia to bolt the door. But by now, he was not only tired, but exasperated. He’d ridden a succession of street cars, he’d walked for blocks, and now, he couldn’t get into his own house.
He tried the front door again, without success. Now, he began to feel alarmed. At this moment his next door neighbors, a Mr. and Mrs. Johnston, came out of their house. He asked them if they had heard any suspicious noises while he had been away. They had not. He then explained that he couldn’t get in, and asked his neighbors to wait while he tried once more.
This time, to his surprise, the kitchen door opened quite easily. The light he had seen through the window on his first try at the back door had gone out. He lit it, and found signs of disturbance in the kitchen. His photographic kit had been broken open, and the contents scattered on the floor.
His first thought was to rush upstairs. Julia had been suffering from a slight cold, and had intended to retire early. He found the bedroom upset, the clothes stripped from the bed. Thoroughly frightened now, he went downstairs and looked into the front room.
If this had happened to you, what would your reaction be? How would you describe it later? Here are Wallace’s own words:
“I came downstairs and looked into the front room, after striking a match, and saw my wife lying on the floor, and felt her hand, and concluded she was dead. I then rushed out and told Mr. and Mrs. Johnston what had happened, saying something; but I cannot remember what I did say.” The police found Julia Wallace lying on the hearthrug in a room splashed with blood. Wallace’s mackintosh was under her shoulders.
Wallace took his tragic blow calmly. Too calmly, the police said later. But from all we know about him, Wallace didn’t like to make scenes.
Now when a wife is murdered the husband is the first suspect. When a husband is murdered, the wife is. This fact should prove something about matrimony, but I’m not sure what. Something unpleasant, I suspect. Anyway, that’s the way it is.
William Herbert Wallace and his wife had lived together in perfect harmony for eighteen years. Theirs was no flaming, impetuous romance. Both had been in their early thirties at the time of their marriage.
Neither of them had been ever remotely suspected of any extra-curricular romance. Julia Wallace was not insured for any amount that would have made such a crime worth committing. Wallace was not in need of money. No one was able to suggest any motive.
Yet—to quote from the trial—“The very children in the streets suspected him.”
When he was committed for trial he said, as part of his statement—“The suggestion that I murdered my wife is monstrous. That I should attack and kill her is, to all who knew us, unthinkable and unbelievable—all the more so when it must be realized that I could not possibly obtain an advantage by killing her.”
The trial began at Liverpool Assizes on April 22, 1931. According to the prosecution, Wallace himself was the mysterious Mr. Qualtrough. The telephone call to the Central Chess Club had been made from a public phone near Wallace’s home. It was, according to the prosecution, Wallace’s alibi plan.
Since no bloodstains were found on any of Wallace’s clothing, it was suggested that he was attired solely in the mackintosh.
In other words, between 6:30 and 6:45, he whipped upstairs, stripped, put on his mackintosh, murdered his wife, dressed, took a bath, and left the house in search of “Mr. Qualtrough,” all in 15 minutes.
If that story is true, Wallace should have been entered in the Olympic Games instead of being tried for murder!
Yet, while the summing-up by the Judge was definitely favorable to the man on trial, after an hour, the jury said “guilty.”
Wallace (automatically condemned to death) heard his doom without emotion. He said, “I am not guilty.”
The verdict was a shock to everyone, even the Judge. The “very children in the streets” who had suspected Wallace now believed in his innocence. It was said that nine out of ten of the people in court expected acquittal.
See? It might have happened to you. If it had—you would, to your dying day, bless the spirit of justice, and the Court of Appeals. Newspapers and private citizens took up the cause. But by the time the appeal hearing came, Wallace had given himself up for lost. Perhaps by that time, he didn’t care too much.
Remember, he had not only lost a beloved wife—he had been the one to discover her brutally murdered body. The pleasant little home where they had spent so many happy hours had become a house of horror for him. And now, he had been sentenced to death for her murder.
The Court of Appeals set aside the verdict.
Now the question—who did murder Julia?
Would any hypothetical burglar have made such elaborate preparations to get Wallace out of the house? Was he “Qualtrough”? The man who was “Qualtrough” obviously knew that Wallace was in the habit of spending certain evenings at the Central Chess Club. Why didn’t he simply wait for one of those evenings?
Four pound notes (less than $20) had been in a metal cashbox in a cabinet in the Wallace house. After the murder, they were found stuffed in an ornament in an upstairs bedroom, and they showed bloodstains. Even though a robber might have been bitterly disappointed at finding so small an amount of loot in the house—wouldn’t he have taken the notes anyway?
How did this intruder get into the house, anyway? Surely, after that last warning reminder by her husband about the recent robberies, Julia wouldn’t have admitted a stranger.
Was it the work of a clever homicidal maniac who, in some manner, gained entrance to the house and won Julia Wallace’s confidence, so that she would resume her customary seat by the fire? Was this possible maniac “Qualtrough”? Then, why was he never heard from again? Homicidal maniacs seldom, if ever, confine themselves to one crime.
Revenge? A possibility, always, in every murder case. Yet here we have two people with apparently no enemies. Their friends were people very much like themselves. They were the friends who dropped in for a pleasant evening of music.
Yet someone, “Mr. Qualtrough,” lured William Herbert Wallace away from his home.
Why were the doors impossible to open when Wallace returned, why was the kitchen light on when the rest of the house was dark, and why, after his frantic racing from door to door, was he suddenly able to open the back door without difficulty—to find the kitchen light off?
What accounts for the mackintosh Wallace had left at home that night—the weather having been unexpectedly warm—being found under the murdered woman’s shoulders?
No one will ever know the answers. Wait—one person knows, if he is still alive. The murderer of Julia Wallace.
I hope you sleep well tonight. I hope you don’t wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, imagining yourself an innocent man condemned to death for a hideous crime that robbed you of the one you love. I hope you don’t mutter restlessly in your sleep:
“It might have happened to me!”