‘There’s a cold-blooded scoundrel!’
Sherlock Holmes, ‘A Case of Identity’
While Monson attempted to rebuild his life after the murder trial, Littlejohn and Bell were left to lick their wounds. The verdict had come as a bitter blow and it rankled long after it was delivered. Naturally, it was not the first time that the two doctors had found themselves on the ‘losing side’ in a legal case, nor would it be the last. After all, even the great Sherlock Holmes was allowed a few setbacks along the way – and he was not at the disadvantage of having to operate in the real world. In one such case, ‘The Adventure of the Yellow Face’ – published in 1893 and set in Norbury to the southwest of London – Holmes embarked on a series of deductions that proved to be quite wrong. After the story’s denouement, he urged Watson, ‘if it should ever strike you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers … kindly whisper “Norbury” in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you.’ One might imagine that Ardlamont was Bell and Littlejohn’s Norbury.
It is clear from Bell’s interview published in the Pall Mall Gazette on 28 December 1893 that the pair had been confident of Monson’s conviction. Although published after the verdict was delivered, the interview had taken place while the trial was still ongoing. The piece concluded:
Then the conversation fell into a private chat about the Ardlamont murder, concerning which I was pledged to secrecy. But I do not think the embargo extended to the doctor’s mention that he and his colleagues in the Crown case, Dr Littlejohn and Dr Heron Watson, contemplate a further move which will excite the deepest … but on second reflection this may have been a confidential communication.
It is an intriguing couple of sentences. In due course, Bell would confide in his author friend Jessie Saxby: ‘Just see what the wretch from the Pall Mall has inveigled me into confessing … However, I did not give the devil any secrets.’ Still, there is much that is hinted at. Firstly, there is the use of the word ‘murder’ – a bold assertion given that the defence had argued that no crime had been committed and that the jurymen had been unable to decide for certain. Then there was Bell’s desire to keep talk of the case off the record. Why should that have been? If it was simply a case of professional integrity and a desire not to undermine due process, why then engage with a journalist in the first place? Was Bell privy to some information that he wished discreetly to filter out to the press? Something that was perhaps not among the Crown’s evidence? For if it were, there would have been no need for him to be so cautious. And what of the ‘further move’ that Bell, Littlejohn and Heron Watson were contemplating? One that would excite the deepest … what? Suspicion? Excitement? Scandal? Alas, we will never know for certain the contents of this private conversation. In fact, we cannot even be sure whether the ‘further move’ was enacted during the trial. If it was, it is difficult to identify exactly what it was, since the combined evidence of the Edinburgh trio was played by the book. If, on the other hand, they did not unleash this mystery move, what on earth had Bell been referring to?
Although neither Bell nor Littlejohn went on the public record to express their disgruntlement at the verdict, they were less reticent in private. Both were adamant that the judge had been unduly lenient towards Monson in the summing-up. Indeed, the post-trial opinion pieces in the newspapers, along with interviews from members of the jury, confirmed their fears that the judge’s contribution had been decisive. The doctors were convinced that he had been overcome by the pressures of the trial. The complexity of the case combined with the intense scrutiny he was under had combined to warp his judgement, they believed. And they may have had a point. Many years later, in 1915, Lord Kingsburgh had this to say of the events of December 1893:
… It fell to me to preside at the trial of Alfred John Monson for murder, the longest and the most protracted inquiry since I joined the profession. I went through nine days of anxiety, such as I have never experienced before or since. The case was one which so bristled with points, that one had to watch its course from moment to moment, and to take scrupulous care lest the jury should be misled by feelings roused by the disclosure of the evil character of the accused. So dominant was the anxiety, that morning after morning I awoke long before my usual time, and lay in dull perspiration, turning things over and over, endeavouring to weigh them and determine their weight in the balance. Never before had I gone through an experience the least like it, and I am well pleased that I have never had a similar experience since. It was all the more trying because I felt quite unable to form a determined opinion in my own mind. The way never seemed to me clear. In the end I was able to feel that I had done my best to put the case in a fair light before the jury, and can freely say that the verdict they returned was that which in all the circumstances was the safe one. I have more than once been comforted by the assurance of judges, including some of other parts of the United Kingdom, that in their opinion the jury were led to the proper conclusion. This trial was, in my judgement, the most severe strain I have ever undergone, and not one or two nights of quiet repose were sufficient to restore mind and body.
By his own admission, the judge had been in turmoil throughout. Sleep-deprived, anxious and unable to get on top of his own thoughts, these were hardly the ideal circumstances in which he would have wished to make his closing address. It was unsurprising then that he should press home those elements of uncertainty in the case that mirrored the uncertainty in his own mind. Perhaps in good faith he had no choice but to do so. Yet, writing some twenty-two years later, he seemed to have had no doubt as to the true nature of the defendant – Monson was, he said, an ‘evil character’. While working to the letter of the law, did Kingsburgh ill-serve justice? That was certainly the view of Bell, Littlejohn and Heron Watson – as they were rumoured to keenly remind a good many of their acquaintances.
Others, though, were more eager to accept the verdict as the least bad option. In January 1894, the Edinburgh Evening News covered two shooting incidents that it claimed both had parallels to the Ardlamont case. The first, reported on 8 January, took place in the village of Fintry in Stirlingshire. A party of six shooters and thirty beaters were hunting on the Culcreuch estate when one of the men crossed a dyke with both barrels of his gun cocked. When the butt of the gun struck an unknown object, it went off and the shot glanced off the side of the head of another member of the party, taking away a good part of the scalp. The next incident, which took place in Yeovil in Somerset towards the end of the month, was described by the coroner as ‘alike in almost every particular to the Ardlamont mystery’. One Dr F. H. Hudson gave evidence in relation to the death of a seventy-one-year-old man, Mr Rossiter:
On Tuesday morning I was called to see the body, which was lying in a room at the farmhouse. I found a lacerated wound behind the right ear, with the brain protruding. On examining the head I found every bone shattered and loose, but there was no external wound except that behind the right ear. The hole in the skull admitted three fingers. There was no singeing of the hair, but there was a slight blackening of the lower part of the wound. Death must have occurred instantly. I think that the wound could not intentionally have been self inflicted, taking into consideration the situation in which [the] deceased was and the position of the wound and its direction. I am of [the] opinion that the accident occurred in the following manner: The deceased was coming out of the granary with the measure of barley in his left hand, the gun being held by the barrel in the right hand. Possibly Mr Rossiter was coming down the steps sideways, as one often did. This would bring the position of the wound in a direct line with the door of the granary. He was probably not more than one step down, and slipping, the trigger hitched in some projection.
The jury returned a verdict of accidental death. The similarities between the three cases were doubtless striking and they contributed to the feeling that maybe, just maybe, Cecil’s death had been accidental after all. But it was far from enough to convince Littlejohn and Bell, who not only maintained utter faith in the validity of their own forensic investigations but also had the wealth of circumstantial evidence to draw upon, too. They had long ago concluded that if it looked and felt that much like a murder, then surely it was just that.
Although the lives of Littlejohn and Bell were as hectic as ever in 1894 in terms of their professional and public duties, their courtroom experiences were decidedly more muted than the previous year. Bell hinted to various of his friends that the police were inviting his cooperation in still more criminal investigations, but, as was the pattern prior the Ardlamont case, his investigative work barely garnered a mention in the press. He also indulged more time upon himself and his family, perhaps partly as a delayed reaction to the loss of his son the previous summer. As well as paying regular visits to his grown-up daughters, Joan and Cecil (short for Cecilia), he also bought Mauricewood, a grand Victorian mansion complete with rounded turret and set in some three-and-a-quarter acres of wooded grounds at Milton Bridge, Midlothian. A little under ten miles from the centre of Edinburgh, Bell enjoyed giving his horses a workout on his way to and from work each day, so that his grandchildren came to give him the nickname ‘Gigs’. He also enjoyed an active social life at this time – buoyed by his Holmes-linked celebrity – and he counted among his friends such eminent figures as Robert Louis Stevenson and the actress Ellen Terry.
As for Littlejohn, he was confronted by a series of major public health issues, not least an outbreak of smallpox that claimed one of his own staff. In the courts, there was nothing remotely to match the fireworks of Monson’s trial but there were nonetheless several cases of interest. He was involved, for instance, in the tragic affair of Donald MacDonald, who was accused of slitting his sister’s throat and who himself was found drowned in Glasgow’s docks before the matter could come to trial. Then there was the curious incident of a justice of the peace charged with stealing six small Wedgwood plates and three pieces of Spode crockery from a local cottage sale. With the defendant claiming ‘insane impulse’, Littlejohn caused some consternation by diagnosing him with kleptomania – a psychological compulsion to steal. Several commentators feared the floodgates opening so that every common thief might claim their crimes resulted from an unavoidable urge beyond their control. The judge was nonetheless sympathetic to Littlejohn’s argument and landed the JP with a fine rather than prison.
Meanwhile, the trial of a sixteen-year-old boy called Alan Fergusson allowed for a reunion of several of the Ardlamont mystery’s key players – Littlejohn, Comrie Thomson and Lord Kingsburgh. The defendant happened to be the son of Sir James Fergusson, a former Postmaster General (a senior cabinet position). It caused something of a stir, then, when the boy was arrested for two episodes of ‘wilful fire-raising’ at his exclusive school, Trinity College in Glenalmond, Perthshire. After examining the young Fergusson, Littlejohn concluded that he was suffering from ‘arrested and imperfect development of the intellectual powers’, a view that was not enough to save Fergusson from prison but which saw him receive a relatively merciful sentence of only twelve months.
In November 1894, Littlejohn was called upon to adjudge the mental state of another defendant, James Connor, who was accused of wilfully and maliciously placing a chair on a railway line, so endangering the lives of all those on board a train. Connor – who had already pleaded guilty when Littlejohn testified that he was ‘a little stupid’ – received thirty days with hard labour, but it was for the efforts of one of the investigating officers that the story was most interesting. One Constable Gerrie of the local police force had, on visiting the crime scene, noticed footprints created by boots recently patched on the sole. With a rigour that would surely have delighted Sherlock Holmes, Gerrie noted the pattern of the repair and then made a tour of the various farmhouses in the local district to inspect the boots of the labourers working there. Sure enough, before long he had collared his man.
For all that Littlejohn and Bell had plenty to occupy their time and thoughts in the post-Monson period, their sense of burning injustice would not dissipate. The manner in which their evidence had been, to all intents and purposes, passed over – and with the encouragement of such prestigious counterparts as Dr Hay – left them exasperated. It was perhaps the unavoidable cost of working on the cutting edge, engaging in scientific analysis far ahead of its time. In 1933, Robert Churchill – Scotland Yard’s leading firearms expert for some half a century – carried out a review of the trial transcript. ‘It is more thrilling than anything Edgar Wallace ever wrote,’ he commented enthusiastically, referencing the man who for a while was the world’s bestselling author. Churchill then continued: ‘The evidence is one-hundred per cent for conviction, so the jury were either blind or kind.’ It is likely that Littlejohn and Bell considered the jury blind and the judge too kind.
To add to their disquiet, at some point they came into possession of evidence that was not heard during the trial but which, if it had been, would surely have delivered a different result. We know of it only indirectly, via a reference that Arthur Conan Doyle made in a letter to his mother, Mary, dated 23 January 1894. It was sent from Davos in Switzerland, where Doyle had spent a good deal of time in late 1893 and early 1894 in the hope that the alpine air might improve the health of his sickly wife, Louisa (known as Touie). In a postscript to the letter written as he was completing one of his non-Holmesian works, The Stark Munro Letters, Doyle wrote: ‘Have had pleasant letters from Barrie [J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan], Stevenson [Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde] and Dr Joe Bell – the latter still convinced that Monson did the murder. Scott’s brother was told by Scott that he saw Monson kill Hambrough, but was prevented by Scots law from saying so.’
Tucked away in Doyle’s copious correspondence, here is perhaps definitive proof of Alfred Monson’s guilt. So, what is to be made of the extraordinary claim? Unfortunately, it is impossible to know when Bell came into this intelligence. He and Littlejohn both gave evidence on the third day of the trial, with Littlejohn also briefly recalled on day six. Scott/Sweeney’s brother, George Sweeney, testified on the seventh day. It is certainly possible that their paths crossed as each awaited their moment in court. Yet, of course, George Sweeney had committed to giving a very different version of events under oath, claiming no knowledge of his brother’s whereabouts and insisting that he could no way be involved in Cecil’s demise. This was the strategy he hoped would see his brother saved from the gallows for ever. There was good reason, then, not to start contradicting himself with new and perhaps unprovable revelations of Monson’s guilt, even if he knew them to be true. But would he have then gossiped with fellow witnesses in the manner suggested by Doyle’s letter? It seems unlikely, but a humble hotel porter put into an extraordinarily stressful situation in a strange city … well, one might imagine his jaw might be loosened under certain circumstances.
Was Sweeney’s revelation perhaps related to the ‘further move’ Bell had discussed with the journalist from the Pall Mall Gazette? Might the Edinburgh doctors have had it in mind to twist the arm of Sweeney so that he could deliver the death blow to Monson’s defence? Imagine their disappointment as Sweeney’s actual testimony merely contributed to the feelings of confusion and contradiction that prevailed over the trial. And if Sweeney revealed his inside knowledge to them after the trial, how frustrated they must have felt to know that Scott had held the key to the whole mystery all along. Quite what was meant by the assertion that Scott/Sweeney was ‘prevented by Scots law’ from denouncing Monson is unclear, though. There is certainly no legal barrier to exposing a murderer, and Scott/Sweeney had the opportunity to speak freely at the outset. But once he had gone to ground and then been subject to a sentence of outlawry, he would surely have feared being charged with murder if he attempted to engage with the authorities. Just like Monson, as a defendant he would not have had the right to speak up at his own trial, so was this perhaps the legal impediment he envisaged? Regardless, by the time Bell was disclosing this new evidence to Doyle, the game was already up. The law would not allow a retrial. Sweeney, Bell and Littlejohn could say whatever they liked to whomever was willing to listen, but Monson would never have to face them in a courtroom again.
Nor, agonisingly, would he disappear from view. Again and again, Monson found his way into the newspapers, a recurring reminder to Littlejohn and Bell that they had been unable to deliver him to justice. After popping up all over the place in 1894 – lecturing, writing his book, suing Madame Tussauds – he came into view again in May 1895. Back in league with the showman Charles Morritt, Monson accepted a challenge to be publicly hypnotised and then to answer a series of questions from the audience. (In fact, Morritt and Monson were spotted enjoying a drink together at a pub in the middle of Edinburgh in the afternoon before their purported ‘grudge match’.) On the evening of the performance, Monson was quickly ‘put under’ to a crescendo of boos and hisses, along with a faint mingling of applause. Then the interrogation began, with Morritt reading questions from cards that had been circulated around the audience. The first question was, inevitably: ‘Did you murder Cecil Hambrough?’ Monson replied in the negative. The next question: ‘Do you know who killed him?’ ‘I don’t know,’ came the response.
It was a most puzzling response, coming from a man who had maintained from the outset that Cecil had died by his own hand.