‘… the sword of justice is still there to avenge.’
Sherlock Holmes, ‘The Adventure of the Resident Patient’
As 1894 turned into 1895, there was a sense that the Ardlamont trial had been an extraordinary ‘moment’ punctuating the lives of Bell and Littlejohn and, indirectly, Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, too. The court hearings in Edinburgh at the end of 1893 had thrown the first two into the spotlight just as Doyle was orchestrating the latter’s departure from the public stage. Two years on and life had returned to a normality of sorts. Bell and Littlejohn maintained their hectic schedules – Bell, for instance, intimated to his friends that his professional involvement with the police actually grew in this period, while he and his team at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children dealt with no less than 1,222 surgical cases in 1895 alone – but the public microscope had now moved its focus on to other subjects of interest. Doyle, meanwhile, undertook a successful tour of the United States, where he informed journalists and fans that there was little prospect of resurrecting his great detective. He was having far too much fun introducing, for example, his Brigadier Gerard character to the world. And there was no shortage of rival authors bringing their own fictional detectives to the reading public, often under the banner of ‘the new Sherlock Holmes’. Bell, moreover, seems to have become tired with his literary association – never more focused upon than during the Ardlamont trial – describing the Holmes stories to a correspondent as a ‘cataract of drivel’ that brought ‘a heap of rubbish [falling] on my head’. It was indicative that his experiences of fame had not all been pleasing. Nonetheless, while Ardlamont had placed Littlejohn, Bell and Doyle in the eye of a perfect storm, its memory, for them, was now starting to fade a little.
For Monson, though, the prospect of carving out an ‘ordinary’ life was as distant as ever. As his efforts to capitalize on his notoriety failed, he struggled to impose much order upon his world. ‘There is an ancient proverb,’ he would comment in 1898, ‘“give a dog a bad name and you may as well hang him,” an adage which applies with a more appreciable effect to a human being’. In his own estimation, despite being acquitted of Cecil’s murder, the nature of the charge made it impossible for him to embark on what might have been considered a normal, respectable life. The verdict of the jury in 1893 may have granted him a second chance, but how to seize it with any effectiveness evaded him.
After his unfulfilling stint in London in the early part of 1894, Monson again relocated to Yorkshire. Ever willing to surrender to his sense of entitlement, he was of the mind that his wealthy relatives, and his mother in particular, ought to be dipping into their pockets to support him and his family. ‘Under the circumstances,’ he said, ‘surely it was their duty to render some such assistance. At least one has, I think, a right to expect persons endowed with titles and wealth and honourable distinction to set examples of charity towards a member of their family who was in such dire necessity as I was.’ His aim was to tap the extended family for a few pounds per week – enough to cover board and lodgings – but such support was not forthcoming. His mother – who had, it should be remembered, bankrolled his defence – referred him to her solicitors. They in turn offered him £100 plus travel expenses on condition that he, his wife and children settled abroad.
Before long, the Monsons had worked through their funds yet again. Alfred decided to move back to London once more, where he fancied his chances were greater of making a living of sorts. For a year or so, he just about managed to eke out an existence – including by his exploits with Morritt – but the family endured severe hardship. The strain told upon Agnes, who at one stage took to her bed for a period of ten weeks, until her mother, Annie Day, nursed her back to health and relocated her daughter and the children to Doncaster.
Then, in December 1894, Monson’s name took another battering when Major Hambrough sued the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York for the recovery of £20,000 for the insurances Monson had taken out on Cecil. The case minutely examined Monson’s conduct as he made no less than ten attempts to have Cecil insured between December 1890 and August 1893, with the special jury concluding after three days of evidence that the Mutual policies were obtained using false and fraudulent claims. Major Hambrough thus could make no claim on the monies, nor Agnes Monson who had also tentatively begun action against the insurance company. In a coruscating judgment, Cecil was characterized as putty in Monson’s hands. Lord Esher, the Master of the Rolls (the second most senior judge in England and Wales), noted: ‘A greater mass of impudent falsehoods has never been told. The statements were infamous lies, and upon them these policies were issued. Monson was clearly acting for Cecil throughout; the boy was under his influence, and had been, so to speak, mesmerized into signing the false statements in the proposal which his tyrant had written for him.’ Yet despite this damning indictment, Monson would not face charges for fraud. By this time, there was little will to put him through another criminal trial in relation to his dealings with the Hambroughs. What was to be gained anyway? The insurance company had proved its case and could leave the episode behind without incurring any further costs. The Major had nothing to gain financially and lacked the resources to pursue additional legal avenues even if he had wanted to take things further. The matter was now dealt with as far as the courts were concerned.
Meanwhile, Monson simmered resentment at his mother-in-law’s role in separating him from his wife. Before long, he hit upon a plan to wrest her back. Having managed to secure something in the region of £200 from his long-suffering relatives, he announced to Agnes his wish to move the family to Montreal in Canada. By September 1895, he had a second-class stateroom booked on a ship sailing out of Liverpool. Agnes and the children were all set to go with him, but at the last minute something changed. Seemingly, Agnes rejected the accommodation as unsuitable for such a long voyage and so their emigration was aborted. Instead, they all took a ferry to the Isle of Man.
Here, Monson fell back into his old ways with consummate ease. He unburdened them of the Monson name, instead restyling as the Wyvills (Wyvill being his maternal grandmother’s maiden name). He then set about concocting a credible backstory for the family, which involved them having spent a long period of time in Canada. It was because of this, Monson would suggest, that he could not provide the bank references necessary to rent a large house that had caught his eye. In the end, the landlord took him on good faith and Monson signed a ten-year lease on a spectacular mansion called Ballabrooie, in the island’s capital, Douglas. He then engaged a local carpenter to craft bespoke furniture to fill the new home – on credit, naturally. The carpenter was content that a man who could move into a property such as Ballabrooie was to be trusted. The Monsons had soon ingratiated themselves into Manx polite society, enjoying all the trappings that went with it.
But by the end of 1895, Monson had accumulated a large overdraft on his account with the local bank. Then, Ballabrooie caught fire, seemingly the result of a gas explosion. The Isle of Man Times reported that, several weeks earlier, the tenant had complained of a gassy smell in the house but that plumbers brought in to investigate had not been able to find any leakage. It was also noted that Mr Wyvill had suffered a bruised and swollen arm when a section of exploding brickwork struck him. Despite the best efforts of the local fire brigade, not to mention the Bishop of Sodor and Man who was taking tea nearby, the building burnt to the ground. Monson had, of course, taken out insurance on the contents, and soon made a claim for £500. The insurance company, however, disputed the claim. Rumour had it that silver and other valuables for which Monson was claiming were discovered secreted around the property.
Monson could not afford to let the matter rest and so began legal proceedings against the insurers. This proved to be his undoing, for one of the island’s most prominent lawyers happened to have been present in London for the Madame Tussauds hearings. He already harboured suspicions as to Mr Wyvill’s true identity but now he became convinced that Wyvill and Monson were one and the same man. He duly contacted the police with his suspicions. When a number of books were recovered from Ballabrooie bearing Monson’s name, the game was up. Before long, the Leeds police arrived on the scene and arrested him in relation to Tottenham’s perjury accusations – having seemingly been unable to track him down in the year or more since Tot had first made his accusations. The allegations centred on a letter that Tot had claimed Monson had sent him and which was read out at Tot’s larceny trial. Monson had said that parts of the letter, which dealt with the supposed negotiations to buy Ardlamont, had been forged by Tot. However, at Monson’s perjury trial in January 1896, a handwriting expert gave testimony that the letter was produced by a single hand – the defendant’s. Nonetheless, the case was dismissed when the judge ruled that the evidence concerning the letter had not materially affected the jury’s verdict in the original larceny case. Once again, Monson walked free but with a new stain on his character.
His ‘new start’ thus over in just a few months, Monson returned to London and worked variously as a tout, moneylender and even a hair-restorer salesman. In his own words, he was forced ‘to beg, borrow, or steal, and obtain the necessities of life as chance came in my way’. His main ruse involved scouring the wills held at Somerset House in London in a hunt for young men expected to inherit large sums. He would then track down these gentlemen with proposals to realize advances on the monies destined to come their way. Acting as the go-between to unscrupulous moneylenders – most notably a man named Victor Honour, who also went by the unlikely names of John Milton and William Shakespeare – Monson engineered often fraudulent advances, taking a share of the total sum as his reward. So, for instance, he took on the case of the Earl of Rosslyn, whom he had heard needed £300 in a hurry. Alas for Rosslyn, he had already mortgaged his properties to the hilt and so had little chance of agreeing credit with a reputable bank. Monson thus introduced him to Honour and a loan was agreed on punitive terms for the aristocrat. Moreover, Rosslyn was strong-armed into buying a perfumery business that Honour held in his name (Honor Frères) and which the Lord had no interest in taking on. Monson earned a quick £15 for thus shackling Rosslyn with a new bundle of unwanted debt, while Rosslyn was soon forced to declare himself a bankrupt. He joined a long roll call of eminent young gents who lost their fortunes at the hands of Monson and Honour.
As well as indebting young men impatient to get their hands on the family wealth, Monson and Honour employed a secondary tactic of blackmail. If they could persuade any of their gullible marks to commit a legal faux pas in the course of their financial dealings – for instance, faking a parent’s signature – they would seize the opportunity to put the squeeze on the victim’s parents, who as often as not agreed to pay up in order to avoid a scandal. It was all in all a tidy business. Monson claimed he had up to a dozen approaches a day for help. ‘Amongst the vendors or borrowers I have acted for either directly or indirectly,’ he claimed, ‘are enumerated one prince, two marquises, three earls, four baronets, about eight sons of peers (one of whom was an eldest son who sold his reversions to everything he was entitled, and he will thus succeed to an empty title on the death of his father, a judge). I can also number amongst my clientele several magistrates, county gentlemen, clergymen, etc.’
Meanwhile, Monson’s marriage to Agnes had gone into terminal decline. Forced into ever less salubrious dwellings, Agnes struggled to provide for herself and her children on the meagre and intermittent handouts that Monson gave her. This despite Monson regularly being seen dining out and playing the gent around town. Although the couple had two more children in the period after the trial, there was little love left between them and the relationship was soon over in all but name. Almost exclusively reliant on the support of her mother, in November 1897 Agnes took her husband to court on grounds of desertion. He failed to attend the hearing in Leeds where she gave brief testimony dressed all in black, save for a white sailor hat and signature thick veil. The court ruled that Monson should pay her 40s per week plus costs.
Somewhat predictably, this money was not forthcoming. In August the following year, Agnes’s mother sued Monson for £465 11s to cover the cost of board and lodgings for Agnes and her children. Again, there was no representation from Monson. Agnes was the only witness as she told how Mrs May had kept them since 1893 – evidence that convinced the jury to find in the plaintiff’s favour. Still no money arrived. Instead, in November 1898 Agnes faced the indignity of appealing to the board of guardians in Bridlington for poor relief. She was awarded 1s 5d for each child per week, but more importantly she had the board’s backing to compel her mother-in-law to contribute financially to their upkeep, too. Mrs Monson, though, fought the move with all her might.
By that time, Monson had faced a legal reckoning of sorts. In August 1898 he appeared at the Old Bailey on charges of conspiracy to obtain a life policy by false pretences. Alongside him in the dock were Victor Honour and another ‘financial agent’, Robert Ives Metcalfe. The case centred on Percival Norgate – twenty-eight years old and, like Monson, a rector’s son. The prosecution alleged that in order to procure a life insurance policy for Norgate from the Norwich Union Life Insurance Society, Monson and his confederates had substituted him with an associate, Stanley Hobson, to undergo the medical that they knew Norgate, a man of long-term delicate health, would likely fail. Furthermore, it was shown that they had persuaded Norgate to forge his mother’s signature on various bills of exchange, which were then used to extort money from his parents in return for silence regarding the young man’s misdemeanour. Despite Monson’s lawyer pleading that his client had ‘struggled hard against prejudice to lead an honest life’, the jury took just fifteen minutes to convict. Both Monson and Honour were sentenced to five years’ hard labour, with Metcalfe receiving eighteen months. It was not, the judge said, likely that this was an isolated case. Monson reportedly flushed on hearing his punishment.
His reaction was in stark contrast to that of Bell, Littlejohn and Heron Watson, all of whom delighted in what they considered a long-overdue victory for justice. Of course, it could not make up for the disappointment of losing the Ardlamont case, but at least, in the word of the Scotsman, ‘these specimens of the worst type of social pest have been safely locked up for some time to come’. The London correspondent of the Scottish Law Review wryly noted that the English law had brought to justice he whom the Scots law had let go free. Moreover, the result confirmed in the public mind that Monson was a man routinely drawn to insurance frauds and willing to sacrifice the lives of innocents on the altar of his own avarice. Where Monson had been given the benefit of the doubt in 1893, he had surely exhausted that privilege now. For a while, he and Honour seemed to have their names linked to every episode of theft or financial skulduggery imaginable. In January 1899, for instance, the Manchester Courier reported that ‘Monson, of Ardlamont fame, who is now undergoing a term of imprisonment in connection with moneylending fraud, together with Victor Honour, is connected with the scheme which resulted in the robbery of jewels from the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland, at the Gare du Nord, Paris, in October’. No charges were ever brought.
While serving his sentence, Monson boldly attempted to recast himself as a kind of moral crusader. Having been set adrift by his family, he suggested, he had been given no choice but to make a living any way he could. But now he was out of the moneylending business, he was quick to condemn it. ‘There is one – and to my mind only one – step necessary to stop the evils attendant on moneylending,’ he proclaimed, ‘and that is to establish a court where a borrower can take his case to be investigated in the event of his disputing the claim of the moneylender, such court to be closed to reporters and the enquiry to be conducted in privacy, such court having power to adjudicate on the amount to be paid … One hears people say that such and such a person is a respectable moneylender. I say I don’t believe it. There is no such person. It is an impossible condition. The business is immoral, and, consequently, the persons implicated are bound to become to a certain extent demoralized’.
Few, though, had much time for his critique. As the To-Day magazine put it: ‘He was a clever man, and carried his coolness and unscrupulousness to a point where most criminals would have broken down.’ The Bridlington Free Press for its part took the opportunity to paint Monson as an example of wider social ills. He was, they said,
The most perfect type of the swell mobsman the present century has seen. Monson’s life has been that of a large, and, I am afraid, increasing class of young men whose birthright is their curse. Too highly born to work, educated in a manner that proved utterly useless for a business career, even had he desired to work, brought up amid surroundings that rendered a life of ease almost indispensable and fostered tastes that he could never expect to be able to honestly gratify. Monson received a terrible shock when he reached the age of manhood … Monson was one of the most dangerous scoundrels in Europe … his career points with terrible emphasis to a ghastly flaw in the social system of the day, which alone has rendered such a personality possible.
And so Monson found himself locked away in London’s Holloway Prison, his remarkable record of outpacing the justice system at last at an end. More than that, he had also definitively exhausted the love of Agnes. She, who had stood loyally behind him during his darkest days and accepted the brickbats of public condemnation, was lost to him. As Dr Watson himself was once moved to observe: ‘Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.’ Yet any thoughts that Monson might be crushed by his demise and disgrace were premature. Instead, his infamous streak of impudence was as evident as ever. When a visiting magistrate encountered him in his cell, he asked, ‘Have you any complaints to make?’ ‘No,’ Monson replied. ‘Is there anything you want?’ enquired the justice. Monson’s answer: ‘Only a latch-key.’
Monson’s 1898 conviction proved something else – even the rolling by of the years had not diminished the facility of the Ardlamont affair to excite and stimulate public feeling. In the same way, the five years since Sherlock Holmes’s legendary episode at the Reichenbach Falls had done little to lessen passion for the Great Detective – if anything, the hunger for more of his adventures was growing by the day, a hunger that would soon demand sating. Meanwhile, the two unassuming figures – Littlejohn and Bell – who provided the common thread between the most sensational murder trial and the most beloved fictional creation of the age went on with business as usual.