Like some sinister playbill, the Calendar of Prisoners proclaimed the list of defendants awaiting trial at Quarter Sessions and Assizes, and the respective charges against them. In addition to Bailey, on the Calendar for the Winter Assizes at Aylesbury in the County of Buckingham beginning 12 January 1921 before The Hon Sir Henry Alfred McCardie Kt were four other prisoners: John Thomas Tiller, 41, accused of ‘unlawfully and carnally knowing’ his 13-year-old daughter Violet; Florence North, 18, accused of perjury; Charles Edwin New, 30, a piano tuner, said to have stolen a purse containing about 18s; and Joseph Bassett, alias Joseph Foskett, a 45-year-old plateman who was alleged to have indulged in a veritable crime spree, consisting of the theft of a bicycle, cash box containing £2, War Bonds worth £110, War Savings Certificates to the value of 15s 6d each, a number of antique and Roman coins, and a metal cash box containing about 5s in coppers.

But quite clearly top of the bill was Bailey, charged not only with murder but also, according to the Calendar, that ‘on the 30th day of September 1920 at Little Marlow, feloniously and violently did assault Lilian Pretoria Rose Marks and then did attempt violently and against her will to ravish and carnally know the said Lilian Pretoria Rose Marks’.

What better stage for the denouement of this tasty selection of alleged crime and criminals than Aylesbury’s County Hall, originally built in the early 18th century to designs approved by Sir John Vanbrugh? It was originally intended primarily as the county gaol but also boasted two courtrooms and offices for the Clerk of the Peace, later to include the County Council Chamber.

Bucks Assizes had long been the arena for some locally famous murder cases, after which, up to and including the sensational case of John Tawell in 1845 who was accused of poisoning his mistress, convicted killers might as likely be hanged from a rope tied with three half hitches on the county hall balcony overlooking the town’s Market Square while witnessed by a baying mob.

Ironically, perhaps the most famous case of all to be heard, in part at least, in this venerable building was not a murder at all but that of the Great Train Robbers in 1964. However, the courtroom wasn’t deemed big enough to accommodate the proceedings so the trial had to be switched to the offices of Aylesbury Rural District Council nearby, returning to the old County Hall for the sentencing only.

Six years later, 18-year-old Paul Stanislaw Dabrowski walked into County Hall, doused it with petrol and set the place ablaze. It seems that Dabrowski and his younger brother had appeared in the court as children and had been sentenced for minor offences. Mentally unbalanced and contemplating suicide, he had decided to confront his grief and despair by taking it out on the building – but not before removing the New Testament from the witness box to stop it from being burned. He would go on to serve 11 years in Broadmoor, Rampton and other secure units before eventually being released in the early 1980s. Meanwhile, just 12 months and £200,000 later, the Court and the Council Chamber were back in business restored as closely as possible to their original form following the fire which had engulfed almost all the building apart from a small section of panelling and a shield bearing a royal coat of arms.

Almost exactly 50 years earlier, it was into the dock of the original, Vanbrugh-approved, courtroom that at 2.25pm on the second day of the Assizes, in the matter of Rex v George Arthur Bailey, the defendant stepped confidently, flanked by two warders. The Clerk, George Pleydell Bancroft, then read out, ‘George Arthur Bailey, you stand charged upon this indictment, and upon the Coroner’s inquisition, with the murder of Kate Lilian Bailey on the 29 September last year. Are you guilty or not guilty?’

In a firm and clear voice, Bailey replied, ‘Not guilty.’

There was, however, no mention now of the other lesser, albeit still grave, charge against Bailey that had decorated the published Calendar. Until the last ten years or so, the practice in English courts was that, if a man or woman was charged with murder, then whatever else they had done, the indictment at trial would contain a single count of murder. It was generally felt that such a charge was so grave that it would be unfair for a defendant to have to defend himself against other allegations at the same time.

Bailey had, in fact, arrived in Aylesbury from Oxford by train some hours earlier, around 10.15am, but because another of the cases on the Calendar hadn’t been completed he had been confined to the cells beneath the Court under the watchful eye of the warders who’d brought him across country that morning. He was probably not aware of the fact that, according to the Bucks Free Press, there was ‘outside the Court a long queue of sightseers, the majority clamouring for admission in the hope of hearing the sordid story unfolded’.

Bailey’s state of mind as he prepared himself for trial, preparation for which included reading and re-reading the papers of earlier proceedings at Marlow Police Court and the inquest as well as their press reports, might possibly have been detected in a poem he had completed and handed to his solicitor on 7 January:

His official ‘state of mind’ was summed up in a note by Oxford Prison’s Medical Officer, Dr RH Sankey MB, who wrote five days before the trial was due to begin: ‘This prisoner has been under observation since he was committed to this prison. He is certainly very peculiar but I do not consider him to be certifiable as insane. He is fit to plead.’

Eventually ‘put up’ after the lunch break, Bailey, noticeably pale-faced, would have glanced around the dimly lit Assize Court to discover it ‘packed to its utmost capacity, many ladies being present, both in the gallery and in the well of the Court. The space usually allotted to the press was allocated to ticket holders.’

The Clerk told Bailey that he was going to read out the names of the jury and that he had the right to object before they were sworn in. It wasn’t, however, to be an objection from Bailey which first rang around the court, but from Miss Maud Stevenson, one of the three women jurors who were about to make history. ‘By reason of the evidence which will come before the jury in this case, I would rather not serve,’ she declared, before adding, ‘I do not wish to shirk my public duties and responsibilities.’

His Lordship observed, ‘I am afraid that there is no rule that a person may object upon the ground that they would not care to listen to the evidence.’

Miss Stevenson retorted, ‘I understand it lies within the power of your Lordship.’

The Prosecuting Counsel, Mr Young, stood and declared, ‘So far as the Prosecution are concerned, I am quite willing that she shall stand down, apart from any ruling as to whether she shall stand aside.’

For the Defence, Mr Johnston said, ‘The Defence will have no objection.’

‘If you have an essential objection to serving,’ His Lordship added, ‘I am quite willing to listen to it, but I am afraid I cannot grant exemption on the grounds you mention.’

Miss Stevenson was then forced to concede. ‘If you wish it, I am willing to do the same as the others.’

His Lordship continued, ‘I am afraid that the point that you raise is one of important principle. If ladies are to be excused from service upon juries because they feel the evidence may cause them pain or distress, it would involve this, that many ladies might escape altogether from that which is a duty imposed upon them by the Jury Act, that they together with men should discharge the functions of a jury. I could not accede to your request without establishing a precedent, which might not be to the best interest of the public. I am afraid, therefore, that I cannot excuse you on that ground.’

Miss Stevenson was duly sworn.

What of the other principal players in this drama? Leading the case for the Crown was Mr Hugo Young KC, at 73, a veteran barrister of almost 50 years’ experience since being first ‘called’ in 1872. A man of Lincolnshire, he took immense pride that he was, at the time of the trial, also Recorder of Lincoln, in the county of his birth. He especially delighted in the fact that, during the 15 years of his Recordership, not one of his decisions had ever been overruled by a Court of Appeal.

Compared with Young’s immense judicial experience, both in Court and on the Bench, Mr Johnston, appearing for the Defence, aged 35, was a veritable novice, although they did share membership of the same Inn of Court, Inner Temple.

The son of a doctor, Leicester-born Samuel Frederick Sinclair Johnston attended Rossall School in Lancashire before winning a scholarship to Trinity College, Oxford in 1904. The tutorial register records that Johnston took part one of a Classics degree before resigning to take up Law. He qualified as a barrister in 1909 but, when war was declared in 1914, he joined up almost immediately in the Royal Army Service Corps. Johnston served for the duration, rising to Captain and earning a ‘mention in dispatches’. There is also record of him being awarded a medal (which he didn’t actually receive until 1923, just two years before he would die tragically of TB in a Swiss sanatorium when aged barely 40).

Presiding over the trial was 51-year-old Mr Justice McCardie, a popular albeit controversial figure who had been a Judge of the High Court since 1916, but, like the opposing Counsel, was born and raised in the provinces of firmly middle-class stock.

Mr Young, a rather owlish-looking man with a beak of a nose, began, in what was described as ‘an even, conversational tone’, to outline the case for the Prosecution in a two-hour opening speech. He had just finished reading Bailey’s letter to the Coroner when the Judge interrupted him with a crucial piece of housekeeping. He told the jury that the case would probably go on until Saturday, and that they wouldn’t be able to go home that night but would have to be kept together. If they wished, he would adjourn the Court for a few minutes so they could telegraph family or friends and he would make sure they were supplied with paper, pen and ink by Court officials. Most of the jury took advantage of this concession during a brief break.

Resuming, Mr Young moved on to Bailey’s system of musical notation and read out the two advertisements for young ladies, placed two months apart in the local paper. It was Bailey’s ambition to get rid of his wife and for his own immoral purposes he wanted to engage young women, the Crown said.

At which, Mr Johnston quickly rose to his feet arguing that this evidence was inadmissible on the grounds that the prisoner’s motive in respect of the young ladies was not necessarily evidence of motive for murdering his wife. He then suggested firmly that the point should be discussed further in the absence of the jury. The Judge agreed and the jury left the Court.

For his part, Mr Young said that it was material to the question of motive to show that part of Bailey’s scheme was to get girls into his house for unlawful purposes, and he proposed to show that, in the case of Miss Marks, Bailey went to her room at night and made proposals to her, which she resented, and he refused to leave the bedroom. Another contention was that Bailey intended to have a riotous week and then end his own life.

The Judge added that the case for the Crown was that, if the prisoner’s wife had remained in the house alive, Bailey could not have embarked upon ‘the other efforts’, for the success of which the death of his wife was a necessary object. Moreover, said the Judge, some of Bailey’s statements to Miss Marks might be distinctly relevant to the case. For instance, when Bailey said, ‘I want you to be mistress of the cottage,’ he must have been aware his wife was dead.

What soon became crystal clear was that, despite the fact that the second charge against Bailey had now been officially dropped, evidence around it would, as the Judge then confirmed, be deemed admissible to prove motive.

The jury filed back into Court again to hear Mr Young conclude by reading out Bailey’s voluntary statement to Marlow Police on 12 October. There were many acts which, said Counsel, suggested Bailey knew exactly what he was doing. That he was ‘a peculiar man’ in some respects, there could be no doubt, added Mr Young, as he resumed his seat with the courtroom clock showing 4.45pm.

The final half hour of these opening salvoes was taken up with evidence from five witnesses including Inspector West, Supt Kirby and the two doctors, Dr Wills and Dr Dunbar Dickson, who’d been summoned by the police to examine it.

Inspector West was then cross-examined by Mr Johnston, who asked, ‘I do not quite follow what you said about the position of the body. Do I understand that the body was lying under the bed wrapped in a sheet?’

‘Yes,’ replied Inspector West. ‘Hanging down from the bed there was a counterpane. The body was wrapped up in a sheet, and the bed was on top of the body. There were two counterpanes. One was hanging down by the side of the bed, and the other was hanging long ways. I found nothing on the body but a sheet and some underclothing.’

‘There were no other clothes on the body?’

‘No.’

According to Dr Wills, Kate’s body was also clad in a nightdress. He also said that, when the body was turned over, the red fluid, which came out of her mouth, had ‘the odour of almonds’. Did Dr Dickson notice the almond smell?

‘I did not,’ he told Mr Young. He also confirmed that the body was stiff when he examined it.

On which bleak note, Court was then adjourned for the day.

What of Bailey’s demeanour in the dock during that first afternoon? He had listened attentively, the local papers reported, and even raised ‘the ghost of smile’ when Mr Young, in his opening, referred to the fact that one of the witnesses had, at a previous hearing, described the prisoner’s music notation as ‘grotesque’.

As Mr Justice McCardie crossed the gallery from the back of the Court to the well-appointed Judge’s Lodgings – replete with bedrooms and excellent dining room under the supervision of a resident housekeeper – to settle in for the night, the jury made its way out of the building, across Market Square and up to the nearby Bull’s Head Hotel where they were to be lodged for the night and for as many more nights as the trial might require. At the hotel, where their host was the genial Signor Giacomo Eugenio Atturro Gargini (from a long-established family line of innkeepers), the jury were attended by Mrs Noble, a woman usher – yet another innovation.

‘The three women jurors,’ the Times would report gravely the following day, ‘had the novel experience of being “locked up” with the men of the jury at a local hotel. It is the custom in murder trials for the juries to be kept together in this way, under the surveillance of an Officer of the Court, to prevent communication with the public. On this occasion, the whole of the hotel accommodation was placed at the jury’s disposal, and special arrangements were made for the comfort of the women members.’

Quite what these ‘special arrangements’ actually were is not recorded. One hopes they at least took full advantage of the first-class hotel’s facilities, which included a restaurant, palm court, billiard saloon and oyster bar.