Shuckland
By Martin Charlton, with illustrations by Kyle Llewellyn Roberts

T

homas Upton dare not look behind for the hound was following! The one they called ‘Old Shuck’. A notorious beast, he had heard so much about since arriving in this a marshy landscape of inky pools — Grendels the locals called them. A place littered with lonely Saxon churches perched upon hillocks, isolated villages with strange names like Mittleham and Hernfleet, and ancient woods with tales of faeries, witches and goblins.

      Silence reigned here. Only occasionally broken by the harsh haunting cries of wading birds out on the flats, where the weather could change in an instant: one moment the sunlight shimmering upon pools and lakes; the next shrouded in fog or rain that’s rolled in off the sea; and from where, during the dark winter months, a biting northerly would come to sculpt solitary trees into the grotesque.

     To this place the sandy-haired, freckled-faced boy of twelve had been sent; sent, like so many, out of London to escape Hitler’s rain of death. Tom Upton missed his mum. He missed his dad too, who was ‘doing something secret for Mr Churchill’. Not that Tom told anyone, of course. ‘Careless talk costs lives,’ his father had stressed to him. ‘So mum’s the word, old boy,’ his father concluded, tapping the side of his broad nose.

      Tom also missed his friends, some of whom had been evacuated; others had stayed to face the Luftwaffe. He missed his little terrier dog, Patch, and the familiar surroundings of his Islington home. He wished he were away from this awful place, and those awful people he’d been made to live with. Beastly they were! Mean! Horrid! They made him work long hours on their stupid farm, and fed him little for his efforts. They took his comics mother had sent him and gave them, instead, to their pig-face son, William. They force him to eat cheese, even though he’d told them it made him sick, and for that they accused him of being an ‘ungrateful little wretch!’

      For three long months he had suffered their cruelty. Tom frequently thought how he’d rather face all of Hitler’s bombers than spend another day — another moment — here, and now the hound was following!

    ‘Mind Old Shuck don’t get you,’ William Allen giggled, as Tom was ordered to the neighbouring Honeysuckle Farm to ask old Mrs Woolf if she could spare some eggs and flour.

Farmer Allen with his pipe

      ‘Aye, he’s got a particular taste for city whelps!’ said Farmer Allen jovially, through the acrid haze emanating from his pipe. Tom rose lugubriously from his place at the kitchen table, but he was too slow for Mrs Allen, who barked at him to ‘stop dawdling!’ as he miserably shrugged on his duffle coat and stepped out onto the farmyard.

      Dusk was rapidly deepening into the chill of a winter’s evening; the sky, at first an intense blue, soon became coal-black, peppered by stars; and in the stillness Tom could hear the close panting of breath and clicking and scraping of claws upon asphalt. He felt as if this supernatural beast were toying with him. That at any moment it would strike, reducing him to mere ash, as it had done before many years ago. He recalled the miller’s tale, which William Allen had narrated to him upon his first night at Mothersole Farm; a tale that had been told with much relish at the discomfort it caused.

The foolish miller meets Black Suck.

      It went as thus: bound for market one autumnal day during the reign of George III, a miller found his way blocked by a huge jet-black hound, with eyes like burning embers that wept tears of fire, and a wearing a malicious grin. The miller shouted at the beast to move, but it just sat there defiantly staring back.

      ‘Go on!’ exclaimed the miller. ‘Away you foul beast! Away!’

      But still the creature would not move.

     The miller got down from his cart and approached the hound, gesticulating angrily with his arms and shouting further; and yet still the hound would not move! Infuriated by such flagrant defiance, and from a dumb beast at that, the foolish miller returned to his wagon and grabbed a wooden club he carried in case of highwaymen or footpads. He then struck out at the creature and was instantly turned to ash, along with his horse and cart. Now Tom expected a similar fate. That either tomorrow, or the next day, someone would find his blackened twisted corpse and instantly know that Old Shuck had been about.

      But there were even more horrific tales of death and mutilation suffered by those unfortunate enough to meet Black Shuck between the hours of dusk and dawn; tales that had brought Arthur Conan Doyle himself to this region, and later write The Hound of the Baskervilles. Tom wished he was as fearless as Sherlock Holmes, but truth be told he was terrified, and it took every ounce of willpower to keep moving and not look behind. Nowhere was truly safe from this devilish manifestation. Not even the village church, which still bore the scars of a previous visitation made by the hound one Sunday morning many centuries ago.

      It was 1577, and during a particularly fierce thunderstorm, and to the locals’ astonishment, the church began to quake. Then Old Shuck appeared in a blinding flash of fire and smoke by the altar. The terrified parishioners thought the Devil himself had materialized, and mass panic ensued. The hell hound then rushed down the aisle and through the panic-stricken crowd, killing a farmer and his young son; their bodies instantly twisted and charred upon impact. Others had to live with blacken hands and arms that had shrivelled up like a draw purse, as the fiend hound brushed pass; or had suffered no physical injuries but were broken in spirit for the rest of their days. Old Shuck, in all his terrifying majesty, then left his mark on church door, rising upon his hind legs; his immense front paws clawing into the oak panelling before disappearing in another blinding flash, which tainted the air with a foul sulphurous odour. Tom had seen those marks. Deep charred grooves burnt into the wood, as if someone had been at it with a hot branding iron. Proof of the hound’s existence? Not arf! Tom thought nervously.

      In a bid to lift his spirits he started singing “Pack up your troubles” quietly to himself. It was a song granddad Bill had taught him. But Tom’s rendition was underlined with tense anticipation. It wasn’t easy putting Old Shuck out of your mind, not when his icy malevolent presence was following you.

      The full moon had by now turned the landscape metallic grey, casting long foreboding shadows, which only raised further Tom’s already heightened anxiety. The haunting cry of a fox mutilated the silent night, causing the boy’s alert senses to jump, and not knowing what it was he let out a cry of alarm. What else was lurking out there? There it was again! Somewhere off to his right; over there, where the dark shapes of skeletal trees huddled together as if they too were afraid. A third cry! It could not be the hound for the unnatural oppressive coldness it emanated still clung to Tom’s back; the panting breath and clicking claws told him Old Shuck was still only a few paces behind.

The moonlit countryside of Shuckland

      Tears began to well as he considered the likelihood that he would never see his mother and father again. Never see any of his friends. Never see Patch, or the familiar sights, sound and smells of home. He didn’t want to be burnt to ash. Nor stay with the beastly Allens. He didn’t want to come here in the first place. He just wanted to go home.

      Through the sobbing he begged Old Shuck to leave him alone. Still he dare not face the creature, but kept walking onwards. ‘Go and haunt pig-face,’ he pleaded. ‘He deserves it! Not me! Go and haunt him! Go and haunt pig-face! Go and burn pig-face!’ He repeated these words over and over, with little thought of the consequence, but the hound only seemed to ignore him.

      By now Tom had lost all perception of time; had he been walking for a few minutes, half-an-hour, an hour? He had only once before walked the distance between Mothersole Farm and Honeysuckle Farm, and now he desperately tried to remember how long it had taken. The night made everything so alien. All signposts had been removed because of an imminent German invasion, making it difficult for him to get his bearings. Was he nearly there? He hoped so! Or had he still some way to go? Oh to God, he hoped not!

      He turned a corner and in the distance could make out the silhouette of a group of buildings. As he neared the farmhouse Tom noticed the oppressive coldness, which had plagued him since leaving the Allens farm, lift and he instinctively knew that the hound had gone. The frighten boy frantically rapped his knuckles against the front door, and eagerly waited for a response.

      ‘It’s young Thomas, isn’t it?’ asked Mrs Woolf from the doorstep.

      ‘Yes,’ he croaked.

      ‘You all right me dear? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ she asked concerned, noticing his pale complexion in the warm glow emanating from within the house.

      Tom mentioned the strange cries out on the marshes, but said nothing of the hound. Mrs Woolf, placing a reassuring arm around the boy, guided him in and sat him by the living room fire.

      ‘Nowt to worry about, deary,’ she reassured, with an angelic smile. ‘It’ll be a fox, mostly likely. There’s all types of creatures skulking about at night around here, even at this time of year. I was just making some coco, would ya like some?’

      Tom nodded, saying that he would, and thanked the old lady for her kindness.

      Mrs Woolf, Tom estimated, was as old as granddad bill, with long smoky-grey hair; weather sculpted timeworn face and knotted fingers from years of hard graft. But despite her age her eyes still gleamed with energy, and she seemed pretty agile too; though during Tom’s last visit the old lady had commented how she was no longer a ‘spring chicken’.

      From the kitchen he could hear the sound of cups and saucers, and Tom couldn’t help wishing he’d been sent to stay here instead. Perhaps then he wouldn’t miss home as much as he did. But Mrs Woolf already had a couple of land girls lodging her, and, until recently, her son Jim; now somewhere in France serving with his regiment.

      As she returned into the living room, carrying a tray with three cups of steaming coco, the old lady repeated her earlier reassurance to the boy that he’d probably heard a fox or some other nocturnal creature.

      ‘Nowt to worry about deary,’ she repeated. ‘It’s not as if you heard Old Shuck. Now that’s something to fret about, I can tell ya!’

      Raising the cup to his lips, Tom asked what he sounded like.

      ‘It starts as a low howl,’ replied Mrs Woolf , ‘but then grows louder until you have to cover yer ears to stop ’em burstin. Those unfortunate to hear Old Shuck never forget the sound of him in a hurry, but they’re luckier than those who cross his path, mind you.’ She then enquired Tom what had brought him out at such at late hour? He mentioned the eggs and flour Mrs Allen requested (the old witch!). ‘Let me see what I can spare for ya, deary,’ she said, and then returned to the kitchen.

      Tom heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and a land girl he knew as Sally entered the room. She was about twenty, plain looking, with auburn hair. She spoke with a London ascent, which he loved to hear; a little piece of home in an otherwise frightful land.

      ‘Hiya, Kidda, what brings you out here?’ Sally asked, a little concerned.

      Tom repeated he was on an errand for Mrs Allen, but said nothing of the strange cry or Old Shuck. He didn’t want Sally to think he was a sissy, frightened of a silly fox; or even a mere ghost. He then asked where Grace, the other land girl, was tonight.

      ‘Out on a promise,’ Sally reply with a cheeky smile and a wink. ‘But don’t go blabbing, alright?’

      Tom acquiesced with a nod of his head.

      From then on they talked mainly about London, and how it was coping with the daily bombing raids. ‘It’ll take more than that for Gerry to break us, wont it kidda!’ Sally said defiantly. Tom nodded, wondering – hoping – his parents and Patch were alive and save. It had been a week since his last letter home and as yet he’d received no reply. The thought that something dreadful may have happened caused a nauseating feeling to stir in his stomach.

      Mrs Woolf returned with a small brown paper bag and handed it to him. He thanked her for the coco and was about to leave when Sally reminded him not to forget his flashlight. When he mentioned that he didn’t have one the two women gasped with mild horror. Tom explained he could find his way back in the moonlight, but neither Sally nor Mrs Woolf were having any of it, and he was given a large silver flashlight; the end of which was covered with tracing paper to dim its beam. Even out in the countryside it was against wartime regulations to have an unshielded flashlight, in case it aided enemy aircraft.

      ‘You can return it tomorrow,’ said Mrs Woolf with a smile.

       Tom thanked them and left for his return journey to Mothersole Farm and the moaning ungrateful Allens, who were probably wondering, ‘what was taking that bloody boy so long?’ As he stepped outside the clear night air had been replaced by a swirling veil of sea mist. He switched on the flashlight, waved goodbye and headed off, expecting the hound to be waiting.

      It was not.

      Throughout his journey back Tom cast the flashlight slowly around like a warship searchlight; its already feeble beam cutting virtually no distance before being swallowed by the vast grey shroud that enveloped him. On a clear night it would have illuminated a mere two or three foot ahead of him, but within the swirling shroud it was ineffectual!

      In the intense silence Tom’s footfalls seemed unnaturally loud upon the asphalt. His breathing became more rapid and shallow; his anxiety grew with each step as he expected Old Shuck’s return at any moment; perhaps around the next bench or lurking in a nearby grove of trees – but still he saw nothing.

      The further he went without seeing or hearing the hound the more confident he became. Again he lost all perception of time, and was beginning to think that the beast had either forgotten or got bored with him. Then through the swirling mists he spotted two saucer-shaped eyes glowing ahead, followed by a large black body. Fear instantly rose from the pit of Tom’s stomach, creeping throughout his body; pickling his skin and almost turning his legs to jelly. For moment the boy paused, not knowing what to do. He thought about crying out for help, but knew it would be useless. There was no one to save him. He was alone!

      What if he made a run for it? Perhaps try to get back to Mrs Woolf and Sally? No, too far! The hound would be upon him within moments. Well then, if he was going to die he would at least die fighting! Tom tightened his grip on the flashlight, his only weapon and cautiously approached. Within a few paces he noticed the beast sat directly in front of the gate leading to the Allens farm; either side a low dry stone wall disappeared off into the fog.

Old Shuck

      Old Shuck was every bit as immense and formidable as its reputation predicted: a rough jet-black coat, large wolf-like head, large round eyes that shone like lanterns, huge paws, and it grinned a set of dagger-like teeth.  The beast seemed to show intelligence; a self-awareness, and even enjoyment at the terror it was inflicting. Tom fully expected it to speak; to utter a menacing threat or prophesies his imminent death, but it said nothing. Panicked by his predicament, the boy thought about finding another way to the farmhouse. There was another gate that lead to the back of the farm, but he instinctively knew that the hound would be there waiting. What to do? For a moment he was too awe struck to do anything, as the miller’s story replayed in his mind. Then he became angry and started shouting obscenities and waving his arms at the beast. Old Shuck didn’t flinch, but stared defiantly back, almost mockingly. Tom picked up a large stone and hurled it at the creature. It missed, landing with a dull thud in the damp grassy verge, and still there was no reaction from the beast.

      Three months of bottled up hatred was verbally vented towards the hound, which remained motionless throughout. Only when it looked up did Tom, himself, notice a droning noise coming from behind, growing louder by the moment.

      There was something familiar about it, and yet something odd. It sounded mechanical. An engine! It coughed and spluttered as if it were running out of fuel. Tom now turned his attention towards the noise, all thoughts of the hound momentarily pushed to one side, hoping to see what type of plane it was, for clearly it could be nothing else. Through the swirling blanket of fog the aircraft’s immense blurred bulk soared twenty or so feet over his head, followed by a rush of air. Fire spewed out from its engines as the plane continued to lose height. There was a sickening crack; a shearing of metal, as it finally hit the ground, and slid straight into Mothersole farm. In those few seconds of tearing metal it sounded as if the plane itself were screaming its inevitable fate, as a falling man may scream as he plummets from a great height to the ground below.  The resulting explosion threw Tom to the ground. Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around his head and brought his knees to his chest, as fragments of the plane and farm were scattered around him. There were other smaller explosions and the sound of panicking animals trapped in the now burning barns, before, finally, the only sound to be heard was the crackling of the flames.

      Tom, covered in dirt and grit, slowly got to his feet. Old Shuck was looking over its shoulder at the inferno. Then it slow turned its gaze back to terrified boy, and once more grinned as if to say, ‘look what I’ve done’. Then it began to grow, becoming larger and larger, until it was nothing more than a thick impenetrable cloud. Its glowing eyes faded like the stars before the dawn, until they had disappeared altogether. Finally the cloud slowly evaporated into the murky damp air, leaving Tom frightened and alone…

*

Sally was first on the scene. She found him lying curled up and sobbing on the ground. Soon other people arrived, all asking questions, but Tom couldn’t answer any of them. Everything seemed so surreal, as if he were caught in a terrible nightmare. Then he remembered what he had said to the hound on his journey to Honeysuckle Farm. ‘Go burn pig-face!’ Only then did the horror of his situation take on a deeper and more intense connotation. For many years Tom felt guilty about what happened to the Allens. True they were beastly to him, but did they really deserve to die so horridly?

      For the rest of that winter, after an initial brief stay at Mrs Woolf’s, he returned to London and faced up to the German bombers that came most days and nights to broadcast death and destruction of their own.  As to the cause of the crash it was to remain a mystery – even after the war. The authorities wouldn’t even disclose the type of plane or whose it was – theirs or ours. But for Thomas Upton the greatest mystery of all was why? Why had Old Shuck, a creature with such a fearsome reputation, saved his life? For what purpose had he been spared? This he pondered until his final breath – only then, as he stood many years later upon the scaffold, soon to be hanged for murder, did everything finally become clear.

  

 The End

An earlier version of Shuckland was originally published in the September/October 2010 issue of The New Writer; revised and expanded, February 2018.

© Copyright (text) Martin Charlton, 2010, 2018.

© Copyright (illustrations) Kyle Llewellyn Roberts, 2018.

Murder Recalled

Did He Kill Her? (The Ramsgate Mystery).

Who murdered Sarah Noel?

      That’s what the packed courtroom was desperate to know.

      Who had entered her home on Sunday afternoon, 14^th May 1893, and shot her at close range in the head? Was it, as Ramsgate Police strongly believed, her 43-year-old husband William? Or had this foul deed been perpetrated by an anonymous assailant?

      Justice William Grantham took his seat at the Bench. Indefatigable and a shrewd judge of character, Maidstone’s summer assizes would be his first his first encounter with Kent’s criminal fraternity.

      Grantham had spent the weekend painstakingly going through the prosecution’s case, and he was far from happy. The investigation had been less than professional, and now the 57-year-old judge had to decide whether or not the accused should be committed for trial. The evidence was far from conclusive; at best it was barely circumstantial. Nevertheless, Grantham had carefully and impartially considered the facts…

 Just before 4 p.m. on the day in question, William Noel had returned home to find the house locked and his wife seemingly out.

      The couple ran a successful butcher’s on Grange Road, Ramsgate, and lived, quite comfortably, in a two floor apartment above the shop. William was also a Sunday school teacher at the nearby St Lawrence Wesleyan Chapel, some twenty minutes’ walk away. Getting no reply he was about to leave, intending to go for a short stroll, when he noticed one of his students, 16-year-old Nelly Wilson, who also happened to be the family’s domestic servant.

      ‘If you see Mrs Noel, Nelly,’ he said, ‘tell her I can’t get in.’

      Nelly confirmed that she would indeed pass the message on should she see her mistress. But when he returned some fifteen minutes later the house was still locked. The family’s black Labrador “Nep” barked as Noel again hammered the doorknocker.  

      With still no reply, and soliciting the help of a neighbour’s ladder, William climbed to the first floor kitchen window. He sees his wife lying on the floor and Nep sitting next to her. Forcing the window he frantically clambered in.

Grange Road, Ramsgate, at the time of the murder.

      Around the same time Matthew Saunders – a town councillor and neighbour – was heading down Grange Road, on an afternoon stroll with his two daughters. As he passed the butcher’s William Noel hurried out. ‘Saunders,’ he exclaimed nervously, grabbing the councillor’s arm, ‘I believe my wife is dead!’ Noel’s words were overheard by another neighbour, James Harman, who immediately came to offer his assistance, and together the three men hurried in.

      Inside they found Sarah Noel (56) lying dead on the kitchen floor. The body lay on its back, surrounded by blood, some of which had trickled into the passage. The victim’s spectacles also lay near the body. Nep, reported as being ‘very attached’ to his mistress, emitted a low menacing growl at Harman and Saunders.

      ‘Be quiet, boy,’ Noel instructed. The dog immediately complied, but nevertheless kept a wary eye on the two strangers.

      While Harman rushed to fetch a doctor, both Noel and Saunders search the premises. The apartment appeared to have been ransacked. Cupboards and drawers had been opened (some wrenched open with a poker); their contents strewn on chairs, the floor and the bed. Noel also found that a cashbox used to store the firm’s takings had also been forced. The victim’s purse – containing five sovereigns – was also missing. At first sight it looked as if a violent robbery had taken place. Had Sarah Noel awoke from her customary afternoon nap to find an intruder or intruders? Was that why she had been shot?

      William Noel seemed to think so. At the magistrates inquest Saunders later recalled how the butcher repeatedly voiced his opinion that they had been robbed. But as the police would later point out, there were a number of problems with this theory.

     The body was examined by Doctors Fox and Cotton who placed time of death sometime around 2.30. Death was caused by a single gunshot, fired four feet from the victim, from a revolver ‘of somewhat large calibre’. The bullet, conical in shape, entered the victim’s head just below the right temple and exited through the left. It was later found lodged in woodwork in the kitchen. Sarah Noel also had a black eye, but as Dr. Fox later informed the coroner this was as a result of the bullet entering the victim’s head.

      Police-Inspector Robert Ross was the investigating officer. The 31-year-old Scot had previously served with the Lancashire Constabulary, where he had worked on ‘several important cases’ before transferring to Canterbury. Then in October 1891 he transferred again, this time to Ramsgate, where he was given the rank of Inspector. According to the Thanet Advertiser he was a man of ‘remarkable ability and intelligence’ and ‘greatly valued by his superiors’. Initially Ross too believed the Noels were victims of a violent burglary, but as he examined the crime-scene he soon felt that it was, as he put it at the coroner’s inquest, ‘a get up’. Some jewellery had not been taken. A bowl containing ten shillings in loose change was also untouched. As too were Sarah Noel’s pocket watch and chain, and jewellery she was wearing. But strangely the thief had taken a Post Office savings book containing £24, which was worthless to them as it would prove difficult to cash without raising suspicion. Ross also believed that a burglar would not target a tradesman’s premises. Nor would he use such violence against ‘a poor defenceless woman’. There was no sign of forced entry, and Ross was strongly of the opinion that criminals only used firearms to gain their liberty. Besides, it was well known around the town that William Noel banked the business’ takings on a Saturday afternoon.

      Then there was Nep.

      Described by the Illustrated Police News as a ‘ fierce-looking, stump-tailed, heavy-headed retriever’, as Ross later explained to the coroner, had the dog been shot and the woman knocked senseless he would be more inclined to believe the robbery theory. But Nep had not been shot, and furthermore, despite his fearsome reputation for aggression against all except his master and mistress, had done nothing to raise the alarm. Why? According to Noel, he’d had left the dog shut in an upstairs room, before leaving to give his Sunday school lesson. The butcher later conjectured that the thieves must have inadvertently let the Nep out while ransacking the premises. But Ross was still unconvinced, and to him the dog’s lack of intervention in protecting his mistress meant he knew and trusted Sarah Noel’s murderer. This, along with his belief that the crime-scene had, at least in part, been contrived resulted in William Noel becoming the investigation’s prime and only suspect.

      Ross then made a grave error. Instead of finding the evidence to support his theory, he does the opposite. And from here on Ramsgate’s police force embarked on nothing sort of a witch-hunt. Other lines of inquiry were either quickly dismissed or simply not followed up, as the investigation fell into farce.

      Inspector Ross failed fully to establish whether any firearms of a similar calibre had recently been sold in the town. A second-hand shop in Kings Street had sold such a weapon four days earlier, and the same individual had also purchased a box of .442 cartridges from a gunsmith in the High Street.  The identity of this person was never established. All the police learned about this potential suspect was that he looked in every respect ‘a perfect gentleman’.

      On the day of the murder George Palmer, who ran a grocer’s store on Grange Road, recalled seeing a ‘well-dress lady’, fairly short in stature and attired in a dark dress, loitering at the rear of the Noel’s house. The identity of this woman wasn’t looked into neither, even though William Noel, himself, indirectly gave them a clue to her possible identity.

      Another possible clue ignored was the discovery of a jemmy and ‘other burglar’s tools’ found in Tomson’s Passage, about a quarter of a mile from the crime-scene. Ross gave them little consideration as they were, in his opinion, too far from the murder site. (A walk from Tomson’s Passage to Grange Road will take you ten to fifteen minutes at most). Instead of pursuing these potential lines of enquiry the police, and Ross in particular, devoted most of their time in trying to prove rumours of William Noel’s improprieties with younger woman, which they saw as a motive.

Police-Inspector Robert Ross (sketch by Kyle Llewellyn Roberts).

      Under Inspector Ross’ guidance the police searched the couple’s apartment, but no firearm of any description was found. However, with William Noel, even in the earliest stages of the investigation, becoming the main suspect, Ross did not authorise a search of the St Lawrence Wesleyan Chapel, a potential hiding place for the murder weapon. Nor did he conduct a personal search of Noel himself. Ross and his constables did have a poke around the drains outside – again a possible hiding place – but a more thorough search was not conducted. Nor did Ross and his officers do themselves any favours by pinching, during their search of the crime-scene, a couple of bottles of Noel’s beer. In an attempt to save face Ross offered to reimburse the butcher. But Noel considered the matter of no importance.

      In fairness to Robert Ross, William Noel didn’t exactly help in allaying the inspector’s suspicions against him. In regard to the mysterious woman seen loitering at the back of the house, Noel, though unaware of what George Palmer saw, did indirectly give the inspector a possible motive and suspect.

      Two days after the murder Noel sent word for Ross to call on him. Inspector arrived to find the butcher looking very pale and behaving in an excited manner. ‘I have found the murderer!’ he exclaimed. When Ross asked for a name, Noel replied: ‘My wife’s sister. I don’t know her name, but she’s a very bad woman, and living with a man now [meaning they lived together but were not married]. Her maiden name is Saunders’. This sister, according to Noel, had been married twice and fallen out of favour with her family. When Ross asked why she, Noel gesticulating wildly said: ‘I have had a presentment, I feel it, I can’t help feel it!’ Pressed when he had last seen this sister, the butcher replied: ‘Eighteen years ago at Southsea. She was then residing with my wife at the lodging house there, and they had rowed over something before she [the sister] left.’ Ross then asked if Noel had seen her recently or heard she was in the neighbourhood. ‘No,’ Noel replied ‘but I feel, can’t help feeling that it must be her’. When asked where and when he had last seen the sister, Noel confessed that he had actually never met her.

      Inspector Ross then asked Miss Alice Simm, Sarah Noel’s nice, (who had travelled down from Twickenham, South West London, the day after her aunt’s murder) when she had last seen her wayward aunt. ‘Four years ago in Hastings, Inspector,’ she replied. ‘I believe she now resides in Bexhill’. Alice then corroborated Noel’s account about her estranged aunt being a ‘very bad woman’, but did not offer an opinion as to her uncle’s theory regarding the murder.

      (A Bexhill local paper tracked down the wayward sister, Mrs T. Harris. She explained how she had been forced to care for her invalid husband, a former gardener, until his death in 1886. She wasn’t in regular contact with Sarah Noel, but claimed this wasn’t as a result of ill-feeling. Mrs Harris also spoke of how, not long before Mrs Noel’s murder, she had experience a number of nightmares in which a death occurs in the family).

      Nine days after her aunt’s murder, Alice made a discovery that only enhanced Ross’ suspicion against her uncle. As she later explained to the coroner, and then again a month later before the magistrates, she was putting away some clothing in a chest of draws. The draws were untidy, where they had been search by the police. In one of them she found Sarah Noel’s missing purse, which slipped out from between the folds of a pillow case. William Noel, who was adamant it had been in the cashbox, immediately sent word to Inspector Ross; the purse’s contents – five sovereigns – were still inside. For Ross this was further evidence of Noel’s guilt, but when asked by the magistrates Alice Simm said she believed it was possible it could have been missed during the police search. At the coroner’s inquest she was also asked how the dog behaved towards her. Alice replied that Nep was always very friendly and affectionate with her.

      For Robert Ross, Nep was the key piece of evidence that proved William Noel’s guilt. A number of witnesses testified before both the coroner and the magistrates of Nep’s hostility towards strangers. Surely he would have attacked any intruder? Ross even discharged a revolver in the animal’s presence to gauge its reaction. After firing two blanks Nep simply rose from his mat and wagging his tail approached the policeman.

      After hearing nine days of evidence the coroner concluded that Mrs Sarah Noel was the victim of murder by person or persons unknown. But Inspector Ross wasn’t prepared to see the man he believed guilty walk free, and literally minutes after the verdict he arrested William Noel. What followed was a long protracted magistrates hearing, lasting 16 days. Full of pantomime and farce every detail of Noel’s life, in particular his behaviour around young women, was examined.

      The prosecution believed the butcher had murdered his wife because she objected to his adulterous habits. The couple, it was said, argued regularly about it. One of Ross’ own men, PC Hooker, testified that he’d heard the couple arguing some four years back, while he sheltered from the rain in Noel’s shop front. When pressed on what was actually said, Hooker confessed that he couldn’t make out actual words, but he was sure it was over another woman. The Noels relationship, it was implied, had become so unhappy and strained they occupied separate bedrooms. Two attempts to raise a family had failed with the children dying shortly after birth.  And while William Noel was a strikingly handsome man, with a full head of black hair, married neatly with his beard and moustache, his wife – ten years his senior – was beginning to show her age. She had false teeth, wore glasses and her hair was greying.

      Robert Ross was determined plumbed every depth in order to prove William Noel a morally reprehensible libertine, who, after killing his wife in cold blood, had ransacked their apartment to make it look like a violent robbery had occurred. In court he tried to use PC Hooker to tarnish Noel’s reputation, by having the constable recount how, some years earlier, he’d seen Mr Noel in the company of a young woman walking up Edith Street (just around the corner from his shop). It was also established that the young lady in question had since emigrated to Canada. Ross even brought one of the butcher’s former customers, Sarah Louise Cook, over from Ireland. In fact, Cook’s evidence was considered so sensational that all woman and girls were instructed to vacate the court.

      Cook had been a resident of Edith Road with her husband, a customs officer, until August 1891. She told the court how she had gone to buy some meat or pay a bill – she couldn’t remember which – and found the shop empty.

      ‘I went to the office window and looked in,’ she explained.

      ‘What did you see there?’ asked Mr James Emery, acting for the prosecution.

      ‘Noel and the girl, Miller,’ replied Cook disdainfully.

      ‘Who was the girl?’

      ‘The book-keeper.’

      ‘And where were they?’

      ‘Together on the floor.’

      According to the Thanet Advertiser, the witness then ‘proceeded to describe the positions of the prisoner and the girl’. However, this being Victorian Britain anything more graphic – in print at least – would have been considered in poor taste!

The murder site today.

      Noel’s solicitor, Mr Walter Hills, objected to this blatant character assassination, but was ignored. Later in his summing up of the facts he described Cook’s evidence as ‘absolutely irrelevant to the charge’. And of Ramsgate Police, Hill believed it was ‘monstrous’ that they should put forward such evidence in a ‘case of this importance’. But there was more irrelevant gossip to come.

      Henry Marsh, a farmer from Worth, was another of Robert Ross’ star witnesses. He told the court how two years previously Noel had called on him to collect some lambs. ‘Did anyone come with him,’ enquired James Emery. Marsh said the accused had been accompanied on one occasion by a woman in her twenties. After the farmer had loaded the lambs into the cart Noel and his lady companion stayed in the area for about an hour. ‘[They were] along the dyke shore,’ Marsh recalled. ‘She was sitting down. He was kneeling down along the shore and appeared to be gathering wild flowers.’ The distance between them appeared close and intimate. This revelation seemed to have caused uproar with the court, forcing the chairman of the magistrates, John Kennett, to restore order with a strong rebuke.

      Marsh was recalled a couple of days later. ‘We understand that on the last occasion you did not give all your evidence,’ remarked Kennett, ‘because someone had intimidated you. Is that so?’ Marsh confirmed that was correct and was instructed to tell all. The farmer recounted his previous story regarding William Noel’s visits. Only this time the butcher appeared to have his arm around the young lady, and was kissing her. Marsh and his wife observed this for about ten minutes. Later in the Salutation Inn, located in Sandwich, they discussed what they had seen.

      Under cross examination from Walter Hill, it was established that Marsh was a good distance away (‘There was sixteen acres of land between him and us’). And that he’d only seen Noel picking wild flowers. It seems Ross may have coerced the farmer into embellishing his evidence. But the Inspector, as it turns out, was not Marsh’s intimidator. There was considerable laughter among the public when it was revealed that agent provocateur was the landlady of the Salutation Inn, Mrs Holness. Marsh explained to her and his wife that Inspector Ross had called and to the purpose of his visit.

      ‘What a nuisance,’ complained Mrs Marsh.

      To which Mrs Holness suggested: ‘Mine what you are saying – don’t say too much, only say what you are asked!’

      ‘Do you mean the Bench to believe that these few words intimidated you?’ ask Hill incredulously.

      ‘Yes,’ replied Marsh embarrassed.

      ‘How old are you?’

      ‘Thirty, I think.’

      ‘Are you indeed!’

      The resulting laughter became so much that Kennett was again forced to restore order.

      As it happened Sarah Noel was fully aware of her husband’s female companion. In fact she waved them both off as they left. It was also established that the Noels never argued. In her evidence Alice Simm recalled how her aunt Sarah also spoke affectionately about her husband. William Noel’s staff and neighbours also spoke of how the couple were devoted to each other. And the magistrates themselves saw nothing untoward in the butcher accompanying the young lady up Edith Road as far as the field where he kept some sheep and pigs.

      And as to the crime itself, none of the witness could agree when the fatal shot was fired; the time ranging from between 2 p.m. and 2.45. Some even mistook it for a door slamming! Nevertheless, despite the flimsy evidence, the magistrates found William Noel guilty and remanded him to Canterbury Prison, to await trial at the next assizes in Maidstone. For Inspector Ross victory, and justice, was now close at hand, and for the accused man the hangman’s noose beckoned!

      But what were the facts? That’s what Justice William Grantham was only interested in. What evidence – good hard evidence – was there to prove William Noel a murderer?

      On Sunday 14^th, after the family had dined, around midday, Sarah Noel cleared away the dinner things. She was washing her hands when Nelly Wilson left via the back door for her Sunday school lesson. The time was 2 p.m. William Noel claimed he had left the house no later than 2.15 p.m., again via the back door, which he left unlocked. This was so he could get back in, as Sarah would be having her customary afternoon nap. But before leaving he shut away Nep in an upstairs room.

      Nelly arrived at the St Lawrence Wesleyan Chapel at 2.45, and finds Mr Noel already there preparing for his class. The lesson begins at 3 p.m. After class, she saw the butcher walking down Chapel Row, heading home. They next meet shortly after 4 p.m. on Grange Road where William informs her he’s locked out.

      Was there really enough time for Noel to murder his wife and then ransack their apartment?  Walter Hill didn’t think so. Neither did Noel’s friends, who were putting together a defence fund. They saw the violent intruder as a more logical reason. And to be fair Robert Ross’ attitude that burglars never use violence or rob tradesmen’s homes is a bit ignorant, if not naïve. Charles Peace, for example, was a very successful and elusive housebreaker, and not above using violence.  He was executed in Leeds some 14 years earlier for a double murder. Was it such a stretch of the imagination that an intruder had entered the property, perhaps believing it empty, found Sarah Noel and shot her? Perhaps in a panic? Then as he or they ransacked the apartment they open a door, only to be confronted by a barking and snarling Nep?

      William Grantham did not hold back in his criticism of Ramsgate Police or its handling of this investigation. In his opinion there ‘was not enough evidence to hand a dog!’ he told the Grand Jury. Never before, in the whole of his experience, had he seen a prosecution case so fully of ‘impropriety, incompetence and illegality’. Mr Noel was charged with murder, but after 16 days before the local magistrates there wasn’t enough evidence to ‘be compressed into one small piece of paper’. Inspector Ross, he said, instead of locating the murder weapon and who had fired it, had wasted time and resources muckraking into the accused’s past. The actions of the accused years earlier were of no relevance to the inquiry, and it was not the job of a policeman to ‘act as a bad-bred bloodhound’.

      The judge made it quite clear that his criticism had nothing to do with whether he believed Noel guilty or not. But should the accused man be sent to trial and found not guilty then he could not be retried, should more substantial evidence establishing his guilt later be found. Then again, if he were found guilty and the real murderer should later be identified, then an innocent man would have paid the ultimate penalty for a crime he had not committed. Grantham concluded by stating that the accused had suffered a ‘miscarriage of justice’, because the evidence used against him had nothing to do with the crime.

      It took the Grand Jury most of the day to reach a verdict. At 4.30 p.m. they concluded that there was ‘no true bill’, and the case was thrown out. The butcher’s friends were jubilant, and at 5 p.m. William Noel was released from Maidstone Gaol. It had been his intentions to return to his shop on Grange Road, but in the end he travelled with his solicitor to London. He would never set foot in Ramsgate again.

Entry in the Crown Minutes Book, held at the National Archives, Kew.

      As for Robert Ross, in an interview with a London newspaper he described the judge’s remarks as ‘cruel in the extreme’. ‘I do not deserve the harshness with which the judge reserved for me,’ he complained bitterly.  But he need not have worried. On the 15^th July the Thanet Advertiser published a testimonial in which a number of gentlemen gave their ‘formal expression’ of appreciation of the ‘manner in which Inspector Ross discharge a public task of great difficulty and delicacy, in connection with the recent criminal investigation’.

      ‘We congratulating Mr Noel on his release,’ it went on, ‘[however] we confidently assert that he has himself alone to blame for the perilous position which he has lately occupied.’

      And although the undersigned of the testimonial had the upmost respect and regard for Mr Justice Grantham, they were convinced that he had made a grave error of judgment. Robert Ross was later presented with an inscribed watch and pipe, and a sizable amount of money. Four days after Grantham’s scathing criticism a pistol, similar in calibre to that believed used, was discovered by a labourer on a nearby beech. It was deemed by the police as the work of a practical joker, and having no connection to the murder of Sarah Noel.

     Shortly after the Grange Road Mystery, as many of the London papers called the murder, Robert Ross returned to Scotland. He would eventually become Edinburgh’s Chief of Police.

      As for William Noel, his fate is a little more obscure. It was reported in the Thanet Advertiser that he was to sail (one would hope with Nep) to New Zealand. But a search of incoming passengers in the New Zealand press records no one of that name entering the country. 

      For the residence of Ramsgate, the Grange Road Mystery was the next big murder case after the Southey murder of 1865. It created fierce debate regarding William Noel’s guilt within the town. Did he really kill her? Today, as with the Southey murders, it is all but forgotten; superseded by the greater horrors the town suffered during two world wars. The identity of who killed Sarah Noel was never established, leaving the case forever unsolved.

© copyright Martin Charlton, 2018

Dickens, Debt and A Christmas Carol.

Dickens was in debt!

         Sales of his latest serialization, Martin Chuzzlewit, were not doing well. His previous two books, Barnaby Rudge and American Notes, had also failed to engage readers in the same way as Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby or The Old Curiosity Shop had previously done. To add the Charles’ problems his wife Catherine was pregnant with their fifth child, and he already owed £240 to his solicitor and old school friend Thomas Mitton. And further complicating matters, his publisher Chapman & Hall, due to the poor sales of Chuzzelwit, were looking to reduce his weekly income by £50. They, as did many others, believed that the poor sales of his more recent works was evidence of Dickens’ waning popularity. So Charles needed to raise some cash – fast!  His answer was to pen what would become one of his most enduring and best-loved of books.

      The spectre of debt was never far from Dickens’ mind. In February 1824 his father had been incarcerated at the Marshalsea Debtors Prison, forcing a twelve-year-old Charles to leave school and work ten-hour days at Warren’s Blacking Factory, earning about seven shillings a week. “My whole nature was so penetrated with the grief and humiliation of such considerations,’ he later wrote, “that I often forget in my dreams that I have a dear wife and children; even that I am a man; and wander desolately back to that time of my life.” His father was in part responsible for his current financial strife. John Dickens thought nothing of using his famous son’s name to acquire loans he could never hope to repay. Dickens’ friends and even his publisher were approached for money, which always resulted in Charles having to bail his father out. So with himself now facing financial ruin it’s not surprising that Dickens was sent scrambling for his writing materials. 

      Charles started work on his “little Christmas book” in mid-October 1843. Much of its composition was done during evening walks, where he would at times burst out with laughter or sob with anguish at the comical antics or painful suffering of his characters. Fortunately these nocturnal excursions were carried out when most “sober people were tucked up in their beds”.

      Normally, because of their length and innumerable characters, Dickens would write plot summaries for each novel, but with Carol there was simply no time. Instead he turned to a minor character from The Pickwick Papers. Gabriel Grub – a precursor to Ebenezer Scrooge – was a misanthropic sexton and gravedigger, who featured in one of a number of digressive ghost stories, told by Pickwick and his friends. Grub is digging a grave on Christmas Eve when he is abducted by goblins, and tortured with visions of the past and future. The “cross-grained surly” sexton is forced to relinquish his anti-social ways and reintegrate into the community “full of mirth and cheerfulness”. With this basic plot in mind, Dickens added more pressure upon himself by adding a yuletide theme. He was quite use to working to tight deadlines, and his original manuscript – now housed at the Morgan Library, New York – shows the method of the story’s composition, allowing us to see the author at work. The pace and editing is feverish, rapid and boldly confident. Deleted text is struck out with a cursive and continuous looping of the pen and replace with a more concise but no less effective replacement. On the opening page a long tangent about the role of the ghost in Hamlet is boxed off and scored through.

      A month later the 31-year-old author, now suffering from a cold, but still in full flow, wrote to a friend: “I have been working from morning until night upon my little Christmas book and have really had no time to think of anything but that.” Six frantic weeks later his “little Christmas book” was ready for the printers, and on the 19^th December 1843 A Christmas Carol hit the bookshops. All 6,000 copies were sold by Christmas Eve, and a further 2,000 snapped up by January 6^th. Literary reviews were generally favourable, with the author being particularly pleased with the review in The Morning Chronicle. “The Carol is a prodigious success”, Charles announced proudly to his son Fred in a letter dated 30^th December. 

      In many ways Carol was a potboiler – a get-rich-quick scheme. But Charles also saw it as an opportunity to put across the plight of the poor, by stating that charitable goodwill should start with the individual. In stave one Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, sums this up nicely when he tells his grouchy uncle that Christmas is a time when people “open up their shut-up hearts” and view those less fortunate as “fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another races of creatures bound on other journeys.” Carol became a morality tale after a recent visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, where Charles saw the plight of dozens of real life “Tiny Tim’s”. He, like much of Victorian Britain, had been outraged by the findings of a report commissioned by the Children’s Employment Commission, which revealed that many young people laboured in wretched conditions. When, in stave three, the ghost of Christmas Present reveals to Scrooge the waif children, Ignorance and Want, the accompanying illustration shows the smoking industrial chimneys of Manchester in the background.

But Dickens also drew on his own personal memories. Bob Cratchit’s home and his run to work are drawn from the streets and dwellings of Camden Town. Tiny Tim (originally to be called Tiny Fred) was based on his own crippled nephew, whom he had last see back in September. Sadly the boy died a few weeks after the book’s publication.

      The moral message of Carol was that healthy societies, like sound families, are based on mutual responsibilities and responsiveness, and not selfishness and capitalists greed, which is as true today as in was in Dickens’ time. This, as with Shakespeare’s plays, which expose all the strengths and frailties of the human condition, is part of the book’s continued longevity.

      Charles personally oversaw every stage of the book’s production. He commissioned John Leech – himself no stranger to financial hardship – to produce four coloured etchings and four woodcuts within the text. The book was bound in red leather, with a gilt design on the cover, and the page edges were also gilt; altogether a hansom volume, and at the relatively low price of five shillings. The public were so enthused it not only dispelled the commercial failure of Martin Chuzzelwit, it also dispelled any fears Charles may have had concerning his waning popularity. William Makepeace Thackery called it “a national benefit”. But despite its commercial success, Dickens would later grumble about how it was “an intolerable anxiety and disappointment” financially. He had hoped to make £1,000 profit. “The first six thousand copies show a profit of £230!” he wrote to a friend. In fact it was more like £137. Much of the book’s profits were absorbed by productions costs: the expensive binding, the high quality paper and Leech’s colour illustrations, and advertising. By the time Charles wrote his second Christmas story, The Chimes, in 1844, Carol had netted him just £726. With such a commercial let down he was forced to yet again go cap in hat to his old friend Thomas Mitton. But Carol’s mixed blessings were to take on a legal twist.

      Within weeks of the original going on sale a number of pirate editions appeared, often with new characters or scenes and sold at a fraction of the price of the original. Charles immediately applied for a court injunction against these plagiarising “rogues and impostors”. However, it was a bitter victory for most of the defendants declared themselves bankrupt, resulting in Charles having to pay his own legal costs. In America, where copyright laws were non-existent, editions of the book were circulated without the author’s name attached, which meant no royalties. Dickens unfairly blamed the book’s publisher, Chapman and Hall, for his meagre return and severed all connection with them.

      The popularity of the book continues to this day. Not once in its 174 year history has it been out of print, and it has been numerously adapted for stage and screen. However, it is misconception to say that Dickens invented Christmas – or at least how we celebrate it today. When Charles first put pen to paper that afternoon in mid-October, Christmas was already going through something of a revolution.

   During the early part of the nineteenth century the festival was hardly celebrated among the industrial working class, and was generally believed to be on the decline. Workers – the real Bob Cratchit’s – were lucky if they got Christmas Day off! But social and economic changes began to sweep the country, a religious revival with greater emphasis on traditional virtues: neighbourliness, charity, and goodwill. In Carol Dickens seized upon the prevailing mood, crystallising it into popular form, making it accessible to the reading public. It is true to say that A Christmas Carol did play its part in the evolution of how we celebrate Christmas, but it’s just one of a series of events. Shortly after its publication Charles moved his family to a large house in Genoa, Italy, to reduce living costs.

   His next Christmas book, The Chimes, also dealt with supernatural visitations, and was his first to be written outside Britain. He hoped it would supersede A Christmas Carol, knocking it “out of its field”. Despite mixed reviews the book was a success, resulting in him acquiring his £1,000, enabling to settle his debts. However, despite his disillusionment it is A Christmas Carol that would become the public’s favourite.

      Today in our world of food banks, zero hours contracts, and news stories of people being forced to choose between food on the table and heating their home because of extortionate fuel bills, Carol’s moral message is as relevant now as in Dickens’ time. It reminds us to honour this period and “try to keep it all the year”. That Christmas should be a time of cheer and charity, of kindness, forgiveness and redemption; a time when we should not view those less fortunate with mockery or distain. In writing A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens gave the world a gift, not only of years past, but for now and years to come!

© copyright Martin Charlton

All images: public domain