Burke and Hare (14 page)

‘Did you give information after that to the police?’

‘It was my husband.’

‘Did you see Burke after that?’

‘No, sir.’

During cross-examination, the Dean of Faculty asked Mrs Gray if McDougal had said anything else after offering them money to keep quiet.

‘Yes,’ was the answer. ‘She said, “My God, I cannot help it.”’

The Lord Justice-Clerk wanted to know if these words were spoken before or after McDougal had offered them money; Mrs Gray confirmed that it was after that.

‘What was your reply?’

‘I said, “You surely can help it, or you would not stay in the house.”’

‘Did she make any reply to that?’

‘No, sir.’

Mr Gray was asked about these events, and described how, when he and his wife had found the corpse, he had packed their belongings and was on the way out when he met Mrs Burke.

‘That is McDougal, the prisoner at the bar?’

‘Yes.’

‘What passed?’

‘I asked what was that she had got in the house; and she said, what was it? and I said, “I suppose you know very well what it is.” She fell on her knees, and said . . .’

‘Did she drop in a supplicating attitude?’

‘In a supplicating attitude, imploring that I would not inform of what I had seen.’

‘Did she offer you any reward for that?’

‘She offered me some money, five or six shillings, to put me over till Monday; and there would never be a week after that, but that I might be worth £10 a week.’

‘What did you do upon this?’

‘I said my conscience would not allow me to do it. After I came back, I heard her in the room, narrating the same words to my wife.’

‘What were these words she said to your wife?’

‘They were words very nearly to the same purpose as those to myself, though they were not exactly the same.’

‘Did she say she could not help it?’

‘Yes, she said so.’

‘Was there any reply made to that?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Not upon the stair?’

‘No indeed. I did not stop long with her.’

‘Now, after this conversation in the house, did your wife and you leave it?’

‘We did, sir.’

‘And did Mrs Burke, or McDougal, follow you?’

‘She followed us, sir; and when we got out into the street, we met Mrs Hare.’

‘Now, what happened there?’

‘We met Mrs Hare there, and she inquired what we were making a noise about and said, “Can’t we go into the house, and decide our matters there, and not make a noise about them here?’”

‘And you went into a public house, and stopped there some time?’

‘Yes; and I went and gave information at the police-office.’

The porter, McCulloch, told how he had collected a box from Burke’s and taken it to 10 Surgeons’ Square. Cautious about implicating himself in a crime, he reluctantly admitted that he knew there was a dead body in it.

‘Did you see him put nothing in the box?’

‘The sheet.’

‘Did he take anything like the person of a human body?’

‘Yes; I think it was something like the person of a body.’

Lord Meadowbank interrupted, ‘You have no doubt that it was a body, in short?’

‘No, my Lord.’

McCulloch was followed by Sergeant Fisher, who described his part in the arrest and investigation. After explaining that he had gone to Burke’s house at Gray’s request, and found no body there, but had met Burke and McDougal coming upstairs, and had asked them to go back inside with him, he replied to Mr Alison’s question as to what had happened then.

‘I asked Burke what had become of his lodgers, and he said, that there was one of them, pointing to Gray; and that he had turned out him and his wife for their bad conduct.’

‘What took place then?’

‘I then asked them what had become of the little woman that had been there on the Friday, the day before; and he said that she was away; and I asked, when did she leave the house, and he said, about seven o’clock in the morning.’

‘Did he say anything about any other person being present when she went away?’

‘He said William Hare saw her go away. Then I asked, was there any other person saw her go away; and he said, in an insolent tone of voice, there were a number more. I then looked round the house to see if I could see any marks on the bed, and I saw the marks of blood on a number of things there; and I asked Mrs Burke, the pannel at the bar, how they came there; and she said that a woman had lain in there, about a fortnight before that time, and the bed had not been washed since.’

‘Well, what more?’

‘She said, as to the woman, she could find her; she knew her perfectly well, and that she lived in the Pleasance. She alluded to the little woman, that I had asked where she was; and she said, the woman can be found; she lives in the Pleasance; and she said she had seen her that night in the Vennel, and that she had apologised to her for her bad conduct the night previous. I asked her then what time the woman had left the house; and she said, seven o’clock at night. When I found them to vary, I thought the best way was to take them to the Police Office; and I told them that it was all personal spite, but that I must take them to the office, as I was sent down.’

Fisher testified that he had heard them examined by the Superintendent, and that he went back to the house that night with the Superintendent and Dr Black, and found there a striped nightgown which they took away.

‘Did you find any blood?’

‘There was a quantity of blood amongst the straw under the bed.’

‘Did it appear to have recently come there?’

‘Yes, it appeared quite fresh.’

‘Now, next morning, did you go to Dr Knox’s premises in Surgeons’ Square?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was there a person of the name of Paterson with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you get anything?’

‘Yes; we went down to the cellar, and he said “Here is the box, I do not know what is in it,” and we opened it, and found the body of a woman in it.’

The Lord Justice-Clerk asked if the body was quite naked.

‘Quite naked,’ Fisher answered, and then explained, in reply to Mr Alison’s questions, how Gray had been sent for and identified the body before it was removed to the police office. The Lord Advocate asked Fisher if the body was shown to the prisoners.

‘Yes.’

‘What took place then?’

‘They all denied it.’

‘Denied what?’

‘Denied all knowledge of the body.’

The Lord Justice-Clerk interrupted to ask if they denied ever having seen it at all.

‘Of ever having seen it,’ Fisher replied, ‘dead or alive.’

In cross-examination, the Dean of Faculty asked Fisher if Hare denied all knowledge of it.

‘Yes; he said he never saw it, dead or alive.’

‘His wife the same, I suppose?’ said Mr Cockburn.

‘Yes.’

Burke and McDougal had sat calmly and attentively throughout the proceedings thus far, sipping water and occasionally exchanging a word or two. Around four o’clock in the afternoon, Burke asked when they would be given dinner, and was told they must wait until six. When this hour came, they were given bread and soup and had to consume it in the dock while the trial continued.

Outside, as darkness fell, large numbers of people hung around in the streets waiting for news, while inside the courtroom there was much excitement and anticipation as Sir William Rae called his star witness, William Hare. Every spectator seems to have been struck by this man’s loathsome appearance as the artificial light emphasised his hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. He stepped up to the witness box with a sinister smile on his face and took the oath.

Lord Meadowbank addressed him first. If Hare spoke the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the transaction now under investigation, he could never afterwards be questioned in a court of justice. His Lordship meant, of course, about these particular matters, but did not say so. If Hare should deviate from the truth, however, or prevaricate in the slightest degree, the inevitable result would be the most ‘condign punishment’ that could be inflicted. It is open to question whether Hare understood ‘condign’. It may have crossed some minds that he was being threatened with the death penalty for contempt of court. Lord Boyle reminded him that he was here only in connection with the death of an elderly woman named Campbell or McGonegal.

‘T’ould woman, sir?’ Hare asked, and this was confirmed.

Hare told the Court, in answer to Sir William Rae’s questions, that he was an Irish Catholic, had been in Scotland ten years and had known Burke about twelve months. He had seen Burke in Rymer’s on the morning of 31 October and Burke had told him that there was an old woman in his house he had got off the street and ‘he thought she would be a good shot to take to the doctors’.

‘What,’ asked the Lord Advocate, ‘did you understand by the word “shot” for the doctors; did you understand the meaning of it?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was it?’

‘That he was going to murder her.’

After describing the drinking and merry-making of the evening, which led to a fight between himself and Burke, Hare was asked where the old person was at this time.

‘She was sitting at the fire, and she got up and desired Burke to sit down, and she said that she did not want to see Burke abused.’

‘Did she run out?’

‘Yes, she ran out twice to the entry, and cried out for the police.’

‘She went out twice to the passage?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did she call out?’

‘It was either murder or police, I could not say which, but it was some of them.’

‘Well, how was she brought back again?’

‘It was Nelly McDougal that fetched her back.’

‘Both times?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did she then get any push, or fall over on the ground?’

‘Yes, she did; when we were struggling, I pushed her over a little stool.’

‘And you continued to struggle while she lay there?’

‘Yes; she raised herself on her elbow – she was not able to rise, being drunk – and called on Burke to be quiet.’

Sir William asked Hare what Burke did after they had stopped fighting.

‘He stood on the floor; he then got stride-legs on the top of the woman on the floor, and she cried out a little, and he kept in her breath.’

‘Did he lay himself down upon her?’

‘Yes, he pressed down her head with his breast.’

‘She gave a kind of cry, did she?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did she give that more than once?’

‘She moaned a little after the first cry.’

‘How did he apply his hand towards her?’

‘He put one hand under the nose, and the other under her chin, under her mouth.’

‘He stopped her breath, do you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he continue this for any length of time?’

‘I could not exactly say the time – ten or fifteen minutes.’

‘Did he say anything to you when this was going on?’

‘No, he said nothing.’

‘Did he then come off her?’

‘Yes, he got up off her.’

‘Did she appear dead then?’

‘Yes, she appeared dead a wee.’

‘Did she appear to be quite dead?’

‘She was not moving; I could not say whether she was dead or not.’

‘What did he do then?’

‘He put his hand across her mouth.’

‘Did he keep it there for any length of time?’

‘He kept it two or three minutes.’

‘Did she appear to be quite dead at that time?’

‘She was not moving.’

‘What was you doing all this time?’

‘I was sitting on the chair.’

Hare said that Burke had stripped the body, doubled it up at the foot of the bed, tying the head to the feet, and covered it with a sheet and straw. Mrs Hare and McDougal had run out into the passage when they heard the first screech. Neither of them had attempted to save the woman. When Burke had covered the body, they had come in again and gone back to bed. Burke left, and in ten minutes came back with Mr Jones.

‘Was it not Mr Paterson?’

‘It was the doctor’s man.’

After Hare had answered questions about the porter coming to collect the box and all of them going to Surgeons’ Square and Newington before being paid the £5, Henry Cockburn rose to cross-examine him:

‘Mr Hare, how long did you say you have been in Edinburgh?’

‘About ten years.’

‘What have you been employed at during all that time?’

‘Boatman and labourer.’

‘You have not been boatman all that time?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘On the canal.’

‘Have you been employed in any other way?’

‘I had a horse and cart, selling fish.’

‘Any other way?’

‘No.’

‘Have you been engaged in supplying bodies to the doctors?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you been concerned in supplying the doctors with subjects upon other occasions than that you have mentioned?’

‘No – than what I have mentioned.’

The Lord Advocate rose and objected to this line of questioning. Hare was removed from the court while Mr Cockburn attempted to justify his plot to discredit the witness. He said that he intended to ask Hare not only if he had supplied the doctors on other occasions, but if he had ever been concerned in murders besides this one.

Lord Meadowbank incautiously declared that the question should not be put before Mr Cockburn had explained why he wished to put it, and Cockburn then launched into an eloquent defence of his line of questioning, saying that he maintained his right to test the credit of the witness ‘on as firm grounds as ever man maintained any proposition’. The witness may be privileged not to answer, he said, but that was no reason not to put the question, because he may choose to answer, and he may answer falsely and thus be contradicted. ‘This is so plain, that the idea of protecting a villainous witness, by not letting any question about his own iniquities be even put to him, humbly appears to us to be absolutely monstrous; and I know no authority for it in the law of Scotland.’ After arguing the point a little further, Mr Cockburn concluded, ‘We are so confident in our opinion of the legality of the question, that we wish it to be put on the record, in order that, if it be rejected, we may find our remedy where we can.’