JANET BROWN’S STATEMENT RELATIVE TO THE MURDER OF PATERSON.
The following is the account of the circumstances connected with the death of the unfortunate girl, Mary Paterson, who was murdered in Constantine Burke’s house, in Gibb’s close Canongate, as given by her companion, Janet Brown. Brown, though a girl of the town, seems possessed of considerable intelligence, and tells her story with distinctness and with every mark of apparent truth. She does not appear disposed to exaggerate, but rather seems unaware of the inference that may be drawn from some parts of the statement. This account has been communicated by herself, and is taken down nearly in her own words.
Mary Paterson and she, after leaving the Canongate watch-house, between four and five o’clock in the morning on which the murder was committed, proceeded to the house of an acquaintance, Mrs. Lawrie, where they had formerly lodged. Mrs. Lawrie wished them to remain. They, however, left the house in a very short time, and went to a spirit-dealer’s in the Canongate, named Swanston. They had there a gill of whisky, and while drinking it, they observed Burke, who, in company with Swanston, was drinking rum and bitters. He entered into conversation with the girls, and affected to be much taken with them, and three gills of rum and bitters were drank at his expense. He wished them to accompany him to his lodgings, which he said were in the neighbourhood, and upon Brown expressing reluctance, was very urgent that she should go, saying that he had a pension and could keep her handsomely, and make her comfortable for life, and that he would stand between them and harm from the people in the house. This particular attention to her, she supposes to have been in consequence of finding her more shy and backward than Paterson, who was always of a forward fearless disposition. They consented to go along with him, and he promised them breakfast when they reached the house. He purchased, before leaving Swanston’s, two bottles of whisky, and gave one to each of the girls to carry. He then conducted them to Constantine Burke’s house in Gibb’s close. They found there Constantine and his wife; when they arrived the fire was not lighted, and William Burke swore and abused the woman for her negligence.
The fire was afterwards lighted up, and breakfast, consisting of tea, bread, eggs, and Finnan haddocks prepared; but during this process, the two bottles of whisky were produced and partly drank by Burke, Constantine, his wife, and the two girls. Constantine partook only of part of it, having in the meantime left the house to his work as a scavenger.
Before the whisky was finished, however, Burke had requested Brown to leave the house along with him. He seems to have considered Paterson as already sufficiently intoxicated for his murderous purpose, and to have applied himself more particularly to Brown, on whom the spirits had not taken so much effect. Finding that the enormous quantity of whisky had not yet produced the requisite effect upon her, he accompanied her to a neighbouring public-house, where he proceeded further in his design of stupifying her, by giving her two bottles of porter which he also partook of, and a pie. All along, it is remarkable, that Burke, although he seems never to have lost sight of his object, but to have adopted every method to further it, should nevertheless have partaken as freely of the liquors consumed as if he had no other intent than to produce intoxication on himself as well as his intended victims, and it appears surprising that such a quantity of ardent spirits, joined to the porter, should not have disqualified him for carrying on the plot. He has, since his conviction, mentioned that it had produced this effect, and that he was intoxicated when the murder was committed.
After leaving this public-house, Brown was again taken to Constantine’s, and the second bottle of whisky finished. While engaged on it, M‘Dougal, who had hitherto been unobserved, suddenly started from a bed, and joined in drinking the spirits. When she appeared, Constantine’s wife whispered to the girls that she was Burke’s wife, and upon her upbraiding him for his conduct, Brown apologised for being in his company, mentioning that they did not know him to be a married man, otherwise they would not have come, and proposed then to leave the house. M‘Dougal replied that she did not blame them, but that it was his constant practice to desert her and spend his money upon loose women. She requested them to sit still, and seemed anxious that they should not go away. The quarrelling between Burke and her then got more violent, and she took up the eggs which had been set down for breakfast and threw them into the fire. Upon this Burke took up a dram glass and flung it at her; it hit her forehead above the eye and cut it.
At the commencement of the uproar, Constantine Burke’s wife ran out of the house, as Brown supposes for the purpose of bringing Hare; indeed, as she saw no other person dispatched anywhere, it is difficult to account otherwise for this vampire’s speedy appearance. After her departure Burke succeeded in turning M‘Dougal out of the house, locking the door upon her. By this time Paterson was lying across the bed in a state nearly approaching to insensibility, and the murderer seems to have considered her as incapable of exertion, and certain to fall an easy prey when he had leisure to finish her. On this account, doubtless, he endeavoured to commence his diabolical work upon her more active companion; he affected great kindness towards her, and pressed her to go along with him into the bed which M‘Dougal had so recently left. As she herself observes, however much she might have been disposed to yield to his wishes, she could scarcely have done so after the brawl she had so recently witnessed, and while M‘Dougal was still making a noise at the door and knocking for admittance, and she peremptorily refused. Fortunate it was for her that she did so, as there can be no doubt about his purpose, if he had succeeded in getting her into the bed, and once there it cannot be questioned that it was intended she should never leave it alive.
The confusion and uproar which had most probably been got up at first, as was their usual custom, to cover the commencement, and continued afterwards to drown the cries of the victims, had in this instance an opposite effect, and Brown, who had become much alarmed by their proceedings, though still unsuspicious of the horrible reality, persisted in her wish to be allowed to depart, promising to return in a quarter of an hour. Upon this promise she was suffered to depart, and Burke at her request conducted her past M‘Dougal, who was still upon the stair-head apparently much enraged. It is not easy to account for his allowing his prey to escape from his clutches, probably he did expect her to return, and perhaps she got off more easily, as Hare, who if there is any difference in their desperate wickedness, seems to merit the distinction of being the arch-fiend of the two, had not yet arrived. If so, Brown again made a narrow escape, as from the short time that elapsed before she returned, when the murder was perpetrated, and Hare appeared standing as if unconcerned; he must have come within a very few minutes of her leaving the house.
She went straight to Mrs. Lawrie’s, and jestingly told her that she would not remain with her, as she had got fine lodgings now; but after informing Mrs. L. of the circumstances, she agreed to go back along with her servant, and endeavour to get Paterson removed. Upon her return, she did not recollect perfectly the close in which the house was situated, and applied at Swanston’s for a direction to the residence of the man who left his house with them. She was told that they could not have gone with him, as he was a married man, and did not keep company with such as they, but that she would probably find him in his brother’s in Gibb’s Close. Even after getting into the close and the stair, she did not recognise the house, and entered that of a decent woman, inquiring if it was there she was before. She was informed that they kept company with no such people, but that it would likely be in the house up stairs. They proceeded up accordingly, and found there M‘Dougal and Hare and his wife. Mrs. Hare ran forward to strike Brown, but was prevented. Between her leaving Burke’s and returning, she thinks there was only about an interval of twenty minutes.
Upon inquiring for Paterson, they alleged that she had gone out with Burke, and added that they expected them back soon, and invited her to sit down and take a glass of whisky with them. She did so, in the hope that Paterson might quickly return. Mrs. L.’s servant then left them, and M‘Dougal commenced a narration of her grievances from Burke’s bad conduct, and railed at him for going away with the girl, and this while her murdered body must have been lying within a few feet of her! In a short time the servant returned for Brown, Mrs. L. having become alarmed at her report, had sent her to bring her. No attempt was made to detain her; but she was invited to return, which she promised to do.
In the afternoon she did go back, and was again informed by Constantine Burke’s wife that Burke and the girl had not returned.
In answer to her subsequent inquiries and those of Mrs. Worthington, in whose house they lived, it was pretended that Paterson had gone off to Glasgow with a packman; but this reply did not satisfy Brown, as she knew that Paterson was a well-educated girl, and could write sufficiently well to send an account to her friends if she had left Edinburgh, which she certainly would have done; her clothes also remained unclaimed. No more satisfactory intelligence, however, could be obtained, and she never heard farther tidings of her until after the murder of the woman Campbell, when the mystery was developed, and the clothes which Paterson wore were found in the West Port. Upon being confronted with Burke and M‘Dougal, she readily recognised them.
She believes firmly that Constantine Burke and his wife were cognizant of the proceedings, both from their manner at the time and the conduct of Constantine afterwards when she questioned him about Paterson. Whenever she saw him, which she frequently did at his work early in the morning, she inquired after her. His answers were always very surly; on two occasions saying, “How the h—ll can I tell about you sort of people; you are here to-day and away to-morrow;” and on another, as if in allusion to the horrid transaction, “I am often out upon my lawful business, and how can I answer for all that takes place in my house in my absence.”
She represents Paterson to have been irregular in her habits, but not so low as has been represented, and appears indignant at a paltry print of her, in which she is represented in the garb of a servant, a dress in which she never appeared. She had been well educated for one in her situation, and possessed a fine person, for which she was more remarkable than beauty of face. The story which has appeared in the newspapers about her mother being a housekeeper in the west country, Brown alleges to be unfounded. She was a native of Edinburgh, and her mother is dead.