While all this was going on, these four persons, bound together, as they were, by the joint commission of terrible crimes, had their little disagreements among themselves. The women were jealous of each other, and there is every reason to believe that each man was suspicious that his neighbour, in the case of discovery, would turn informer, as the result afterwards proved. To those around them they all appeared to be in a most prosperous condition. The women dressed themselves in a style that was considered highly superior in the locality in which they lived; the men also were better clad than members of the same class usually were; and their mode of living—the extent of their drinking, too—showed that somehow or other they had plenty of money in their possession. These things attracted the attention of the neighbours, but if they had any suspicion that matters were not altogether right, they did not give expression to it. Under all this outward appearance of comfort and well-doing there was a canker. The women, as already said, were jealous, the men were suspicious, and these feelings joined to produce the plan for another tragedy in their own little circle, which was prevented either by the intervention of an accident, or by the fact that Burke had still a little kindliness left in his blood-stained heart. Hare and his wife could not trust Helen M‘Dougal to keep their secret, because, as Burke himself expressed it, “she was a Scotch woman.” It is difficult to reconcile this statement with another made by Burke, that the women did not know what was going on when the murders were being committed. Besides, as we have seen, the women helped towards assisting the poor victims into a state in which they could be easily operated upon, and though they may not have been active participants in the taking away of life, or witnesses of the last struggle between the men and the creatures whom they so quickly ushered into eternity, there can be no reasonable doubt that they were aware of the dreadful adventure in which they were all to a greater or less extent engaged. Had the women been ignorant of all this there would have been no need—it would, indeed, have been impossible—for the one to urge that the other should be put out of the way, on the principle that “dead men and women tell no tales.” However, notwithstanding these minor discrepancies in Burke’s confessions, we have his own definite statement that Mrs. Hare urged him to murder Helen M‘Dougal. The plan suggested was that he should go with her to the country for a few weeks, and that he should write to Hare telling him that his wife was dead and buried. No more of the plan is given, but it is to be presumed that the murder would actually take place in the little back room which had been the scene of so many tragedies—the little human shambles in Hare’s house—and that the body should be sold like the rest to Dr. Knox and his fellows. This plan, as has been indicated, was not carried out. Burke says he would not agree to it. That may have been, but it is rather strange that about this time Helen M‘Dougal and he should go to Maddiston, near Falkirk, to visit some of her friends there.

The time at which this visit to Maddiston was made was when the villagers made a procession round a stone in that neighbourhood—Burke thought it was the anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn. This would fix the date as the 24th of June, 1828. They were away for some time, but whether through scruples of conscience, on the part of Burke, or because no fitting opportunity of putting her out of the way occurred, Helen M‘Dougal returned to Edinburgh with him. Arrived there they found a very different state of matters than had existed when they went away. Before, Hare and his wife were sadly in want of money, some of their goods having been laid in pawn; but now they were in the possession of plenty of money, and were spending it freely. There must be some reason for this change, and a suspicion was raised in Burke’s mind that Hare had taken advantage of his absence to do a little business on his own account, without making him any allowance from the proceeds. The agreement among them, according to Burke, was that if ten pounds were obtained for a body, six went to Hare, and four to Burke, the latter having to pay Mrs. Hare one pound of his share, for the use of the house, if the murder took place there. This arrangement was in itself scarcely equitable to Burke, assuming it to be correct, and it was therefore all the harder on him when he found that his colleague was attempting to rob him of his due. He consequently taxed Hare with endeavouring to cheat him, but this was indignantly denied. Not satisfied, however, Burke paid a visit to Dr. Knox’s rooms, and was there informed that during his absence Hare had brought a subject and had been paid for it. Returning to the house he upbraided his partner, charging him with unfairness and breach of honour. Hare still denied the accusation, and from high words they got to blows. They fought long and fiercely, so that the neighbours, attracted by the noise, gathered round the door to witness what was going on; but neither of the combatants allowed a word to escape them as to the cause of the quarrel between them. At last they were exhausted—possibly Hare was worsted, for Burke, without mentioning the fight, stated in his Courant confession that “Hare then confessed what he had done.” He does not say whether or not he received any portion of the proceeds from the sale of the body of the victim murdered during his absence.

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Interior of Burke’s House.
(For Explanatory Key See [Page XII].)

It was probably owing to this quarrel that Burke and Helen M‘Dougal removed from Hare’s house in Tanner’s Close to that of John Broggan, whose wife was a cousin of Burke. This house was not far from their old lodgings, being but two closes eastward in Portsburgh. Grindlay’s Close was between it and Tanner’s Close, and it was entered from a back court to which admission could be gained from the street either by an unnamed passage, or by Weaver’s Close, still further east. Leighton was able to gain a detailed description of this place, and it is well worth quoting:—“In a land to the eastward of that occupied by Hare, in Tanner’s Close, you reached it after descending a common stair and turning to the right, where a dark passage conducted to several rooms, at the end and at right angles with which passage there was an entrance leading solely to Burke’s room, and which could be closed by a door so as to make it altogether secluded from the main entry. The room was a very small place, more like a cellar than the dwelling of a human being. A crazy chair stood by the fire-place, old shoes and implements of shoemaking lay scattered on the floor; a cupboard against the wall held a few plates and bowls, and two beds, coarse wooden frames, without posts or curtains, were filled with old straw and rugs.” It was in this house that Mrs. Hostler, as already described, was murdered, and it was in this house that the last of the long series of tragedies was to be enacted. The criminals were gradually approaching their doom, but they had become reckless and bold. They had been so successful in the past, that they hoped to be equally so in the future, forgetful that the mills of God grind slow, but sure.

We have seen that while Burke, according to his own declaration, had murdered Peggy Haldane in this house off Weaver’s Close, unaided by his old accomplice (though both these details are doubtful), yet they were united in the suffocation of Mrs. Hostler. They really could not work separately—they were so bound together by the crimes they had committed that an ordinary quarrel, though it should have at first made them live in different houses, could hardly disjoin their interests. This could only have been done by one of them informing on the other. But they were again united in their horrid labours.

In the course of the autumn there arrived in Edinburgh to visit Helen M‘Dougal a cousin of her former husband. This was a young married woman named Ann M‘Dougal, who probably came from the district around Falkirk. There is no doubt she would be received in the most friendly manner, which she would heartily reciprocate, for it is more than probable that her visit was consequent upon an invitation given her by Helen M‘Dougal and Burke when they were in Stirlingshire during the summer. But may not that invitation, given in all apparent kindness, have been simply a snare to draw the poor woman from her home so that she might be a more convenient, victim in Edinburgh? may Burke not have given it so that he might make Ann M‘Dougal a sacrifice instead of his paramour, as had been suggested to him by Mrs. Hare? But whether this was a premeditated plan, or whether the young woman came to Edinburgh on a genuine invitation or of her own accord, is quite immaterial. It is at least certain that once she was in the house of her relatives her fate, so far as they were concerned, was sealed. After she had been coming and going for a few days, Hare and Burke plied her with whisky until she was in an incapably drunken condition, and had to be put to bed. Burke then told Hare that he would have the most to do to her, as he did not like to begin first on her, she being a distant relative. What an amount of feeling this displays! It would have been interesting to have known how Burke argued with himself in coming to this decision. However, relative or not, he was not at all averse to allow Hare to kill her when she was supposed to be under his protection, and what was more, he was willing to help Hare once a beginning had been made; he was even anxious to share the price her body would bring at the dissecting-rooms. Hare then set about his portion of the work. He held the woman’s mouth and nose to stop the breathing, and Burke threw himself across the body, holding down her arms and legs. Of course life could not long continue under these conditions, and Ann M‘Dougal lay murdered in the house of a friend, and by the heart and hand of a friend—“a distant friend,” as Burke put it to his accomplice. The murder was committed in the afternoon. It is surely a remarkable thing that if Helen M‘Dougal knew nothing of the work in which her reputed husband and Hare were engaged, she should have allowed her relative to be murdered; or that if this was the first she learned of it, she should have been so ready to let the matter rest. But of course she was cognisant of it all along. Burke was at no regular employment, and yet the money was to hand in larger quantities than they could ever have expected from the cobbling of shoes.

The two men next set about making arrangements for the transfer of the body to Surgeon’s Square. They saw Paterson, Dr. Knox’s porter, who gave them a fine trunk to put it in. When this was done Broggan, who had been out at his work, came home, and made inquiries about the trunk standing on the floor-head, for he knew that neither he nor his lodgers possessed an article like it. Burke then gave him two or three drams, “as there was always plenty of whisky going at these times,” to keep him quiet. He went out again, Burke and Hare carried the trunk and its contents to Surgeon’s Square, receiving ten pounds for it. On their return they each gave Broggan thirty shillings, and he left Edinburgh a few days afterwards for Glasgow, it was thought. This money payment brings out the duplicity of Hare in a remarkable manner, and shows that the cunning by which he afterwards saved himself from the scaffold was no new development. Broggan, it would seem, had practically discovered that there was something wrong. The murderers saw that it would be necessary to give him “hush-money,” and to endeavour to get him to leave the city. But Hare was cautioner for Broggan’s rent, which amounted to three pounds, so that if the man left the city there was every probability that the payment of the rent would fall on him. He therefore proposed to Burke that they should each give thirty shillings to enable Broggan to pay the rent, and to this Burke readily agreed, as he was glad to see the man out of the way. Broggan, however, spoiled this plot by going away with the money, and, as Burke said in his second confession, “the rent is not paid yet.” But Burke was victimised all the same, as he was afterwards at the trial, by his more astute colleague who should have accompanied him to the gallows.

The relatives of Ann M‘Dougal made inquiries about her, but they could find no trace; though it is recorded that on seeking her at the house of Burke’s brother, in the Canongate, Helen M‘Dougal, under the influence of drink, no doubt, told them they need not trouble themselves about her, as she was murdered and sold long before. They did not seem to have taken much notice of the remark, or if they did they must have concluded that the disappearance of Ann was due to the workings of the band of resurrectionists, to whose existence the people of Edinburgh were gradually being awakened by the numerous and frequent disappearances. But suspicion had not yet alighted on Burke and his associates.