CHAPTER XVII.
The Arrest of Burke and M‘Dougal—Discovery of the Body—Hare and his Wife Apprehended—Public Intimation of the Tragedy—Burke and M‘Dougal give their Version of the Transaction.
Gray, according to his threat, went to the Police Office to give information of what he had seen. When he arrived there no one was present who could act upon his statement. After waiting some time he saw Sergeant-Major John Fisher, who entered the place about seven o’clock, and to this officer he described all he had witnessed and what he suspected. Fisher inclined to the opinion that his informant wished rather to do his old landlord an ill-turn than to benefit the public, but, notwithstanding, he, along with a constable named Finlay, accompanied Gray to Burke’s house in the West Port. What took place there can best be told in Fisher’s own words:—“I asked Burke what had become of his lodgers, and he replied that there was one of them—pointing to Gray—and that he had turned him and his wife out for bad conduct. I then asked what had become of the little woman who had been there the day before, and he said she left the house about seven o’clock that morning. He said William Hare saw her go away, and added, in an insolent tone, that any number more saw her away. I then looked round to see if there were any marks in the bed, and I saw marks of blood on a number of things there. I asked Mrs. Burke [Helen M‘Dougal] how they came there, and she replied that a woman had lain in there about a fortnight before, and the bed had not been washed since. As for the old woman, she added that she knew her very well, they all lived in the Pleasance, and that she had seen her that very night in the Vennel, when she had apologised for her bad conduct on that previous night. 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.” Fisher, while he considered it his duty to apprehend Burke and M‘Dougal, in view of the contradiction as to the time when the woman left the house, and also of the fact that the bed-clothes were spattered with blood, seems still to have had the idea that the whole matter had arisen out of personal spite between Gray and Burke, and that the former wished to injure the latter. However, he took the wisest and the safest course by apprehending the two persons he found in the house. Later in the evening, the officer, accompanied by his superintendent and Dr. Black, the police surgeon, again visited Burke’s den in Portsburgh, and made a thorough search through it. They saw a quantity of blood among the straw under the bed, and on the bed they found a striped bed-gown which had apparently belonged to the murdered woman.
This was all very well for one night, and certainly the case had, to the official mind, assumed a more serious aspect than one having only a foundation on mere personal ill-will. Next morning, Sabbath, the 2nd November, Fisher went to the premises of Dr. Knox in Surgeon’s Square, and having obtained the key of the cellar from Paterson he entered, and found there a box containing the body of a woman. Gray was immediately sent for, and he at once recognised the corpse as that of the old woman he had seen in Burke’s house. The authorities then thought it was time they had Hare and his wife in custody, and they were immediately arrested. This was done about eight o’clock on the Sunday morning. They were then both in bed. When Mrs. Hare was informed that Captain Stewart wished to speak to her husband about the body that had been found in Burke’s house, she laughingly said that the captain and police had surely very little to do now to look after a drunken spree like this. Hare answered her that he was at Burke’s house the day before, and had had a dram or two with him, and possibly the police might be inclined to attach blame to them; but as he had no fear of anything Captain Stewart could do to him, they had better rise and see what he had to say. This conversation between Hare and his wife seemed to be intended to “blind” the police, who were within hearing, but it did not save them from apprehension. They were taken to the Police Office, and lodged in separate cells.
The news of the tragedy and the apprehensions was quickly mooted abroad, and the public mind was agitated by the rumours that were afloat. But little satisfaction was gained from the following brief and guarded paragraph which appeared in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of Monday, 3rd November, two days after the murder:—
“Extraordinary Occurrence.—An old woman of the name of Campbell, from Ireland, came to Edinburgh some days ago, in search of a son, whom she found, and she afterwards went out of town in search of work. She took up her lodging on Friday in the house of a man named Burt or Burke, in the West Port. It appears that there had been a merry-making in Burke’s that night; at least the noise of music and dancing was heard, and it is believed the glass circulated pretty freely among the party. The old woman, it is said, with reluctance joined in the mirth, and also partook of the liquor; and was to sleep on straw alongside of Burke’s bed. During the night shrieks were heard; but the neighbours paid no attention, as such sounds were not unusual in the house. In the morning, however, a female, on going into Burke’s, observed the old woman lying as if dead, some of the straw being above her. She did not say anything, or raise any alarm; but, in the evening, circumstances transpired which led to the belief that all was not right, for by this time the body had been removed out of the house, and it was suspected it had been sold to a public lecturer. Information was conveyed to the police, and the whole parties were taken into custody. After a search, the body was found yesterday morning in the lecture-room of a respectable practitioner, who, the instant he was informed of the circumstances, not only gave it up, but offered every information in his power. The body is now in the Police Office, and will be examined by medical gentlemen in the course of this day. There were some very strong and singular circumstances connected with the case, which have given rise to the suspicions.”
This information, though substantially correct, was too meagre to satisfy the public craving, and the most extraordinary rumours were afloat as to the discoveries that had been made by the police. Meanwhile, the authorities were busy making inquiries into the case, and in the first instance they had Docherty’s body examined by Drs. Black and Christison, and Mr. Newbigging. The result of these examinations conclusively pointed to the fact that the woman must have suffered a violent death by suffocation, and the case for the Crown was strengthened by this testimony. On the 3rd of November, the day of the first public announcement of the “extraordinary occurrence,” Burke and M‘Dougal emitted declarations before Sheriff Tait. Burke’s account of the affair was that on the morning of the previous Friday he rose about seven o’clock, and immediately began his work by mending a pair of shoes. Gray and his wife were up before him, and M‘Dougal rose about nine o’clock. After he had gone out for a few minutes for tobacco, all the four of them breakfasted together about ten o’clock. Burke resumed his employment, Gray left the house, and the women began to wash and dress, and tidy up the apartment. In the evening he told Gray that he and his wife must look out for other lodgings, as he could not afford to support them longer, they having not even paid for the provisions they used. He recommended them to Hare’s house, and accompanied them there. About six o’clock he was standing at the mouth of the entry leading to his dwelling, when a man whom he never saw before, and whose name he did not know, came up and asked if he could get a pair of shoes mended. This man was dressed in a greatcoat, the cape of which was turned up about his face. Burke offered to perform the work, and the stranger went with him into the house. While he was busy mending the shoes the man walked about, remarked on the quietness of the place, and said he had a box which he wished could be left there for a short time. Burke consented to give it accommodation, and the stranger went out, returning shortly with a box, which he placed upon the floor near the foot of the bed. Burke was then sitting with his back to the bed. He heard his customer unroping the box, and then make a sound as if he were covering something with straw. The shoes were soon mended, Burke received a sixpence for his work, and the stranger went away. Burke immediately rose to see what was in the box, but finding it was empty he looked among the straw beneath the bed, where he saw a corpse, though whether it was that of a man or a woman he could not say. The man called later on, and Burke remonstrated with him for bringing such an article into his house. The stranger promised to take the body away in a little, but this he did not do until six o’clock on the following (Saturday) evening. This was Burke’s account of what transpired on the Friday, the day when the murder was actually committed. In itself it was a stupidly told story, and one having not a single feature of truth in it to give it the slightest support from outside testimony. But his record of the Saturday was even more blundering. He admitted that about ten o’clock on the Saturday, while he was in Rymer’s shop, an old woman came in to beg. He discovered by her dialect that she came from Ireland, and after questioning her he found that she belonged to Inesomen, in the north of Ireland, and that her name was Docherty. As his mother bore the same name, and came from the same place, he concluded that the woman might perhaps be a distant relation, and he invited her to breakfast. After sitting by the fireside smoking till about three o’clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Docherty went out, saying she would go to the New Town to beg some provisions for herself. When he was alone in the house about six o’clock, the man who visited him the previous evening, and who, on special inquiry by the sheriff, he now declared to be William Hare, came for the purpose of removing the body. Hare was accompanied by John M‘Culloch, a street porter. These two carried the body away in the box, as they said, to dispose of it to any person in Surgeon’s Square who would take it. After the body was delivered, Paterson, Dr. Knox’s curator, paid “the man” some pounds, and gave two pounds ten shillings to Burke “for the trouble he had in keeping the body.” The woman Docherty never returned to the house, and he did not know what had become of her. Some of the neighbours had told him, when he returned after being paid the storage money, that a policeman had been searching his house for a body, and he, having gone out to look for the policeman, met Fisher and Finlay in the passage. As for the body found in Dr. Knox’s rooms, and which he had seen the day before, he thought it was the one which was below his bed, but it had no likeness to Mary Docherty, who was not so tall. Then the blood on the pillow-slip he accounted for by saying that it was occasioned by his having struck M‘Dougal on the nose with it, as Mr. and Mrs. Gray could testify. Such an inconsistent story was of itself enough to condemn Burke, to say nothing of the identification of the man he had never seen before, and whose name he did not know, as William Hare.
Helen M‘Dougal, in her declaration, emitted on the same day, was equally wide of the truth, though she did not make such a stupid mistake as to mix up the transactions of Friday and Saturday. According to her, Mary Docherty entered their house about ten o’clock on the Friday morning, just as they were about to begin their breakfast, and asked to be allowed to light her pipe at the fire. This privilege was accorded her, after which she was asked to take some breakfast along with them. In the course of a conversation, Burke arrived at the conclusion that the old woman was a relative of his mother, and on the strength of this he went out for whisky and gave them a glass all round, “it being the custom of Irish people to observe Hallowe’en in that manner.” About two o’clock Docherty left to go to St. Mary’s Wynd to inquire for her son, and she never returned. The rest of the day and night was spent in drinking with Hare and his wife, and Mr. and Mrs. Gray. On the Saturday evening she quarrelled with Mrs. Gray about having stolen her gown, and the Grays had apparently vented their spleen by raising a story and bringing the police down upon them. For her part she knew nothing about a body being in the house, and certainly the body shown her in the Police Office was not that of the old woman, as Docherty had dark hair, and the body of the dead woman had gray hair. Such, in brief, was her account of the events of the two days, and the only point on which her declaration could be said to agree with that of Burke was as to the cause of the bloodstains on the bedclothes.