I remember going with Blair and the police to the scene of the murder. It was a little mean shop in a main thoroughfare, about a hundred yards from the Bolton Street Station. It was a building of two stories and a cellar, and if the under floor of the cellar had not been cement the murder might not have been discovered for many years. For we saw the chips in the edge of the flags, where Dukes had removed one for experimental burial purposes.
The first thing Dukes did to cover up his tracks was to send a telegram to the elder Gordon as from George to say he had gone to Liverpool and would not be back that night. The next day old Gordon consulted the Manchester police, and the Bury police were communicated with, but nothing was known against Dukes, and the official view laughingly communicated to the old man was that he would see his son again when his money was spent and he was tired of Liverpool. As far as we could reconstruct his story from the evidence before us, Dukes, having bought a pick and failed to dig a grave with it, wasted a whole day without any further move. Then he hit on the idea of putting the body into a wardrobe which he was going to cart over the hills to Rochdale, intending probably to throw the body out behind some stone wall on the moors to the north or dispose of it in some solitary place. For this purpose on Thursday afternoon, two days after the murder,
he had hired a cart which was waiting at the door.
Wednesday, September 25, was the New Year in the Jewish calendar, when it is the custom of Jewish families to gather together in the synagogue. “Let us wait until the night of Wednesday,” said George Gordon’s father, “and if George is alive he will be with us, and if he be not here, then we shall know he is dead.”
On Thursday morning there was no news of George. The old man and his son Meyer went to the Manchester police, and were referred to Bury. At Bury they insisted that George was dead, and the old man expressed his belief that his body was in the shop in Central Street.
The police, more to pacify the distressed father than from any belief in his fears, agreed to make a search of the house, and thus it was that as the cart stood outside waiting to load up the wardrobe which Dukes was taking away, Sergeant Ross and two constables with old Gordon and Meyer entered the shop.
A thorough search was made, and the police for the first time noticed signs of recent disturbances in the cellar. Whilst the search was going on Dukes made an exit down a side entry, and was brought back by the police. Sergeant Ross began to take a deeper interest in him. Nothing more serious, however, was found, and they all stood in the little shop around the wardrobe. It looked as if the business of the police was over.
“What is this wardrobe lying here for?” asked old Gordon.
“It’s going out to Rochdale; the cart is waiting outside for it now,” replied Dukes.
“Open it,” demanded the old man.