Clouds of Witness Ch 7

CHAPTER VII

THE CLUB AND THE BULLET

“He is dead, and by my hand. It were better that I were dead myself, for the guilty wretch I am.”

Adventures of Sexton Blake

Sexton Blake is a fictional detective who appeared in many British comic strips and novels throughout the 20th century. He was described by Professor Jeffrey Richards on the BBC in The Radio Detectives in 2003 as "the poor man's Sherlock Holmes". Sexton Blake adventures appeared in a wide variety of British and international publications (in many languages) from 1893 to 1978, running to over 4,000 stories by some 200 different authors.

Blake was also the hero of numerous silent and sound films, radio serials and a 1960s ITV television series. Originally owned and published by Alfred Harmsworth, Blake's copyright transferred to the Harmsworth-owned Amalgamated Press and on to Fleetway Publications before residing with current owner IPC Media.

                Hour after hour Mr. Parker sat waiting for his friend's return. Again and again he went over the Riddlesdale Case, checking his notes here, amplifying them there, involving his tired brain in speculations of the most fantastic kind. He wandered about the room, taking down here and there a book from the shelves, strumming a few unskillful bars upon the piano, glancing through the weeklies, fidgeting restlessly. At length he selected a volume from the criminological section of the bookshelves, and forced himself to read with attention that most fascinating and dramatic of poison trials—the Seddon Case. Gradually the mystery gripped him, as it invariably did, and it was with a start of astonishment that he looked up at a long and vigorous whirring of the door-bell, to find that it was already long past midnight.

Frederick Henry Seddon (sometimes called Sedden) (1870 – 18 April 1912) was a British poisoner who was hanged in 1912 for murdering Eliza Mary Barrow.

In 1910 Seddon was a 40-year-old Superintendent of Collectors for a national insurance company. He and his wife, Margaret Ann, had five children. His father also lived with him. At one time Seddon had been a Freemason, being initiated into Liverpool's Stanley Lodge No. 1325 in 1901. He resigned a year later to move south. In 1905 he is named as a founding petitioner of Stephens Lodge No. 3089 at Bourne End, Buckinghamshire. He resigned from both Lodges in 1906.
In 1909, Seddon bought a fourteen-room house at 63 Tollington Park, near London's Finsbury Park area.He had an obsession with making money; he ran a second-hand clothes business in his wife's name and also speculated in real estate. At some stage he had the idea of duping money out of another person, so he and his wife advertised to let out the second floor of their London home. A near-neighbour, Eliza Mary Barrow, a 49 year-old eccentric spinster responded to this advertisement, moving in with her ward Ernest Grant, the ten-year-old nephew of her friend, on 26 July 1910. Previously she had shared lodgings with her cousin, Frank Vonderahe, but she hoped the new arrangement with Seddon would be cheaper.
Being easily led, and as keen on making money as Seddon was himself, Barrow was quickly persuaded by Seddon to sign over to him a controlling interest in all her savings and annuities, including £1,500 of India Stock, in return for which he would take care of her for the rest of her life, giving her a small annuity and allowing her to live in his home rent free. In August 1911, the Seddons, Barrow, and her young ward went on holiday together to Southend. On their return, Seddon's daughter Maggie was sent to buy a threepenny packet of flypaper from the local chemist. Shortly after, Barrow began to suffer from agonising stomach pains. The local doctor was called, who prescribed bismuth and morphine. On 9 September he visited her again, but by the following Monday her condition had deteriorated. However, she refused to go to hospital.
She improved slightly for a few days, but was confined to her bed where, on 13 September, she made a will, dictated to and executed by Seddon, and witnessed by his relatives. At 6:15 on the morning of 14 September, while being looked after by Mrs. Seddon, Barrow died. Seddon went to the doctor, who issued a death certificate without seeing the body, claiming that he was unable to attend due to overwork brought on by an epidemic current in the area at that time.
On September 15, Seddon went to the undertaker and arranged a cheap funeral, keeping the small commission for himself. Barrow's burial took place in a common burial plot, although her family had a vault in Islington. Seddon's later explanation for this was that Barrow's family had snubbed his daughter during an earlier visit and he was not prepared to allow his family to be treated in the same way again, and that if Barrow's family missed the funeral it might teach them better manners for the future. Immediately after the funeral the Seddon family left for Southend for a fortnight's holiday. Barrow's cousin, Frank Vonderahe, suspicious over the suddenness of the death and how quickly the funeral arrangements had been made, arrived to take over possession of her estate. However, Seddon informed him that nothing was left as he had paid the substantial funeral expenses and the cost of Ernest Grant's upkeep himself. The Vonderahe family then went to the police and voiced their suspicions. Barrow's body was exhumed on 15 November 1911, and an examination of it by Sir William Willicox, the senior Home Office specialist, and young pathologist Bernard Spilsbury, who had already made a name for himself in the Crippen case, discovered about two grains of arsenic

Seddon and his wife became the chief suspects in what was by now a murder inquiry. During their trial at the Old Bailey the prosecution, led by the Attorney General, Sir Rufus Issacs, proved that Margaret Seddon had previously bought a large amount of flypaper, which contained arsenic. The prosecution suggested that the poison used to kill Barrow had been obtained by soaking the flypaper in water. The renowned barrister Edward Marshall-Hall led for the defence. He strongly resisted all claims that Barrow had been poisoned, claiming instead that she had died by taking a medical preparation containing arsenic. Despite being advised against it by his Counsel, Seddon insisted on giving evidence in his own defence; it was claimed that he turned the jury against himself through his arrogant and condescending attitude. Certainly, his case was not helped by his ridiculous claim that Barrow might have drunk water from the dishes of flypaper that had been placed in her room to keep away the flies. Despite a fierce battle from the defence team the jury found him guilty. Margaret Seddon was acquitted of any involvement in the murder. Marshall Hall always maintained that Seddon would have been acquitted had he not insisted on giving evidence, and on at least one occasion used it as an example in warning a client of the risks of giving evidence in one's own defence.

A former Freemason, on being asked by the Clerk of the Court if he had anything to say as to why the sentence of death should not be passed against him, Seddon replied at length and appealed directly to the judge, Sir Thomas Townsend Bucknill, as a brother Mason and in the name of 'The Great Architect Of The Universe' to overturn the jury’s guilty verdict. According to some sources he gave the First Degree sign, according to others the Sign of Grief and Distress, begging for mercy. The judge, Mr Justice Bucknill, himself a prominent Freemason, is reported as having said, with some emotion:

    "It is not for me to harrow your feelings – try to make peace with your Maker. We both belong to the same Brotherhood, and though that can have no influence with me this is painful beyond words to have to say what I am saying, but our Brotherhood does not encourage crime, it condemns it."

Seddon being sentenced to death by Mr Justice Bucknill

Seddon replied that he had already made his peace with his Maker. Mr Justice Bucknill then pronounced the sentence of death. Bernard Spilsbury, who went on to become a famous pathologist and who gave evidence during the trial, was not yet involved in Freemasonry, and so the meaning of what had passed between Seddon and Bucknill was lost on him at the time. However, his colleagues who also provided forensic evidence were Masons, and they were aware of its significance.

Seddon was hanged by John Ellis and Thomas Pierrepoint at Pentonville Prison on 18 April 1912.

                His first thought was that Wimsey must have left his latchkey behind, and he was preparing a facetious greeting when the door opened—exactly as in the beginning of a Sherlock Holmes story—to admit a tall and beautiful young woman, in an extreme state of nervous agitation, with halo of golden hair, violet-blue eyes, and disordered apparel all complete; for as she threw back her heavy travelling-coat he observed that she wore evening dress, with light green silk stockings and heavy brogue shoes thickly covered with mud.

                “His lordship has not yet returned, my lady,” said Mr. Bunter, “but Mr. Parker is here waiting for him, and we are expecting him at any minute now. Will your ladyship take anything?”

                “No, no,” said the vision hastily, “nothing, thanks. I'll wait. Good evening, Mr. Parker. Where's Peter?”

                “He has been called out, Lady Mary,” said Parker. “I can't think why he isn't back yet. Do sit down.”

                “Where did he go?”

                “To Scotland Yard—but that was about six o'clock. I can't imagine——”

                Lady Mary made a gesture of despair.

                “I knew it. Oh, Mr. Parker, what am I to do?”

                Mr. Parker was speechless.

                “I must see Peter,” cried Lady Mary. “It's a matter of life and death. Can't you send for him?”

                “But I don't know where he is,” said Parker. “Please, Lady Mary——”

                “He's doing something dreadful—he's all wrong,” cried the young woman, wringing her hands with desperate vehemence. “I must see him—tell him——Oh! did anybody ever get into such dreadful trouble! I—oh!—--”

                Here the lady laughed loudly and burst into tears.

                “Lady Mary—I beg you—please don't,” cried Mr. Parker anxiously, with a strong feeling that he was being incompetent and rather ridiculous. “Please sit down. Drink a glass of wine. You'll be ill if you cry like that. If it is crying,” he added dubiously to himself. “It sounds like hiccups. Bunter!”

                Mr. Bunter was not far off. In fact, he was just outside the door with a small tray. With a respectful “Allow me, sir,” he stepped forward to the writhing Lady Mary and presented a small phial to her nose. The effect was startling. The patient gave two or three fearful whoops, and sat up, erect and furious.

                “How dare you, Bunter!” said Lady Mary. “Go away at once!”

                “Your ladyship had better take a drop of brandy,” said Mr. Bunter, replacing the stopper in the smelling-bottle, but not before Parker had caught the pungent reek of ammonia. “This is the 1800 Napoleon brandy, my lady. Please don't snort so, if I may make the suggestion. His lordship would be greatly distressed to think that any of it should be wasted. Did your ladyship dine on the way up? No? Most unwise, my lady, to undertake a long journey on a vacant interior. I will take the liberty of sending in an omelette for your ladyship. Perhaps you would like a little snack of something yourself, sir, as it is getting late?”

                “Anything you like,” said Mr. Parker, waving him off hurriedly. “Now, Lady Mary, you're feeling better, aren't you? Let me help you off with your coat.”

Clous of Witness ch 6 cont

“I haven't come yet to the unpleasantest bit of the lot,” said Peter. “I've only just heard it, and it did give me a nasty jar, I'll admit. Yesterday I got a letter from Lubbock saying he would like to see me, so I trotted up here and dropped in on him this morning. You remember I sent him a stain off one of Mary's skirts which Bunter had cut out for me? I had taken a squint at it myself, and didn't like the look of it, so I sent it up to Lubbock, ex abundantia cautelæ; and I'm sorry to say he confirms me. It's human blood, Charles, and I'm afraid it's Cathcart's.”

Latin for “Out of the abundance”

                “But—I've lost the thread of this a bit.”

                “Well, the skirt must have got stained the day Cathcart—died, as that was the last day on which the party was out on the moors, and if it had been there earlier Ellen would have cleaned it off. Afterwards Mary strenuously resisted Ellen's efforts to take the skirt away, and made an amateurish effort to tidy it up herself with soap. So I think we may conclude that Mary knew the stains were there, and wanted to avoid discovery. She told Ellen that the blood was from a grouse—which must have been a deliberate untruth.”

                “Perhaps,” said Parker, struggling against hope to make out a case for Lady Mary, “she only said, 'Oh! one of the birds must have bled,' or something like that.”

                “I don't believe,” said Peter, “that one could get a great patch of human blood on one's clothes like that and not know what it was. She must have knelt right in it. It was three or four inches across.”

                Parker shook his head dismally, and consoled himself by making a note.

                “Well, now,” went on Peter, “on Wednesday night everybody comes in and dines and goes to bed except Cathcart, who rushes out and stays out. At 11.50 the gamekeeper, Hardraw, hears a shot which may very well have been fired in the clearing where the—well, let's say the accident—took place. The time also agrees with the medical evidence about Cathcart having already been dead three or four hours when he was examined at 4.30. Very well. At 3 a.m. Jerry comes home from somewhere or other and finds the body. As he is bending over it, Mary arrives in the most apropos manner from the house in her coat and cap and walking-shoes. Now what is her story? She says that at three o'clock she was awakened by a shot. Now nobody else heard that shot, and we have the evidence of Mrs. Pettigrew-Robinson, who slept in the next room to Mary, with her window open according to her immemorial custom, that she lay broad awake from 2 a.m. till a little after 3 a.m., when the alarm was given, and heard no shot. According to Mary, the shot was loud enough to waken her on the other side of the building. It's odd, isn't it, that the person already awake should swear so positively that she heard nothing of a noise loud enough to waken a healthy young sleeper next door? And, in any case, if that was the shot that killed Cathcart, he can barely have been dead when my brother found him—and again, in that case, how was there time for him to be carried up from the shrubbery to the conservatory?”

                “We've been over all this ground,” said Parker, with an expression of distaste. “We agreed that we couldn't attach any importance to the story of the shot.”

                “I'm afraid we've got to attach a great deal of importance to it,” said Lord Peter gravely. “Now, what does Mary do? Either she thought the shot——”

                “There was no shot.”

                “I know that. But I'm examining the discrepancies of her story. She said she did not give the alarm because she thought it was probably only poachers. But, if it was poachers, it would be absurd to go down and investigate. So she explains that she thought it might be burglars. Now how does she dress to go and look for burglars? What would you or I have done? I think we would have taken a dressing-gown, a stealthy kind of pair of slippers, and perhaps a poker or a stout stick—not a pair of walking-shoes, a coat, and a cap, of all things!”

                “It was a wet night,” mumbled Parker.

                “My dear chap, if it's burglars you're looking for you don't expect to go and hunt them round the garden. Your first thought is that they're getting into the house, and your idea is to slip down quietly and survey them from the staircase or behind the dining-room door. Anyhow, fancy a present-day girl, who rushes about bareheaded in all weathers, stopping to embellish herself in a cap for a burglar-hunt—damn it all, Charles, it won't wash, you know! And she walks straight off to the conservatory and comes upon the corpse, exactly as if she knew where to look for it beforehand.”

                Parker shook his head again.

                “Well, now. She sees Gerald stooping over Cathcart's body. What does she say? Does she ask what's the matter? Does she ask who it is? She exclaims: 'O God! Gerald, you've killed him,' and then she says, as if on second thoughts, 'Oh, it's Denis! What has happened? Has there been an accident?' Now, does that strike you as natural?”

                “No. But it rather suggests to me that it wasn't Cathcart she expected to see there, but somebody else.”

                “Does it? It rather sounds to me as if she was pretending not to know who it was. First she says, 'You've killed him!' and then, recollecting that she isn't supposed to know who 'he' is, she says, 'Why, it's Denis!'”

                “In any case, then, if her first exclamation was genuine, she didn't expect to find the man dead.”

                “No—no—we must remember that. The death was a surprise. Very well. Then Gerald sends Mary up for help. And here's where a little bit of evidence comes in that you picked up and sent along. Do you remember what Mrs. Pettigrew-Robinson said to you in the train?”

                “About the door slamming on the landing, do you mean?”

                “Yes. Now I'll tell you something that happened to me the other morning. I was burstin' out of the bathroom in my usual breezy way when I caught myself a hell of a whack on that old chest on the landin', and the lid lifted up and shut down, plonk! That gave me an idea, and I thought I'd have a squint inside. I'd got the lid up and was lookin' at some sheets and stuff that were folded up at the bottom, when I heard a sort of gasp, and there was Mary, starin' at me, as white as a ghost. She gave me a turn, by Jove, but nothin' like the turn I'd given her. Well, she wouldn't say anything to me, and got hysterical, and I hauled her back to her room. But I'd seen something on those sheets.”

                “What?”

                “Silver sand.”

                “Silver——”

                “D'you remember those cacti in the greenhouse, and the place where somebody'd put a suit-case or something down?”

                “Yes.”

                “Well, there was a lot of silver sand scattered about—the sort people stick round some kinds of bulbs and things.”

                “And that was inside the chest too?”

                “Yes. Wait a moment. After the noise Mrs. Pettigrew-Robinson heard, Mary woke up Freddy and then the Pettigrew-Robinsons—and then what?”

                “She locked herself into her room.”

                “Yes. And shortly afterwards she came down and joined the others in the conservatory, and it was at this point everybody remembered noticing that she was wearing a cap and coat and walking-shoes over pajamas  and bare feet.”

                “You are suggesting,” said Parker, “that Lady Mary was already awake and dressed at three o'clock, that she went out by the conservatory door with her suit-case, expecting to meet the—the murderer of her—damn it, Wimsey!”

“We needn't go so far as that,” said Peter; “we decided that she didn't expect to find Cathcart dead.”

                “No. Well, she went, presumably to meet somebody.”

                “Shall we say, pro tem., she went to meet No. 10?” suggested Wimsey softly.

Pro tempore  abbreviated pro tem or p.t., is a Latin phrase which best translates to "for the time being" in English. This phrase is often used to describe a person who acts as a locum tenens (placeholder) in the absence of a superior, such as the President pro tempore of the United States Senate.

                “I suppose we may as well say so. When she turned on the torch and saw the Duke stooping over Cathcart she thought—by Jove, Wimsey, I was right after all! When she said, 'You've killed him!' she meant No. 10—she thought it was No. 10's body.”

                “Of course!” cried Wimsey. “I'm a fool! Yes. Then she said, 'It's Denis—what has happened?' That's quite clear. And, meanwhile, what did she do with the suit-case?”

                “I see it all now,” cried Parker. “When she saw that the body wasn't the body of No. 10 she realized  that No. 10 must be the murderer. So her game was to prevent anybody knowing that No. 10 had been there. So she shoved the suit-case behind the cacti. Then, when she went upstairs, she pulled it out again, and hid it in the oak chest on the landing. She couldn't take it to her room, of course, because if anybody'd heard her come upstairs it would seem odd that she should run to her room before calling the others. Then she knocked up Arbuthnot and the Pettigrew-Robinsons—she'd be in the dark, and they'd be flustered and wouldn't see exactly what she had on. Then she escaped from Mrs. P., ran into her room, took off the skirt in which she had knelt by Cathcart's side, and the rest of her clothes, and put on her pajamas  and the cap, which someone might have noticed, and the coat, which they must have noticed, and the shoes, which had probably left footmarks already. Then she could go down and show herself. Meantime she'd concocted the burglar story for the Coroner's benefit.”

                “That's about it,” said Peter. “I suppose she was so desperately anxious to throw us off the scent of No. 10 that it never occurred to her that her story was going to help implicate her brother.”

                “She realized it at the inquest,” said Parker eagerly. “Don't you remember how hastily she grasped at the suicide theory?”

                “And when she found that she was simply saving her—well, No. 10—in order to hang her brother, she lost her head, took to her bed, and refused to give any evidence at all. Seems to me there's an extra allowance of fools in my family,” said Peter gloomily.

                “Well, what could she have done, poor girl?” asked Parker. He had been growing almost cheerful again. “Anyway, she's cleared——”

                “After a fashion,” said Peter, “but we're not out of the wood yet by a long way. Why is she hand-in-glove with No. 10, who is at least a blackmailer if not a murderer? How did Gerald's revolver come on the scene? And the green-eyed cat? How much did Mary know of that meeting between No. 10 and                Denis Cathcart? And if she was seeing and meeting the man she might have put the revolver into his hands any time.”

                “No, no,” said Parker. “Wimsey, don't think such ugly things as that.”

                “Hell!” cried Peter, exploding. “I'll have the truth of this beastly business if we all go to the gallows together!”

                At this moment Bunter entered with a telegram addressed to Wimsey. Lord Peter read as follows:

                “Party traced London; seen Marylebone Friday. Further information from Scotland Yard.—Police-Superintendent Gosling, Ripley.”

                “Good egg!” cried Wimsey. “Now we're gettin' down to it. Stay here, there's a good man, in case anything turns up. I'll run round to the Yard now. They'll send you up dinner, and tell Bunter to give you a bottle of the Chateau Yquem—it's rather decent. So long.”

Château d'Yquem is a Premier Cru Supérieur (Fr: "Superior First Growth") wine from the Sauternes, Gironde region in the southern part of the Bordeaux vineyards known as Graves. In the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855, Château d'Yquem was the only Sauternes given this rating, indicating its perceived superiority and higher prices over all other wines of its type. Yquem's success stems largely from the site's susceptibility to attack by "noble rot" (Botrytis cinerea).
Wines from Château d'Yquem are characterised by their complexity, concentration and sweetness. A relatively high acidity helps to balance the wine's sweetness. Another characteristic for which Château d'Yquem wines are known is their longevity.^[1] With proper care, a bottle will keep for a century or more. During this time, the fruity overtones will gradually fade and integrate with more complex secondary and tertiary flavours.
Since 1959 (though not every year), Château d'Yquem has also produced a dry white wine called Ygrec (Fr: the letter "Y"), made from an equal blend of Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc

                He leapt out of the flat, and a moment later his taxi buzzed away up Piccadilly.

Clouds of Witness ch 6 cont

“So was Thorpe. All mother said was, that if he wasn't too old a bird yet to be taken in by that hoary trick he'd no business to be gettin' himself up as a grey-haired family practitioner. So then she asked the girl about the sick fits—when they happened, and how often, and was it after meals or before, and so on, and at last she got out of them that it generally happened a bit after breakfast, and occasionally at other  times. Mother said she couldn't make it out at first, because she'd hunted all over the room for bottles and things, till at last she asked who made the bed, thinkin', you see, Mary might have hidden something under the mattress. So Ellen said she usually made it while Mary had her bath. 'When's that?' says mother. 'Just before her breakfast,' bleats the girl. 'God forgive you all for a set of nincompoops,' says my mother. 'Why didn't you say so before?' So away they all trailed to the bathroom, and there, sittin' up quietly on the bathroom shelf among the bath salts and the Elliman's embrocation and the Kruschen feelings and the toothbrushes and things, was the family bottle of ipecacuanha—three-quarters empty! Mother said—well, I told you what she said. By the way, how do you spell ipecacuanha?”

                Mr. Parker spelt it.

                “Damn you!” said Lord Peter. “I did think I'd stumped you that time. I believe you went and looked it up beforehand. No decent-minded person would know how to spell ipecacuanha out of his own head. Anyway, as you were saying, it's easy to see which side of the family has the detective instinct.”

                “I didn't say so——”

                “I know. Why didn't you? I think my mother's talents deserve a little acknowledgment. I said so to her, as a matter of fact, and she replied in these memorable words: 'My dear child, you can give it a long name if you like, but I'm an old-fashioned woman and I call it mother-wit, and it's so rare for a man to have it that if he does you write a book about him and call him Sherlock Holmes.' However, apart from all that, I said to mother (in private, of course), 'It's all very well, but I can't believe that Mary has been going to all this trouble to make herself horribly sick and frighten us all just to show off. Surely she isn't that sort.' Mother looked at me as steady as an owl, and quoted a whole lot of examples of hysteria, ending up with the servant-girl who threw paraffin about all over somebody's house to make them think it was haunted, and finished up—that if all these new-fangled doctors went out of their way to invent subconsciousness and kleptomania, and complexes and other fancy descriptions to explain away when people had done naughty things, she thought one might just as well take advantage of the fact.”

                “Wimsey,” said Parker, much excited, “did she mean she suspected something?”

                “My dear old chap,” replied Lord Peter, “whatever can be known about Mary by putting two and two together my mother knows. I told her all we knew up to that point, and she took it all in, in her funny way, you know, never answering anything directly, and then she put her head on one side and said: 'If Mary had listened to me, and done something useful instead of that V.A.D. work, which never came to much, if you ask me—not that I have anything against V.A.D.'s in a general way, but that silly woman Mary worked under was the most terrible snob on God's earth—and there were very much more sensible things which Mary might really have done well, only that she was so crazy to get to London—I shall always say it was the fault of that ridiculous club—what could you expect of a place where you ate such horrible food, all packed into an underground cellar painted pink and talking away at the tops of their voices, and never any evening dress—only Soviet jumpers and side-whiskers. Anyhow, I've told that silly old man what to say about it, and they'll never be able to think of a better explanation for themselves.' Indeed, you know,” said Peter, “I think if any of them start getting inquisitive, they'll have mother down on them like a ton of bricks.”

The Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) was a voluntary organisation providing field nursing services, mainly in hospitals, in the United Kingdom and various other countries in the British Empire. The organisation's most important periods of operation were during World War I and World War II.

The organisation was founded in 1909 with the help of the Red Cross and Order of St. John. By the summer of 1914 there were over 2,500 Voluntary Aid Detachments in Britain. Each individual volunteer was called a detachment, or simply a VAD. Of the 74,000 VADs in 1914, two-thirds were women and girls.

At the outbreak of the First World War VADs eagerly offered their service to the war effort. The British Red Cross was reluctant allowing civilian women a role in overseas hospitals: most VADs were of the middle and upper classes and unaccustomed to hardship and traditional hospital discipline. Military authorities would not accept VADs at the front line.

Katharine Furse took two VADs to France in October 1914, restricting them to serve as canteen workers and cooks. Caught under fire in a sudden battle the VADs were pressed into emergency hospital service and acquitted themselves well. The growing shortage of trained nurses opened the door for VADs in overseas military hospitals. Furse was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the VAD and restrictions were removed. Female volunteers over the age of twenty-three and with more than three months' hospital experience were accepted for overseas service.

VADs were an uneasy addition to military hospitals' rank and order. They lacked the advanced skill and discipline of professional trained nurses and were often critical of the nursing profession. Relations improved as the war stretched on: VADs increased their skill and efficiency and trained nurses were more accepting of the VADs' contributions. During four years of war 38,000 VADs worked in hospitals and served as ambulance drivers and cooks. VADs served near the Western Front and in Mesopotamia and Gallipoli. VAD hospitals were also opened in most large towns in Britain.[2] Later, VADs were also sent to the Eastern Front. They provided an invaluable source of bedside aid in the war effort. Many were decorated for distinguished service.     

“What do you really think yourself?” asked Parker.

The fictional view of Scotland Yard

From BBC News:  The fictional view of Scotland Yard

London's Metropolitan Police is planning to sell off its headquarters, New Scotland Yard. It's a name that is embedded in popular fiction, writes crime novelist Andrew Taylor.

Around the world, the words Scotland Yard mean something. Like Wall Street and Westminster, the name summons up a host of associations. It exists in fiction, on the page and on the screen, as much as in fact.
Scotland Yard is the name of the headquarters of London's Metropolitan Police, founded in 1829, one of the oldest modern police forces in the world and arguably the best known. The name comes from the location of the original HQ, with a public entrance in a street called Great Scotland Yard.

Continue reading the main story

Of the Yard

• Slipper of the Yard: Met Police detective Jack Slipper, pictured, nemesis of Ronald Biggs, one of the perpetrators of the Great Train Robbery
• Fabian of the Yard: 1950s BBC police procedural TV series based on memoirs of Scotland Yard detective Robert Fabian
• Inspector Flying Fox of the Yard: Monty Python character

Within a few decades the name Scotland Yard was almost synonymous with the police force itself. The name migrated with the force to its new and much larger headquarters, New Scotland Yard, first on the Victoria Embankment and, in 1967, in Victoria.

In the mind of the public, however, Scotland Yard became associated with a special sort of police officer - the detective, the professional expert called to investigate crime, especially murder, the greatest crime of all. The Metropolitan Police set up a detective force as early as 1842. London needed it badly - the Victorian city was a hotbed of crime and vice.
Almost immediately, Scotland Yard's detective branch caught the public's imagination. The work of real-life officers such as Inspector Whicher was publicised by contemporary writers. Soon police detectives were appearing in fiction, among them Inspector Bucket in Dickens' Bleak House (1853) and the rose-growing Sergeant Cuff in Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone (1868).
The activities of Inspector Whicher and his colleagues weren't confined to London. Other police forces around the country increasingly summoned detectives from "the Yard" to deal with crimes that baffled their own less experienced officers. Once again, fiction followed fact.

Continue reading the main story

About the author

• Andrew Taylor is a crime fiction writer and author of the forthcoming The Scent of Death
• He has won the Crime Writers Association's Diamond Dagger and is the Spectator's crime fiction reviewer

At first, fictional detectives of the Yard were portrayed as almost superhuman figures, drawing on mysterious powers and capable of solving the most complicated cases. But something happened to change this in 1887.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published A Study In Scarlet, the first of his Sherlock Holmes stories. One result was that the Yard's reputation in popular culture was no longer quite so flattering.
The Scotland Yard officers in Sherlock Holmes stories are almost always shown as well-meaning but unimaginative - and even rather stupid. They have to be, because otherwise Sherlock Holmes would be out of a job.

Rupert Graves as Inspector Lestrade in the BBC's latest incarnation of Sherlock

As a result, the unfortunate Inspector Lestrade is probably fiction's best-known Scotland Yard detective.
Lestrade has nothing to recommend him but his tenacity. He even looks unappealing - Conan Doyle variously describes him as "a little sallow rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow" and "a lean, ferret-like man, furtive and sly-looking". He appears in 13 of the stories and regularly features in film, TV and radio adaptations. In a sense, Holmes needs Lestrade as much as Lestrade needs Holmes.
By this time, the public had realised that in real-life Scotland Yard wasn't quite as clever as they had thought - a point rammed home when the still-unsolved Jack the Ripper murders started in 1888.
So, in fictional terms at least, glamorous amateur and private investigators seemed much more attractive than the clearly flawed Scotland Yard detectives of real life.

The original Scotland Yard, pictured left

Scotland Yard's popular reputation also had a tough time after World War I in both novels and films.
In Britain, fiction's detectives tended to be upper-class amateurs like Dorothy L Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey or superior private investigators such as Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot.
Lord Peter bosses about the Scotland Yard detectives he encounters (even Inspector Parker, who becomes his brother-in-law), while Poirot patronises the slightly comical Inspector Japp. In the TV series, Agatha Christie's Poirot, Japp's role (wonderfully played by Philip Jackson) is much more significant than in the original books and becomes a foil to David Suchet's Poirot.

The Met then moved to New Scotland Yard...

After World War II, however, Scotland Yard and its detectives tended to be portrayed a little more realistically.
In a less snobbish era, the professionalism of Scotland Yard has earned more respect. Gideon of the Yard, for example, created by the prolific John Creasey, was a long-running series that made the transition to both film and television.
The BBC's Fabian of the Yard (1954-56) was a series based on the career of the real-life Detective Inspector Robert Fabian, focusing on forensic science. PD James's series hero, Commander Adam Dalgliesh, is another positively portrayed fictional Scotland Yard detective who made the move from page to screen.

... and then into an even newer New Scotland Yard in 1967

Not that Scotland Yard hasn't attracted its share of mockery too - an abiding image for many people remains the Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch in which the commissioner is shown hard at work, laboriously turning the iconic rotating sign of the headquarters building.
Will Scotland Yard still mean something in popular culture if its headquarters is sold?
Of course it will. The Metropolitan Police will find a new home and take its old name with it, just as it did before.
Scotland Yard is more than a place. The name will endure as long as London needs police detectives, whether in fact or fiction.