0:00:02 > 0:00:06Murder is the darkest and most despicable of crimes,
0:00:06 > 0:00:11and yet we are drawn to it in real life and in fiction,
0:00:11 > 0:00:14and that is because a murder is always a good story.
0:00:14 > 0:00:19In the Victorian age, people started to relish a new type of murder.
0:00:21 > 0:00:25They were attracted to hypocrisy in a respectable home...
0:00:27 > 0:00:33..to dark secrets, to mysterious compulsions and unhinged minds.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38And the Victorians were also fascinated
0:00:38 > 0:00:41by two new developments in the fight against crime.
0:00:41 > 0:00:44There was forensic science...
0:00:44 > 0:00:48and the coming of a new kind of hero, the detective.
0:01:01 > 0:01:05In his essay called the Decline of the English Murder,
0:01:05 > 0:01:08George Orwell lays out the characteristics
0:01:08 > 0:01:11of an absolutely enjoyable crime.
0:01:11 > 0:01:13First of all, he sets the scene -
0:01:13 > 0:01:17the perfect situation for relishing the details.
0:01:25 > 0:01:29"It is a Sunday afternoon, preferably before the war.
0:01:29 > 0:01:33"You put your feet up on the sofa, settle your spectacles on your nose,
0:01:33 > 0:01:35"and open the News of the World.
0:01:35 > 0:01:38"The sofa cushions are soft underneath you,
0:01:38 > 0:01:42"the fire is well alight, the air is warm and stagnant.
0:01:42 > 0:01:44"In these blissful circumstances,
0:01:44 > 0:01:47"what is it that you want to read about?"
0:01:47 > 0:01:53"Naturally," Orwell says, "We want to read about a murder."
0:01:53 > 0:01:56But for him, the most elegant crimes -
0:01:56 > 0:02:00the ones that defined the genre - didn't take place in the 1930s.
0:02:00 > 0:02:02They were Victorian.
0:02:02 > 0:02:06At the top of the list of Orwell's perfect crimes
0:02:06 > 0:02:10were those committed in the 1850s by Dr William Palmer.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13"For a really entertaining murder," said Orwell,
0:02:13 > 0:02:17"The murderer should be a little man of the professional class
0:02:17 > 0:02:24"living an intensely respectable life somewhere in the suburbs."
0:02:24 > 0:02:26Well, it's not quite the suburbs,
0:02:26 > 0:02:29but this humdrum street in Rugeley, Staffordshire,
0:02:29 > 0:02:34is the rather unlikely setting for a despicable crime.
0:02:35 > 0:02:39On the 20th of November 1855,
0:02:39 > 0:02:43a man called John Parsons Cook died in the upstairs room of that pub.
0:02:43 > 0:02:45It was then called the Talbot Arms.
0:02:45 > 0:02:49He'd experienced vomiting and horrific convulsions.
0:02:51 > 0:02:55At first it seemed Cook might have died of natural causes,
0:02:55 > 0:02:58but William Palmer - the doctor who'd been treating him -
0:02:58 > 0:03:01seemed to be in quite a hurry to get him buried.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05And over the previous days, there'd been a suspicious run of events.
0:03:05 > 0:03:10Picture the scene, the week before Cook's death.
0:03:10 > 0:03:13It all starts with a big day out at the races.
0:03:13 > 0:03:17John Cook has gone to enjoy himself with his friend William Palmer,
0:03:17 > 0:03:19and Cook wins a lot of money on the horses.
0:03:19 > 0:03:22He and Palmer toast each other with brandy,
0:03:22 > 0:03:26but unfortunately the brandy doesn't do Cook any good - he falls ill.
0:03:26 > 0:03:28He comes to stay here at the Talbot Arms
0:03:28 > 0:03:32and luckily his friend William Palmer is on hand to look after him.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35Palmer gives Cook a cup of coffee - he gets ill again.
0:03:35 > 0:03:36Do you see a pattern?
0:03:36 > 0:03:40If I were you, I wouldn't accept a drink from William Palmer.
0:03:40 > 0:03:42Palmer next gives Cook a bowl of soup,
0:03:42 > 0:03:45and within just a few days, Cook is dead.
0:03:45 > 0:03:49The chambermaid described the violent arching of Cook's back,
0:03:49 > 0:03:53and the frightening grimaces of his face as he died -
0:03:53 > 0:03:57symptoms of tetanus, but also of poison.
0:03:57 > 0:04:01The fascinating thing about William Palmer as a murderer
0:04:01 > 0:04:04is that he was an upstanding member of the middle classes.
0:04:04 > 0:04:07He didn't look like a villain at all.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11These are the tools of his trade - he was a respectable family doctor.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15Someone you hoped that you could trust with your life.
0:04:15 > 0:04:17But as Sherlock Holmes would later say,
0:04:17 > 0:04:21"When a doctor does go wrong, he's the first of criminals.
0:04:21 > 0:04:24"He has the nerve and he has knowledge."
0:04:24 > 0:04:29Dr Palmer became known as the Rugeley poisoner.
0:04:29 > 0:04:30And his weapon of choice
0:04:30 > 0:04:34would have been kept in this little powder drawer at the bottom -
0:04:34 > 0:04:35it was Strychnine.
0:04:35 > 0:04:42Or was it? It was extremely hard to detect this state-of-the-art poison.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45Certainly, it looked like Palmer had a motive - money!
0:04:45 > 0:04:47The dead man's betting book,
0:04:47 > 0:04:51which allowed him to claim his big win on the horses,
0:04:51 > 0:04:53had mysteriously disappeared.
0:04:53 > 0:04:56Palmer was found to have huge debts.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59His wife had died the year before,
0:04:59 > 0:05:03just after he'd insured her life for £13,000.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06And his brother Walter had died not long after,
0:05:06 > 0:05:09yielding another big cash windfall.
0:05:09 > 0:05:14All this juicy detail was lapped up by Victorian newspaper readers.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17William Palmer's was the first big crime
0:05:17 > 0:05:22to take place after the lifting of the newspaper tax in 1855.
0:05:22 > 0:05:25This meant that newspapers suddenly got a whole lot cheaper.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28Some that had cost four pence were now just a penny.
0:05:28 > 0:05:32Combined with a brilliant murder story, circulation exploded.
0:05:32 > 0:05:37What the newspapers particularly liked in the Palmer case
0:05:37 > 0:05:40was the detail of the scientific investigation.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44In Palmer's case it was compromised right from the start, actually.
0:05:44 > 0:05:48Palmer himself was allowed to be present at the autopsy,
0:05:48 > 0:05:52and during it he managed to jostle the person handling the stomach
0:05:52 > 0:05:54so that its contents spilled out.
0:05:54 > 0:06:01Later Palmer tried to bribe the courier taking the victim's stomach down to London to make it disappear.
0:06:01 > 0:06:02The Illustrated Times
0:06:02 > 0:06:05has got pictures here of the stars of trial -
0:06:05 > 0:06:11the analytical chemists explaining exactly how poisoning worked -
0:06:11 > 0:06:14and the Staffordshire Advertiser have included
0:06:14 > 0:06:17a word-by-word transcript of all of their testimony.
0:06:17 > 0:06:19The readers of all these newspapers
0:06:19 > 0:06:23were getting a very detailed lesson in the science of chemistry
0:06:23 > 0:06:27and in the absolute latest techniques of poisoning.
0:06:27 > 0:06:33Palmer's trial featured 60 witnesses and lasted a record 12 days.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36But eventually, he was sentenced to death.
0:06:36 > 0:06:41The case gave the public a potent mix of science and murder.
0:06:41 > 0:06:43And at St Bartholomew's hospital,
0:06:43 > 0:06:46where William Palmer trained to be a doctor,
0:06:46 > 0:06:52the Victorian pathology museum contains the fascinating gory stuff
0:06:52 > 0:06:56the bottled stomachs and contaminated organs
0:06:56 > 0:07:01around which the best murder trials now revolved.
0:07:01 > 0:07:03Palmer's crime represented
0:07:03 > 0:07:06a new kind of more sophisticated poisoning.
0:07:06 > 0:07:10I'm meeting an expert in Victorian poison, Dr Ian Burney.
0:07:10 > 0:07:13There are various new things going on in crime in the 1850s.
0:07:13 > 0:07:18There's poisoning, there's toxicology, forensic science.
0:07:18 > 0:07:20What was the significance of the William Palmer case?
0:07:20 > 0:07:25Well, he marks the transition between the earlier poisoner
0:07:25 > 0:07:30of the 1830s and 40s which was seen to be crude, unsophisticated.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33The archetypal poisoning case
0:07:33 > 0:07:38was arsenic, in copious doses, which were easy to detect.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42As opposed to Palmer, as a medical practitioner
0:07:42 > 0:07:45with knowledge of - and indeed access to -
0:07:45 > 0:07:48more complex, more subtle poisons.
0:07:48 > 0:07:52When William Palmer's on the scaffold, he's about to die,
0:07:52 > 0:07:54he says, and this is very famous,
0:07:54 > 0:07:58he says, "I am innocent of poisoning Cook by Strychnine."
0:07:58 > 0:08:00What do you think he meant by that?
0:08:00 > 0:08:05Well I think he meant to taunt a very large crowd which came to watch him die.
0:08:05 > 0:08:1150,000 people came - this is a very, very controversial trial, very high profile.
0:08:11 > 0:08:18And the main controversial thing was the agent that he was convicted of poisoning Cooke by - Strychnine.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21Strychnine was not found by the toxicologists.
0:08:21 > 0:08:26And so what he's saying, in effect, is, "I may or may not be a poisoner,
0:08:26 > 0:08:29"but I'm certainly not a poisoner that used Strychnine."
0:08:29 > 0:08:33So this is a complete tease, it's the opposite of a confession.
0:08:33 > 0:08:37He's saying, "Maybe I did it, maybe I didn't do it, but I didn't use Strychnine."
0:08:37 > 0:08:38It's a perfect tease.
0:08:38 > 0:08:40So this case is so intriguing
0:08:40 > 0:08:42because we've got these toxicologists
0:08:42 > 0:08:45who weren't actually able to prove that strychnine was there.
0:08:45 > 0:08:47It was quite finely balanced.
0:08:47 > 0:08:48That's exactly right.
0:08:48 > 0:08:51One of the things that the toxicologist is supposed to do,
0:08:51 > 0:08:54or the key thing that the toxicologist is supposed to do,
0:08:54 > 0:09:00is to make the poisonous substance actually present to the court,
0:09:00 > 0:09:04to bring it to court to show it in a vial or on a slide.
0:09:04 > 0:09:07Well, in this case, they couldn't do that.
0:09:07 > 0:09:10I suppose if poison is getting more sophisticated,
0:09:10 > 0:09:13then the people who catch the poisoners are having to run to catch up.
0:09:13 > 0:09:18Oh, absolutely. They are locked in a self-reinforcing spiral.
0:09:18 > 0:09:21As poisoners are getting more sophisticated,
0:09:21 > 0:09:23so too do the means of detection
0:09:23 > 0:09:27need to be more and more sophisticated in order to catch them.
0:09:27 > 0:09:34Science helped to solve the ever-more refined crimes of the mid 19th century.
0:09:34 > 0:09:41As scientific knowledge increased, murderers could be caught through the careful study of the corpse.
0:09:43 > 0:09:47Collections like this one helped these magicians of the modern age -
0:09:47 > 0:09:50the toxicologists and the forensic scientists -
0:09:50 > 0:09:52to understand the human body.
0:09:52 > 0:09:55They needed to see lots of different organs
0:09:55 > 0:09:58so they could tell what was normal and what was abnormal.
0:09:58 > 0:10:00This is somebody's stomach,
0:10:00 > 0:10:05but it's been corroded away because they've swallowed a strong acid.
0:10:05 > 0:10:08And as the scientists were becoming more rigorous
0:10:08 > 0:10:11in their examination of the murder victim,
0:10:11 > 0:10:14the police were also transforming themselves.
0:10:14 > 0:10:16It all began in 1842,
0:10:16 > 0:10:21with the establishment of the Metropolitan Police Detective Force at Scotland Yard,
0:10:21 > 0:10:24formed from a handful of the cleverest police officers.
0:10:24 > 0:10:26They aimed to make policing a science,
0:10:26 > 0:10:28through observation of crime,
0:10:28 > 0:10:31and intimate knowledge of the criminal world.
0:10:31 > 0:10:35This new detective squad, which was very small at first,
0:10:35 > 0:10:37would become the elite of the police force.
0:10:37 > 0:10:42It wasn't their job to go out on the beat, preventing crime.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45Their role was much more active than that.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48They had to gather intelligence, look for patterns,
0:10:48 > 0:10:51find the evidence, and go after the killers.
0:10:51 > 0:10:55In other words, it was much more exciting!
0:10:55 > 0:10:59These detectives often came from same streets
0:10:59 > 0:11:01as the criminals they investigated,
0:11:01 > 0:11:04so they understood the Victorian underworld.
0:11:10 > 0:11:13Charles Dickens was very taken with the new detectives.
0:11:13 > 0:11:17He loved following them around and spending time with them.
0:11:17 > 0:11:20This is his magazine, Household Words,
0:11:20 > 0:11:24and from 1850 he published a whole series of articles about the detectives.
0:11:24 > 0:11:27He was doing something quite important.
0:11:27 > 0:11:30He was making them look like they were respectable,
0:11:30 > 0:11:34and even glamorous characters, to his middle-class readers.
0:11:34 > 0:11:38Dickens loved the idea of these working-class heroes -
0:11:38 > 0:11:43cerebral and brave at the same time, sweeping up crime all over the city.
0:11:43 > 0:11:48This essay is called The Modern Science of Thief-Taking
0:11:48 > 0:11:51and Dickens here is really bigging-up the detectives.
0:11:51 > 0:11:55He says that, "These 42 individuals don't wear a uniform,
0:11:55 > 0:11:59"but they perform the most difficult operations of their craft."
0:11:59 > 0:12:01They're "connoisseurs of crime".
0:12:01 > 0:12:03They can walk into a crime scene
0:12:03 > 0:12:07and they can spot the hallmarks of a particular gang of criminals.
0:12:07 > 0:12:12They can read tracks which are invisible to other eyes.
0:12:12 > 0:12:16A few months later, Dickens invites the whole of the detective squad
0:12:16 > 0:12:20into the offices of Household Words for a party -
0:12:20 > 0:12:22the detective police party.
0:12:22 > 0:12:26Over brandy-and-water and cigars, they chat together about crime.
0:12:26 > 0:12:31The most impressive detective present is called Inspector Wield,
0:12:31 > 0:12:36who's, "A middle aged man with a portly presence
0:12:36 > 0:12:39"with a large, moist and knowing eye,
0:12:39 > 0:12:43"a husky voice and a habit of emphasizing his conversation
0:12:43 > 0:12:46"with the aid of a corpulent forefinger."
0:12:46 > 0:12:48Now, these very distinctive tics
0:12:48 > 0:12:52belong to a real detective called Inspector Field.
0:12:52 > 0:12:57And Dickens uses his right name when he follows Inspector Field
0:12:57 > 0:13:00on his rounds of the slums of St Giles by night.
0:13:00 > 0:13:05This essay, called On Duty With Inspector Field, begins like this.
0:13:05 > 0:13:11"How goes the night? St Giles's Clock is striking nine."
0:13:13 > 0:13:17It's almost as if Dickens is stalking Inspector Field.
0:13:17 > 0:13:20And his description is full of admiration.
0:13:20 > 0:13:25"Inspector Field is, tonight, the guardian genius of the British Museum.
0:13:25 > 0:13:28"He is bringing his shrewd eye to bear
0:13:28 > 0:13:32"on every corner of its solitary galleries."
0:13:32 > 0:13:35Soon Field emerges, and leads Dickens on a journey of discovery
0:13:35 > 0:13:38into London's criminal underbelly.
0:13:38 > 0:13:43What I love about this essay is the window it opens up
0:13:43 > 0:13:47into the squalid, grimy, horrible world of the slums of Saint Giles,
0:13:47 > 0:13:52where Inspector Field is completely at home and completely in charge.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55He isn't different from these people, he's one of them.
0:13:55 > 0:13:57He's risen up through his own abilities,
0:13:57 > 0:14:00and this gives him the power to pass between worlds -
0:14:00 > 0:14:03from the slums to the middle-class newspaper offices.
0:14:03 > 0:14:06Just like Charles Dickens did himself.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12Given Dickens's empathy for the police detectives,
0:14:12 > 0:14:14it's no surprise that the real Inspector Field
0:14:14 > 0:14:17soon got a fictional counterpart.
0:14:17 > 0:14:19Inspector Bucket in Bleak House
0:14:19 > 0:14:22bears a striking resemblance to Inspector Field,
0:14:22 > 0:14:25right down to the plump, pointing forefinger.
0:14:25 > 0:14:28He's one of our very first fictional police detectives.
0:14:28 > 0:14:33But Dickens wasn't just taken with detection.
0:14:33 > 0:14:37He also had a keen interest in crime and brutality more generally.
0:14:37 > 0:14:43I've come to Dickens's own house to hear about the great writer from his biographer, Simon Callow.
0:14:43 > 0:14:50He moved in parts of society that were unknown to most of his readers.
0:14:50 > 0:14:55He specialised in the underbelly.
0:14:55 > 0:14:59And it's very notable that whenever he went to any new town,
0:14:59 > 0:15:03pretty well the first visit he made every time was to the police station.
0:15:03 > 0:15:08When he went to America, he went to the New York precinct,
0:15:08 > 0:15:12and they took him round the underworld, basically.
0:15:12 > 0:15:15They took him to the brothels, to the gambling dens,
0:15:15 > 0:15:18to the places where the criminals hung out.
0:15:18 > 0:15:21He seemed to need to know about all of that.
0:15:21 > 0:15:25Dickens's interest in the unvarnished detail of murder
0:15:25 > 0:15:29was evident in his famous public readings from Oliver Twist.
0:15:29 > 0:15:33Especially the killing by Bill Sikes of his girlfriend Nancy.
0:15:33 > 0:15:40Dickens appeared in tails with a white starched shirt and bow tie.
0:15:40 > 0:15:44He stood at a lectern, which he'd designed himself,
0:15:44 > 0:15:50which had a metal rectangle over it,
0:15:50 > 0:15:52through which gas flowed,
0:15:52 > 0:15:57and which lit up, so he was gas lit within this frame.
0:15:57 > 0:16:01And then he'd give himself, just like a musician,
0:16:01 > 0:16:03he wrote a score for himself.
0:16:03 > 0:16:09And, it's fascinating that you see he rewrote some of the scenes to make them tighter and more vivid.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12And he gives himself notes all the way through.
0:16:12 > 0:16:20So, for example in letters so marked, so heavily,
0:16:20 > 0:16:28his pen almost breaking on the page is the word "TERROR" - underlined twice - "TO THE END."
0:16:28 > 0:16:35And he maintained that atmosphere of extreme dread all the way through.
0:16:35 > 0:16:40But the moment that people remembered most of all,
0:16:40 > 0:16:44"It was a ghastly figure to look upon.
0:16:44 > 0:16:48"The murderer, staggering backward to the wall,
0:16:48 > 0:16:51"and shutting out the sight with his hand,
0:16:51 > 0:16:54"seized a heavy club, and struck her down!"
0:16:54 > 0:16:57And then Dickens just repeated this...
0:16:57 > 0:17:02He did this. Sometimes he didn't seem to stop at all.
0:17:02 > 0:17:05This was the thing that frightened his audiences so much.
0:17:05 > 0:17:11He hammered her till they actually began to see her face disintegrating under his fist.
0:17:11 > 0:17:17I mean, it was a sort of psychotic performance, really. Absolutely extraordinary.
0:17:17 > 0:17:23Dickens brought these terrifying accounts of murder
0:17:23 > 0:17:27and the criminal underworld to a new novel-reading audience,
0:17:27 > 0:17:31who found they could now enjoy stories of violence with a clear conscience.
0:17:33 > 0:17:37And they liked it even more when murder left the grimy back streets
0:17:37 > 0:17:39and entered the country house.
0:17:41 > 0:17:47In 1860, one real-life case seized Britain's attention.
0:17:51 > 0:17:54Rode Hill House, in the Wiltshire village of Rode,
0:17:54 > 0:17:57became the scene of a dreadful incident.
0:17:57 > 0:18:00I've been given rare access to the very house
0:18:00 > 0:18:03where a shocking murder took place.
0:18:03 > 0:18:10On the night of 29th June 1860, the Kent family, one by one, went up to bed.
0:18:12 > 0:18:15On the first floor, the man of the house -
0:18:15 > 0:18:19mill inspector, Samuel Kent - joined his second wife Mary.
0:18:23 > 0:18:25Their five-year-old daughter slept in their room.
0:18:25 > 0:18:30Opposite, the nursemaid Elizabeth Gough shared the nursery
0:18:30 > 0:18:35with one-year-old Eveline and three-year-old Francis Saville.
0:18:39 > 0:18:44The second floor housed the cook and the housemaid...
0:18:48 > 0:18:53..and the less favoured offspring of Samuel Kent's first marriage -
0:18:53 > 0:18:57Mary Ann and Elizabeth, in their 20s.
0:18:59 > 0:19:01Constance, aged 16.
0:19:05 > 0:19:07And William, 14.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17The house was completely secure.
0:19:17 > 0:19:19There were high walls around the garden.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22There was a guard dog on the prowl out there.
0:19:22 > 0:19:25The doors were all locked and the shutters were barred.
0:19:25 > 0:19:29By midnight, there were 12 people inside the house,
0:19:29 > 0:19:32totally sealed off from the world.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48But in the morning, one of the children was missing.
0:19:48 > 0:19:52Three-year-old Francis Saville Kent was no longer in his cot.
0:19:55 > 0:20:00The family and servants searched the house and then the gardens.
0:20:00 > 0:20:04It seemed that someone inside the house
0:20:04 > 0:20:06must have spirited the child away.
0:20:16 > 0:20:18Finally, they searched the outdoor privy,
0:20:18 > 0:20:21and down beneath the seat in the chamber
0:20:21 > 0:20:23was the body of the little boy.
0:20:23 > 0:20:25He'd been wrapped in a blanket,
0:20:25 > 0:20:30and his throat was cut so deeply that his head was almost off.
0:20:39 > 0:20:44Soon, as in all the best detective stories, a series of clues emerged.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51The first clue was the clue of the blanket - from the boy's bed.
0:20:51 > 0:20:54His body was discovered wrapped in this,
0:20:54 > 0:20:57but now suspicion fell on his nursery maid Elizabeth.
0:20:57 > 0:20:59She seems to have changed her story
0:20:59 > 0:21:02about when she noticed that the blanket was missing.
0:21:02 > 0:21:07The second clue was the clue of the breast cloth.
0:21:07 > 0:21:10Victorian women wore these to pad out their corsets,
0:21:10 > 0:21:12and one was discovered in the privy.
0:21:12 > 0:21:15The police now tried to discover whose it was
0:21:15 > 0:21:19by trying it on to the various female servants. Who did it fit?
0:21:19 > 0:21:22It fitted Elizabeth the best.
0:21:22 > 0:21:27It's notable that they didn't try it onto the young ladies of the household,
0:21:27 > 0:21:29as if they were somehow above suspicion.
0:21:29 > 0:21:33The next clue was the clue of the bloody newspaper.
0:21:33 > 0:21:37At first, the police thought this came from the Morning Star,
0:21:37 > 0:21:40which might have suggested a stranger.
0:21:40 > 0:21:42The Kent family didn't read the Star.
0:21:42 > 0:21:44But this was a red herring.
0:21:44 > 0:21:46It turned out it was from the Times instead.
0:21:46 > 0:21:52But the most exciting clue was something notable by its absence.
0:21:52 > 0:21:55When the laundry came back, there was something missing.
0:21:55 > 0:21:59What had happened to the nightdress of Constance Kent, the daughter?
0:21:59 > 0:22:01This was a real mystery.
0:22:01 > 0:22:07But at this stage, the finger of suspicion was pointed at Elizabeth, the nursery maid.
0:22:07 > 0:22:09The local police, though,
0:22:09 > 0:22:12failed to find enough evidence to prosecute her.
0:22:12 > 0:22:15Enter a new investigator.
0:22:15 > 0:22:21Two weeks after the murder, Detective Inspector Jonathan Whicher was called in from London,
0:22:21 > 0:22:25amidst huge public expectation and pressure from the press.
0:22:25 > 0:22:28A leading figure at Scotland Yard,
0:22:28 > 0:22:31he was described as the prince of detectives.
0:22:31 > 0:22:36Whicher set to work conducting interviews and examining the evidence.
0:22:36 > 0:22:38Soon, he came to a conclusion.
0:22:38 > 0:22:43Mr Whicher believed that the missing nightdress was the key to the whole thing
0:22:43 > 0:22:49and the nightdress's owner, Constance, who was only 16 years old became his prime suspect.
0:22:49 > 0:22:54He was convinced that she sneaked down these servant's stairs,
0:22:54 > 0:22:58got the body of her sleeping half-brother from the nursery
0:22:58 > 0:23:02and then carried him down and out to slit his throat.
0:23:05 > 0:23:09Constance was arrested, charged, and released on bail,
0:23:09 > 0:23:13but without the still elusive nightdress, Whicher couldn't make a case.
0:23:13 > 0:23:19The accusation by a working-class detective of a nice, middle-class girl caused public outrage.
0:23:19 > 0:23:24Whicher was criticised for intruding on the family's grief, and tarnishing Constance's name.
0:23:24 > 0:23:26The charges were dropped.
0:23:26 > 0:23:31Kate Summerscale, author of a bestselling book on the murder,
0:23:31 > 0:23:34has discovered that this story hooked the public.
0:23:34 > 0:23:39Not content with reading about the crime, they were determined to find their own solution.
0:23:39 > 0:23:41Kate is showing me some of the letters
0:23:41 > 0:23:43members of the public wrote to the police.
0:23:43 > 0:23:47This is from a woman in London and she says,
0:23:47 > 0:23:52"I fancy that step-by-step I can trace the crime,
0:23:52 > 0:23:56"and that the murderer is the brother of William Nutt
0:23:56 > 0:23:58"and the son-in-law of Mrs Holly, the Laundress."
0:23:58 > 0:24:02This is brilliant! It's like she's solving the crime herself from...
0:24:02 > 0:24:04Westbourne Grove!
0:24:04 > 0:24:06Yes, yes, exactly.
0:24:06 > 0:24:09Well, this one is suggesting that the police check
0:24:09 > 0:24:13whether any chloroform was purchased in the neighbourhood
0:24:13 > 0:24:17because if the boy had been sedated with chloroform,
0:24:17 > 0:24:20then that would explain why the parents didn't wake.
0:24:20 > 0:24:23Surely the police thought of this themselves?
0:24:23 > 0:24:28Well, yes, and Whicher had to give his responses
0:24:28 > 0:24:30to all these letters, such as this one.
0:24:30 > 0:24:35"I have read the annexed letter, offering suggestions relative to the murder at Rode,
0:24:35 > 0:24:37"but there is nothing in them to assist in the enquiry."
0:24:37 > 0:24:40So each time one of these letters came in,
0:24:40 > 0:24:43he had to read it and respond to it.
0:24:43 > 0:24:47As time went on then, what happened to Whicher's public status?
0:24:47 > 0:24:51There was a great deal of sympathy for Constance and her family
0:24:51 > 0:24:55and all the loathing that might have been reserved, actually,
0:24:55 > 0:24:58for the murderer - if they had been found at that point -
0:24:58 > 0:25:00was turned on Whicher.
0:25:00 > 0:25:02He became a sort of scapegoat
0:25:02 > 0:25:07for people's disquiet and upset about the murder itself.
0:25:07 > 0:25:09I feel really sorry for him.
0:25:09 > 0:25:14He's done a pretty good job really, but people are writing some terrible letters in to him.
0:25:14 > 0:25:18This is a particularly sort of damning one, isn't it?
0:25:18 > 0:25:20Yes, this is typical of the letters
0:25:20 > 0:25:24that started to come in about Whicher himself.
0:25:24 > 0:25:26The scorn for his lack of education
0:25:26 > 0:25:29and his working-class background is apparent.
0:25:29 > 0:25:31The writer ends,
0:25:31 > 0:25:35"A policeman may be a good hand at discovering a criminal,
0:25:35 > 0:25:39"but it requires intellect and a mind enlarged by observation
0:25:39 > 0:25:42"to detect a crime and unravel a mystery."
0:25:42 > 0:25:45Well, on one level, I agree. On another level, what a snob!
0:25:45 > 0:25:48And where does that leave the professional police detective?
0:25:48 > 0:25:51His status has been rocked by this?
0:25:51 > 0:25:55The police detective, I would say, for about a century,
0:25:55 > 0:26:01didn't regain the kind of kudos and integrity that they had enjoyed before the Rode Hill case.
0:26:01 > 0:26:07Somehow the experience of doubting him and his self-doubt, I think,
0:26:07 > 0:26:09sort of undid the idea
0:26:09 > 0:26:15of this omniscient almost super-human police detective.
0:26:15 > 0:26:20In fact, it turned out that Whicher was right all along.
0:26:20 > 0:26:25In 1865, Constance Kent confessed to killing her little half-brother,
0:26:25 > 0:26:28motivated by resentment of her stepmother.
0:26:28 > 0:26:33But it came too late. The murder of Francis Saville Kent
0:26:33 > 0:26:37spelled the end of the police detective as hero,
0:26:37 > 0:26:41and the birth of what we'd call today the armchair detective.
0:26:44 > 0:26:48This is the grave of the victim - Francis Saville Kent.
0:26:48 > 0:26:53You can't make it out, but it says here he was cruelly murdered.
0:26:53 > 0:26:57And one result of his death was this new appetite in the middle classes
0:26:57 > 0:27:00for the intellectual rigours of detection.
0:27:00 > 0:27:04His death made retired colonels and housewives
0:27:04 > 0:27:08and all sorts of respectable people become amateur detectives
0:27:08 > 0:27:11and largely without success!
0:27:11 > 0:27:17The epitaph goes on to say that God must search out the solution to this crime
0:27:17 > 0:27:21because only he knows the secrets of the heart.
0:27:23 > 0:27:25The case at Rode Hill House -
0:27:25 > 0:27:29with its dark desires hidden behind a genteel facade -
0:27:29 > 0:27:34also inspired a great work of crime literature.
0:27:34 > 0:27:40In 1868, Wilkie Collins published a book called The Moonstone.
0:27:40 > 0:27:42TS Eliot described it as,
0:27:42 > 0:27:47"The first, the longest, and the best of English detective novels."
0:27:47 > 0:27:50Whether it's a true detective novel or not is a bit of a moot question,
0:27:50 > 0:27:53but it'll definitely keep you turning the pages.
0:27:53 > 0:27:56Basically, it's about a stolen diamond,
0:27:56 > 0:28:00but I've come to a tobacconist, because Collins expert Matthew Sweet
0:28:00 > 0:28:04promises me cigars hold the secret to the novel's plot.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07Right then, shall we go for these ones?
0:28:07 > 0:28:11Will you please show us what to do now that we've picked these two?
0:28:11 > 0:28:16What you need to do is to cut... cut the little end off here.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19Cut that, and now I'm just going to char the end for you.
0:28:19 > 0:28:23- Turning it around slowly.- Turning it, so you get it nice and evenly...
0:28:23 > 0:28:26I think that's nearly there. Right.
0:28:26 > 0:28:30- Thank you very much. - Now draw, and then blow it out.
0:28:32 > 0:28:35- That's really nasty! - Yeah?- I'm sorry!
0:28:36 > 0:28:39You are going to explain in a minute why we're smoking cigars?
0:28:39 > 0:28:41- I will, I will. - It's all going to be revealed?
0:28:41 > 0:28:45- If you'd like to take that and draw. - Matthew's first puff.- Yes.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49Draw in, you're away!
0:28:52 > 0:28:55- Good smoking!- Terrific. - Excellent. Like a pro.
0:28:58 > 0:29:02So, what role do cigars play in the story of the Moonstone?
0:29:02 > 0:29:06Well, the cigar, strangely, is the engine of the plot in the Moonstone.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09Without the cigar, the moonstone diamond would never have been stolen.
0:29:09 > 0:29:14Because the hero, Franklin Blake, is a cigar smoker who stops smoking.
0:29:14 > 0:29:17And then, because he's sleepless, and because he's ratty
0:29:17 > 0:29:20and because he gets into an argument with a doctor,
0:29:20 > 0:29:23he finds that his drink has been spiked with opium,
0:29:23 > 0:29:27so this puts him into a very strange psychological state,
0:29:27 > 0:29:31during which he commits the robbery that he himself wants to see solved.
0:29:31 > 0:29:34You make that sound really neat and orderly and sensible,
0:29:34 > 0:29:36but it takes place over 800 pages
0:29:36 > 0:29:39and there's so many twists and turns along the way.
0:29:39 > 0:29:45Twists and turns and all with this strange kind of narcotic fug waiting for us at the end of the story.
0:29:45 > 0:29:48The Moonstone is a highly original story,
0:29:48 > 0:29:53but the detective element clearly draws on the Rode Hill House murder.
0:29:53 > 0:29:59He takes, in a way, the detective character from the Rode Hill House story.
0:29:59 > 0:30:06So, Mr Whicher becomes Sergeant Cuff, this detective who is called in when the local police fail,
0:30:06 > 0:30:09and puts the finger of blame on the daughter of the household,
0:30:09 > 0:30:13but then fails in his investigation,
0:30:13 > 0:30:15you know, it comes to a dead end for him.
0:30:15 > 0:30:18But there's also the detail of a clue in the story.
0:30:18 > 0:30:24Whicher's suspicions were founded upon an anomaly in the laundry list at Rode Hill House.
0:30:24 > 0:30:28This nightshirt that should have been there but wasn't.
0:30:28 > 0:30:31Now, there's a nightshirt in this story too.
0:30:31 > 0:30:33It's smeared with paint.
0:30:33 > 0:30:36Franklin Blake has been sleepwalking through the house
0:30:36 > 0:30:40and his body's rubbed against a wet architrave of one of the doors
0:30:40 > 0:30:43and the paint has come off on the nightdress.
0:30:43 > 0:30:48So what's the case for the Moonstone being the first proper detective fiction?
0:30:48 > 0:30:50There are things in the Moonstone
0:30:50 > 0:30:52that later become fixtures of the genre.
0:30:52 > 0:30:55You've got the country house mystery,
0:30:55 > 0:30:58you've got the questionable servants.
0:30:58 > 0:31:04You've got the detective who comes into a kind of complacent household who resist him,
0:31:04 > 0:31:08who don't want that kind of detective gaze directed upon them -
0:31:08 > 0:31:13looking in their drawers, inspecting the business of their personal lives.
0:31:13 > 0:31:15Another thing in the Moonstone
0:31:15 > 0:31:18that really looks forwards to detective stories
0:31:18 > 0:31:20is the planting of the clue, isn't it?
0:31:20 > 0:31:22The way that if you're paying attention,
0:31:22 > 0:31:25you know that this normal detail of daily life, the cigar,
0:31:25 > 0:31:27is going to hold the secret of the whole plot.
0:31:27 > 0:31:30Well, yes, I mean it's the classic clue, isn't it?
0:31:30 > 0:31:33You can imagine something like this reproduced in a Cluedo set
0:31:33 > 0:31:36along with the length of rope and the revolver.
0:31:36 > 0:31:39And the classic idea is that this is an object that can be read.
0:31:39 > 0:31:42It looks ordinary, the world is full of them,
0:31:42 > 0:31:45and yet if you know how to look at this,
0:31:45 > 0:31:48if you see how long it's been burning, where it comes from,
0:31:48 > 0:31:51where it was bought, who might use a cigar like this,
0:31:51 > 0:31:52then it becomes legible.
0:31:52 > 0:31:56And it might perform some very important role in a story or a puzzle.
0:31:56 > 0:31:57Well, in this particular story,
0:31:57 > 0:32:01- it's the explanation for the whole of everything.- Absolutely, yes!
0:32:05 > 0:32:09The Moonstone was part of a new wave of writing in the 1860s
0:32:09 > 0:32:13known at the time as "sensation fiction".
0:32:13 > 0:32:17Novels designed to quicken the pulse of middle-class readers.
0:32:17 > 0:32:22What could be more sensational than murder and detection?
0:32:22 > 0:32:27The Queen of sensation fiction was Mary Elizabeth Braddon.
0:32:27 > 0:32:32She really was one of the 19th centuries most prolific and successful novelists.
0:32:32 > 0:32:37Her first smash hit novel, Lady Audley's Secret, was set here.
0:32:37 > 0:32:40Ingatestone Hall became Audley Court -
0:32:40 > 0:32:45a place of full of secrets, glamour and crime.
0:32:45 > 0:32:49The book's plot revolves around bigamy and murder.
0:32:50 > 0:32:56George Tallboys comes back from Australia after years away seeking his fortune.
0:32:56 > 0:33:01He expects to find his wife at home waiting for him,
0:33:01 > 0:33:04but instead hears that she's died.
0:33:05 > 0:33:09He goes with a friend, Robert Audley, to visit Audley Court,
0:33:09 > 0:33:13where he hears about the new, young Lady Audley.
0:33:13 > 0:33:18It's George's supposedly dead wife, remarried.
0:33:18 > 0:33:22With her shameful secret about to be exposed,
0:33:22 > 0:33:25she arranges to meet George here.
0:33:31 > 0:33:35This is the famous Lime Tree Walk from Lady Audley's Secret.
0:33:35 > 0:33:37In the story, it leads to a well,
0:33:37 > 0:33:40down which Lady Audley pushes her husband.
0:33:40 > 0:33:47Mary Elizabeth Braddon said that the whole story was inspired by a walk that she took here.
0:33:47 > 0:33:52She said this secluded spot, "Suggested something uncanny."
0:33:52 > 0:33:55In the book, the mystery is investigated
0:33:55 > 0:34:00by Robert Audley himself, who has turned amateur detective.
0:34:00 > 0:34:02I'm really fascinated by Braddon,
0:34:02 > 0:34:07whose own life seems to reflect her taste for sensation.
0:34:07 > 0:34:11I've come to meet her biographer Jennifer Carnell.
0:34:11 > 0:34:15So, this is a photograph of Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and is that her hair?
0:34:15 > 0:34:18That's her hair, probably from when she was a toddler.
0:34:18 > 0:34:23She's not exactly the sort of glamorous, Lady Audley type character I was expecting!
0:34:23 > 0:34:26No, she's much more of a slightly matronly look to her.
0:34:26 > 0:34:28She was incredibly prolific.
0:34:28 > 0:34:32It was nearly 80 different novels that she wrote and the early ones were published
0:34:32 > 0:34:33with the support of...
0:34:33 > 0:34:37I don't know how to describe him - John Maxwell - he was her sort of partner in life.
0:34:37 > 0:34:41He was. He was a very pushy publisher, good at publicity - very different to her.
0:34:41 > 0:34:44So she had the skill at writing and he had the salesmanship.
0:34:44 > 0:34:46But there was a problem with Maxwell.
0:34:46 > 0:34:50There was a slight problem - because he did already have a wife!
0:34:50 > 0:34:52- And children, even. - Wife and children.
0:34:52 > 0:34:58His wife had become insane after the birth of her last child and had gone back to her family in Ireland.
0:34:58 > 0:35:01For many years she's been living with John Maxwell,
0:35:01 > 0:35:03they have children together, but then it all goes wrong.
0:35:03 > 0:35:07Yes, his first wife died and Maxwell sent a telegram to Ireland
0:35:07 > 0:35:10saying he wasn't going to go to the funeral, he didn't feel well.
0:35:10 > 0:35:13The Irish family were so incensed that they put a notice -
0:35:13 > 0:35:15a death notice - in the London newspapers,
0:35:15 > 0:35:18saying that Mrs John Maxwell had sadly died.
0:35:18 > 0:35:22And unfortunately, many people thought that this meant that Braddon had died,
0:35:22 > 0:35:26and the letters and telegrams of condolence arrived at the house -
0:35:26 > 0:35:30and then obviously, as she was very much alive, the cat was out of the bag!
0:35:30 > 0:35:33- You couldn't make it up. It's like her own stories.- It is.
0:35:33 > 0:35:36Can you tell me how she targeted her work at different audiences?
0:35:36 > 0:35:39She was quite clever in that and unusual, too.
0:35:39 > 0:35:40She was writing for the middle classes.
0:35:40 > 0:35:43And that's the big three-volume novel?
0:35:43 > 0:35:47Yes, and she also wrote for poorer people - the working class.
0:35:47 > 0:35:51This is a "penny dreadful", which is clearly aimed at people who are servants.
0:35:51 > 0:35:54We've got an article here addressed to female servants.
0:35:54 > 0:35:56What would the other readers have been like?
0:35:56 > 0:36:02Shop girls, young clerks, and teenagers, as well, also read these kind of magazines.
0:36:02 > 0:36:04This is clearly quite a cheap publication -
0:36:04 > 0:36:06it's called the Halfpenny Journal -
0:36:06 > 0:36:10and each weekly number starts with a story called the Black Band.
0:36:10 > 0:36:13It's not signed, but this is by Braddon, isn't it?
0:36:13 > 0:36:15It is. It ran for almost a year -
0:36:15 > 0:36:18it was her longest book she ever wrote -
0:36:18 > 0:36:23and it's got extraordinary number of murders, plots, poisonings, duels...
0:36:23 > 0:36:26This is another female murderess, fainting away.
0:36:26 > 0:36:29- That's another one. - She's been discovered.
0:36:29 > 0:36:32So this is even less plausible than Lady Audley. Sort of trash?
0:36:32 > 0:36:34It is, it is - it's campy fun!
0:36:34 > 0:36:40- But at the same time, people who haven't got much money are enjoying this?- They're lapping it up, yes!
0:36:40 > 0:36:43Tell me about the different types of detective we get
0:36:43 > 0:36:45in the two types of writing?
0:36:45 > 0:36:47You get a great difference in the detectives.
0:36:47 > 0:36:48For example in The Black Band,
0:36:48 > 0:36:51Braddon praises them as the friends of the people.
0:36:51 > 0:36:53They're here to uphold justice.
0:36:53 > 0:36:55They're magicians of modern life
0:36:55 > 0:36:58with their incredible detective skills
0:36:58 > 0:37:00and up-to-date ways of solving crimes,
0:37:00 > 0:37:02but in the middle-class sensation novel
0:37:02 > 0:37:05they're an intruder and they're not allowed to solve crimes.
0:37:05 > 0:37:09And the amateur detective will always prevail over the professional.
0:37:14 > 0:37:18Now everybody, at all levels in society,
0:37:18 > 0:37:22wanted to read about murder and detection.
0:37:22 > 0:37:24The middle classes had their expensive novels,
0:37:24 > 0:37:27there were cheap magazine stories for the workers -
0:37:27 > 0:37:30and authors rushed to meet this new demand,
0:37:30 > 0:37:34producing a whole array of different types of story
0:37:34 > 0:37:37and different types of detective to suit every taste.
0:37:37 > 0:37:41And they included novelties such as boy detectives, and even...
0:37:41 > 0:37:44- SHE GASPS IRONICALLY - ..the female detective.
0:37:46 > 0:37:48"My friends suppose I am a dressmaker.
0:37:48 > 0:37:51"I am aware that the female detective
0:37:51 > 0:37:53"may be regarded with even more aversion
0:37:53 > 0:37:55"than her brother in the profession.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58"But criminals are both masculine and feminine.
0:37:58 > 0:38:03"Indeed, my experience tells me that when a woman becomes a criminal
0:38:03 > 0:38:08"she is far worse than the average of her male companions,
0:38:08 > 0:38:13"and therefore it follows that the necessary detectives should be of both sexes."
0:38:16 > 0:38:22All of a sudden, we get not one, but two, female detectives appearing in fiction.
0:38:22 > 0:38:25Each of them is the heroine of her own book.
0:38:25 > 0:38:28One book's called The Female Detective.
0:38:28 > 0:38:29The other one's a bit more racy.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32It's called the Revelations of a Lady Detective.
0:38:32 > 0:38:35Each heroine - Miss Gladden and Mrs Paschal -
0:38:35 > 0:38:39is a female first because she's a professional.
0:38:39 > 0:38:42She makes her living through sleuthing.
0:38:46 > 0:38:48It's pretty incredible
0:38:48 > 0:38:52that the first girl detectives appeared in the 1860s.
0:38:53 > 0:39:00This was a time when ladies' movements were restricted by the decade's impractical fashions.
0:39:00 > 0:39:03Particularly the crinoline,
0:39:03 > 0:39:09which ladies actually referred to as "the cage".
0:39:11 > 0:39:15But in the book called The Revelations of a Lady Detective,
0:39:15 > 0:39:19Mrs Paschal isn't going to let a giant skirt get in her way.
0:39:22 > 0:39:25The heroine of the story is chasing a criminal.
0:39:25 > 0:39:27He goes down a hole into a cellar.
0:39:27 > 0:39:30She can't follow him because of her crinoline,
0:39:30 > 0:39:34so - her words - she takes off the "obnoxious garment".
0:39:34 > 0:39:38It's a brilliant little moment of female emancipation.
0:39:38 > 0:39:44These two groundbreaking books were published within months of each other in 1864,
0:39:44 > 0:39:47and since they're rather rare, I have come to see them
0:39:47 > 0:39:51with curator Kathryn Johnson at the British Library.
0:39:51 > 0:39:57Are these filling the gap between cheap and disposable magazines and the more expensive hardback novels?
0:39:57 > 0:40:01Probably nearer to the cheap magazine.
0:40:01 > 0:40:04At the time the original edition of this book came out,
0:40:04 > 0:40:08a three-volume novel would have cost something in the region
0:40:08 > 0:40:10of 10 and sixpence - per volume -
0:40:10 > 0:40:13which was round about an average working man's wage -
0:40:13 > 0:40:16so it was way out of his pocket.
0:40:16 > 0:40:19This is priced at sixpence, as you can see at the top.
0:40:19 > 0:40:22Looking at the cover of the Revelations of the Lady Detective,
0:40:22 > 0:40:25what would a reader have seen looking at that image?
0:40:25 > 0:40:30They might have been shocked. As you can see at the top, she's quite clearly smoking.
0:40:30 > 0:40:34You can see the puff of smoke although she has correctly got gloves on.
0:40:34 > 0:40:38She's lifting up a padded coat, a duster coat,
0:40:38 > 0:40:41and at the bottom you can see she has a crinoline,
0:40:41 > 0:40:44but it is rather daringly showing not only her ankles,
0:40:44 > 0:40:47but a considerable amount of leg.
0:40:47 > 0:40:49That cover image is not of a respectable woman.
0:40:49 > 0:40:54- In 18th century prints, if you hold up your dress and show your ankle, you are a prostitute.- Indeed!
0:40:54 > 0:40:59What other unladylike things does the lady detective do?
0:40:59 > 0:41:02She tells us that she has one of Mr Colt's revolvers,
0:41:02 > 0:41:05although perhaps disappointingly, we never see her use it.
0:41:05 > 0:41:09But perhaps she found a great comfort with the enormous weight of it in her pocket!
0:41:09 > 0:41:13I like this about the female detectives - they're bursting through the boundaries.
0:41:13 > 0:41:15They're out and about.
0:41:15 > 0:41:19Yes, it's something different, though it's interesting at the beginning of this.
0:41:19 > 0:41:26It's almost as if she has an excuse. She says that she had to undergo this career as a detective
0:41:26 > 0:41:29because her husband died and left her very poorly off -
0:41:29 > 0:41:34and so the implication is that she wouldn't undertake something so daring and unusual
0:41:34 > 0:41:39if she hadn't been bereft of the support of a husband.
0:41:39 > 0:41:41- She justifies herself quite hard, doesn't she?- Yes.
0:41:41 > 0:41:44I like the bit where she actually lists her qualities.
0:41:44 > 0:41:50She says, "My brain is vigorous and subtle, I concentrate all my energies upon my duties,
0:41:50 > 0:41:57"I have nerve and strength, cunning and confidence, resources unlimited"
0:41:57 > 0:41:58Good on her!
0:41:58 > 0:42:02Sadly, these two books were a bit or a false start,
0:42:02 > 0:42:06because there wouldn't be any more fictional lady detectives for over 20 years.
0:42:08 > 0:42:12But the British appetite for murder could not be satiated.
0:42:12 > 0:42:17One brutal real-life crime even gave us an interesting addition to the English language.
0:42:17 > 0:42:22The victim was an eight-year-old girl called Fanny Adams.
0:42:22 > 0:42:28She was attacked and cut into little pieces by a solicitor's clerk who lured her away from her friends.
0:42:28 > 0:42:32And although the crime was a fairly open-and-shut case,
0:42:32 > 0:42:35little Fanny Adams lingered on.
0:42:35 > 0:42:41In 1869, the sailors in the British Navy were issued with a new type of rations - tinned mutton.
0:42:41 > 0:42:45They weren't very keen on this stuff - it was a bit disgusting
0:42:45 > 0:42:48and they weren't sure what animal it came from.
0:42:48 > 0:42:51They started calling it Fanny Adams
0:42:51 > 0:42:55because it could have been the cut-up dead body of a murder victim.
0:42:55 > 0:43:01This expression "Sweet Fanny Adams" passed into language more generally,
0:43:01 > 0:43:04and you might still use the expression today
0:43:04 > 0:43:08to describe something that was tiny, or negligible or worthless -
0:43:08 > 0:43:10you could say it was "sweet FA".
0:43:10 > 0:43:14Now FA doesn't stand for what you might immediately think it does -
0:43:14 > 0:43:17it's actually a reference to Fanny Adams -
0:43:17 > 0:43:19this poor little murdered girl.
0:43:21 > 0:43:23Beyond a little dark humour,
0:43:23 > 0:43:27the murders that really intrigued late 19th-century Britain
0:43:27 > 0:43:30tended to be more complex than mere butchery.
0:43:30 > 0:43:34In 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a book
0:43:34 > 0:43:38called The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde,
0:43:38 > 0:43:41and introduced us to a new type of murderer.
0:43:41 > 0:43:47Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde broke new ground because the violence in it was motiveless, it was animalistic.
0:43:47 > 0:43:51It turned out that the killer, Mr Hyde,
0:43:51 > 0:43:55was the alter ego of the virtuous Dr Jekyll.
0:43:55 > 0:43:57The book was a huge success,
0:43:57 > 0:44:02and it quickly became a stage play with an actor called Richard Mansfield in the lead.
0:44:02 > 0:44:06It opened in 1888, here in London at the Lyceum theatre.
0:44:10 > 0:44:17For the first time, Victorian audiences encountered the idea of the split personality.
0:44:22 > 0:44:25The transformation scene was said to be so alarming
0:44:25 > 0:44:28that women fainted and had to be carried from the theatre.
0:44:28 > 0:44:34These days we're so familiar with the image of Jekyll drinking the potion and turning into Hyde
0:44:34 > 0:44:39that it's hard to imagine the shock of seeing it for the first time.
0:44:39 > 0:44:42But how did Richard Mansfield do it?
0:44:42 > 0:44:44The Actor Michael Kirk
0:44:44 > 0:44:48helped me to recreate the melodrama of his performance.
0:44:48 > 0:44:52Michael, what actually happened in the transformation scene, the famous scene?
0:44:52 > 0:44:58Well, he actually transformed himself in front of about 2,000 people
0:44:58 > 0:45:02from a very hideous little man to a very upright doctor -
0:45:02 > 0:45:06he transformed himself from Hyde to Jekyll.
0:45:06 > 0:45:11- So it's not the nice man turning into the monster that we know from the films.- No.
0:45:11 > 0:45:14On the stage and in the book, it's the monster into the nice man.
0:45:14 > 0:45:16Into the nice man, yes.
0:45:16 > 0:45:18Now it couldn't have just been the acting.
0:45:18 > 0:45:20Surely, there must have been more to it than that?
0:45:20 > 0:45:24He actually said, "All I do is change physically."
0:45:24 > 0:45:28That's all he did, and the lighting, the orchestra, the sound effects,
0:45:28 > 0:45:30and everything that went with it did the rest.
0:45:30 > 0:45:34There's a brilliant contemporary description of how he appears, isn't there?
0:45:34 > 0:45:38Yes, there is. "With the howl of a wolf,
0:45:38 > 0:45:42"the leap of a panther and the leer of a fiend!"
0:45:42 > 0:45:45So there's just one actor, a massive theatre -
0:45:45 > 0:45:47a bit of light, a bit of music -
0:45:47 > 0:45:50but he's going to completely transform himself
0:45:50 > 0:45:51from bad guy to good guy.
0:45:51 > 0:45:53How does he do it? Will you show me?
0:45:53 > 0:45:56Right, first of all physicality.
0:45:56 > 0:46:01So we're going to go on our toes, put your weight on your toes and lean forward.
0:46:01 > 0:46:07- This is Mr Hyde the murderer, walks on his toes.- Walks on his toes.
0:46:07 > 0:46:10So, got that. Now bend your body right over...
0:46:11 > 0:46:15..and straighten your fingers. And go...
0:46:15 > 0:46:18Feel the energy right to the end of those fingers.
0:46:18 > 0:46:22And a slightly deformed shoulder. Put the shoulder up.
0:46:22 > 0:46:24- Shoulder up. One shoulder up.- OK?
0:46:24 > 0:46:27So that's it. Leer!
0:46:27 > 0:46:30Leer - the leer of a fiend!
0:46:30 > 0:46:35- The leer of a fiend! - The howl of a wolf - woo!
0:46:35 > 0:46:38SHE LAUGHS
0:46:38 > 0:46:46- Serious, serious.- Now, over there is Dr Lanyon.- Is Dr... who?- Lanyon.
0:46:46 > 0:46:47Dr Lanyon, he's my friend?
0:46:47 > 0:46:53- He was your friend, he isn't your friend any more. - He's my enemy!- He's your enemy.
0:46:53 > 0:46:54THEY SNARL
0:46:54 > 0:46:56Down there is the potion
0:46:56 > 0:47:01and you're going to prove to Dr Lanyon how you do it!
0:47:01 > 0:47:06And you say to him, "Behold, man of disbelief."
0:47:06 > 0:47:11- Behold, man of disbelief!- Behold! - Behold!
0:47:11 > 0:47:13- Take the glass. - Take the glass!
0:47:13 > 0:47:15No! Don't take the glass.
0:47:15 > 0:47:18Don't say that you're taking the glass, just take it.
0:47:18 > 0:47:22With a sweep. 2,000 people are watching you!
0:47:22 > 0:47:25Yes, I'll drink this down. Oh!
0:47:25 > 0:47:28Place it on the table.
0:47:28 > 0:47:31- Oh, the pain!- The pain!
0:47:31 > 0:47:34Turn away the agony into the stomach.
0:47:34 > 0:47:36GROANING
0:47:36 > 0:47:43And suddenly, amazing relief and totally strengthen you'll feel your whole body going upright
0:47:43 > 0:47:46and it all relaxes
0:47:46 > 0:47:49and there is your friend
0:47:49 > 0:47:53- and you turn to him and you say, "Lanyon."- Dr Lanyon.
0:47:53 > 0:47:56- Lanyon.- Lanyon!
0:47:56 > 0:47:58The play Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
0:47:58 > 0:48:05opened in what would turn out to be a particularly fearful summer.
0:48:05 > 0:48:09In 1888, there was a series of brutal murders in Whitechapel.
0:48:09 > 0:48:12These unsolved crimes would grip the nation,
0:48:12 > 0:48:16and even a century later, we're still addicted.
0:48:16 > 0:48:23The uncaptured killer would become the 19th century's most notorious murderer.
0:48:23 > 0:48:25The image of this killer
0:48:25 > 0:48:30is strangely intertwined with that of Mr Hyde.
0:48:30 > 0:48:34The murder of the prostitute, Martha Tabram, in the East End,
0:48:34 > 0:48:37which some considered to be the first of this group of crimes,
0:48:37 > 0:48:43took place just two days after Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde began its West End run.
0:48:46 > 0:48:48Over the next two months,
0:48:48 > 0:48:52five more women were killed in truly horrifying ways.
0:48:53 > 0:48:57As the victims were discovered, a pattern began to emerge.
0:48:57 > 0:49:02They'd had various internal organs removed, rather skilfully.
0:49:02 > 0:49:05This gave rise to the speculation that the killer
0:49:05 > 0:49:07could have been a trained doctor.
0:49:07 > 0:49:14People now began to confuse the real murderous doctor with the fictional one in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
0:49:14 > 0:49:18One newspaper said that, "Mr Hyde is at large in Whitechapel."
0:49:18 > 0:49:21Some people were even more confused than that.
0:49:21 > 0:49:24They began to suggest that Richard Mansfield,
0:49:24 > 0:49:27the actor who played Mr Hyde could be the killer himself.
0:49:27 > 0:49:31After all, every night, he proved he could transform himself
0:49:31 > 0:49:35from a respectable looking doctor to a murderous monster.
0:49:37 > 0:49:43Behold, man of disbelief, behold!
0:49:51 > 0:49:55HE GASPS FOR BREATH
0:50:05 > 0:50:10And if even an honourable doctor could harbour the brutal instincts of the psychopath,
0:50:10 > 0:50:14anybody walking the streets was in danger.
0:50:14 > 0:50:17The serial killer could be anywhere.
0:50:17 > 0:50:24The fear and excitement escalated when a letter arrived at the offices of the Central News Agency.
0:50:24 > 0:50:27It began, "Dear Boss,"
0:50:27 > 0:50:31and it went on to mock the police, who couldn't catch the murderer.
0:50:31 > 0:50:33It was signed Jack the Ripper,
0:50:33 > 0:50:37introducing, for the first time, an irresistibly catchy name.
0:50:37 > 0:50:43In fact, the whole thing became something of a theatrical event for Victorian Londoners,
0:50:43 > 0:50:45and an interactive one, too.
0:50:45 > 0:50:50Once again, ordinary people started writing in to newspapers and the police.
0:50:50 > 0:50:53But this time, they didn't just suggest solutions.
0:50:53 > 0:50:58They sent letters purporting to be from the Ripper himself.
0:50:58 > 0:51:02Now, why would you pretend to be Jack the Ripper?
0:51:02 > 0:51:06Perhaps people wanted to just see their letter in the paper.
0:51:06 > 0:51:09Perhaps they wanted to mock the police
0:51:09 > 0:51:11for having failed to solve the crime.
0:51:11 > 0:51:13Or perhaps they just did it for fun.
0:51:13 > 0:51:15One of the people prosecuted
0:51:15 > 0:51:18for sending hoax Jack the Ripper letters was Maria Coroner,
0:51:18 > 0:51:2121 years old, worked for a mantle-maker.
0:51:21 > 0:51:23When she appeared in court,
0:51:23 > 0:51:26she was described as, "A pleasant-looking young woman,
0:51:26 > 0:51:30"of greater intelligence than is common for one of her class."
0:51:30 > 0:51:33When she was asked about her motive,
0:51:33 > 0:51:35she said she, "Done it in a joke."
0:51:35 > 0:51:37So, for some people,
0:51:37 > 0:51:42Jack the Ripper seems to have been light entertainment right from the start,
0:51:42 > 0:51:46even at the same time as the killer spread fear and panic in London.
0:51:46 > 0:51:48Today, on a rainy Friday night,
0:51:48 > 0:51:51the East End is seething with Ripper tours,
0:51:51 > 0:51:54criss-crossing each other's paths.
0:51:54 > 0:51:57I'm going to warn you now, this is the real story.
0:51:57 > 0:52:02The Ripper's story is a massive subject, for all different types of reasons.
0:52:02 > 0:52:06Therefore there's lots of questions, and the big question is, "Who done it?"
0:52:06 > 0:52:09Before the murders took place, the impoverished East End
0:52:09 > 0:52:11was already a tourist attraction -
0:52:11 > 0:52:14where posh people might go "slumming",
0:52:14 > 0:52:16to see how the poor lived.
0:52:16 > 0:52:18So perhaps it's not surprising
0:52:18 > 0:52:22that the Ripper's crimes were soon drawing in the crowds.
0:52:22 > 0:52:24These tours have quite a history.
0:52:24 > 0:52:29They've been going on for at least 100 years, possibly longer.
0:52:29 > 0:52:33The first formal recorded tour took place in 1905
0:52:33 > 0:52:36and it was led by Dr Frederick Brown,
0:52:36 > 0:52:39the police surgeon who'd carried out the post-mortem
0:52:39 > 0:52:41on one of the original victims.
0:52:41 > 0:52:45His tour group consisted of members of an exclusive club,
0:52:45 > 0:52:48a literary club called the Crimes Club.
0:52:48 > 0:52:50One of the them was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -
0:52:50 > 0:52:52the inventor of Sherlock Holmes.
0:52:52 > 0:52:55The legendary amateur detective
0:52:55 > 0:52:58first appeared the year before Jack the Ripper.
0:52:58 > 0:53:00But he wasn't an immediate hit.
0:53:00 > 0:53:04Sherlock Holmes took off in an age scarred by the Ripper.
0:53:04 > 0:53:08Perhaps the dismal failure of the police to find a culprit
0:53:08 > 0:53:13created a desire for a fictional sleuth who was never wrong.
0:53:13 > 0:53:19Sherlock Holmes was the perfect detective to comfort the nervous middle classes.
0:53:19 > 0:53:23He was up against killers who were psychotic and ruthless,
0:53:23 > 0:53:27but there was something of the machine about Sherlock himself.
0:53:27 > 0:53:29He used his flawless logic
0:53:29 > 0:53:33to solve crimes that had defeated the plodding members of the police.
0:53:33 > 0:53:37He elevated detection into an elegant crossword puzzle.
0:53:37 > 0:53:41The very first time we see Sherlock at work at a crime scene
0:53:41 > 0:53:43was in an empty house on the Brixton Road.
0:53:46 > 0:53:50In A Study in Scarlet, Holmes's distinctive
0:53:50 > 0:53:53and rather novel approach is immediately seen.
0:53:53 > 0:54:01"He whipped a tape measure and a large round magnifying glass from his pocket.
0:54:01 > 0:54:06"With these two implements, he trotted noiselessly about the room.
0:54:06 > 0:54:10"Sometimes stopping, occasionally kneeling...
0:54:10 > 0:54:13"and once lying flat upon his face.
0:54:13 > 0:54:19"In one place he gathered up very carefully a little pile of grey dust from the floor,
0:54:19 > 0:54:22"and packed it away in an envelope.
0:54:22 > 0:54:26"Finally, he examined, with his glass, the word upon the wall,
0:54:26 > 0:54:31"going over every letter of it with the most minute exactness."
0:54:33 > 0:54:39Holmes uses the bloody finger-marks, which spell out the German word for "revenge",
0:54:39 > 0:54:41to draw some clever conclusions
0:54:41 > 0:54:42about the appearance of the murderer.
0:54:42 > 0:54:46His scientific approach to the crime scene -
0:54:46 > 0:54:49the idea of reading minute forensic clues -
0:54:49 > 0:54:54was genuinely pioneering and would actually inspire real-life policing.
0:54:54 > 0:54:59The next step towards more scientific police detection took place in 1901,
0:54:59 > 0:55:05with the creation by the Met of the world's first fingerprint bureau.
0:55:05 > 0:55:08Now, your job has been to teach police officers
0:55:08 > 0:55:10how to do this, hasn't it?
0:55:10 > 0:55:14Well, one of my jobs. We would take classes of police officers
0:55:14 > 0:55:17and show them how to take fingerprints.
0:55:17 > 0:55:19So, this is quite important that you do this properly
0:55:19 > 0:55:23- because people could go to prison on the basis of this.- That's right.
0:55:23 > 0:55:28The ink is the same as they use for printing newspapers?
0:55:28 > 0:55:34It is a printer's ink. You have to smear this now.
0:55:34 > 0:55:38Spread this over...
0:55:38 > 0:55:42This system isn't done nowadays, it's all done electronically.
0:55:46 > 0:55:49I'm going to do the thumb first,
0:55:49 > 0:55:52then the forefinger, mid-finger, ring and in that order.
0:55:52 > 0:55:55- Ah!- Right thumb first. Can you bend down a bit?
0:55:57 > 0:55:59Ooh, ooh, why do we roll it like that?
0:55:59 > 0:56:02We're trying to get all the information
0:56:02 > 0:56:06from one side of the finger to the other because of the pattern area.
0:56:06 > 0:56:08Some patterns are wider than others,
0:56:08 > 0:56:11so you want to get as much information as possible.
0:56:11 > 0:56:14You are, um, you're quite strict.
0:56:14 > 0:56:16Ken's definitely in charge here.
0:56:16 > 0:56:19What happens if people don't want their fingerprints taken?
0:56:19 > 0:56:23Well, I think they can be persuaded to have their fingerprints taken.
0:56:23 > 0:56:25Police do have the authority, I understand,
0:56:25 > 0:56:27to take fingerprints by force if necessary,
0:56:27 > 0:56:29but I don't think that often happens.
0:56:30 > 0:56:34And how long have we been doing this in Britain, then?
0:56:34 > 0:56:38We've been taking fingerprints since about...
0:56:38 > 0:56:401894.
0:56:41 > 0:56:44Ooh! But not initially by the police, is that right?
0:56:44 > 0:56:47No, it was done in prison.
0:56:47 > 0:56:53When the fingerprint bureau is set up in 1901 they already have access, don't they, to this large databank?
0:56:53 > 0:56:57They had about 18,000 - 20,000 sets of fingerprints on record
0:56:57 > 0:57:00by the time they started to classify fingerprints.
0:57:00 > 0:57:04They were able to build up a collection, then.
0:57:04 > 0:57:06Of people who were already criminals - they'd been in prison?
0:57:06 > 0:57:11That's right, so there's a mass reclassification of all these fingerprints
0:57:11 > 0:57:12that they'd actually built up
0:57:12 > 0:57:15from all the prints they'd received in prison.
0:57:15 > 0:57:16So 1901 is the key date -
0:57:16 > 0:57:19this is when the science of classifying people
0:57:19 > 0:57:23by their fingerprints and uniquely identifying suspects begins?
0:57:23 > 0:57:25Correct.
0:57:26 > 0:57:31The idea that every criminal action leaves a print, or a trace -
0:57:31 > 0:57:33a hair, a speck of dust -
0:57:33 > 0:57:37gave a sense of discovery and excitement to the solving of crimes,
0:57:37 > 0:57:42and the process of detection became ever more fascinating to the British people.
0:57:42 > 0:57:44As Sherlock Holmes put it,
0:57:44 > 0:57:50"There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life,
0:57:50 > 0:57:55"and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it."
0:57:56 > 0:57:59By the end of the Victorian age,
0:57:59 > 0:58:02the pieces were nearly all in place
0:58:02 > 0:58:05for a new age of detection to begin -
0:58:05 > 0:58:07in real life and in fiction too.
0:58:07 > 0:58:11Crimes would be solved scientifically, methodically,
0:58:11 > 0:58:15neatly, and to the complete satisfaction of the reader.
0:58:19 > 0:58:25So, next on A Very British Murder, I meet a mild-mannered Edwardian killer,
0:58:25 > 0:58:30investigate why the "whodunit" entered a golden age,
0:58:30 > 0:58:37and how the best of these murder mysteries came to be written by new "queens of crime".