CHAPTER IVTHE MURDER IN FLEET STREET
TenA. M.is a comparatively quiet hour in Fleet Street. The sale of morning papers has practically dropped, and as the second edition of those afternoon journals, of which no one ever sees a first, has not yet been served out to the clamouring and hustling mob at the distributing centres, no vociferating newsboys, aproned with placards of “Sun,” “News,” “Echo” or “Star,” have as yet taken possession of the street corners and pavement kerbs.
On the morning of which I am writing, the newspaper world was sadly in want of a sensation. A royal personage had, it is true, put off the crown corruptible for one which would press less heavily on his brow; but he had, as a pressman phrased it, “given away the entire situation” by allowing himself for a fortnight to be announced as “dying.” This,Fleet Street resented as unartistic, and partaking of the nature of an anti-climax. Better things, it considered, might have been expected from so eminent an individual; and as such a way of making an end was not to be encouraged, the Press had, as a warning to other royal personages, passed by the event as comparatively unimportant.
It was true, too, that the Heir Apparent had on the previous evening entered a carriage on the Underground Railway as it was on the point of starting, and that the placards of the “special” editions had in consequence announced an “Alarming Accident to the Prince of Wales,” which, when H. R. H. had contemptuously remarked that there never had been an approach to danger, was changed in the “extra specials” to “The Prince describes his Narrow Escape.”
The incident had, however, been severely commented on as “sensation-mongering” by the morning papers (badly in want of a sensation themselves), and was now practically closed, so that the alliterative artist of the “Morning Advertiser’s” placards had nothing better upon which to exercise his ingenuity than a “Conflictamong County Councillors,” and the “Daily Chronicle’s” most exciting contents were a poem by Mr. Richard le Gallienne and a letter from Mr. Bernard Shaw. Nor was anything doing in the aristocratic world. Not a single duke, marquis, earl, viscount, or baron was appearing as respondent or co-respondent in a divorce case, or as actor in any turf or society scandal, and there was a widespread feeling that the aristocracy, as a whole, was not doing its duty to the country.
As a matter of fact, one among many results of the sudden cessation, three months since, of every sort of Anarchistic outrage, had been that the daily papers could not seem other than flat reading to a public which had previously opened these same prints each morning with apprehension and anxiety. Though the vigorous action taken by the editor of the “Daily Record,” in London, and of the “Dublin News,” in Dublin, had not, as had been expected, led to the arrest of Captain Shannon or his colleagues, it had apparently so alarmed the conspirators as to cause them to abandon their plan of campaign. The general opinion was that Captain Shannon, finding so muchwas known, and that, though his own identity had not been fixed, the personality of the leaders of the conspiracy was no longer a secret, had deemed it advisable to flee the country, lest the offer of so large a reward as £25,000 should tempt the cupidity of some of his colleagues. And as it always had been believed that he was the prime source and author of the whole diabolical conspiracy, the cessation of the outrages was regarded as a natural consequence of his defalcation.
I was thinking of Captain Shannon and of the suddenness with which he had dropped out of public notice while I walked up Fleet Street on this particular morning. As I passed the “Daily Chronicle” buildings and glanced at the placards displayed in the window I could not help contrasting in my mind the unimportant occurrences which were there in small type set forth, with the news of the terrible outrage which had leapt to meet the eye from the same window three months since. Just as I approached the office of the “Daily Record” I heard the sound of the sudden and hurried flinging open of a door, and the next moment a man, wild-eyed, white-faced, and hatless, rushedout into the road shouting, “Murder! murder! police! murder!” at the top of his voice.
In an instant the restless, hurrying human streams that ebb and flow ceaselessly in the narrow channel of Fleet Street—like contending rivers running between lofty banks—had surged up in a huge wave around him. In the next a policeman, pushing back the crowd with his right hand and his left, had forced a way to the man’s side, inquiring gruffly, “Now then, what’s up? And where?”
“Murder! The editor’s just been stabbed in his room by Captain Shannon or one of his agents. Don’t let any one out. The assassin may not have had time to get away,” was the rejoinder.
There are no police officers more efficient and prompt to act than those of the City of London, and on this occasion they acquitted themselves admirably. Other constables had now hurried up, and at once proceeded to clear a space in front of the “Record” office, forming a cordon on each side of the road, and allowing no one to pass in or out.
A messenger was despatched in haste for the nearest doctor, and when guards had been setat every entrance to, and possible exit from, the “Record” office, two policemen passed within the building to pursue inquiries, and the doors were shut and locked. Among the crowd outside the wildest rumours and speculations were rife.
“The editor of the ‘Record’ had been murdered by Captain Shannon himself, who had come on purpose to wreak vengeance for the attitude the paper had taken up in regard to the conspiracy.”
“The murderer had been caught red-handed and was now in custody of the police.”
“The murderer was concealed somewhere on the premises, and had in his possession an infernal machine with which it would be possible to wreck half Fleet Street.”
(This last report had the effect of causing a temporary diversion in favour of the side streets.)
“The murderers had got clean away and the whole staff of the ‘Record’ had been arrested on suspicion.” These and many other rumours were passed from mouth to mouth and repeated with astonishing variations until the arrival of the doctor, who was by various well-informedpersons promptly recognised as, and authoritatively pronounced to be, Captain Shaw, the Chief Commissioner of Police, the Lord Mayor, and Sir Augustus Harris.
Every door, window, and letter-box became an object of fearsome curiosity. People were half inclined to wonder how they could so many times have passed the “Record” office without recognising something of impending tragedy about the building—something of historic interest in the shape of the very window-panes and key-holes. One man among the crowd attained enviable celebrity by announcing that he “see the editor go up that passage and through that door—the very door where he’d gone through that morning afore he was murdered—scores of times,and didn’t think nothink of it,” which last admission seemed to impress the crowd with the fact that here at least was a fellow whose praiseworthy modesty deserved encouragement.
Meanwhile no sign of anything having transpired was to be seen within the building, and people were beginning to get impatient when, from somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Thames Embankment, came that sound sofamiliar to Cockney ears—a sound which no true Londoner can hear with indifference—the hoarse vociferation of the newsvendors proclaiming some sensational news. At first it was nothing but a distant babel, like the husky barking of dogs, but as it drew nearer the shouts became more distinguishable, and I caught the words, “’Ere yer are, sir! ‘Sun,’ sir! Murder of a heditor this mornin’! ’Ere yer are, sir!”
“That’s smart, that is!” said a fellow who was standing next to me in the crowd. “T. P. O’Connor don’t let no grass grow under his feet, ’e don’t. Why, the murdered man ain’t ’ardly cold, and ’ere it is all in the ‘Sun!’”
“Shut yer jaw,” said a woman near him. “’Tain’t this murder at all—can’t yer ’ear?” And then as the moving babel, like a slowly travelling storm-cloud, drew nearer and nearer and finally burst upon Fleet Street, we could make out what the newsvendors were hoarsely vociferating.
“’Ere yer are, sir! ‘Sun,’ sir! Murder o’ the heditor o’ the ‘Dublin News’ this mornin’. Capture o’ the hassassin, who turns hinformer. Captain Shannon’s name and hidentity disclosed.The ’ole ’ideous plot laid bare. ’Ere yer are, sir!”
Elbowing my way as best I could through the crowd, I succeeded at last in getting within a yard or two of a newsboy, and, by offering him a shilling and telling him not to mind the change, possessed myself of a “Sun.” This is what I read at the top of the centre page:—
“The editor of the ‘Dublin News’ was stabbed in the street at an early hour this morning. The murderer was captured and has now turned informer. The police refuse to give any information in regard to what has been divulged, but there is no doubt that Captain Shannon’s name and identity have at last been disclosed, and that the whole hideous conspiracy is now laid bare. Further particulars in our next edition.”
“The editor of the ‘Dublin News’ was stabbed in the street at an early hour this morning. The murderer was captured and has now turned informer. The police refuse to give any information in regard to what has been divulged, but there is no doubt that Captain Shannon’s name and identity have at last been disclosed, and that the whole hideous conspiracy is now laid bare. Further particulars in our next edition.”