The Tobacconist and the Actor: A Murder Mystery

Philip Yale Drew was a moderately successful American actor of the early 20th century.  His biggest screen success came when he starred in the 1919-1920 “Young Buffalo series,” six popular 2-reel Westerns.  In the 1920s, he relocated to England, where he appeared in a number of plays.  Although he had genuine thespian abilities, his increasing addiction to alcohol took a great toll on his career.  Before too long, he was reduced to roles in third-rate theater companies.

A sad story, one that is only too commonplace in the cruel world of show business.  However, it is not Drew’s career problems that I wish to discuss.  In real life, he played the starring role in a murder mystery, and it was undoubtedly a more interesting story than anything he performed onstage.

Not that that was much of a comfort to him, of course.

In June 1929, Drew was in Reading, England, where he was performing at the Royal County Theatre in a thoroughly forgettable play called “The Monster.”  (An ironic title, in the light of subsequent developments.)

One Alfred Oliver ran a tobacconist’s shop on Cross Street, not far from Drew’s theater.  He was a married man with no living children, and apparently led a quiet, modest, but happy life.  As was common among small businesses of the time, Oliver and his wife Annie Elizabeth lived in a house behind the shop, where Mrs. Oliver ran a corsetiere business.

Around 5 p.m. on June 22, 1929, the Olivers had their evening meal.  After they had eaten, Alfred cleared away the dinner table while Annie served customers in the tobacco shop.  After about half-an-hour, Alfred took over in the shop.  At six, Annie took their dog for a fifteen-minute walk.  She did not hear or see anything unusual.

When she arrived home, she called Alfred’s name, without getting any reply.  She saw that the door separating their dining room from the shop was closed.  She found that odd, as Alfred always kept it open in warm weather.  When she opened the door, she found her husband slumped on the floor, holding a handkerchief to his mouth.  He was surrounded by a pair of broken glasses and a pool of blood containing his broken dentures.  When Annie asked what had happened, he could only say, “I don’t know, darling.”

When the police arrived, they too questioned Alfred.  He gasped out, “There was a man came in.  I thought he was from the gas office.”  After he had been taken to the hospital, Annie returned to the shop.  She found that the police had cleaned up the scene.  When she checked the till, she found that all the notes were missing.  It appeared that they now at least had a motive for the attack on Alfred.

Alfred had no memory of being assaulted.  All he could say was that a few minutes past six, he had been sitting in the shop reading a book.  The next thing he knew, he was on the floor, covered in blood.  Although initially it looked as though Alfred would recover, he died of his injuries on the evening of June 23.

On that same day, the Chief Constable had Scotland Yard brought in.  Around the time Alfred died, Chief Inspector James Berrett and Detective Sergeant John Harris arrived in Reading from London.  When they inspected the shop, the pattern of blood splashes suggested to them that Alfred had been sitting reading his book when a customer came in.  When he stood to serve the man, he was attacked.  The miscreant then grabbed the money from the till and fled.

The inquest revealed that Alfred died of multiple skull fractures and cerebral contusions.  The murder weapon had been a heavy metal blunt instrument, such as a hammer.  Unfortunately, although it was easy enough to establish how the tobacconist had died, the identity of his murderer was a complete mystery.  The inquest was adjourned on this unsatisfying note.

The first possible breakthrough in the case came when police were given the name of a young man named George Charles Jeffries.  He had a history of violence--he had once hit his sister on the head with a jemmy--and he had been seen near the shop on the evening Alfred died.  When questioned, Jeffries admitted that at about 6:10, he had entered the shop to buy cigarettes, but he saw no one behind the counter.  When he heard a noise, he looked over and saw Alfred lying in a pool of blood.  He ran home without telling anyone but his mother what he had seen.  He explained that he had not gone to the police because his sister was in the hospital, and he feared that involving himself in a murder case would worsen her health.  The police elected to accept his story--for the moment, at least.

There were numerous witnesses who claimed that on the day of the murder, they saw a stranger wandering in the vicinity of Alfred’s shop.  Several of them stated he was behaving oddly, as if he was drunk.  A woman named Dorothy Shepherd stated that around 6:15 p.m., she saw a man running out of Oliver’s shop.  She couldn’t see his face, but she remembered that he wore a blue serge suit.  One Mrs. Alice James said she passed by the tobacco shop at around 6:10 p.m.  She saw a man standing inside the doorway, wiping blood from his face.  She described him as tall, heavy-set, and dressed in dark clothing.  She estimated his age as between forty and fifty.  He wore no hat or glasses, and his hair was disheveled.  When shown a photo of Oliver, she was certain he was not the man she had seen.

By July, it appeared that the case had gone cold.  Although newspapers had published a description of the man seen in and around the tobacco shop, it was looking like he was fated to remain unidentified.  Then, on July 19, Reading’s Chief Constable, Thomas Burrows, was approached by a man, who told him that he had read the Mystery Man’s description, and believed that it fit an American actor who had recently performed in Reading.  The actor’s name was Philip Yale Drew.

Police learned that Drew had arrived in Reading on June 16.  He left town the day after Oliver was attacked.  His theatrical company was scheduled to arrive in Nottingham on July 22.  On the morning of July 25, police arrived at Drew’s lodgings and brought him to the station for questioning.  He was interviewed again the following day.  Meanwhile, a blue serge jacket that Drew had left at a cleaner’s was collected by detectives.  No trace of blood was found on it, although, of course, it had just been laundered.

Although Drew was allowed to continue traveling with his theater company, it was clear that the police regarded him as their prime suspect--their only suspect, in fact.  On August 7, Drew was interviewed for a third time.  On October 2, Oliver’s inquest would be reconvened.  The authorities wanted Drew to attend, as their chief witness.

At the inquest, the people who had seen the strange individual in and around Oliver’s shop were confronted with Drew.  Every single one swore he was the man.  Charles Russell, the stage manager at the Royal County Theatre, testified that around 1:30 on the afternoon of June 22, he was having a drink with Drew in a pub on Friar Street.  Some fifteen minutes later, Drew told him he was going to Cross Street to buy a newspaper.  A newsagent’s shop was right next door to Oliver’s establishment.

Marion Lindo, the owner of Drew’s theater company, testified that on June 22, Drew had lunch with her and her husband Frank.  Drew’s face was flushed, and she feared he had been drinking.  After lunch, Frank Lindo persuaded him to stay and have a nap.  Drew slept on a settee until 4 p.m.  When Marion awakened him, she noticed an object in his pocket which resembled a small bottle of whisky.  When she demanded to see it, Drew refused.  He went off in a huff.

At 5 p.m., Marion went to Drew’s lodgings, warning him that if he was drunk, he had better not bother showing up for the performance that night.  A few minutes before 6:20 p.m., she was in her dressing room at the theater when she heard Drew--who had the room next to hers--come in.  (She was able to state the time exactly because it was just before the half-hour call before the start of the play, which was at 6:50.)  Although Lindo’s testimony, if accurate, meant that Drew could not have been the man so many people claimed to have seen in Cross Street on the afternoon of June 22, it did not give him an alibi for the time Oliver was attacked.

Another important witness was Alfred Fry, one of the stage-managers for Drew’s company.  He stated that sometime before 2 p.m. on the afternoon of June 22, he and Drew were in a pub together.  He swore that all Drew drank was ginger ale.  Shortly after that, they left.  Drew told him he was having lunch with the Lindos.  Fry was at the theater by 5:45.  He heard Drew arrive just before 6.  At 6:17, he saw Drew standing in his dressing-room doorway.  He was in his stage attire, but had yet to put on his makeup.  As Oliver was bludgeoned on or near 6:10, if Fry is to be believed, it would have been impossible for Drew to be the murderer.

Mary Eleanor Goodall, who had been Drew’s landlady during his stay in Reading, gave her testimony.  She said that on June 22, he left her house at 11 a.m. and returned sometime between 3 and 3:30 p.m.  Soon after that, Marion Lindo came by.  She told Mrs. Goodall that she and Drew had quarreled about a bottle of whisky he had with him.  While the women were talking, Drew went out at about 5 p.m., returning 15 minutes later.  He left for the theater at about 6:10 p.m.  Unfortunately, she admitted under cross-examination that not one of the many clocks in her home gave the correct time (!), leaving it impossible to know if the timeline she gave was at all accurate.

A woman named Elizabeth Crouch testified that at about 6:10 p.m. on the evening of June 22, she was walking past Mrs. Goodall’s house when she saw Drew leave his lodgings.  He was also spotted by Mrs. Goodall’s next-door-neighbor, Winifred Greenwood, although Mrs. Greenwood was not sure of the exact time.

However, the next witness, Bertie Hathaway, gave contradictory testimony.  He stated that at 6:00 p.m. on the evening of June 22, he was standing outside a music shop on Friar Street, talking to a Mrs. Williams.  A few minutes later, Hathaway walked down Friar Street, towards the theater.  He saw a tall, muscular man walking in the same direction.  The man was obviously in a great hurry, muttering to himself and practically shoving people out of his way.  Hathaway saw him go into the theater.  Hathaway insisted that he now recognized the man as Philip Drew, and the time when Drew entered the theater was 6:15.

Hathaway threw a fine monkey wrench into the proceedings.  If the witnesses who saw Drew leave his lodgings were only a few minutes off, it was technically possible for Drew to arrive at Cross Street by about 6 p.m., attack Oliver at 6:10, and be seen dashing to the theater by Hathaway immediately afterwards.  It was impossible to know which witnesses were giving the correct timeline.

On the fifth day of the inquest, Drew himself took the stand.  His defense was simple: he had never been in Cross Street, had never, on any day, entered Oliver’s shop, and had no idea there had even been a murder until after he left Reading.  He admitted he liked alcohol, but claimed he had never been “falling down drunk.”  He denied that on June 22, he said he was going to Cross Street to buy a newspaper.  He explained that he had stated he was going to the newsagent’s across the street from the theater, and that may have been misheard.  On the day of the murder, he was at the theater at his usual time, about 5:50 p.m.

The inquest’s final witness, Alfred John Wells, provided further confusion.  He was a butcher’s assistant at a shop on Cross Street.  On June 22, he noticed that an unfamiliar man was spending the day wandering around the area.  Wells first saw him in a cafe at 7:30 a.m.  The stranger was nearly six feet tall with long dark hair.  He wore a blue coat, gray trousers, and brown shoes.  Wells thought he had a North Country accent.  He saw the man for the last time at about 5:40 p.m., walking from Cross Street into Friar Street.  He was absolutely positive that this man was not Philip Drew.

Wells added that immediately after he heard of the attack on Oliver--which was before the injured man was even carried out of his shop--he went to a policeman and told him about the strange man he had seen.  Later that same evening, Wells went to the police station, where he made a formal statement to a police sergeant.  This officer, Arthur Colbert, was then brought to the stand, where he denied having ever taken a statement from Wells.  The defense then produced the statement, asking Colbert to read it aloud.  It was identical with the testimony Wells had just given under oath.

On October 10, the coroner’s jury delivered the only rational verdict: that Alfred Oliver had been murdered by some person or persons unknown.

Unfortunately, that verdict was destined to remain unchanged.  (As a side note, I am baffled why the police did not give a closer look to young Mr. Jeffries.)  The enigmatic end to the case ensured that Philip Drew lived under a cloud for the rest of his days--thus disproving the old Hollywood line that there is no such thing as bad publicity.  In later years, Drew would wistfully tell friends that he actually wished he had been brought to trial for the murder, so he would be able to officially clear his name.  Thanks to the notoriety, his already faltering career collapsed altogether. At one point, he was reduced to selling newspapers outside the theaters where he had once been a headliner.  In 1940, he died from throat cancer, at the age of only sixty.

Aside from the eyewitness testimony placing him near the tobacco shop--and eyewitness testimony is notoriously the most untrustworthy evidence there is--there is absolutely nothing to suggest that Philip Yale Drew was a murderer.  Despite his problems with the bottle, he simply did not seem like a man who would batter a shopkeeper to death simply to make off with whatever was in the till.  Newspaper reporter Bernard O’Donnell, who had known Drew for some years, once described him as “a kindly gentle fellow, almost childlike in his simplicity, and as incapable of hurting anyone under any circumstances, let alone killing them in cold blood.”  All we can do is wonder: if, as seems virtually certain, Philip Drew did not kill Alfred Oliver--who did?