The Troubles At Euston Square

"Illustrated Police News," June 7, 1879, via Newspapers.com

Evil and depravity can have a certain fascination if they are cloaked in a benign or attractive exterior.  It is doubtful that true-crime researchers would still be talking about Ted Bundy if not for the fact that those who knew him thought he was perfectly normal.  And there is a reason why the Devil is often depicted as a handsome man.  Similarly, the following Victorian-era scandal would probably be long-forgotten if it had not happened in a seemingly respectable middle-class household blighted by one or two small oddities, like corpses turning up when least expected.

Matilda Hacker of Canterbury, England, embodied a classic Victorian stereotype:  a rich but miserly, highly eccentric spinster.  In August 1877, Miss Hacker took affront at the rates Canterbury charged her.  In protest, she split town--leaving the rates unpaid--took on the surname of “Huish,” (presumably to avoid the tax authorities,) and engaged a room in a lodging house owned by Mr. and Mrs. Severin Bastindoff at No. 4 Euston Square, London.

So far as is known, life at No. 4 went on quietly enough until Sunday, October 14.  The Bastindoffs were away for the day, leaving Matilda alone in the house with the maid, 24-year-old Hannah Dobbs.  That day, something very terrible happened within the walls of the lodging house, although we are fated to never know exactly what that was.  The following morning, Severin sent Hannah to Matilda’s room to collect her rent.  The maid returned with a five-pound note that she said “Miss Huish” had just given her.  Two days later, Hannah informed the Bastindoffs that their lodger had moved out.

Well, people do abruptly come and go out of rooming houses.  Mrs. Bastindoff dismissed the old lady from her mind and went to clean the room for their next tenant.  She noticed there was a large stain on the carpet that someone had done an inexpert job of trying to wash away.  It looked a bit like blood.  Odd, that.  (Before you ask, much later in our story, when life began getting pretty interesting for the Bastindoffs, it was proven that the stain was blood.)

Life went on.  Miss Huish/Hacker was completely forgotten by the world until May 9, 1879, when  the cellar at No. 4 was cleared so a lodger could store coal there.  The workmen were surprised to find that the cellar contained something more than the usual junk and debris:  a human body, with a rope around the neck.  Police soon determined that the corpse was that of the former lodger, Matilda Hacker.

It did not take Hercule Poirot to immediately focus on Hannah Dobbs as the chief suspect, and she was swiftly arrested and charged with murder.  She was the last person known to have seen the victim alive.  Soon after Hacker “moved out,” (which, in the spiritual sense, I suppose she did,) Hannah gave one of the Bastindoff children the former lodger’s now-empty cash-box.  The maid began wearing a watch and some jewelry her employers had never seen before.  She said they had been bequeathed to her by an uncle who had recently died.

Investigators easily determined that Hannah had no uncle, alive or dead.  The same watch and jewelry were later found in a pawn shop.  The shop’s owner identified Hannah as the person who had pledged the items.  All in all, it was looking like as pretty a case of circumstantial, but conclusive, evidence as any detective would like to see.

Hannah stood trial at the Old Bailey in July 1879.  Her defense relied almost solely on the unlikelihood that a slender young woman could single-handedly, in a relatively brief time, kill a grown adult, hide the body in the cellar, and tidy up the crime scene.  (The implication was that some unknown stranger had sneaked into the house, murdered Hacker, carried the corpse to the cellar, and exited without Hannah having a clue that anything was amiss.  Very Lizzie-Bordenish.)  As a side note, the proceedings were considerably enlivened by testimony suggesting that Severin and Hannah’s relationship had been much more than mere master and servant--something, naturally, that Mr. Bastindoff stoutly denied.

At the end of the trial, the judge, perhaps surprisingly, summed up for acquittal, and the jury obliged.  Hannah was given her freedom, and it looked like Matilda Hacker’s murder was destined to become a mystery that would be quickly forgotten.

Well, not forgotten by everyone.  George Purkiss, proprietor of the “Illustrated Police News,” published a pamphlet about the case that was a defamation lawyer’s dream.  Not only was Hannah Dobbs described as a murderer who had, no doubt, committed other crimes, but Purkiss alleged that she had been Severin’s mistress both before and after becoming his household’s maid.  Severin wasted no time applying for an injunction against further distribution of the pamphlet and suing Purkiss for libel.  Just to show that life is full of odd coincidences, the libel suit took place in the same courtroom, and before the same judge, that Hannah Dobbs had recently faced.

Unfortunately for Mr. Bastindoff, his experience at the Old Bailey was not as fortunate as his maid’s had been.  When Hannah was cross-examined, she was forced to admit that she had previous convictions for theft, as well as other peccadillos that caused the judge to call her “a most infamous person.”  She also confessed to having been Severin’s mistress.  It was demonstrated in court that Severin and Hannah had stayed together at a Redill, Surrey, inn, posing as man and wife.  (Severin argued unconvincingly that the man who had been with Hannah was actually his brother Peter.)  Insinuations were made that Severin was the real murderer, with Hannah being merely his accessory.  In short, Bastindoff came off as such a sordid figure that not only was Purkiss acquitted, Severin was found guilty of perjury and sentenced to a year of hard labor.  

Sadly for the ghost of Matilda Hacker, this was the last word on her murder, but you could say she at least got some small measure of revenge.