The Mystery of the Murdered Butler

"New York Daily News," January 27, 1926, via Newspapers.com

Perhaps the most famous cliche involving murder mystery novels is “The butler did it!”  In one long-forgotten real-life slaying, someone did it to the butler.

Herbert Bramall, who was born around 1889, was the quintessential British household servant.  He first entered domestic service as an employee of the Duke of Cumberland.  He then served in WWI, where he earned several commendations for bravery.  In the army of occupation, he acted as a machine gun instructor.

In 1920, he emigrated to America.  Bramall found employment in the Philadelphia household of Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, after which he moved to New York City.  In 1923, Bramall entered the household of the wealthy lawyer James R. Deering.   Bramall’s new wife, Bertha, was a maid in the same establishment.  Bramall was, by all accounts, a gem of a butler: hard-working, trustworthy, and efficient.  He enjoyed the full confidence of all his rich and powerful employers.  He was described as “a home-loving and peaceable Englishman of the servant class, who made few acquaintances.”

The night of January 24, 1926, began as a very quiet one in the Deering household.  Deering himself was in Atlantic City on a business trip.  Mrs. Deering, her 13-year-old son, and a family friend chatted casually in an upper parlor.  Downstairs, the cook, Frances Lovett, was puttering around in her kitchen.  Bertha Bramall left for a walk--she mentioned she might take in a movie--while Herbert, his duties for the day virtually complete, enjoyed a moment of relaxation.

At 8:50 p.m., just five minutes after Mrs. Bramall’s exit, the doorbell began to ring, in an unusually prolonged manner.  Bramall went to greet this very insistent caller.  Just a few seconds later, the cook heard a gunshot.  And seconds after that, the butler staggered through the door of the kitchen, falling dead at her feet.  The screaming Mrs. Lovett immediately ran to her mistress, who summoned police.  Detectives arrived fifteen minutes later.  At 9:20, Mrs. Bramall returned to find that in her absence, the peaceful household had been transformed into a murder scene.  When she saw policemen surrounding her husband’s dead body, poor Bertha began shrieking hysterically.

From the very beginning, investigators were baffled by this seemingly utterly senseless killing.  Their obvious first move was to investigate if this murder was a personal attack.  Was there anyone who had a grudge against Bramall?  However, the butler’s personal history was frustratingly immaculate.  He had never been in trouble with the authorities, was happily married, and, as far as anyone knew, had zero enemies.

A rich and influential attorney, it was reasoned, surely attracts ill-wishers as easily as honey draws flies.  Did an assassin go after James Deering, only to shoot his butler by mistake?  The obvious flaw with that theory was that it would be a markedly incompetent murderer indeed who could mistake the high-flying lawyer for a servant in full livery.

Was this an attempted burglary?  But if that was the case, why did the assailant not even try to enter the house?  The murderer simply shot Bramall the instant he opened the door, then vanished into the foggy night, like a malevolent phantom.  Although there were hundreds of people crowding nearby Fifth Avenue, no one reported seeing anything unusual.

This inexplicable murder in the middle of the city’s wealthiest residential area was naturally alarming to New York’s elites.  Was no one’s mansion safe from attack?  For a few days, this unusually baffling crime was a top headline in New York papers, but after failing to uncover even a single clue suggesting who had slain the butler--not to mention why--Bramall’s death soon faded from headlines, and public memory.  As far as I know, the last published reference to the murder was in 1938, when James Deering was sued by a former maid for back wages.

Poor old Herbert Bramall has languished in oblivion ever since.