The Skeleton Tree by Diane Janes (reading women TXT) 📕

Alice Croft stood trial for the murder of Edward Graves in 1872. Murderess and victim were both servants in the employ of Mr James Coates Esq. of The Ashes, Bishop Barnard. Little is known about either party, though they were said at the trial to have been of sober habits. The law prevented Alice from entering the witness box at her own trial, but in the statement she made to the police, she claimed that she had acted in self-defence, alleging that Graves had frequently made advances to her, which she had always repelled. According to Alice, on the night of the tragedy, which happened to be St Valentine’s, Alice had begun to suffer from stomach pains and had descended to the kitchen to avail herself of some powders which the cook kept there. She claimed that having obtained a powder and a glass, she went along the passage to the scullery, to get some water and here she came upon Graves, who had let himself in through the scullery door. Graves, having made a lewd suggestion, forced the girl into the pantry, which was adjacent to the scullery and, as they struggled, Alice’s hand fastened on something in the darkness – she would later claim that she had not realized it was a knife – and in defending herself she had pushed the unseen object at Graves once or twice. He groaned and fell, and it was only when Alice had pushed past him and retrieved her candle from the scullery that she realized he was stabbed.

The cook, Hannah Colbeck, gave evidence that she had heard and seen nothing until Alice shook her awake, when she saw by the light of the candle that Alice had blood all across the front of her nightgown. On following the girl downstairs, the cook found Edward Graves lying on the pantry floor, his shirt soaked in blood and the skillet knife, gory to the hilt, on the flags beside him.

There were several problems with the tale told by Alice Croft. Mr Coates testified that nothing improper had ever been tolerated beneath his roof and that any suggestion of behaviour such as that described by Croft would have resulted in dismissal. The cook echoed her master regarding the strict proprieties observed within the household and was unable to support Alice’s story of having gone downstairs only moments before the attack took place. It seems that the layout of the servants’ quarters meant that Croft would have needed to pass through Colbeck’s room to get downstairs, but Colbeck had not heard her do so. Colbeck explained that she was a particularly heavy sleeper, but this did not really do much to support Croft’s story. The Crown also elicited from Colbeck that Edward Graves was known to have a sweetheart who lived on a nearby farm and questioned the likelihood of Edward Graves having let himself into the house at an hour approaching midnight, just at the very moment when Alice Croft happened to be fetching a glass of water from the scullery. More potentially damning evidence came from the cook, Colbeck, who, when asked about the knife, agreed that it was not normally kept in the pantry. Household knives, she said, were kept in the kitchen, and it was most unlikely that one would be left lying about. Worse still, the last person known to have handled the skillet knife happened to be Alice herself, who had received all the knives back from the travelling knife grinder on the previous afternoon and been charged by Colbeck with putting them away in their rightful places.

The Crown’s case was that Alice had been in the habit of slipping down to meet Graves when the rest of the household was asleep, taking advantage of the cook’s propensity to deep sleep, and they suggested that the girl had become jealous when she learned of his other sweetheart and had decided to take her revenge for his faithlessness by arranging a final tryst, planting the newly sharpened knife in a spot where she knew how to find it, luring him into the darkened pantry and then stabbing him to death, but pretending it was an accident. The significance of the date was also stressed.

Reports of the trial offer more questions than answers. Did Alice Croft accidentally kill her fellow servant while defending her honour, as she claimed? Or had she premeditated cold-blooded murder, planting the knife in advance and stabbing Graves twice in the heart? The jury concluded that the Crown’s explanation was the correct one. They found her guilty but made a recommendation for mercy. Alice received none. She was hanged at Durham jail on a May morning in 1872.

The pantry … which was now the study … Wendy gave an involuntary shiver as she looked up and realized that both men were watching her. She wondered how long ago they had stopped talking.

‘Well,’ said John. ‘What do you think of that?’

‘I suppose it’s not too much to ask what’s so exciting about that booklet?’ Bruce enquired.

‘History, old man. Jolly violent history at that. This booklet proves that a murder was committed within a few feet of where you’re sitting.’ John’s ghoulish enthusiasm was unmistakable.

‘Here,’ Wendy said. ‘Would you like to read it for yourself?’

Bruce’s expression was stony. He ignored the proffered pages. ‘No, thank you,’ he said coldly.

‘You’ve never seen over the house, have you, John?’ she said quickly. It suddenly seemed imperative to get him out of the sitting room before Bruce said or did something really rude. ‘Come on, I’ll give you a tour, show you where it all happened.’

Bruce banged his coffee mug down so hard on its coaster that Wendy was sure she heard it crack. She ushered her visitor into the hall, grinning like a maniac, in a vain attempt to make up for her husband’s manner. Fortunately, John Newbould’s curiosity subsumed any concerns he might have had about the degree of