Timeline gleanings

 Here I try to find out what people are saying about the week leading up to the Bank Holiday. The information about Elsie herself was doing is very lacking.

Lucy Isaacs was often visited by Elsie (along with Arthur up until January 1891). The week before the bank holiday, Elsie had visited and told her she was "going away to get married to Arthur - but she had said it so many times and they had found her out in so many lies that they did not believe her". Mrs Isaacs didn't think Elsie looked pregnant at that time (something she'd not long claimed to a colleague). Elsie took away a photograph (of herself) that Mrs Isaacs had on her mantelpiece "for the purpose of showing it to a friend." This is a bit odd... and who was the friend? Elsie told Mrs Isaacs that she'd told her employer she was going to London for her holiday, but was actually staying in Bath. Elsie had already been sacked by this point, and had received her wages early from her employer, under the premise that she needed to go to London to collect some money from an uncle who had died, and would be back on Monday. This is surely a fib to get her money, as she'd been sacked and never intended to return to finish her work at the Kerry's.

She said as much to Kate Bullock, who worked with Elsie at the Kerry's She said that when Elsie left, she told her she was not coming back, but didn't say where she was going. She left behind her box (which presumably had some things in) and no instructions regarding it.

Elsie was staying in the same road as Arthur that week before the bank holiday (Kingsmead Terrace). [I'm not entirely clear with who, and why that person's testimony isn't central?] Annie Poole said she saw Elsie, closely followed by Arthur, walking down Kingsmead Terrace on the Sunday before the bank holiday. And Annie Hayman said she saw the two of them together on the Saturday on the weekend of the bank holiday. Which suggests good evidence that the two of them were still talking to each other, if not associating with each other.

Arthur had to seek medical attention for a human bite on his thumb in the week following the bank holiday. The prosecution clearly wanted to imply that Elsie had inflicted this during a struggle on the Down. However, there were various witnesses who said it happened during a fight after a Liberal Fete at Larkhall on the 27th July.

A schoolfriend of Arthur and two other men (at least) said they saw him walking with Elsie through a wood below the Down on the last Sunday in July (the weekend before the bank holiday weekend). This supports that they were 'hanging out' together  - despite Arthur's insistence that he never saw her socially after January (he broke it off with her at this time because he found out about her forging a character reference, and having been in a Reformatory). It also suggests they used the same area for walking that was only half a mile from the cave where she was found. But he denied being with her there on that date. He said he had seen the witnesses in the wood while walking sometimes but would have been with Miss Sheppard, and not on the weekend they said.

He said that on the Saturday of the bank holiday, he was at work from 6am until 1pm, and then went to see the Volunteers leave from Queen Square to go to camp at Devizes. Then he met Miss Thorne, his cousin, and they walked along the canal, returning over Claverton Down. He didn't go with the Volunteers as he had the excuse of the issue with his thumb.

On the Sunday (2nd August) Mrs Hayman claimed she saw Coombs speaking to Elsie on Kingsmead Terrace at 5pm. Arthur denied that it would have been that particular Sunday, but that he had 'stopped and spoken to her on a Sunday somewhere about that time'. He said he had seen her in the morning from his bedroom window, and she was sitting in a tree in the garden next door, but they did not speak.

His cousin Miss Thorne said she met with him on the afternoon of the Sunday.

On the Bank Holiday, Arthur said he stayed at home with his brother all morning, as it was raining and this had cancelled a planned trip with his cousin Miss Thorne to go to Thornbury. In the afternoon he visited her and then returned home, before meeting his girlfriend at 5.30 and going to the theatre with her. Witnesses claim to have seen her at the theatre (he's not mentioned though). Despite Miss Sheppard saying they were at the theatre, when she was questioned on the night of Arthur's arrest, she couldn't say (although to be fair, who can remember easily what they were doing on a particular night two years ago).

One witness, William Blick, said he visited the George Inn at Bathampton in the afternoon of the Monday bank holiday. He didn't know any of the people he was looking at, but there were several young men and women. He speculated that one resembled Coombs, and he speculated that one of the girls was wearing a light dress and carrying a gold chain (which implied that could have been Elsie). He claimed she looked like Elsie when shown a photograph of her in court. Dill seemed to be definitely there, as someone there named him for Blick. 

However, Police-sergeant Targett apparently proved that Dill was at Devizes Camp on the Bank Holiday.

Another witness (who wouldn't look at Arthur in the courtroom, and seemed to cause a bit of chaos and laughter during her statement) claimed she'd seen an odd couple on the Down on the Bank Holiday, an older woman with a drab dress and black hat, and 'a slim boyish-looking fellow'.

Annie Hayman also said she saw Elsie walking towards the city around five o'clock on the afternoon of the Bank Holiday. This is very interesting. Why don't we have a better idea of what Elsie did on the Bank Holiday?  Mrs Hayman has another piece of 'interesting' evidence, in that she says that on the Saturday before, she saw Elsie wearing the brooch which was later found broken at Arthur's house. But is this really true? Was it so distinctive? And if not, how reliable is any of her evidence?

His cousin Miss Thorne said she saw Arthur on Wednesday morning after the bank holiday, to attend a wedding, and went for a walk with him in the afternoon. "I noticed no change whatever in his manner. He was in the same spirits as usual." We are supposed to infer that a real murderer couldn't carry this off. But who knows. And it's great to have your cousin as a character reference, isn't it?

It's very hard to say what happened. We seem to be missing so much information. One can only hope the police were more thorough in their investigation of who saw what, when. You can't tell if witnesses are remembering things unreliably, or putting forward information that just matches their prejudices about the people involved, or just people who want to jump on the bandwagon.

The case also brought out very unreliable witnesses: "A blacksmith named John Eades was brought before the Bath magistrates for having given himself up to the police, stating that he was the Hampton Downs murderer. When questioned about the tragedy he gave no answer. He told a story about a barber and dogs, and begged not to be let go or he should commit suicide. Evidence was given as to insanity in the  family, and Eades was sent to the workhouse for a fortnight." (Very sympathetic treatment there).

We don't really know anything about Elsie's social life (other than that she seems to have been obsessed with Coombs and telling everyone on and off that they're about to be married). She told Arthur that friends from London had visited her (her stepfather and a young man with whom she had previously kept company), but who knows if that's true. Arthur didn't miss a chance to have a dig at her in court: "A juror asked [Coombs] if he ever saw [Elsie] with another man? 'Towards the last I was told she was in the habit of walking up and down Southgate-street and talking almost to anyone.' The Coroner: 'That won't do. Did you yourself ever see deceased walking with any other man?' 'No sir, excepting on one occasion when I saw her walking in the Wells-road in the summer of 1891.' We don't seem to have heard from many friends of hers, or about how she spent that last week when she was unemployed. It's quite odd.

We also hear in passing of other leads the police must have been following: "Have you had any communication from Mrs Goodrop of Southgate street, in reference to her servant’s statement as to a connection between the deceased and a man whose Christian name was Harry? –No. Have you made any inquiries into the disappearance of a chemist’s assistant from Mr Partington’s in the latter part of 1891? – The man was found drowned. Have you ascertained the period? – No. A Juryman—That was in 1892." Who knows if those things are significant or just red herrings.

It's easy to see why the prosecution sought to charge Arthur Coombs, when it sounds like he had several girlfriends on the go at once, or at least a slightly mad ex-girlfriend who was apt to tell lies, had thumped Miss Sheppard, and told people she was pregnant and he was going to marry her. They suggested he had a good enough motive to kill her. But whether he did get rid of her is another matter. And whether the death was even deliberate is another matter. The surgeon said Elsie's skull fracture could have been the result of a long fall onto a pointed rock - or maybe the result of a blow. Either way, the hiding of her body was a deliberate act, which points to the involvement of another person, who managed to keep what happened secret.

And so we go round in circles again.