menu_book Chapter 18

chapter eighteen of crime the autobiography of a crook by eddie gurren this is in the public domain chicago may's vengeance now comes what might be aptly described as the grand climax of my adventurous life when i got back to the flat i found emily skinner waiting for me overjoyed at my release and full of news of a rather ominous nature it appeared that after cubine jackson or as he was generally known charlie smith had been released from prison he had gone to chicago may and repeated to her all our conversation in brixton may cunning as they make them had soon extracted the full story according to what she had told emily skinner it was my life or hers i told charlie smith according to may i would either shoot her or burn out her eyes with vitriol i can quite believe she expected something to happen to her my name would not have been eddie guren if i had calmly stood the diabolical trick she had served me that i wasn't back at devils island was no fault of hers

however i didn't bother about may just then instead i went off to the old province to enjoy myself where i met dozens of the fellows i'd known in days gone by incidentally i learnt that chicago may was going about with charlie smith and that the pair of them had sworn to do me in that didn't very much worry me when you have been threatened with death a hundred times you cease to concern yourself about such little trifles eat drink and be merry has ever been my motto in life the newspapers were full of my case and i could not have received more congratulations if i had just won the derby which baas croker had pulled off that year with his horse orby for twenty-four hours the wine and wassail went around and then came tragedy on the following evening emily skinner and i were at the provence drinking no doubt more than was good for us about half-past ten we decided to go back to the flat in kenton street we walked along long acre crossed over into halborn and i waited outside the russell square tube station while emily went in to buy herself a paper

i stood at the corner waiting for her suddenly a cab drove by and i heard a female voice i knew very well call out there he is the cab drove on a few yards further and stopped out of it jumped a woman and a man chicago may and charlie smith "'In less time than it takes me to relate I was the target of a popping fusillade of shots aimed at me by the drunken Charlie. "'I could hear May screaming in an adjacent doorway while I jumped about dodging the gunman. "'Not for me to be killed stone-dead in that fashion. "'If Smith hadn't been drunk, he must, of course, have killed me.

"'All he succeeded in doing was putting a bullet into my foot, which certainly made me yell a bit. may in a doorway near the tube station kept screaming out oh oh oh oh kill him charlie he's got a pistol poor emily was also doing her best to make a noise so that one way and another we were creating a bit of excitement in the neighborhood i don't altogether know what happened because when you've got a bullet in you even if it is only in the foot you become rather uncertain of things smith ran off into the darkness and i called out to may still cowering in the doorway when you couldn't succeed in sending me to devil's island you would stoop to murder you unmentionable something I'm only sorry he didn't succeed, cried May. The strange part of this affair was that she didn't attempt to run. A policeman on duty nearby was already hot on the trail of Charlie Smith. A regular hue and cry took place, another constable reinforced by a couple of civilians also taking up the hunt.

Bloomsbury became alive with people running here and there, wanting to know what all the trouble was about. Smith, nearly caught, stuck his pistol in the face of one of the civilians and threatened to blow out his brains if he did not abandon the chase. He pulled the trigger at a police constable who came up,

found there was nothing in the pistol and promptly flung it in the officer's face. That finished him like a flash. The policeman jumped at him, downed him, and eventually hauled him off to the Hunter Street station to be charged with attempted murder. All the time this was going on, other events were transpiring between May and myself. Police had also arrived at our part of the world, and I made

no bones about them, and they're giving May into custody for attempted murder. She too was hauled off to the station and on the way tried to get rid of a wicked-looking knife she had in her handbag. One way and another, quite a pretty little mix-up, another policeman took me off to the Royal Free Hospital to have my wound attended to, while detective officers set about staging the second act of this absorbing little drama.

There came to my bedside in the hospital Detective Inspector Stockley, the officer in charge of the division. We were quite old friends. He also knew May well. Eddie, he said, who shot you?

I don't know, I replied. Oh, yes, you do. come on who did it but i still protested i knew nothing about the matter and stockley proceeded to set about what is known in the vernacular as skull-dragging that is making a man give evidence when he doesn't want to There even came my old friend Charlie Mitchell, the ex-champion heavyweight of England, who wanted to know with a wealth of lurid adjectives if I really meant to let Chicago May get away with it. Not me, I said. She'll have to pay for this, all right. As a matter of fact, what was worrying me more than anything else just then was the fact that I had given the hospital barber some money to put on a horse that had won.

I had thirty pounds coming to me, but instead of paying me, the barber took the knock and disappeared. although i didn't particularly want to the police compelled me as soon as i was well enough to go to bow street and give evidence against may and charlie the most amazing part of the whole affair was that they seemed to regard it as a huge joke they were laughing all the time i was in the box heaven only knows what for attempted murder isn't a nice charge to face in england still there they were defended by a well-known police court solicitor named arthur newton sublimely confident that everything would come all right newton seemed to have the idea that i was a witness who would not stand much cross-examination now remember he warned me in the witness-box you are on oath i don't want you to tell me that i replied i want you to tell me the truth have you ever worked in your life yes oh and where did you work on devil's island i retorted pertly don't try to be funny said arthur in his lordliest manner it's you who are trying to be funny asking silly questions i answered i'm not here to be made a fool of by you nor was i

the actual trial itself which took two days at the old bailey created a tremendous public sensation it seemed that may had completely burnt her boats behind her when she wrote a letter to one of her old lovers in which she said that charlie smith was the man i'd got to throw vitriol on her and that she had lost no time in turning the tables So the third act opened on July 25th, 1907, before Mr. Justice Darling, with Charles Smith, 25 years of age, Tinsmith by trade, and May Vivienne Churchill, 35 years of age, humorously described as an artist, charged with shooting at your humble servant with intent to murder him and wounding him with the same intent. Both of the prisoners pleaded not guilty.

The late Mr. Huntley Jenkins and Mr. Fordham, now a London magistrate, appeared for Smith while May had an advocate whom I had known well in 1888, the late Mr. A. A. Purcell. I've said before, and I still say it, that I didn't want to give evidence against either of the prisoners. Smith had shot me true, and Chicago may have put him up to it, but as far as I was concerned personally, I would have preferred to settle with them at my own time and in my own place. If it wasn't that Stockley kept me under close observation all the time,

I would have cleared out of London and allowed the charges to lapse. But I didn't get the chance. I had to go into the witness box at the Old Bailey and subject myself to the cross-examination of Huntley Jenkins and Purcell. Both of them, I will readily admit, had plenty of material at their command. The defense wanted to prove that I had both vitriol and weapons in my possession on the night of the crime. Hunley Jenkins also suggested that I had been wandering about the public houses of the West End looking for Smith to shoot him. Purcell even asked me if I did not still think that Chicago May was deeply in love with me.

I'll take her word for it, I replied, even if some of the more recent events have made me rather doubtful of her affection, which aroused great laughter in court. I had to go through it all, how May had come over to Paris to save me and herself had been arrested, how I had escaped from Devil's Island to say nothing of the accusation from Purcell that I had shot the two men who had got away with me. Then the policemen I had shot in America came up for discussion, as also did all my previous convictions. but i took the occasion to inform purcell that i felt no ill will towards either of the prisoners and that i was not the prosecutor and so it went on for the better part of a day and by the time the three lawyers for the defense had finished with me i didn't want to see another criminal court for the remainder of my life when the proceedings terminated for the day i said to detective inspector stockley you won't want me here again will you stockley realized what i meant there was a distinct possibility that i might still get a bullet from one of may's friends besides i've been inside courts too long for my liking

you couldn't catch me going into one voluntarily for all the money in the world i told stockley therefore that with his kind permission i intended to absent myself from the final scene There wasn't much evidence for the defense worth speaking about. The shooting was admitted while Chicago May's letters to her old Inamorata conclusively proved that she had been the instigator of the whole affair. The Crown prosecutor, Arthur Gill, who now sits as a Metropolitan Police Magistrate, summed up the case for the prosecution and said he did not

dispute the fact that May was in a state of deep fear at the time of my release and quite evidently she determined to be first in the field. The gentleman on the other side urged, having nothing better to put forward, that I was a terrible desperado who would kill anybody at sight and that my dear old friend May was only protecting her own precious life and deciding to kill me first. I'm not trying to throw any bouquets at myself so I will merely repeat what took place.

The jury, without leaving the box, brought in a verdict of guilty of shooting with intent to murder. Detective Inspector Stockley then went into the witness box to inform the court that Smith was an American by birth who had served several terms of imprisonment in South Africa, and that he had come to England after being deported from that country. Chicago May was one of the most notorious women in London. She made it a practice of getting men into

compromising circumstances and then blackmailing them. She had even driven men to suicide. They told me afterwards that May's jaunty attitude had gradually deserted her as the trial went on. It began to dawn, even upon her cocksure nature, that she wasn't going to see the lights of London for many a long day. Any uncertainty about the matters finally disappeared when the judge, passing sentence, said that the verdict the jury had returned was the only possible and logical one. Igerin was a bad man in many respects, but I was entitled to the same protection in regard to my life as the best of them.

It was not for the prisoners to judge me or seek to take my life. He thought there was a difference in the case of Smith and that of Churchill, although they were both undoubtedly guilty. The one of having shot at me with intent to murder, and the other of having counseled and procured the shooting with that intent,

and therefore they were equally guilty of the criminal act charged. Smith had no excuse whatever. It was no quarrel of his, but he took it on his shoulders. Churchill evidently believed that I intended to harm her, and for that reason he would make a distinction between the two prisoners. Then the judge dramatically paused amid a deep silence while he passed sentence.

Hugh Smith will go to penal servitude for life. Hugh Churchill will be kept in penal servitude for 15 years. They told me that May's face went absolutely green when she heard the terrible words. she had never believed right up to the end that she would get anything more than ten or twelve months. The fight went out of her instantaneously.

She had to be practically carried out of the dock in a swooning condition and taken to a cell to be revived. Even greater was the shock to Smith and Deven. I could not help feeling sorry for a man receiving life's sentence when I knew all the time he had merely been the tool of an insanely jealous and vindictive woman. before they could remove him from the dock he began cursing the judge in the worst language

ever heard at the old bailey but for all the good it did him he might just as well have saved his breath the warders hustled him below and from there to the obscurity of a convict prison where he spent something like fifteen or sixteen years before the authorities decided to release him and send him back to his native land i was not in court when the judge passed sentence For one reason, as I've already explained, I thought it distinctly possible that May might have another admirer anxious to finish me off altogether.

I also firmly believed in steering clear of courts as much as I could. As a matter of fact, I was in a cafe in the West End of London with Charlie Mitchell when the news came through that Smith had got life and Chicago May 15 years. It would be hypocritical for me to pretend that I felt any pronounced regret for the fate of the two people who had attempted to kill me, but I thought then, as I still think, that their punishment was terribly severe. But of course, English judges have always gone out of their way to put down private vendettas, which are settled with pistols. Unless there are extremely extenuating circumstances,

cases of attempted murder are almost invariably punished with penal servitude for life, which is no doubt the principal reason why there is so little shooting in the United Kingdom. Now let me here deal with the case of Chicago May as an illuminating example of the truth that you can't win at the crooked game. May was an Irish immigrant girl who went to America in the late eighties endowed with all the advantages that nature could give her. In her girlhood days she

must have been strikingly beautiful, but evidently she took to the easiest way a woman knows of earning money and speedily got herself into trouble. When she was only in the early twenties she came into conflict with the police at Denver for robbing men, and by the time she had returned to England, which would be about 1898, she had acquired something like an international reputation as an exponent of what they call the badger trick. This little game, like most money-making graphs,

is remarkable chiefly for its simplicity. The first essential is a good-looking woman. She picks up a client, takes him home to her flat, and there with the aid of a Confederate, usually a woman, hidden under a table covered with a cloth that reaches to the ground, robs the man of his pocketbook and any other valuables that may be in evidence. When the row came, as it usually did, May could truthfully say that she couldn't have stolen the money because she hadn't been near

the victim's clothes. With all the hardihood in the world, she would invite the visitor to search the flat. He, of course, wasn't to know that a lady concealed beneath the table had already crawled out and taken his wallet, and then as cunningly and carefully crawled out by the door, nor did may bother to tell him at any rate there would be a violent scene ending with the victim declaring his intention of going for the police oh do what you like may would say the police can come here and search as much as they like they won't find anything nor did they may played this game for some years in london her tappin as the french describe the promenade of the demi mondaine being principally northumberland avenue on account of the fact that the two big hotels in that thoroughfare were extensively patronized by american visitors

the good-looking supremely confident may certainly possessed a wonderful eye for sizing up american people and especially middle-aged gentlemen with fat wallets who would not care to make too much trouble if they happened to get into her clutches there were three or four women who worked together using one another's flats in turn and managing to keep out of jail despite the innumerable occasions on which they fell foul of the police stockley then the detective-inspector of bow street who knew may's little ways as well as any man in england ran across her one night in a west end public house seated by herself it was probably a bit early for business just about this time he had been receiving numerous complaints about the lady so he took the opportunity of sitting down beside her and relating to her what might be termed the fable of the pheasant i suppose you know may he began that every year in england just when the autumn is drawing on all the well-to-do people in london shut up their townhouses and go to their country estates to shoot

now on those estates may they preserve some beautiful game birds called pheasants keepers are specially employed to rear them so that when they have reached maturity their rich master may come down and shoot them the pheasant is a difficult bird to kill it flies high and at a tremendous speed it frequently happens that despite all the efforts of twenty or thirty crack shots it succeeds in escaping its doom that particular autumn but i want to tell you this may stockley continued although the pheasant may dodge its fate that year the time will come when it is no longer so fast on the wing as it used to be there will be another shooting party and on this occasion the pheasant older and not so agile as of yore will come rocketing down to earth with a terrible thud and never rise again may looked at stockley with her calculating blue eyes and remarked say ain't you the wise guy and ended up by requesting him to have a whiskey and sody and to mind his own damned business there is a sequel to this little story as there should be to most good tales cold print will not bear repetition of the actual words involved but the main incidents of the affair may be related

after may had been sentenced by justice darling to fifteen years penal servitude she was in a cell below the court awaiting removal to holloway prison and subsequently to the female convict jail at aylesbury with her nose lugubriously stuck through the bars of the spyhole of the door when stockley happened to come along just previously he had been relating to the judge some of the spotlight episodes of may's lively life feeling rather sorry for the lady he paused commiserated with her and then rather unwisely said you remember don't you may what i told you that night in the west end about the pheasants may did recollect the matter but obviously she was not in the least grateful for the good advice then given her she told stockley in words which are still vividly imprinted upon his mind exactly what she thought of him of scotland yard in general of the judge of me and everybody connected with the affair and as i say the exact phraseology cannot be repeated on any decent printed page may did her time with the usual remission of three months every year without getting into any serious trouble

but even while she was in aylesbury convict prison she couldn't forbear to stop playing her old tricks though to be sure she did not get much opportunity for practice the late lord rothschild whose country house at treeing was close to aylesbury frequently visited the prison may being one of its most distinguished inmates had the honour of being introduced to his lordship who apparently was quite struck by her personality anyhow i'll save this it wouldn't be may's fault if he wasn't his lordship even went to the length one day of presenting may with a bunch of violets from his buttonhole for weeks afterwards may's attitude towards her fellow prisoners was absolutely unbearable when the violets withered may carefully hung them up in her cell until one day a jealous rival stole in and destroyed the precious keepsake poor may went raving mad there was a stand-up fight which she won hands down and although it did not cost her fourteen days bread and water she roundly declared it was well worth while for quite a long time afterwards may continued to make eyes at the famous head of the wealthy rothschild family when the news went round the prison that his lordship was about to pay a visit

may used to bestir herself the peroxide had long faded out of her hair and i dare say the rough prison food and the hard open-air life had coarsened her cream-like complexion however she used to succeed in toning down the somewhat ruddy colour of her skin by a judicious application of whitewash from the wall of her cell which no doubt satisfied her vanity even if it made lord rothschild laugh consumedly when he had bidden the lady good-bye may was a born masher if ever there was one in this world chapter eighteen