The Massey Murder Page 12

  On that mild Monday morning, Toronto’s paper boys discovered that the prospect of explosives raining down on the federal capital was almost as good for business as “Massey Murder!” The Globe article described “light balls” flying from the sky, the “unmistakable sounds” of a whirring motor over Brockville, and the distant outlines of at least three airplanes. Torontonians snapped up the story. Unfortunately, a couple of days later the paper had to explain that it had all been a false alarm, generated by toy balloons released by some rowdy young men in Gananoque. But the sense of panic lingered, along with anxiety that a distant threat had now become an imminent and real danger. The illuminations on Parliament’s Victoria Tower remained switched off.

  The three evening papers, on the other hand, dogged the Davies story. The Toronto Daily News was a Conservative newspaper with a declining circulation. Its newsroom was too small to dedicate a reporter to the story, so it uncritically repeated statements from the police and the Masseys. Five days after Bert Massey’s death, a front-page item in the News announced, “The rumours of indiscretions on the part of the murdered man prior to the shooting are not credited by the majority of police officials.” A “senior detective” (who had undoubtedly been treated graciously by Mary Ethel Massey) told the paper that Carrie had severe fits “every month” and that the shooting was the result of “the girl’s state of mind.”

  The Tely’s publisher and editor paid closer attention to the Toronto Daily Star, which, as they had anticipated, showed more sympathy for the murdered Massey than for the woman who had held the gun. The Star had betrayed its bias from the start, when it described the eighteen-year-old in her first court appearance as resembling “the Slavic type more than the English” and suggested that her mouth showed a “capacity for resentment.” Two days later, the Star reporter who had watched the funeral cortege leave Admiral Road noted, “Many beautiful floral tributes testified to the popularity and esteem in which the late Mr. Massey was held by a host of friends and acquaintances.” The paper reported at length what Arthur Massey, Bert Massey’s brother, had said before the funeral. Carrie’s hysteria “on the Island when it took five men to pursue her, statements that she is alleged to have made to other domestics that are said to have been wild and irrational, and the apparent lack of motive for the shooting would all go to show that her condition was weak mentally.” As far as the Star was concerned, the insanity defence made perfect sense: a reporter collared Mr. Maw to ask bluntly, “Will there be any suggestion that the girl is unsound?”

  This was all very satisfactory for the Evening Telegram. The way was clear for Robertson to take a leaf out of his rival’s book and launch a feel-good fundraising campaign. The beneficiary of this fund would be the penniless Carrie. The opening salvo came on Saturday, February 13. The Tely published a letter that, claimed the paper, came from “a lady living on Waverley Road,” a residential street in the Beach, not far from the Fairchilds’ home:

  Dear Editor. I think that your sympathies must be with those of most people in Toronto with that poor child Carrie Davies, who is accused of murdering her employer. Don’t you think it would be doing a charitable act to start a subscription to pay for her lawyer, and give her every help possible. I have heard so many people suggest ways of helping, but that seems the most practicable. Hoping you will interest yourself and others through the columns of your valuable paper on her behalf.

  I am yours, FAIR PLAY.

  { PART TWO }

  The Law

  { CHAPTER 8 }

  “With Malice Aforethought …”

  MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15

  Copenhagen: A large shipment of copper packed in casks which were labeled “sugar” and put aboard the steamship Carmen was seized here today. The copper was consigned to a German firm. The shipper and the captain of the vessel were arrested.

  —Evening Telegram, Monday, February 15, 1915

  Under the auspices of the Franco-British Aid Society, Professor Keys will give an illustrated lecture entitled “German Kultur and English Civilization” at Victoria College, Queen’s Park, at 8.15 p.m. Prof. Keys, who has spent some time in Germany, is well-qualified to speak on his subject, and his point of view will be most interesting in the present crisis … The proceeds of these lectures are devoted to Belgian relief work.

  —Saturday Night, February 13, 1915

  Act II of the Massey murder drama began at 8 p.m. on Monday, February 15, when the coroner’s inquest resumed in the dingy Lombard Street morgue and the same twelve men, led by foreman James Burford, filed in. It was exactly a week since Carrie had fired the revolver at her boss. This time, there was no body on a nearby mortuary slab, but the crowd of lawyers, witnesses, spectators, and reporters milling about the dimly lit courtroom was much bigger than the previous Tuesday’s opening session. The lingering stench of death and disinfectant horrified those who had never been to the Lombard Street building before. A couple of women kept smelling salts close to their noses; other spectators gagged into handkerchiefs.

  Carrie Davies sat quietly next to the jail matron at the back of the court, attracting stares and whispers. Newspaper reports of her behaviour continued to diverge. According to the Toronto Daily News, Carrie radiated a chilling indifference: “Her cheeks were fresh and her eyes showed no signs of weeping or distress, while her expression was one of slightly stolid unconcern.” Elsewhere, however, reporters noticed the eighteen-year-old’s habit of constantly wringing her hands and looking helplessly at Miss Carmichael, the sympathetic Scottish matron from Don Jail’s hospital wing.

  At the front of the room, next to Mr. Maw, sat Hartley Dewart, KC. This was the first time that lawyer and client had been in the same room: all Dewart knew about the case came from what he had read in the newspapers and what Mr. Maw had been able to elicit in his chat with Carrie in the Don Jail. Dewart turned round and directed a reassuring smile at the silent Carrie—then noted with some surprise two figures sitting at the back of the room. The first was Mary Ethel Massey, in all her rustling finery. The second was a dark-coated figure who had slipped inconspicuously into the courtroom. This was Dr. Beemer, superintendent of the Hospital for the Insane at Mimico, a lakeshore town a few kilometres west of Toronto. Some of the reporters who recognized him wondered what he was doing here: Dr. Beemer did not usually attend coroners’ inquests. Dewart could make a pretty good guess whose interests Dr. Beemer was representing. Dr. Beemer belonged to a new breed of physicians who specialized in mental disorders and were often known as “alienists.” These early psychiatrists were starting to claim the ability to detect symptoms of madness that might underpin an insanity defence. His presence implied that the Masseys were still hoping to have Carrie judged insane, in the hope that the charge would be dropped and the scandal smothered.

  The Dewart–Maw partnership was leaning in another direction. So far, despite pestering from reporters, Henry Maw had not divulged the defence strategy. But Saturday’s Star had quoted Maw as saying he had visited Carrie in the Don and found her “a bright and good girl … I am not an alienist but she appears to be quite rational. I will see that the living are not injured for the sake of the dead.”

  The first witness to be sworn in was Joseph Pearson, a young man who had been reading on the third floor of his grandmother’s house opposite the Masseys’ on the night Bert Massey died. He dismissed the sound of the first shot as an automobile tire exploding; the noise of the second shot sent him to the window to see what was happening. When he saw a man fall to the ground on the sidewalk outside 169 Walmer Road, he ran down two flights of stairs and into the street.

  Mr. Pearson introduced a new figure into the drama he had witnessed: “a foreigner,” who was bending over Bert Massey’s prone figure and who told Pearson that Massey had fainted. Dr. Arthur Jukes Johnson, the chief coroner, was surprised to hear about this man, who had not been mentioned in the police report. He asked Pearson whether he meant that the man was “not an English-speaking person,” then enquired whethe
r he had a beard, or a moustache, or was smooth-shaven. Pearson’s reply reflected the deep-seated suspicion of strangers that prevailed among middle-class Torontonians. “He looked strange,” he told the coroner. “He talked with a funny accent … He didn’t seem to talk right … He disappeared.” Perhaps such a man existed, and, fearing how the police might treat him, faded into the dusk as quickly as he could. He was never mentioned again. Pearson described how he had helped to carry Massey into a neighbour’s house.

  Most of Pearson’s account (except the presence of the “foreigner”) was confirmed by Ernest Pelletier, the newsboy who had come to deliver the Star and collect his twenty-five cents from 169 Walmer Road. Although Pelletier was only sixteen years old, his evidence was clear and unhesitating. Carrie Davies had opened the door to him and told him that her employer was not home yet. Ernest asked her if the man coming down the street was him. Carrie said it was, and Ernest could get the quarter from him there. After Ernest got his money, he had walked about five steps down Walmer Road “ … when I heard the first shot. I turned around, and the door was half open. Mr. Massey was on the threshold. He had his hat and coat on. He jumped back. He said, ‘Oh’ and he turned around and ran down the steps and down the sidewalk kind of bewildered, as if he didn’t know which way to run … I heard the second shot. I looked on the veranda and I saw a flash, and I saw a girl there. Mr. Massey staggered to the end of the sidewalk, and fell…. The girl turned around and walked into the house.” The boy described how he ran to fetch Dr. Elliott, who lived on Spadina Road, and then watched Massey being carried into 171 Walmer Road and the police arriving.

  At this stage, Richard Greer, the Crown attorney responsible for clarifying exactly what had happened, rose to question Ernest. At thirty-seven years old, Greer had held the job of Crown attorney for eight years, but none of his previous cases had attracted the kind of public scrutiny he now felt. He proceeded warily, establishing that the newsboy had seen Carrie several times before. He asked Ernest, “Was there anything in her attitude towards you to denote any excitement or nervousness?”

  Hartley Dewart was immediately on his feet with an objection: “Is he a judge?” It was his first public move in defence of Carrie. But Ernest carried on unfazed: “She seemed pretty cool. She put out her hand and I gave her the Star and she took it.” The newsboy had not observed any signs that the eighteen-year-old was overwrought. Greer then asked the coroner to allow Ernest to identify Carrie. Dr. Johnson summoned Carrie to the front of the court and Ernest pointed her out as the maid who had answered the door. Dewart requested that Carrie and Miss Carmichael, the prison matron, should be allowed to go and sit outside the courtroom. Once Carrie had left the room, her lawyer turned to cross-examine Ernest Pelletier, particularly as to whether he had actually seen Carrie fire the shots. For the first time, the newsboy stumbled. He became confused about how exactly Massey had fallen, and he admitted that the estimate of the time that he had given the police was wrong.

  Inspector Kennedy then stepped forward to read the statement Carrie had made to him the night she shot Bert Massey. With some embarrassment, the policeman had to admit that there was a problem with it: he had forgotten to ask Carrie to sign it, which made it vulnerable to a challenge by Carrie’s lawyer. This blunder exasperated Crown Attorney Greer. He knew that the information in Kennedy’s statement was essential for the inquest’s deliberations, so he told the policeman to go ahead and read it. Reporters leaned forward, eager to catch every word. It was the first time they would hear any firsthand details of what happened the previous Monday, and their editors would print this almost verbatim, if they could get it all down. Inspector Kennedy lowered his eyes to his notebook and began to read out his questions and Carrie’s answers. The sound of scribbling pens accompanied the policeman’s plodding recitation about Carrie’s age, birthplace, employment with the Masseys, and actions that evening.

  “Why did you shoot him?”

  “I really shot him in self-defence.”

  “What do you mean, self-defence?”

  “He took advantage of me yesterday, and I thought he was going to do the same today.”

  “What did he do yesterday?”

  “He caught me Sunday afternoon and kissed me twice. I ran upstairs and then he called me to make his bed and I obeyed and as soon as I went into his bedroom, he said, ‘This is a nice bed.’ Then he caught me and I pushed him on one side and ran upstairs, locked my door while I dressed, and I then went out and told my sister who lives at 326 Morley Avenue.”

  “Were you alone in the house with Charles A. Massey when this took place?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “What did your sister say?”

  “I cannot remember what my sister said but my brother-in-law told me I would have to be careful.”

  Kennedy’s voice droned on, as those present tried to picture the events of eight days ago. There was an incongruity to the ritual: Carrie’s words—words first uttered by a flustered eighteen-year-old female with a Bedfordshire accent—were now repeated in a monotone by a male Canadian twice her age. But the story was clear enough. Carrie had described how she returned to the Masseys’ house at 11:30 on Sunday night, and did not speak to Mr. Massey when he came downstairs for breakfast the following morning. The son, she had told Kennedy, was a nice boy who had never molested her. And Mr. Massey had never done anything like this before, either. But she had shot him because, she explained, “I seemed to lose control of myself.”

  Kennedy continued to read the questions and answers:

  “Did he ever attempt to indecently assault you before?”

  “No.”

  “On Sunday did he succeed in having sexual intercourse with you?”

  “No. He attempted but I pushed him aside.”

  In the Court Street police station that night, Inspector Kennedy had tried to get a sense of what kind of girl this frightened servant really was.

  “Did any other person have improper relations with you since coming to Canada?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Have you any gentleman friends in the city?”

  “Yes, I have a friend to whom I was engaged before he went to the war. I don’t want to mention his name.”

  There was a pause after the inspector finished reading his statement. Crown Attorney Greer asked the policeman about Carrie Davies’s state of mind. “She seemed quite an intelligent little girl,” Kennedy replied. “She was a little bit nervous apparently. She answered my questions freely.”

  Hartley Dewart then rose. He asked Inspector Kennedy, “She made no statement except as you have given us in answer to the particular questions you put to her?”

  “Not to me,” replied the policeman.

  “And you didn’t ask her to make any. You were the person who was interviewing her that evening?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How long was she with you?” continued Dewart.

  “Oh, she would be about half an hour, probably.”

  Dewart nodded, then asked, “You didn’t ask her to give you her own story in her own way voluntarily, but you asked her these questions?”

  “Yes,” replied Kennedy. “And she gave me these answers.”

  Dewart nodded again. He did not challenge the unsigned statement; however, he did ask a question to which he knew the answer, but wanted everybody present to understand the point he was making. “She had no opportunity of giving a continuous story in her own words? You did not ask her to do that?”

  “No,” said the policeman.

  The police inspector was followed onto the witness stand by Sergeant Brown, who had arrested Carrie, and two passersby who had seen Carrie fire the shots and Bert Massey fall to the ground. When Mrs. Edna Nesbitt, a particularly excited witness, said that she supposed the first shot hit Massey, Hartley Dewart snapped, “Don’t suppose, please.” Next, Dr. Elliott, the physician who had done the post-mortem on Bert Massey, took the stand. He explained how a bullet had struck the victim directl
y in the heart, puncturing the aorta and causing almost instant death. He produced the bullet, now in a glass bottle, that he had removed from Bert’s body. It was noted as Exhibit A.

  An hour had already passed, and it seemed that the jury had all the information it needed to answer the questions covered in a coroner’s inquest: when, where, how, and by what means the deceased met his death. But Carrie’s lawyer had not finished. Hartley Dewart knew that Toronto was buzzing about this case, and that, so far, the Massey version of events was winning the battle of public opinion. The eighteen-year-old servant was already being dismissed as unbalanced, and probably epileptic, by pro-Massey papers such as the Star and the Toronto Daily News. A.J. Thomson, the Masseys’ lawyer, was widely quoted as saying, “There are but two people who knew anything [about the case]. One is dead and the other may be mentally deranged.” The anonymous News reporter who attended the inquest took a swipe at Carrie’s statement that she had killed her employer in “self-defence,” given how little Bert had actually done. There had been no violent assault, no rape. “According to her statement, she had little difficulty in repelling [Massey’s] alleged advances, and they had been confined entirely to the one occasion mentioned.”