The Nightingale Shore Murder Read Online Free Page A

into the unfortunate Mary’s mouth was a white silk scarf. It became obvious that she had been pushed from the train and had not jumped. The body was removed to The Feathers Hotel in the High Street where a local doctor, Henry Crickett, examined it. Apart from the obvious injuries, Dr. Crickett’s examination revealed several bruises and scratches to body, arms and face which he considered may have been caused during a struggle with the murderer, prior to her being thrown from the carriage. No means of identification was found on the body. As the body was still warm when discovered, it was reasoned that she must have been thrown from the train within an hour of William Peacock finding her and the position of the body showed that she had come out of a southbound train. On the afternoon of the following day, Monday 25th September, the mystery of the girl’s identity was solved, when Robert Henry Money, a dairy farmer from Kingston Hill, viewed the body. The body was that of his sister, Mary Sophia Money, aged 22, a bookkeeper at Bridger’s Dairy, Clapham Junction. Mary Money had gone out at about seven o’clock that evening saying she would take a little walk and would not be long. Emma Hone, another employee at Bridger’s Dairy, had no knowledge of any male friends that Mary might have been going to meet. She said that Mary had taken her black knitted cotton purse, which Emma thought was well filled with money, for Mary had just been paid. The purse was never recovered. A few minutes after leaving home, Mary called at Frances Golding’s sweet shop at 2 Station Approach, Clapham Junction where bought some chocolates in a white cardboard box. She told Frances Golding that she was going to Victoria. She appeared happy and left the shop laughing. Suspicion fell on a number of possible admirers named by Mary’s brother Robert. He claimed to have last seen his sister on that date but there seemed no question that he was involved in the crime. What really did happen to Mary Money on the evening of Sunday 24th September 1905? This is left only to supposition. She seems to have had every intention of keeping a rendezvous with someone, presumably of the opposite sex, at Victoria that evening. A signalman who was in charge of the Purley Oaks Signal Box north of Merstham Tunnel recalled that as the London Bridge train passed, he remembered seeing a couple standing up in a first class compartment. They appeared to be struggling. It seems possible that during this struggle, Mary Money began to scream, her attacker then pushed her scarf into her mouth to silence her and, when the train was in the tunnel, he opened the door and threw her out into the darkness and to her grisly death. The guard of the train reported that he had seen a couple in a first class compartment when his train stopped at East Croydon. His description of the woman fitted that of Mary Money. At Redhill the couple had gone and the guard thought he saw the man but not the woman leaving the station. Over 100 interviews were taken and many railway carriages examined but no arrest was ever made.
    The mystery remains unsolved but there is a postscript. Seven years later, in August 1912, at a house in Eastbourne, Mary Money’s brother, Robert, shot two sisters and their three children, of whom he was the father, poured petrol on the bodies, set light to them then turned the gun on himself. One of the women managed, however, to escape despite being wounded. Was this the result of a twisted mind turned by the memories of the earlier killing of his sister, Mary?’
    The earlier murder on the line, in June 1881, was also a brutal affair, this time involving a victim who was both stabbed and shot. And on this occasion, part of the crime was witnessed by a woman in a cottage close to the railway line, just before it entered the Merstham tunnel. William Owen Gay, former Chief Constable of British Transport Police, wrote up the story for the