Y started violently when he came into our presence and saw X standing there, but he positively denied his complicity in the murder. For some time, too, he refused to acknowledge that he knew X, and then followed a strange altercation between the two, X earnestly imploring Y to make a clean breast of it, as he himself had done; Y as stoutly repudiating all connection with the matter. Just when we had made up our minds to dismiss both the men and report the case home for instructions, Y's better nature seemed to triumph, and he admitted thus tardily that he had been concerned in the murder of Mrs. Milson. Our next step was to order both men into separate and solitary confinement until instructions could be received from home. We fully expected to hear in due course that both men were to be sent home to stand their trial for the Cannon Street murder.
I am not ashamed to confess that we had been completely humbugged. A full and searching inquiry had been instituted by the Home Office authorities, more particularly into the antecedents and movements of the two convicts, and it was established beyond all doubt that neither of them could have possibly committed the crime, seeing that both were in custody for another offence on the day of the murder. I am free to admit that in the many years I have since spent in the charge and control of criminals, I have been very loath, after this experience, to accept confessions, although I have had many made to me. Mine is not a singular experience, as most police and prison officials will say. Indeed, the general public themselves must have noticed that there are few mysterious crimes committed which are not confessed to by persons who could not possibly have been guilty. In the case of X and Y, the whole trick had been devised for the simple purpose of escaping daily labour and gaining a few weeks' complete idleness in the cells.
False confessions, it may be added, are a frequent source of trouble to the police. Whenever some great criminal mystery has shocked the public mind, silly people, whether from constant brooding over the fact or from sheer imbecility, are driven to surrender themselves as the criminals. It will be remembered that at the time of the Whitechapel murders numbers of people stood self-confessed as the perpetrators of these crimes, eager to take upon themselves the criminal identity of the mysterious "Jack the Ripper." I have recorded elsewhere[7] a curious case in which a lady of good position, married, having many children and a perfectly happy home, became possessed with the idea that she had committed murder--that of a soldier in garrison in the town where she lived. At length she wrote to Scotland Yard, and made full confession of her crime, adding that she meant to arrive in London next day, where she was prepared to submit herself to arrest, trial, and whatever penalty might be imposed. All she asked was that she might not be separated from her children, and that if they could not accompany her to gaol they might at least be permitted to visit her frequently. Next day she arrived as she had threatened, and drove up to Scotland Yard in a cab, herself and children inside, her portmanteaux and a huge bath on the box. There she sat, and positively refused to move anywhere except to gaol. The police authorities, after vainly arguing with her, were on the point of taking charge of her as a wandering lunatic, and sending her home, but the Assistant Commissioner hit upon a happy device for getting rid of her. This was to tell her that if she went to gaol she must be separated absolutely from her children. If, however, she would sign a paper promising to appear whenever called upon, she might remain with her children in her own home. The ruse was successful; she signed the promise, and returned as she had come.