The man with two suits
On 28 December 1911 a man stumbled into Leman Street Police Station and announced he had come to help the police with their enquiries into a particularly gruesome double murder … that of Hanbury Street restauranteurs Solomon and Annie Milstein.
Even the rudimentary policing standards of the day couldn’t miss the clues in this case. For as the officers searched Myer Abramovitch they found that beneath his top set of clothes was a second. Covered with blood the garments were identified as those of Solomon Milstein. Within three months, the hapless Abramovich would be dead, executed at Pentonville gaol.
The downfall of the Milsteins came about through a (relatively) honest attempt to boost their restaurant’s takings. The eaterie, at 62 Hanbury Street, never really got going, and just a few months after it opened, the takings were failing fast. So it was, in November 1911, that Solomon suggested setting up a gambling den in the basement. The game of choice was Faro.
Although it has died out now, Faro was one of England’s most popular card games during the 18th and 19th centuries. The game was popular with the punters because it was easy to learn and offered good odds to the player. That was when it was played fairly at least. But Faro was notorious because it was so easy for the banker to rig, and games were invariably crooked. Similar to baccarat, it was banned in France but hugely popular in the Wild West; watch those Westerns and the guys in the saloon are probably playing Faro, with Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday famed Faro dealers. Famous conman, card sharp and riverboat gambler Canada Bill Jones was once asked why he bothered playing at a notoriously crooked Faro game in Cairo, Illinois and replied ‘Yeah, but it’s the only game in town!’
The Milsteins’ was far from the only game in Spitalfields but it was proving mighty profitable. Every deal of the cards meant thrupence profit for the house and there was more. People started to lose of course, and then pledged their rings, watches and jewellery – which Milstein could then sell on. But Annie Milstein was unhappy. Cards she didn’t mind, but gambling was immoral. She put her foot down and Solomon and his partner Joe Goldstein reluctantly closed the school. On Boxing Day 1911, a Tuesday, they cleared out the gamblers and divvied up the last pot. Solomon, Annie and Joe took 4s 6d each (23p). A man called Hermann Leferron handed over a watch, for which he got £2 10s and he left, with the stragglers, at 12.45 on Wednesday morning, the 27th of December.
But around 2.30am, one Marks Verbloot, who lived in the flat above the restaurant heard groans and began to smell burning. The place was on fire, with the Milsteins still inside. The police forced the door and found the pair, battered to death in their bed, with a strong smell of paraffin pervading the apartment.
Tracking down the card school wasn’t hard. Everyone came forward and every name was soon accounted for – except for 28–year-old Myer Abramovitch. But Abramovitch had barely covered his tracks. The police interviewed Lazarus Rickman, a gambler at the club, who identified a distinctive neckerchief found after the blaze as belonging to the errant Myer. And if Abramovitch had failed to come forward, he was hardly doing a good job of hiding himself. Another of the gamblers, Henry Seychur, was on the corner of Commercial Road and Leman Street on the 28th when he spotted Myer enjoying a coffee at a stall across the road. Seychur strode over and demanded to know why Abramovitch hadn’t been to see the police, and promptly marched him to the nearby nick.
Abramovitch wasn’t happy, but made no attempt to escape. Yes the neckerchief was his, he confirmed to the detectives. They searched him and found pledged watches belonging to Leferron and Rickman. They then peeled off his suit to reveal Solomon’s blood-soaked garments beneath. It was a gruesome find – perhaps Myer had been hoping to pawn the clothes later.
The trial was a brief affair, opening at the Old Bailey on 7 February 1912 and closing just two days later. The defence claimed Abramovitch was insane, but to no avail. Mr Justice Ridley sentenced him to hang. An appeal failed too, and on Wednesday, 6 March, Myer took the drop at Pentonville, hanged by John Ellis and Albert Lumb.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
re Myer Abramovitch. It is very likely (with research so far) that he was my uncle!