Brett McBean - Tales of Sin and Madness

So let’s take a look inside the murder house.

Though the interior looks like any other — the white-washed walls are clean, the high ceilings smudged with the usual amount of soot that blankets the city during the winter months — there’s a coldness inside, colder even than the weather outside. Not a draught, but a general feeling of unease, of darkness. You can tell immediately that something tragic happened here. Perhaps that’s why the house hasn’t been let since Deeming left on Christmas day last year, leaving behind an empty brandy bottle, a stale loaf of bread, a tin of condensed milk and some half-burnt luggage tickets. Walking down the hallway, the floorboards have an especially hollow sound to them. Yet there is hardly any echo, even though the house is absent of furniture. It’s eerie, and I’m thankful I’m here with the owner of the house.

I’m first shown the other rooms of the brick house, including the small bathroom and backyard. While there’s nothing overtly different or strange about any of the rooms, there’s still an undeniable presence that lingers like a black cloak over the house. As I walk through the rooms, I think about the tales of ghostly sightings and strange noises witnessed by some of the neighbours, and they don’t seem out of the realms of possibility. In fact, it’s in the small bathroom where I feel a cold wind wash over me and I’m sure I can hear water rushing down the sink.

“Many nights since Mr. Drewn was hanged I’ve seen a light in the bathroom of no. 57,” Mrs. Fiddymont said. “No other light in the house, just in the bathroom. It’s only a small window, high in the wall, but there’s no mistaking that someone or something is in there with a lantern, and it’s usually quite bright. The first couple of times I went and got my dear Owen, and he saw it, too, so it wasn’t just my imagination running away from me. A few times I’ve been woken during the night by the sound of water rushing down a sink, like someone is emptying a bucket of water, and when I get up and look out the window, I see the light in the bathroom.”

I’m here during the day and the bathroom spooks me — I wouldn’t want to be in here at night. I imagine Fred Deeming hunched over a bucket filled with water and cleaning his bloody hands, and then tipping the tainted water down the drain. I wonder if Deeming has continued this tradition even after death — washing his hands on two separate occasions, with more to follow?

“I’ve even seen a shadow inside the bathroom,” Mrs. Fiddymont continued. “A figure wearing a top hat. I see him moving about inside that awful house, and I get chills right up and down my spine.”

The longer I stay in the house, the more I’m convinced there are sinister forces at play. I ask Mr. Stamford whether he feels a dark presence in the house, and he shakes his head. He doesn’t like being in here due to what happened, but as far as ghosts and spirits are concerned, he doesn’t believe in any of it.

I mention Mrs. Fiddymont and the light in the bathroom, and also about another neighbour, a young man by the name of Alfred Spedding, who told me about seeing a dark figure coming and going from no. 57 at night. A dark figure wearing a top hat and cloak. According to young Mr. Spedding, who lives at no. 55, he used to see Mr. and Mrs. Drewn leaving their house wearing evening wear, as if they were heading off into the city to go to the theatre. He said Mr. Drewn would always be wearing a top hat and black coat; his wife a lovely green dress with white trim and an ornate green bonnet. Well, according to Mr. Spedding, as well as the ghostly figure in the top hat and cloak, he had also seen another ghostly figure walking around the property, as if in a daze. Mr. Spedding said that this figure was a lady and she was wearing a green dress and bonnet.

Then there were the sounds of a lady screaming, a man crying and even the sound of a shovel digging up earth, coming from inside the house.

“Numerous times I’ve been woken by the sound of a woman’s screams,” said Spedding. “First I thought it was coming from another house, but after a while, I realised it was coming from next door. It was always at the same time — shortly after 2am — and always the same scream — twice, short and sharp, unmistakably that of a lady’s.”

“Oh I’ve heard crying from inside that awful house,” Mrs. Fiddymont admitted. “Usually around 2am, and the only word I can understand is ‘mother’.” Does she think it’s the ghost of Fred Deeming? “I’m sure of it,” Mrs. Fiddymont said with a firm nod. “I used to hear that man crying on occasion, and it sounded just the same.”

And what of the sounds of digging? Well, according to both Mrs. Fiddymont and Mr. Spedding, a couple of times they have heard such sounds coming from inside no. 57, whenever they were in their outhouses in the middle of the night.

I tell these stories to Mr. Stamford, but he just looks at me, shrugs his shoulders, and then takes me into the bedroom where Deeming buried his wife.

The moment I enter the room, I’m hit with a feeling of dread. It’s like something is trying to draw the air from my lungs. My breathing becomes laboured. And though it’s been six months since the body of Emily Williams was discovered under the hearthstone, though the room has been thoroughly cleaned, I can still smell a sickening sour smell in the air, like rotten apples mixed with decayed meat.

I ask Mr. Stamford whether he smells the horrid stench, and he simply remarks that he does smell a faint hint of death, but that it’s probably the stink still entrenched in his nose.

Trying to put the smell and the sense of dread to one side, I look around the room. It’s a medium-sized room, with one large window opposite the door and a wardrobe over in one corner. Next to the wardrobe is the fireplace. Built into the brick wall, the fireplace is currently a black, empty cavity — no remnants of a fire, recent or otherwise, remain. Mr. Stamford leads me across the deserted bedroom, to the area in front of the fireplace.

There is no evidence — aside from the smell — that a body was ever buried beneath the hearthstone. No evidence that the floor was ripped up to dig the putrefying corpse from its shallow grave. The area around the fireplace looks like any normal hearthstone.

While crouched by the hearthstone, I begin to hear what sounds like scratching from beneath the floor. At first I think it might be a rat, but the sound is too deliberate; it sounds like fingernails scraping against wood.

With a gasp I straighten and turn to Mr. Stamford, who is looking at me with a baffled expression. I tell him what I hear, but he says he can’t hear a thing.

I listen again; the sound has stopped.

With the stench of death getting stronger, finding it increasingly difficult to breathe, I leave the room. Out in the hallway, my head starts to clear and my breathing returns to normal.

The entire house has a disturbed presence within its banal walls; but that room has evil in its heart. As I leave the house and step out into the foggy afternoon, I know I never want to enter that room again. A horrible crime may have been committed inside nine months ago, but something unholy still resides there.

Whether it’s the ghost of Mad Fred Deeming, or simply some residual energy left behind, I’ll let the reader decide. Some people, such as Mrs. Fiddymont and Mr. Spedding, claim there are most certainly ghosts inhabiting the house; others, such as Mr. Stamford say there’s nothing out of the ordinary happening — other than the horrible memories of a ghoulish crime.

Another person who thinks it ludicrous that Deeming’s spirit is haunting the streets of Melbourne is Walter Smith, the hangman at Melbourne Gaol.