Taylor, blissfully unconscious of what was so soon to happen, stood at the curb, watched the car drive away, turned and walked back to keep his appointment with death.
On the morning of February 2, 1922, Henry Peavey, the houseman, came to the house at 7:30 A.M. ready to begin his day’s work.
He opened the door and stood petrified at what he saw. The body of William Desmond Taylor lay stretched out on the floor, lying on its back with the feet toward the door. Over the legs was a chair which had overturned.
Henry Peavey ran out of the door, screaming that Mr. Taylor was dead. In his own words, “I turned and run out and yelled. And then I yelled some more.”
E. C. Jessurum, the proprietor of the bungalow court, responded to the alarm.
What happened after that is very much of a blur. Apparently, from the first newspaper reports, the police were promptly notified and immediately took charge in a routine manner. A physician appeared and diagnosed the death as from natural causes — apparently a hemorrhage of the stomach. The coroner’s office put in an appearance, and it was then found that Taylor had been shot by a .38 caliber revolver. The bullet, of ancient vintage and obsolete design, had entered the left side at about the place where the left elbow would have rested if the hands were hung normally at the side. The bullet had traveled upward until it lodged in the right-hand side of the neck just below the skin.
Later on, two peculiar points were noticed. One, that the body was lying neatly “laid out,” the limbs stretched out straight, the tie, collar, cuffs unrumpled — what was, apparently, a most unusual position for a corpse. There never was any explanation of this, if we can discount the statement of one of the officers, who said the deceased may have done this “in his death struggles.”
The second point, which developed a little later, was that the holes made by the bullet in the coat and vest did not match up. With the arms at the sides, the hole in the coat was considerably lower than the holes in the vest; and it was only when the left elbow was raised that the bullet holes came into juxtaposition.
It was because of this fact that the police promptly advanced the theory which, for the most part, they seem to have stuck with through thick and thin, that there was something in the nature of a holdup connected with the crime and preliminary to it, and that Taylor was standing with his hands up at the time he was shot.
Apparently the bullet was fired from a weapon held within a very few inches of the body.
Searching Taylor’s body, police found jewelry and money of over two thousand dollars in value. There were seventy-eight dollars in cash in his pocket, a two-carat diamond ring on his finger, and a platinum watch on his body. The watch had stopped at 7:21; and nearly three weeks after the murder, the police suddenly decided this might be a clue. On February 21st they rushed the watch to a jeweler to find out whether it had run down or had stopped because of the concussion of the fall of the body. The newspapers blazoned the shrewd but somewhat tardy idea of the police to the public.
On the twenty-second they carried the answer. The watch had run down.
On the desk was an open checkbook. Nearby was a pen. Also there was the half-completed income-tax blank previously mentioned.
Edna Purviance, Charlie Chaplin’s leading lady, and apparently a close friend of Mabel Normand’s, stated that while she knew William Desmond Taylor, the acquaintance was a casual, nodding acquaintance and that was all. She had noticed that there was light on in the Taylor side of the bungalow when she returned home somewhere around midnight on the night of the murder.
At sometime between 8:00 and 8:15 that evening Douglas MacLean, who occupied bungalow 406-B (Taylor occupied 404-B), noticing the “unusual” cold, went upstairs to get an electric stove. While there, he heard what he refers to as a “shattering report,” muffled, yet penetrating to every corner of the room.
His wife went to the door of 406-B and was just in time to see a figure emerge into the light from the Taylor bungalow. This figure paused on the porch, turned back toward the oblong of light from the half-opened door and stepped inside briefly, as though to say some word of farewell. He was smiling. Then he stepped back to the porch, quietly and normally closed the door, walked directly toward Mrs. MacLean for a few steps until he came to the opening between the houses, then turned, walked down between the two houses and vanished into the night.
In her first statement, Mrs. MacLean described this figure as being that of a man with a cap, and a muffler around his neck. She couldn’t be absolutely certain whether the man did or did not wear an overcoat. She was, however, sure of the cap. Then later on, she said that the figure might have been that of a woman instead of a man. A woman dressed in man’s clothing.
At approximately 7:55 P.M., however, Howard Fellows, who was driving Taylor’s automobile and who had been told to get in touch with Mr. Taylor that evening, called him on the telephone and received no answer. At 8:15 he went to the Taylor bungalow, rang the doorbell, and got no response. On the other hand, he stated that he had telephoned Taylor two or three times before 7:30 in the evening and had received no reply.
He put up Taylor’s automobile for the night and walked home. He was wearing a cap and a raincoat, and so far as he is concerned, he is satisfied he is the man Mrs. MacLean saw. But apparently he did not open the door nor was the door open when he was standing on the porch. So, if he was the man Mrs. MacLean saw, then she must be mistaken in her recollection of what the man did. Incidentally, it is to be noted that Mrs. MacLean apparently is not the type to be hypnotized by her own recollection. It was exceedingly cold and there is probably no doubt but what the figure wore an overcoat. A less scrupulous witness would have said she saw an overcoat. A less painstaking one would have visualized the fact that the man must have worn an overcoat, and so gradually built up the conviction that he was wearing one. Not so Mrs. MacLean. She is sure of the cap, she is fairly sure of the muffler, and there she stops being sure. A most commendable sign. But bear in mind that she is certain that she saw this figure on the porch step back to the lighted doorway. She saw him step out and “quietly and normally” close the door.
There were the usual stories of puzzling clues. Mysterious figures slithered through the pages of the newspapers. A streetcar conductor said a man who answered the description given by Mrs. MacLean had boarded a car on Maryland Street, at either 7:54 or 8:27 the night of the murder. He was about five feet ten inches, fairly well dressed, weighed about a hundred and sixty-five, had a cap of light color, and the conductor remembered that he wore something tan. He can’t remember where the man left the car. There was also a man who insisted that shortly before the murder he had been stopped on the street by someone who asked first for a fictitious address and then asked to know where William Desmond Taylor lived. The information was given. There were two men at a service station who remembered that shortly before six o’clock a man answering the description of the man seen by Mrs. Douglas MacLean had stopped at the service station and inquired where W. D. Taylor lived. The man was described as about twenty-six or twenty-seven, a hundred and sixty-five pounds, with dark suit and a light hat or cap. They directed him to the bungalow court and this was the last they saw of him.
A Mrs. C. F. Reddick, a neighbor, stated she was awakened by a shot or a backfire between one and two o’clock in the morning. Police fixed the time of death as between 7:40 and 8:15 P.M., Wednesday, February first.