Loremen Podcast - Loremen S7Ep33 - Little Bakery Shop of Horrors

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

Ciabatta beware! The Loreboys investigate a devilish crime in London's notorious bakery district. This is the St Luke's Mystery from 1881: the vanishing of a German baker whose whereabouts technically remain a mystery to this day. Plus, Alasdair introduces James to the original consulting detective. It's Wendel Scherer, Germany's answer to, "what if Sherlock Holmes were German and not a very good detective?" Get tickets to Alasdair on tour - ⁠⁠⁠Immediately!⁠⁠⁠ Join the LoreFolk at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/loremenpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ko-fi.com/loremen⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check the sweet, sweet merch here... ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @loremenpod ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/loremenpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.instagram.com/loremenpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.facebook.com/loremenpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Don't you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life? You know the same way you can skip an ad? I get it. I'm Siaia and I live in Ice Cove. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today I'm still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll.

So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem. Welcome to Lawman, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. With me, Alastair Beckett King. And me, James Shakeshift. And James. I've got an unsolved mystery for you.

Yes. From the annals of Victorian history. Ooh. It's going to be rich. It's going to be suspicious. Brilliant. Like a Greg's vegan sausage roll. Good.

I like them. As good as the real thing, I heard someone say once. But the real thing is a Greg's sausage roll. Yeah. Make of that what you will. It's the little bakery shop of horrors. Whoa. Better known as the St. Luke's mystery.

It's nothing to do with Greggs. Nothing to do with Greggs. No, no, we are not slandering, Gregs. Ahoi there, James. Oh, ohoy. I don't know why I chose a nautical start. No. I'm concerned.

In the story I've got for you here. Okay, I haven't got a life jacket. Well, that's good. Or a light and whistle for attracting attention. It was not good that you don't have a life jacket. A sensible thing to do. be to wear one at all times. Yes. But you have got a light and a whistle, did you say? I do have a light and a whistle for attracting attention, but that's, I'm an only child.

Yeah, yep, listen. Listeners, no, only children have lights and whistles. I think I am going to, I've subtly seeded it in recent episodes, but I am going to go with rebadging the plain life jacket as the only child waistcoat. Americans call them vests, don't they? Oh, life vest. So you might have a branding issue. Yeah, yeah, you might have to avoid waistcoat. Fair enough. Okay. Oh, that's that market out the way. I'm sure Americans don't need help attracting attention to themselves. Maybe, maybe, look, I don't want to make this the best-selling idea of all time.

Maybe we need to be talking about Gilles. Yes. Yes. The only child Gile. Yes. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Okay. Well, there's copyrighted it.

I'm going to print this out, put it on a tape cassette and send it back to myself. Yeah, absolutely. And if you want to guarantee that your only child doesn't make friends at school, Gilles. Yeah. Dress them in a Gile. Dress them in a Gile. Lonely child.

Okay. Now, I haven't found anything supernatural about this tale of Victorian murder and unsolved mystery. Ooh. I feel like I should get that out of the way at the top. Okay. There's not going to be any ghosts, unfortunately. But there is a dubious celebrity cameo that I can probably. I promise you. So there will be a small stinger in the tail, but there's no, there's no ghosts.

So just get, get your, get your one or indeed your zero ready now. I'm going to, I'm going to throw off my jilet because my spine won't be tingled. It will not be, well, well, well, your spine may indeed be tingled. Yeah, because it's a rather nasty tail. Maybe just pop it over my shoulders. Have your jilets to hand. You'll see quickly why I've chosen to tell you this story. it concerns a man by the name of urban Napoleon stanga.

Yes, yes, okay, great. Saw that name, thought, better tell this story on the podcast. He's the urban Napoleon stang. Yeah, it's like the urban spaceman. How is he different? Is he like just a bit thinking of like urban foxes versus country foxes? Yeah, more sort of streetwise, a little bit more raggedy. Gets his food from a bin?

Well, before we start, slandering this probable murder victim. Let's... Oh, okay. Let's start the story. Okay. Venetian blinds transition. Oh.

Do you know the one I'm talking about? Yes. Yeah, all right. By the way, do you know there's also Roman blinds? What are Roman? Are they the vertical ones? They're the, no, they're the material ones that, like, you pull them and they go up in sections, like, sort of fold up, and then you let them down.

Very nice. Very nice. As far as I know, there's only two types of blinds named after Italian cities or empire. Rome and Venice. Yes. I think the Neapolitan one is the left windows chocolate and the middle windows vanilla and the right window's strawberry and no one ever opens the strawberry window. And the Sicilian blinds, you don't actually have blinds, but a guy comes around to tell you that you didn't see anything. Oh, lovely stuff.

Take that an entire Italian city. Island. What? No less. What? Sorry, spat my water out there, geography and my lack of knowledge. Mm. Whoa.

I'm joking on my own water here. With apologies to the Cozinoestra there. Mm, yes, big apologies. We literally mean no disrespect. We know that's a big thing with you. So Venetian blinds transition into a star wipe. It's 1881. Urban Napoleon Stanga was a German baker living in East London,

with a shop on Lever Street in St. Luke's near old street. Don't look for it. It was probably bombed in World War II. It's Leaver Street's still there, but most of the street is in 20th century buildings. The name UN Stanger hangs above the door, and Hestanger lives there with his wife Elizabeth, and they're from Kreuznach in Germany. They came to London around 1870, and he's been quite successful as a baker.

There's a whole community of German bakers and millers in East London. including one Franz, Franz Felix Stum. Oh. Yeah. Right. You don't allow the sound of this Stum? I'm just wondering, I'm assuming he's not very talkative. Well, you couldn't be more right, James.

In fact, keep in quiet. Is he where it comes from? I don't think so. I think it's Yiddish. Yeah. But, but this guy could not have done a better job of keeping Stum. I might hazard. So Stum is a master baker.

I said Master Baker. Yes. You heard me. Yeah. Stanger is also a master baker and their friends. Right. But urban Nebogelian stanga might not like Herr Stum quite as much as Mrs. Stanger. Oh.

Likes him. Do you follow me? Yeah. Do you see what I'm saying here? Yeah. What I'm saying, James, is stanga is in danga. Stanga danga. You know, I don't really like doing true crime on the podcast because, you know, there's a lot of dead women.

and it seems hard to have a laugh about sort of real crimes. There's a lot of true crimes. Yeah, they are true crimes. That's the problem with them. I prefer fictitious crimes. I will make an exception if it was a fairly long time ago and the people have funny names. Yes, good.

And unfortunately for Herr Stanga, urban Napoleon Stangar is the coolest name I've ever heard. On the 17th of March, 1883, newspaper The Graphic, published this, perhaps the best line ever printed in a British newspaper, The disappearance of the baker stanga is still the subject of police investigation and very suspicious circumstances have oozed out.

Ooh. Yeah. Like a jammed donut. Yes, let me share the secret of that ooze with you now. Nice. Let me massage the story to produce further ooze. Mm. Disgusting.

Mm. So this story became widely known as the St. Luke's Mystery of 1881. And I found it in Jan Bonderson's book, Strange Victoriana, a friend of the show, Strange Victoriana by Jan Bonderson. Yes, a strong Bonderson. It's also covered in strange disappearances by enemy of the podcast, Elliot O'Donnell. He wrote too many short stories in the same books as purportedly true tales. Yes, he did. Yes, he did.

So the story begins pretty much when Journeyman Baker Christian Zentler, also called Christian Zoitler, in different accounts. Basically, every version of the story I've read has different spellings for almost all the character's names. I guess because they were German immigrants and the British press couldn't be bothered to get their names right

out of general prejudice. I don't know. They tend not to follow the eye before e rule, which would... Germans don't. Yeah. Yeah. But then also English doesn't.

But German has its own eye before... I.E rule, doesn't it? Does it? Yeah, I and E and E and I are pronounced differently. So we've got Christian Zentler, Zoitler, trainee baker. He was the last person to see Urban Napoleon Stanga alive. It's weird the way we say that. He was the last person to see them alive,

because that is almost never true in the case of murders. Yes. Either you're the murderer or you weren't the last person to see them alive. But it's the last witness we have. Last non-murderer to see them alive. Yeah, last non-conspirator to see Urban Napoleon Stangar alive. He was outside his shop very late on the 12th. of November 1881. And nobody saw him after that. The next morning, no Stangor.

And Zoitler, whatever you want to call him, asks his wife Elizabeth, she doesn't seem that bothered. And various explanations are given as to what happened to Stanger. Maybe he was recovering in the country from a ruptured blood vessel. And perhaps he had gone back to Kreuznach because he was in debt and he was fleeing his creditors. Maybe he went to live on a farm with a lot of other bakers and he could run around and play with them. Well, there were no. wives to have affairs. Yeah, exactly. He's very, very happy.

So Mrs. Stanger that morning sends Christian Zentler to fetch France Felix Stum, the master baker, and he looks after the shop. And in fact, after a while, James, this is going to shock you. He moves in to the shop. Now, you might reasonably ask,

what does Mr. Stum's wife think about that? Because he's married. Yeah. Well, she moves in as well. Oh, hello. Yeah. All right. Mm.

What's happening to his, the bakery? I don't know if he had a bakery of his owner whether he was just a sort of itinerant peripatetic baker. Master, though. A few months pass and the shop sign changes from saying UN Stanger to saying FF Stum. No. Yeah. No. Yes. And that is the end of the story of the guy who went away for no reason. Oh, FFS. I mean, it really is, it really is an FFS situation. It is. Especially if you... were a friend of the missing Mr. Stanger. Enter Georg Geisel, sometimes called George, sometimes called Geisel.

I'm going to say Geisel. Okay. So sometimes it's spelled E.I. Sometimes it's spelled I.E. Who knows? They didn't bother to check what anyone in this story was called. So that would have been the end of the story if it weren't for Georg Geisel. He was a flower factor.

Sometimes he's called a miller, but I think a flour factory is like the middleman, who buys the flour from the miller and sells it to bakers. Okay. And while he buys a lot of flour, one thing he doesn't buy is the story that Stanga was in debt. Nice. Good. I like that.

He starts asking around. Stanger owes him money for flour, among other things. And I think, I can't remember this detail. I think they send him a letter supposedly from Stanger, from Kreuznach or something, which is just an obvious fake. And so he's very... Like in bottom?

What has happened in bottom? Is there a forged letter? Is it the gas man comes round and they murder him or they think they've murdered him and they write in his book about and then I carried on with my hobby of bus surfing because they're going to push him out the window onto the top of a bus? Yeah, it's a real sort of, don't look for me, I am fine. I'm on a farm where there's no wives to have affairs. Exactly, and having lovely time on farms. And also, don't check inside. the oven.

Don't look for me. There's no need. That is a baker's joke. It's just classic baker humor. You wouldn't understand if you're not a baker. So Gaisal starts looking to it himself. And in April 1882, he hires an inquiry agent, which is basically what we would call a private detective.

But the concept of a private detective wasn't really around. They called them inquiry agents. That's fine. There were loads of inquiry agents at this time. But Gaisal wants the best. So he hires the one who is a German guy. Ah. And is not the best.

Ah. Gaisal obviously is also German. Almost everyone involved in the story is German. He hires Vendel. Wendell, I'm going to pronounce it Vendel, to show I'm cultured. Vendel Scherer. Scher, Scherer. Shire.

As in Allen. As in Allen. Well, not exactly. It's spelled S-C-H-E-R-E-R. And it's a German surname that means Shira. Nice. If you can understand that, it's the German word for Shira. Yes.

Vendell Shira, it might be Shara, I don't know how they pronounce it. And Shira doesn't really do an amazing job of finding the missing man. He hands out handbills and runs newspaper outs, offering 50 pounds for any information. I'm reading from Strange Victoria now. I've got the text of the handbill. 50 pounds reward. Mysteriously disappeared since the early part of November last. From his residence number 136, Leaver Street, City Road, urban Napoleon Stanger, Master Baker,

native of Kloitsnach, Germany. Any persons who will give information leading to his discovery will receive the above reward. Fendl Shira, private inquiry agent, 28 Chepster Place, Bayswater. Pretty straightforward. And that's about it. You know, nothing really comes of that.

Shira is a bit of an odd fish. He has aspirations to be more than just an inquiry agent. He sees himself as a consulting detective, a gentleman detective, if you will, which is not really a thing at this time, but he has these aspirations. Unfortunately, he doesn't really turn up anything. All he does is throw a lot of pigeons at a cat,

which, as you would imagine, causes chaos. Yes. People begin speculating that they've Sweeney-Todded the man into the pies. Oh, whose pies? The bakers. The baker's pies, yeah. I mean, bakers mainly make bread. Yeah.

More than pies, but... Maybe they just suddenly started doing... Suspicious pork pies. Suspicious pie. Like they put quote marks around pork. They would have used those germs. German quote marks, though, that look like those little pointy ones. What do they call them?

Quot marks, I guess. You know the ones I mean? Well, where it starts off low at the bottom. Sometimes there's one that starts low. Sometimes you get ones that look like double less than and greater than symbols. Sometimes Germans use those. Do they, right, okay. I don't know what they call them, probably quote marks.

What an offensive accent I did then. Yeah, was that German? I think it was a Bavarian dialect. You wouldn't, you wouldn't recognize it. Oh, okay. So people start talking. According to the graphic, a local charwoman produced two chairs that were supposedly broken in a dispute between Mr and Mrs Stanger the night before he vanished,

which I would say seems a little implausible. That if you had done away with your husband, you would then give someone chairs to repair that were broken. Two chairs as well, seems like unless you're like in WWE, that's a lot of chairs to break. It does imply some sort of Royal Rumble happened. Yeah, surely. I think that might have been a charwoman. just trying to get into the paper. Kind of a hell in the cell or a rumble in the jungle or a takeaway.

Pretty good, pretty good. But this is not like MMA. There are rules of being an East London baker. And one of those rules is you can't murder your husband. But they do investigate. This is also from the graphic. The workman, Zoitler, too, declares that he saw, Nothing of his master on the Sunday or Monday after his disappearance, but on Tuesday, having

overslept himself, came down and found the bakehouse oven red-hot, and in it a heap of ashes resembling bones, which Stum told him were the remains of a spoilt batch of bread. A shin bone of beef has since been placed as an experiment in the oven and was calcined, i.e. reduced a bone, in 35 minutes without even causing any perceptible smell. Oh. That hot. That hot. the way even the smet.

The way it says he sort of came down after sleeping kind of implies that Zoitler lived at the bakery, which according to other accounts have read, he didn't. So I don't know how much stock we should put in that. I don't know. It's very murky. Gaisal keeps digging and finds out that Stanger had over £400, something like £414,000 in a bank account.

Which does seem to contradict the idea that he was terribly in debt. However, by now, time has passed, and Mrs Stanger and Felix Stum, have somehow managed to withdraw most of it by forging Stanga's name on a series of checks. And it probably doesn't help that Mrs. Stanger is up the knock, especially bearing in mind that her husband now disappeared over nine months ago. And yet she has one in the oven. And yet she, well, oh, very good, James, because of the bakery connection.

Yes, because she's a baker. Finally, Gaisal gives up on Shira and finally, Scotland Yard gets involved at last. Yes. A long time has passed. You might say there's not much of a mystery here. Yeah? The bold London Bobbies will have this solved Quickshop. Yeah?

Maybe, maybe not. They just need to go to that, check that farm that he's on and see if he really is there. He's just going to see if he's in the farm. Well, nearly as good as that, the story is also covered by the mystery writer, Michael Harrison, which is the pen name of Morris Desmond Rohan in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Nice. February 1971. I think I've quoted from Ellery Queen's mystery magazine before.

It sounds great. Yeah. I'm sure I've said. I'm sure you remember. Ellery Queen, imaginary guy. He's a fictitious detective, but the two guys who wrote his stories also wrote under the name Ellery Queen.

So Ellery Queen wrote mystery stories about Ellery Queen. And had a very long-running and very successful mystery magazine, while being a weirdly forgotten detective these days, not that famous. So there was an article in Ellery Queen's mystery magazine. in 1971, in which Harrison quotes from the Times newspaper, which says, Inspector Henry Radicki, A-Division, Whitehall, Scotland Yard, went to Kreuznach, went to Kreuznach, Hesse Castle, the following month, failed to find any trace of the missing stanga,

and returned to England to arrest Stum on September 12, 1882, upon a charge of forging an order for the payment of £78. Oh, so he did go to the farm? He did go and check whether he was actually there, even though it was an obvious lie. Yeah. They al-componed him, basically. Oh, yes. Because they can't prove anything's happened to Stanger, even though, like, did they look in the oven? I don't know.

I guess months and months have passed. Many, many pies have been sold. So they try to get him on forging. That report isn't correct. It wasn't £78. It was, and it wasn't checks. They charge him with forging one check, because that's the only one they can find. All the rest have been conveniently or inconveniently destroyed.

they charge Stum with forging one check for 76 pounds and 15 shillings. That's a lot of money. Which is a fair amount of money. When he comes to trial, there's a big deal made in the reports of how evil he looked, Stum, with his beetling brows and hooked nose. Now, I would say, as a member of the beaky-nosed community, we don't claim him. I don't really think he's, I sent, I'll slide you a brown envelope, James. with a picture inside.

This is a picture that appeared. We get my message opening a knife. Just get your WhatsApp letter opener there. Yep. Yep. Your WhatsApp letter opener. Mm-hmm. This is an illustration that appeared in the Penny Illustrated newspaper, October 14th, 1882.

Yeah. And it shows the main people in the case, with the exception of the one who went missing. Yes, makes sense. You can see a little drawing of the bakery, which now says FF. Stum. Yes. And you can see on the right, they're fairly fearsome. Franz Felix Stum, who has a pretty straight nose, I would say. Maybe a slight bend in it.

But there's another drawing I've seen of him in which his nose is even straighter. So I really don't know what they're getting at. Maybe the artists just weren't very good at noses. It could be the drawings are wrong, of course. It is just a drawing. Elliot O'Donnell raciously implies that Stum looked evil in a Jewish sort of way. Oh, Elliot. Come on, Elliot.

Come on, mate. I don't think that the Germans in this case are Jewish because I reckon the Victorian papers would have mentioned it. Do you know what I mean? They just referred to as German and one is called Christian. So I assume that they're not Jewish. Otherwise, the papers might have made a big deal out of that in some way. Yes. But if you know anything about the history of East London, you might have, when you hear German surnames in these areas, you might, you know, you might assume that they were Jewish.

Some of the bakers live on Cable Street, which I would associate with the Battle of Cable Street in 1936. If Americans might not have heard of the Battle of Cable Street, in the 1930s, in 1936, Oswald Mosley's fascists marched provocatively through a distinctly Jewish area of East London before thousands of people defeated them in debate in the marketplace of ideas, I think it was. Kick the right. Yeah, yeah, it's a huge fight, massive fights. So the trial goes pretty badly for Stum, but there is one fun bit for us. Yeah. In Michael Harrison's article, there's an incredible transcript of the trial. This is Mr. Jeffries Busby for the prosecution speaking to the inquiry agent, Vendell-Sherer.

Mr. Jeffery's Busby? Yeah, one guy. It does sound like there's a few of them. Oh, it sounds like it would have belonged to someone. He's Busby. He's Mr. Jeffries. Isn't Busby a type of hat? It might be, but I would have thought most types of hat were named after a person.

Yeah, and most can't speak. Definitely bowler. I don't know about fedora and definitely not Panama. Yes, a busby hat is the military one. Oh. It's a fur cat. It looks a bit like it's originally worn by the Hungarian Hazars. Hazzar!

Hazzar! That's not the noise you'd make if you saw them coming. Hazar. No. You'd be like, oh no. They should have a word of Hungarian. Oh, no. Uh-ohs.

So, yeah, Mr. Jeffries Busby. Yep, Mr. Jeffries Busby. Very, very hard to look up any of these people's names because they're not really that famous historically and the internet just thinks you can't spell Geoffrey at all. I can, he's called Jeffries. Did you mean bubsy, the video game character?

Were you looking for Cool Spot? No! Anyway, so Mr. Crash Bandicoot for the prosecution is speaking to the inquiry agent, Vendelsheera. I'm quoting Michael Harrison, calmly, firmly, almost arrogantly, Vendell Shira declined to be either ordered or threatened for all that Mr. Jeffries Busby sneered and angrily denounced the upstart claimant

to professional status. And now a short, dramatic scene where I read the transcript. Yes. You are an inquiry agent? Not an inquiry agent, a detective. It is the same thing. New presbyter is but old priest at large, I suggest, eh, sir? With respect, sir, not so.

A detective. Then you are a member of the detective police. They are the only detectives known to me, Mr. Raddikey of Whitehall is one. Are you under that gentleman's jurisdiction? I am under the jurisdiction only of the common law. I am not a member of the detective police force. I am a private detective, a private consulting detective. We will consult you, Mr. Shearer, in an office, in chambers like some professional gentleman.

In an office. I am a professional gentleman. I am a professional consulting detective. This is why I must respectfully preserve the anonymity of my client. It would be a grave breach of professional etiquette that I to reveal his name. Hoity, doighty, sir! You'll try my patience a little too far. I should commit you for contempt, an inquiry agent,

of which half a dozen advertise their services every day in the newspapers, and we have these preposterous claims of yours to professional dignity, professional secrecy, and I don't know what else. Stand down, sir, but do not leave the... court, I shall wish to speak with you later. Whoa. Yeah. Slams are plenty.

He doesn't ever speak with him later because Geisel pops up and says, oh, I hired him, obviously. There was absolutely no reason to keep that secret. I don't know why. He was being so weird about that. Yeah. And then the prosecutor, bear in mind, they were on the same side there. They were both witnesses. He was a witness for the prosecution.

Haity tooty, sir. Haity, dooty, sir, you drive my patience. Nice. Imagine treating a... treating a witness on your side like that. Anyway, anyway. I can start saying that in the post office. Hoyty, do itty, sir.

Oh, you try my patience. Stum gets ten years for forgery. His defence is Montague Williams, who doesn't seem to think that Stum is innocent for obvious reasons because he's heard the details of the case. I'm quoting now from Strange Victoria. According to the old crime writer Guy Logan, he believed that Mrs. Stanger had murdered her husband on the night of 12th of November

and that Stum had merely helped her to dispose of the body. After a hostile summing up from Mr. Justice Hawkins, the jury brought in a verdict of guilty against Stum. White with fury, the sturdy German gripped the rails of the dock and screamed that his legal counsel had bungled the case shamefully. He was a victim of a conspiracy on the part of Stangar's relatives in Germany and there was no justice in vile England for a foreigner. Ouch.

Yeah. Take that vile England. Absolute mood. Yeah. So as a witness for the defence, Elizabeth had claimed that her husband left her after an argument on the 19th, not the 12th. And she said that she was the one forging the signatures, which apparently she was supposedly in the habit of doing. Now, because she said that in his defence and then he goes down, she's then charged with perjury in this case and she gets a year in prison. it kind of feels like everyone knows they murdered him

and they're doing their best to send them to prison for as long as possible based on what they can prove. Right. Because I don't know anything about how punitive the 19th century justice system was in situations like this. But a year in prison for perjury seems like a lot, a lot. Bearing in mind, you'd just give him birth to their child. Yeah.

It seems like a lot. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that. The spectator, December 16th, 1882, put a similar sentiment into words, perhaps what a number of people would have been thinking, that this was sort of a miscarriage of justice. The spectator writes, We confess the whole trial leaves on our minds an uneasy suspicion that while the prisoner entirely deserved his fate, and possibly a worse one, he was convicted of a crime which

legally he did not commit. If he was prepared to get the property by forgery, why did he make so many bites at his cherry? A reasonable question. Why not just forge one check for all the money? Why forge multiple checks? They can't say what they think, I guess, because I don't think it's subjudice, but they can't just accuse him of being the murderer. And what they do instead is use a lot of commas.

So I'm going to pronounce the commas because it's impossible to read this without. It looks to us as if Mrs. Stanger's story was true, comma. And that though aware of something not yet revealed, comma, she did, comma, as she said, comma, signed the checks, comma. Under Stanga's will, comma, which she knew, comma, as was the, the fact, comma, to be in her favor. Yeah, the commas don't really help. No.

I think what they're saying is they think she actually was the one forging the checks and perhaps implying that she was the one who did the murder, although they both did the murder. And knowing that he was dead, she felt entitled to the money, which would come to her under Stanga's will. Right, comma. Even though you can't, especially if you murder the person, you can't just start spending their money before the exact.

of the will has done their business. Geisel being one of the executors, I think, of Stanger's will. So it's very murky. They definitely deserved something, but essentially the mystery was never solved, even though we kind of know what happened. Stum eventually gets out of prison, as does Mrs. Stanger, and they go to Germany, and the mystery remains unsolved. But, but, James, there is one more weird thing to come out of this case.

Oh? I promised you a celebrity cameo. Oh, yes. And this is if you read Michael Harrison's account of it in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Which was like turned into a book called A Study in Surmise. Remember Vendell Shira? Yeah. The consulting detective.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yep, yep. This idea of being a consulting detective is quite new in 1881. It is not a thing that people have a concept of. Of course, you and I have heard of consulting detectives. Yeah, for one main reason. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And this case was in the news, while a doctor named Saratha Conan Not a Sir Yet Doyle, was jotting down notes for a little detective character by the name of Sherrinford Holmes and his companion, Ormond Sacker.

Not Sack. Yeah, Dr Sack. No. Doc Sack. Orman. Ormond Sacker, better known to you and me as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, as he quite wide. Revisly revised the names. Just for most people who don't pronounce

almond the same way as me, almond. I pronounce it almond. It's almond. It is almond. It is almond. It is almond. O-R-M-O-N-D. It's not almond-almond Saka. But you pronounce almond, do you? Ormond, yes. I pronounce it almond. Some people pronounce it almond.

That's incorrect, surely. You're all wrong. It's almond. It's almond. It's almond. In London. Well, it's not almond. It's almond. It's almond. It's not almond.

Almond with a W. Hold on, let me try and I can't, I've said it too many times now and it's starting to lose all meaning. Ormian. It's made from almonds. Almonds. No, I don't, I think maybe I'm the only person who's pronouncing it correctly and everyone else is wrong. Almond. But definitely you are wrong.

It's not almond with an R there. Oh, no, it's with a W. Olmond. Almond. You have to say like John Cotton's. Ollman. Oh, he's got me wrong. You're right in the almond sack.

Very small nuts, actually, almonds, aren't they? So, yeah, you saw where I was going there. The celebrity cameo is from Sherlock Holmes. Harrison's theory is that Doyle looked at this case and asked himself, what if Vendell Shira had been remotely competent in anywhere at all? Was less annoying? Yeah. But, well, in a way, Sherlock Holmes is kind of arrogant and gentleman-like and a bit rigid.

so he does have some qualities in common with Shira. He hypothesises that Shira, not Dr. Joseph Bell, was the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes, even though Doyle said it was Dr. Joseph Bell. Oh. And he draws up a list of connections between the St. Luke's mystery and a study in Scarlet,

which is the first Holmes novel. The biggest connection being that Shira described himself as a consulting detective, not a widespread idea at the time. Right. The real story of Stanger's disappearance and the novel both begin in a... 1881. It's a good connection. Stanga was probably murdered. And the second victim in Estudian

Scarlet, you recall, is named Stangerson. Mm, not bad. Son of Stanger. Now, what was Stangar's job, James? Baker. He was a baker. And where did Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson take their lodgings? Baker Street. Strait. Strait. Baker Street. I said street really weirdly. Street. I pronounce it with a W. Sweet. Like almond. It's also where danger mouse lives. It is also where Danga Mouse lives.

Yes, mouse, M-A-U-S, Danga Mouse. So he has a long, long list of connections between this case. I find them a little bit tenuous. So you'll remember Stum was charged with forging a cheque for £76 and 15 shillings. Yes. Quoting from the article, Found on Dead Drebber, that's the first victim in the story of the, a pocket edition of Bacaccio's Decameron with the name of Joseph Stanger up on the flyleaf

and loose money to the extent of £7.13. Is it by chance, Harrison writes, that Conan Doyle selects a book with the element 10, Greek decker equals 10, in the title, and makes the dead drebber's pocket yield the sum exactly one-tenth of that mentioned in Stum's indictment? Yeah, that is a coincidence. Yeah, I think it is. It is obviously a coincidence. It'd be weird.

Why would you, it'd be weird if it weren't a coincidence. There's only so many numbers. And also, look, someone who knows more about pre-decimal currency than me and is better at math than me might be able to check the sums there. But as far as I can tell, it's roughly 1-10 of £76, 15 shillings. As far as I can tell, it's not exactly 110. Yes, but that pre-decimal stuff is nonsense. It's quite simple, James.

I think there's 20 shillings in a pound and 200-something pennies in a shilling. Yes. Yeah. So I can't do that. I tried to do the maths and work out what one-tenth of it is. I don't, it didn't come out the same.

240 pennies in a shilling? 17 pounds, 13 shillings and sixpence is what I'm hearing. What's that? 17-pound. Well, let me do it again. Let me check it again. We want one-tenth of, one-tenth of 76 pounds, 15 shillings.

76 pounds, 15 shillings, zero pence. No pence. Oh. It's really confusing, isn't it? I converted it all into shillings, divided it by 10, and then back into pounds and shillings. Oh, that's clever. That was the way I did it. I don't know.

An old maths guy might be able to help. Yes. Or math scowl. Or math scale. Or non-binary elderly maths. They do need to be old. But they have to be old. Because this is confusing.

Anyway, there's loads of other little connections between the names like Sherrinford sounding a little bit like Shira's name. And I don't know. Maybe you believe that this guy was the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. I think it's plausible that Doyle read it around the time and it sort of influenced the story. That's believable. Yes. But there you go. That's the story of the disappearance of urban Napoleon stanga plus a slightly disappointing, dubious celebrity cameo.

Wonderful. Which is like a bit of a letdown. I think of it as being like when Johnny Depp was in the fast show. Yeah. It's like, ah, that wasn't very good. It wasn't very good back when I liked Johnny Depp. Yes, exactly. Back when I thought he was cool and funny.

It was rubbish then. Imagine what I would think about it now. So that's the St. Luke's mystery. Hmm, wonderful. To the scores then, shall we? Yes. All right, first category. Let's get it out of the way.

I try to find a ghost gem. I try, but the building's not there anymore. Don't look for it. It was redeveloped into a school, maybe, or possibly a council block. Maybe, though, in the flat that is the closest to where that bakery would have been, whenever they burn a pie. Yeah, it smells a bit German. Ouch, ach de lieber. It's, Iq bin Haise.

Oh, no, that actually, that's a famous bit of German, you can get wrong. What's that? If you say, you say me, is teist, haist, because it's. if you say Iqbin Haise, that means Randy. Oh, I see, I see. Hot, sorry, I think you're saying Heiser, like I'm haiser.

No, no. Right. Heise. Heise. I see. My London accent coming through again. Do you born in Ward 6? Yep.

I thought so. Stop referencing stuff that's definitely going in the bonus because of libel. Who do we libel? Probably, Mr. Reeve. Probably Mr. Reeve. Definitely your PE department. Oh, yeah.

And I'm guessing Alan Alberg. You can't libel a dog. That dog would definitely be dead by now. So the first category has to be supernatural. Yes. Okay. Simply a zero? Or do you want to string this out?

No, I'll accept a zero. Yeah. I looked and I looked for a ghost connected to St. Luke's. Even the whole street couldn't really find anything good. Well, sorry, London. No ghosts there. But here we go. This is where I coined it in.

Names. Yeah. 100% Yeah, 100% out of five. We got Sturm keeping Sturm in court. Yes. We've got, who else?

Stanga danga. Stangar Danga. We've got, they get, he was called unstanger. He was called unstanger, yes, you mean stanger. And that building got unstangered. It did get unstangled. It did get unstanged and became FFEST.

Yeah, and yes, exactly. There is so much, such rich. And everyone has about two names. because they are spelt differently. Even Elizabeth was spelled with a Z and with an S in different versions of it. We've got Zentler, Christian Zoitler, Zentler.

We've got Geisel, Geisel, Georg George. Geisel. He's a Geese. We've got Vendal Shira. And of course, by extension, Sharonford Holmes and Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. And of course, Ormond Sacker. The unforgettable, omen sacker.

Mr. Jeffries Busby. Mr. Jeffries Busby, what are you doing here? Five out five. Montague Williams, the talk show host. I cannot go higher than five out of five. No. Thank you very much. I know we probably scored it before the American, what was he called?

McKenzie McQueen's magazine. Ellery McQueen's Mystery Magazine. Ellery McQueen's mystery magazine. It's just Queen. It's not McQueen. No. Sorry. I've said my point.

piece. Okay. All right. Fine. Yeah, five of five all the way. Five out of five. All right. Next category.

With apologies to Jan Bonderson, who basically makes the same joke in Strange Victoriana, little bakery shop of horrors. Nice. Yeah. It is. They did a murder in that bakery.

They done a murder. Probably. Possibly. Possibly. We don't know. We don't know. It could have been an accident. And they wasted a beef shin.

That beef shin was burnt to crispicles for nothing. To calcification or whatever. Calcined or possibly calcine. Calcined. Which I don't even know what that means. It means reduced to bone, I think. I don't think it would be hot enough to get rid of the bones like a crematorium oven would be.

I think Alistair is a bit grim, but I don't think crematorium ovens are hot enough to get rid of bones. What? They smash them up. They smash them up. They smash them up. Not personally and with hammers. but I think there's a machine.

It crunches up the bones. A crunchy up machine, yeah. You go around the back and there's just a load of stray dogs there. What are you guys hanging out here for? No reason. It's not just a work experience kid who's going with a hammer. No, no, no. They'd train them up first.

Yeah, that's week two. Wow, I didn't realize that. I thought the bones went crumblishes. No, I think I read that somewhere and also in, Japanese funeral stuff. This is why you're not supposed to pass food from chopstick to chopstick. So a Japanese woman once told me

that the Japanese funeral service involves picking up her bones with chopsticks. Yes. Which she found very creepy and didn't really like. Is that true? Yes. So it's most, I think almost everyone is cremated in Japan. I don't know how long that's been going on for.

When dead, just to be clear. Sure. Yeah, no. Yeah, after deck. And then the sort of the remains there, the bones are crack and are burnt and are burnt. And then they are, someone's at the top of the sort of table, I guess, actually. I'm not sure 100%. I could find out, but not while we're recording.

And they have an urn at the top or, you know, a vessel to take the bits. and the bones are passed up along the people. So you have the family all around doing it kind of thing. And the bones are passed up and they're passed from chopstick to chopstick. Oh, and that's why you don't. Chopsticks at a Japanese funeral. You can't be asking for a fork.

If you're that involved of a Japanese funeral, you probably know how to do chopsticks. Yeah, you're probably Japanese. Coincidentally. Okay. So like putting boots on the kitchen table, passing food from chopsticks to chopstick is reminiscent of a funeral. Yes.

Wow. And that's why it's not like. And also the sticking chopsticks in your bowl of whatever is a faux par because when you have your sort of personal family shrine, when you put food out for the dead or a bowl of rice out for the dead, you stick the chopsticks in it. I think so it's easier. So that sort of drawing that I've seen as like an icon of Japanese food many times of a bowl with two chopsticks in it. That's actually evocative of funerals. I would guess so, yeah, actually. I don't know. Where have you seen it?

In like signs, video games maybe. Video games. Newdles or something. Video games. Yeah. Wow, you're going to have to keep that in, James, even though it's unrelated, because that is good law. It is maybe, may not be 100% accurate.

So take that. It's not important to be accurate. With a pinch of soy sauce. This is a podcast. Yeah. With a pinch of shop. Anyway, where were we? Little shop.

Little bakery shop of horrors. Thank you for that. Japanese funeral aside. I'm going to have to press you for a score for Little Bakery Shop of Horace. Now, I suppose I would have scored more highly had I managed to work a talking kind of as plant into this tale. Yes, you would have definitely an Audrey 3, if you will. Yes, yeah.

Or an Audrey Ziet minus 1 because of timelines. And if anything, after he vanished, we did not see more of Stanga. That's weak. That's not strong stuff. No. No, I regret that. Okay. Three. Three? Okay. Three for a little bakery shop of horrors. Because it is pretty horrible bakery shop. But it was just like one person went, I think they put them in the pies. Yeah. And I don't even know who that person was. It might have been Jan Bonderson. For the purposes of setting up these little shop of horrors, quip. Final category, which also serves as legal advice.

Yes. We are lawyers, James and I. As well as doctors. And solicitors, same time. And doctors. just keep Stum. I just realised I was saying Stum, but not Stanga, mainly because I wanted to make this category work. Keeping Sturm. Because, okay, he went down for 10 years for for for for forging one check, but he didn't serve all of that.

And basically they got away with murder, surely. He wasn't down as being a murderer. No. Do we know if they got together afterwards? Well, I think all three of them, Mr. Stum, Mrs. Stum and Elizabeth. Double Stum. stayed together. I don't think he lived a huge amount of time after this.

People tended not to in them days after prisons. Yeah, I think he died in the 1890s. But they went to Germany. There's not many records. We don't know what happened to Elizabeth's daughter, I think, apart from the fact that she would have gone to some kind of orphanage work. You don't send, it does say workhouse here in Bonderson's book, but surely you wouldn't send a baby to a workhouse.

You're not going to get much work out of a baby. I don't think so. No. Not even in the past. So we don't know if she picked her up afterwards after she got out of prison because history doesn't record unfortunately. What about the Mrs. Sturm? What did she get? The oddly accommodating Mrs. Stumm, she seems to have sort of stood by her husband,

but also stood by Elizabeth. When Elizabeth walks out of court, she was hissed and booed, and she was accompanied by a stout woman supposed to be Mrs. Stum. So I don't know what's going on. Mr. Stom, the only person who didn't go down for anything, so good on you. Yeah. Everyone kept Stum, really, didn't they? Yeah.

Even the detective. Even the detective. He tried to randomly keep Shum for no apparent reason. Had no reason whatsoever to conceal this information. And Gaisal was happy for him in Elliot O'Donnell's account. He says, nobody knows who hired Shira. He's like, yeah, we do. We do know.

He tried to conceal it for no reason. Well, I'd love to tell you what the score is. Oh. Oh, no. I'm going to have to keep that close to me of just... Hopes you weren't going to do that. It's a five. It's a five.

I'll tell you. Don't tell you. Don't tell anyone, but it's a five. You have to put that on the spreadsheet. They have to put that in... Yeah, you have to put that whole thing on the spreadsheet. The whispering. Oh, yeah. Put it in white background.

Very good. Mm, lovely stuff. What? Well, no ghosts. No ghosts. And technically very warm because of... all the bakery stuff, but also chilling. A spine heating story.

Quite literally, probably, allegedly. We don't know. We don't know. He could still be out there? I mean, no way. No way could he still be out there? It was over 100 years ago. I want to say the Master of Mistrette's returned,

but obviously, but it's going to be really confusing. I think he should keep the Master of Miss Fitzpitts bit in. We don't say anything about Johnny Depp that's libelous. Just delete anything where we... That was wonderful, and I'm weirdly hungry now. Yeah, me too. If anyone does want to hear some of the bonus stuff we allude to, then you can find that at patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod.

And you can also gain access to the lawfolk discord via that method. So you can meet and chat with like-minded lawfolk. Yeah, are we making it sound like a dating service? That's not what it is. Yeah, it isn't. Oh, Alistair, though. Speaking of dates. Oh.

Are you on tour? I am. Yes, James. Thank you for unpromptedly saying that. I'm on tour of the UK. Again, still, this autumn. 2026. King of Crumbs.

Show is good. I'll be there. Will you? That's really the big question. Link to tickets is in their notes. Link to tickets is in notes. Link to tickets is in notes. You don't have to get things right on a podcast.