One hundred years ago this month, the bodies of a man and woman were found in a field in New Brunswick, New Jersey, laid out, side-by-side, with their feet pointing towards an apple tree. The calling card of the man, Rev Edward Hall, was placed at his feet. Torn up love letters between him and the woman, Mrs Eleanor Mills, were scattered around them. Both had been shot in the head with a .32-caliber pistol, the priest once and the member of his choir three times.

For some the story of Hall-Mills murders, and the subsequent bundled investigation and trials, made it the greatest true crime story of the twentieth century. Certainly, the day-by-day coverage in the papers across America made it the first ever real media circus. A recent article in The New Yorker suggested the Hall-Mills trial was to the Jazz Age what the OJ Simpson case became to us.

The Hall-Mills murder mystery had all the right ingredients. A grisly murder scene – there were maggots crawling from the woman’s neck. A glorious back story – a philandering priest shot dead with his choir-singer lover. A great cast of characters ­– the wealthy widow with links to the founding fathers; the key witness – known unimaginatively as the pig woman – who reared pigs; the key suspects who were well-connected local landowners. All that was needed was a reason why a respectable married lady felt it was acceptable to sleep with her parish priest.

Simon Called Peter

As I show in my new book Utterly Immoral Robert Keable and his scandalous novel, the blame was placed on Robert Keable and his novel Simon Called Peter. The First World War novel, which was published in America in 1922, told the story of a love affair between an army chaplain and a nurse – culminating in a weekend together in a London hotel room.

The bodies of Mills and Rev Hall were discovered on September 16^th, 1922, and within days reporters from across America were all over the story, with absolutely no privacy for the families of the deceased, and no attempt to withhold any of the details. Extracts from love letters between the couple were published and any incriminating evidence in their homes was exposed by the press.

It was reported that Simon Called Peter and Robert Keable’s second novel The Mother of all Living had been lent to Mills by Rev Hall. The New York Herald quoted from one of Mills’ letters to her lover:

I am sorry you bought me that spicy book. It fired my soul and wafted me into the spiritual world – oh, goodness.

The paper stated: ‘It was known she had been reading, for one thing, Simon Called Peter,’ adding cryptically, ‘which deals with a clergyman who sought knowledge and found how the other half loves.’

In another letter, also quoted in the paper, Eleanor wrote to her lover about The Mother of all Living in which a married woman, Cecil (Cecily), falls in love with Christopher:

There is so much to talk about in the book. We must take it with us when we ride and talk about it, especially in the marked places. This man Keable certainly knows people’s hearts. I loved Chris and Cecil for hours together. How evolved he will kiss her before leaving Mallory. Oh, it is sweet, darling, but nothing compared to our love. How they lingered behind the others; their love vows, and how they rushed into each other’s arms. Take the book with you – or else I will leave it in your room. I don’t want to read such books again, ever. Why? You know they make me dream. Yearning for what, perhaps, I miss in this life, and to think now and hereafter I will never escape this longing until I know I have at last won.

The inference from the press handling of the story was clear. Robert Keable’s novels were the catalyst for the affair between Mills and Rev Hall.

Marguerite Mooers Marshall, whose column for the Herald was syndicated across America, used quotes from Simon Called Peter in her article headed:

            Slain Rector and Singer Inspired by Illicit Love in Keable’s Erotic Story

In the article she pointed out that it was known from ‘Mrs Mills own written testimony’ that the lovers had pored over the novels of Robert Keable, before going on to draw parallels between the plots of Keable’s books and the affair between Mills and Rev Hall.

By October 20^th The New York Times was making the connection between attempts to ban Simon Called Peter and the Hall-Mills murders. They headlined their article:

SUMNER DENOUNCES BOOK IN HALL CASE

Says “Simon Called Peter” Given to Mrs. Mills Was Insidious

The article began:

Simon Called Peter, the novel by the Rev. Robert Keable, which Rector Hall gave to Mrs. Mills, was the object of a complaint several months ago by Secretary John S Sumner of the Society for the Suppression of vice.

Mr. Sumner asserted that it was a highly insidious book, because, published with a little savouring of religion and written by a clergyman, it had an innocent look which admitted it to society where the ordinary licentious novel could not circulate. … it was an ideal weapon, according to Mr Sumner, for accelerating an intrigue.

Mr. Sumner was quoted in the article suggesting the book was ‘an aid to seduction’, saying:

It is the kind of a book that certain men present with a smug expression in the hope that it will open up a field of conversation which is ordinarily forbidden.

The New York Times also quoted Chief Magistrate McAdoo, who having refused to issue a warrant against the publisher, seemed to take aim at both the book and author:

It is quite true it is a nasty book and particularly objectionable because written by a clergyman. The story, boiled down, is that a clergyman went a-slumming in the outskirts of the army, looking for worse subjects, found them, became enamored of them and lost himself in the mire, and now apparently revels in describing his experience.

Whilst New Yorkers complained about Simon Called Peter, in Boston they took action. As the papers reported:

Simon Called Peter, the book of Robert Keable’s that has figured prominently in the Hall murder case at New Brunswick, N.J., was decreed to be obscene and unfit for circulation by Judge Stone in the local court today. After voicing briefly his view on the work, the Judge imposed a fine of $100 upon the defendant, Mrs. Edith G Law of Arlington, who had been accused of circulating obscene literature.

Mrs. Law who owned a circulating library and periodical store admitted loaning the book but claimed she did not consider it obscene or improper.

She said a young woman friend who had read it and told her it was ‘an interesting love story.’ Mrs. Law herself had not read it. She admitted that she had a long list of customers waiting for the book.

It was the The New York Times who discussed the relevance of Robert Keable’s time as a priest. In an article they stated:

His books deal rather freely with phenomena which are not exactly news to most of the reading public, but may have some novelty in the clerical eye freshly turned on the profane world. One characteristic of his writings is that blend of religion, morality and eroticism which is frequently found in the hellfire sermons of evangelists, but rarely passes the censor elsewhere. Being a clergyman, Mr. Keable knows that one sure seller is pornography with a moral purpose.

They continued:

It so happened that his latest book attracted the attention of a wayward Jersey clergyman and the lady who was in love with him. … Not unnaturally, what pleased and interested this pair was not the erotic part of the book, but its moral lesson. It was a great advertisement for morality, and unless Mr. Sumner heads him off the Reverend Mr. Keable will probably gain many thousands more readers, because two of his readers were found under the apple tree with their throats cut.

Robert Keable on his way to Tahiti

The American papers knew that Robert Keable had written about a priest having an affair during the First World War. What they did not know was the extent to which Simon called Peter was autobiographical and that as a chaplain in France he had had an affair with Jolie Buck, a young lorry driver working for the Canadian forestry Corps. The American papers also did not know that at the same time as Eleanor Mills and Edmund Hall were being murdered – while trying to keep their adulterous affair secret – Robert Keable was in a ship travelling to the other side of the world ready to meet Jolie, having left his wife and church. Three months later the two of them were living as husband and wife, in French Impressionist Paul Gauguin’s old house, in Tahiti.