A Downstairs Murder

For four days last week, a small, red brick Victorian building on the fringe of London's seedy Pimlico district drew crowds of sightseers titillated by one of Britain's most sensational murder mysteries. Inside the coroner's tiny court on the first floor, a jury of six men and three women was hearing evidence of the brutal bludgeon murder last November of the nanny to a titled family and an attack on her employer, the Countess of Lucan, that put the countess in the hospital for a week (TIME, Nov. 25). Thirty-two witnesses, Lady Lucan among them, dryly recited their testimony as the coroner summarized it in longhand. From the start, the inquest had become virtually a trial in absentia of Lord Lucan, 40, who has been missing since the night of the murder. The verdict of the coroner's jury, after only 31 minutes of deliberation: "Murder by Lord Lucan."

The crime seemed like a grotesque parody of Upstairs, Downstairs. Richard John Bingham is the seventh Earl of Lucan, an Irish title dating from 1795. He made gentleman's marks at Eton, joined the Coldstream Guards, then prepped at a London bank until one spectacular night 15 years ago when he won $56,000 at chemin de fer. After that, "Lucky Lucan" became an inveterate gambler.

Deeply in Debt. Marriage in 1963 to a petite commoner named Veronica Duncan did not change him. The couple had three children, but Lady Lucan saw little of her husband. She was often depressed, and the Earl twice tried to have her committed. His own behavior came to follow an almost obsessive pattern: lunch at a gaming club, usually the Clermont, cards or backgammon in the afternoon, home to bathe and change, back to the tables in the evening.

In 1973 Lord Lucan moved out of the couple's home in Lower Belgrave Street, sued for custody of the children, and lost. Bitter, drinking heavily, plunging at the tables, cursing the injustice of the legal system that denied him his children, he became, as one friend mildly puts it, "a bit of a burden." He was also deeply in debt, overdrawing his bank accounts some $33,000.

On the night of the murder, Lucan reserved a table for four at the Clermont. His guests turned up; he did not. Lady Lucan told the coroner's jury that she was watching television with the elder daughter, and the nanny, Mrs. Sandra Rivett, 29, had just gone down to the basement kitchen to make tea. When Mrs. Rivett did not return, Lady Lucan went downstairs and heard a noise in the cloakroom. "Somebody rushed out and hit me over the head. Three more blows followed. I screamed, and the person said 'Shut up!' I recognized the voice of my husband." Police found the nanny's battered body in a canvas sack and bloodstains on the walls and ceilings. Ironically, it was Mrs. Rivett's usual day off--a fact, testimony showed, that Lucan had carefully ascertained in advance. He may have mistaken the nanny for his wife in the dimly lit basement.

Lucan's own version of the night's events was reconstructed for the court from conversations with his mother, a friend and letters he posted before disappearing. He spoke of a "ghastly circumstance": passing by the house he had seen and surprised an intruder attacking his wife. But police testified that Lord Lucan could not have seen the incident from the street as he claimed. Moreover, a piece of lead piping found in the car he abandoned matched a piece found in Lady Lucan's home--a piece stained with Mrs. Rivett's blood.

If he is ever found alive, Lucan will have to stand criminal trial for the killing. But he has already achieved a distinction: he is the first British peer in 215 years to be accused of murder.

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