The Talking Mongoose Case

• Voirrey Irving and the Talking Mongoose (2/2)
• Sam, the Sandown Clown

Joseph Smit

When one begins by publicly calling someone "off his head" and barring him from advancement in his career (if not demanding that he lose it entirely), one should not be surprised when a slander suit follows. Yes, even if it involves the accused's possible belief in a talking mongoose. If one cannot be free to believe ridiculous things, what would be the fate of capitalism?

Richard Stanton "Rex" Lambert, then the founding editor of the magazine The Listener and employee of the B.B.C., had taken an interest in our friend Gef, our Dalby Spook. (Voirrey Irving was not then, nor is she now -- rest her soul -- the Dalby Spook, no matter what her cruel classmates may have called her.) As my learned reader no doubt knows, Lambert is the coauthor of The Haunting of Cashen's Gap with Harry Price. The book takes a skeptical look at the phenomena but is as exhaustive as the authors could manage under the circumstances. (Price's fingerprints are all over most pages, but Lambert had the clout to get his name on the cover.)

Though retired colonel Sir Cecil Bingham Levita's had a long and storied career of public service -- having served in the Royal Horse Artillery and been put in charge of the soldiers who delivered the salute for Queen Victoria's funeral -- it is hard not to have one's reputation stained by something quaintly titled the "Talking Mongoose Case."

It is crucial before going forward that one understands how Lambert first got wrapped up in this. Lambert visited Doarlish Cashen with paranormal researcher Harry Price on Tuesday, July 30, 1935. Price asked Lambert along because, owing to being a scholar and journalist, Lambert was a steady witness who could better describe what was happening at the house. In Price's words, Lambert "kindly consented" to join him.

Jim Irving, patriarch of the family and by this point all but Gef's handler, had warned Price just after making the arrangements for his travel that Gef had disappeared. Price waited, but the mongoose did not return. Gef had taken these holidays in the past, vanishing for a few days, which was merely inconvenient. Price waited a week, then another, Gef's absence this long unprecedented. Price had opted not to postpone his visit any longer, no matter if Gef returned from his travels. As such, it should not have been too unexpected that they would go home, as it were, emptyhanded. (Well, not entirely emptyhanded. Price reported that Voirrey had transformed into "a good-looking girl of seventeen whom we found very intelligent, shy, and rather quiet." Spending time with Voirrey was indeed almost worth having to make the "hour's stiff climb up a precipitous and slippery mule track" to reach the "desolate upland" where the Irvings lived.)

Though Price felt they were owed "a few words, a little laugh, a scream, a squeak, or just a simple scratch behind the panelling," Gef provided none. The two would have been satisfied to be conked on the head if only Gef would have made himself known. By that point, Gef had been silent for a month, so this may have been asking a bit much.

Lambert returned home dejected, disappointed, and far from convinced.

Once Lambert and Price left -- the very same evening! -- Gef returned and told Jim that he had taken a vacation. He had been present during their visit but made excuses that he didn't wish to make himself known, among these that Lambert was a "doubter," one of the worst things one could be in Gef's dubious presence.

Had Lambert come on his own, there is a slight chance that Gef would have made himself known. However, he famously disliked even the notion of Price, saying that he was "the man who puts the kybosh on the spirits." This presumes that Gef either thought himself a spirit at the time or did not like his spectral pals harassed.

If anything, as made clear in their book, Price and Lambert considered that Gef might well be a fraud or surprisingly long-lived joke.

Levita's accusation was that anyone who would entertain the notion that Gef might be anything other than a hoax had no place serving the public. His wife, Lady Florence Levita nee Woodruff, and Lambert were Governors of the British Film Institute, a government body dedicated to the "object of choosing ... films of an educational and moral tendency which were suitable for exhibition to young people." That they did not select the story of Gef must only have been because a suitable film version has yet to be made.

Sir Levita wasted no time decrying Lambert's fascination with this tosh and calling him "cracked," therefore unfit for his role as Governor. Had he said this privately and offhandedly to friends, that would have been one matter. Levita did not. During a lunch on February 7, 1936, Levita tried to employ what influence he thought he had in encouraging Major William Ewart Gladstone Murray, the assistant controller of programmes at the B.B.C., to, according to the lawsuit, "remove him forthwith." Levita detailed that Lambert had fallen under Harry Price's thrall and was now an occultist who feared the "evil eye" such that he had moved three times to escape it. No evidence suggested that this detail was other than a fabrication on Levita's part in the trial or otherwise.

Gladstone Murray was not in a position to affect Lambert's career. The British Institute of Adult Education had nominated Lambert for his role. Gladstone Murray had nothing to do with them. This does not mean that he did not influence this case. Levita's suggestion of firing Lambert for private beliefs -- in Gladstone Murray's words, "very grave slander" -- shocked the man. Rather than taking this up with a higher authority, he told Lambert everything, saying later:

"I will tell Mr. Lambert personally, and he will perhaps try to get an apology, and if that apology is forthcoming the whole matter will end without any official action being taken, and the secret dossier being entered upon."

Lambert wrote to Levita, asking at that time nothing more than an apology. Levita chose, instead of apologizing, to escalate this with the B.B.C.

However, as is the case with these things, it may not have been so simple. Shortly before this tumult, a Mr. Brown had assumed a more commercial project within the Institute. Lambert disapproved of this endeavor being commercialized and especially did not care for Brown, who may have been misusing his position for financial gain -- the evidence now is scanty indeed. Still, it is enough to know that Lambert suspected it. Owing to Lambert, Brown was forced to take a month's leave then resign entirely. Lady Levita, who liked the idea of making the Institute more commercial, assumed a vendetta toward Lambert and may have chosen a talking mongoose as the instrument of her vengeance.

After Levita's and Lambert's solicitors exchanged a series of letters, Lambert issued a writ of defamation.

The chairman of the B.B.C., Ronald Collet Norman, tried to apply pressure on Lambert. Norman raised the topic of Lambert's lawsuit during a meeting of Governors, hoping to strongarm Lambert into dropping the case to prevent further embarrassing the B.B.C. John Reith, Director-General of the B.B.C., passed a "stern warning" down to Lambert's boss, Sir Stephen Tallents, who further tried to urge Lambert to drop the lawsuit. If Lambert continued, it would constitute a "serious danger that he might prejudice his position with the corporation." This action would win the jury over, as it suggested that anyone's job could be endangered by trying to defend themselves in court. It is also why the case cost Levita so much -- best to discourage these sorts of things early and well.

Reith was at this time nearly begging for a reason to be disciplined. He had a reputation of firing or demoting staff for getting divorced if he blamed them for the marriage's dissolution. He was considered a dictator, abusing whatever power he was given. The New Statesman complained that the B.B.C. was being run "on semi-military lines."

Much like the mongoose himself, the case was big news, reported internationally. One paper used the headline "B.B.C. Official alleges Madness slander; Gef the Talking Mongoose." That does nicely sum up the particulars.

We do have a surfeit of witnesses who were not related to the Irvings and who would have little benefit in lying on their behalf. Was it merely a matter of Jim Irving being so convincing that other people folded themselves into the hallucination? If we put aside the testimony of the Irvings, are we not left with evidence that more than suggests that there is something of substance beneath the surface? Had Gef given us something--more willingness to be seen and to speak, more visitations to the house--his story would be one to rival a vision of the Virgin Mary. But he was surly and capricious. Being an idol would not have suited him.

He had no message for the world other than tweaking the nose of believers and doubters alike and demanding to be left alone. Aside from existing at all, Gef performed no miracle. His wisecracks grew less funny through every iteration, and he was inclined to repeat his best lines until they were exhausting. Gef had gone out of his way to offer evidence that he didn't exist, which is an odd thing for a creature to do.

If only Gef had seen fit to testify at the trial, he could have wrapped up this whole matter in minutes, but the journey would have been far too tedious for the mongoose. Also, the courtroom was sure to be full of doubters, as that is the law's prerogative. Gef did once tell Jim, "You're looking! Stop looking! Turn your head, you bastard! I cannot stand your eyes!" He would not likely want to be in so open an area, and God be with the person who tried to get him to swear on a Bible to tell the whole truth.

Jim did once possibly (but not likely) see Gef in the open. In a letter to Captain McDonald, Jim recounted having stalked after a massive, tiger-striped, tailless Manx cat with a bulldog head whom Jim went after with a gun (though he wrote, "Personally, I am very fond of cats, and do not kill for killing's sake"). That night, Gef called out, "It was me you saw, Jim."

This creature fits no other description of Gef, even those he gave himself. This would also have been the clearest view of the beast that Jim ever had.

Mongooses, as a whole, are not oversized Manx cats. Perhaps Gef was lying about it having been him -- meaning that Doarlish Cashen has a habit of attracting unusual beasts -- or maybe Gef was much farther afield from a mongoose than anyone suspected. Though a mongoose might have struggled to fit through the walls of the Irvings' home, a Manx cat would have found it near to impossible.

There was another instance, though it might be better said that Jim conspicuously did not see Gef. He had invited some fishers from the nearby town of Peel to see if they could not hear the mongoose speaking. Soon enough after arriving, the four seemed to forget the stated reason for the fishers' presence and just got to talking among themselves until they noted that one was making motions as though he were petting something in his lap. When called on this, the man asked about Jim's "white pet cat." That man was alone in seeing it. Jim did not own a cat, no matter the color. Gef did not claim this, but who else could it have been?

In short, Jim could not provide compelling evidence to Price and Lambert. How could anyone expect that Lambert, though he wrote an article about his lack of findings and contributed to the book, would be a fervent believer? He did not even get to pet an invisible, dog-headed Manx cat.

Before the King's Bench Division of the High Court, Levita offered a series of nested defenses boiling down to: "I had not said the words attributed to me. Even if I had said them, they weren't defamatory. Even if they were, it was a private conversation. Also -- not that I am admitting I said them -- they are true."

Judge Swift and the jury were not convinced, particularly as Lambert said outright that he didn't believe in a talking mongoose. He just couldn't understand why or how the Irving family would go to the effort of making Gef up. At the trial, every jury member was given a copy of The Haunting of Cashen's Gap so that they might be best informed of the charges.

Before stating the verdict, the judge said:

"You may think it is a dreadful thing when a man in a public position, as I suppose all employees of the B.B.C. are, thinks he has been affronted and outraged and brings an action in these courts demanding redress for the wrong that has been done him, that behind his back his employers should be approached and asked to bring pressure upon him to settle the matter. Bear these things in mind when you are considering what damages should be awarded."

Sir Levita lost the case, and the court ordered him to pay the hefty sum of £7,500 (now well over half a million dollars). Lambert graciously autographed the jury's copies of his book.

This is not where the lawsuits stopped, though perhaps they ought to have. The same month that he had the ruling in his favor, Lambert returned to court with Price at his side. They sued Allied Newspapers Ltd for infringement of copyright. Allied Newspapers had arranged with Methuen, the publishers of The Haunting of Cashen's Gap, to release the book in installments in the Sunday Chronicle.

Lambert was not seeking a monetary settlement but to stop the Sunday Chronicle before they could publish his chapter in the book where he theorized how Gef came to be. Seemingly to preserve the Irvings' reputation and shield them from further mockery, though The Haunting of Cashen's Gap details by points why it could be a hoax, it grants there is enough evidence that it was a genuine (though paranormal) case. As such, he did not outright state the most straightforward and most obvious conclusion: mongooses cannot talk.

(Price did not have this tact or reason. In his Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter, published in 1936, he stated that those believing the story of Gef were "rather credulous people," which is British for "gullible suckers.")

The plaintiffs reached an agreement that the Sunday Chronicle had to publish a statement that the authors did not approve of serialization. Additionally, the Chronicle would, in the future, print extracts from the book without commentary.

Despite telling Jim once as he opened a letter, "Read it out, you fat-headed gnome!" there is copious evidence that Gef was himself literate. He read most of the books that the Irvings had on their shelves. What no one recorded -- possibly because it would be the place where it would have been recorded -- is whether Gef read The Haunting of Cashen's Gap. It is difficult to believe, if he could get his paws on a book about himself, he would not peruse it at length from his sanctum and loudly correct Price and Lambert's errors.

Owing to this case, mongooses became popular pets in England for a time. Pet stores accordingly raised their prices, though none of the new pets saw fit to regale their owners with tall tales of their Indian travels.

The B.B.C. resented this criticism pointed their way and expressed irritation that they had not been permitted to defend themselves in court, convincing Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to appoint Josiah Stamp to head the investigation. The Stamp Report concluded that the B.B.C. was innocent, even if some members had acted dishonorably. To prevent a repeat of this, the B.B.C. took up Civil Service policies rather than a "secret dossier system," something that echoed across the ocean to the United States. There were salary grades and formal job interviews instead of appointments between friends and pay contingent on toeing the right line. Public corporations could not dictate "extraneous activities" of their employees (even if these activities include divorcing an unsuitable spouse). In short, if it doesn't happen while working, it isn't your employer's business.

At the risk of overstating the importance of a mongoose, this case created a legal precedent. It changed international policy, which the Dover Demon cannot boast. Whatever else can be said of him, Gef ended up helping the working man and sufficiently embarrassed stuffed shirts acting like boors.