Why are the guards so friendly to the death row prisoner, Paul Gray? Even offering him a cup of tea and playing checkers with him. Aren't they being unusually kind to him or was this something prison guards once did in London?
A very good question, and one that I have never considered or heard brought up before! There could be a number of explanations, I think. Perhaps the guards assigned to Paul Gray were not doing anything that was out of the ordinary for the era and location, as you suggest. Maybe it was thought that by interacting with the prisoner, more information might come to light during casual conversation. Also, as Mr. Gray's crime was certainly thought of as a crime of passion, he was probably thought of as not being a threat to others, especially as there were two guards and no weapons were present.
All personal speculation, of course! However, the subject you bring up is interesting, and, perhaps we can re-open this "case" when we next view "Charlie Chan in London."
As someone who reads a lot of old true crime, I don't think it was at all unusual, at least not in Great Britain. As long as the convict seemed sane and the crime wasn't particularly horrible (such as child murder), the jailers were used to criminals and could get along well with them. I've read accounts of Dr. Crippen (very famous cause celebre in 1910, convicted of killing his wife), and his jailers were apparently quite fond of him. Same with the Frederick Bywaters-Edith Thompson murder of 1922 (they were convicted of killing Mrs Thompson's husband). The jailers were particularly friendly with Bywaters.
