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@@ -0,0 +1,7772 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of She Stands Accused, by Victor MacClure + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: She Stands Accused + +Author: Victor MacClure + +Release Date: April, 1996 [EBook #488] +Last Updated: July 29, 2012 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHE STANDS ACCUSED *** + + + + +Produced by Mike Lough + + + + + + + + + +SHE STANDS ACCUSED + + +By Victor Macclure + + +Being a Series of Accounts of the Lives and Deeds of Notorious Women, +Murderesses, Cheats, Cozeners, on whom Justice was Executed, and of +others who, Accused of Crimes, were Acquitted at least in Law; Drawn +from Authenticated Sources + + +TO RAFAEL SABATINI TO WHOSE VIRTUES AS AN AUTHOR AND AS A FRIEND THE +WRITER WISHES HIS BOOK WERE WORTHIER OF DEDICATION + + + I: INTRODUCTORY + II: A FAIR NECK FOR THE MAIDEN + III: THE COUNTESS AND THE COZENER + IV: A MODEL FOR MR HOGARTH + V: ALMOST A LADY + VI: ARSENIC A LA BRETONNE + VII: THE MERRY WIDOWS + INDEX + + + + + +I. -- INTRODUCTORY + +I had a thought to call this book Pale Hands or Fair Hands Imbrued--so +easy it is to fall into the ghastly error of facetiousness. + +Apart, however, from the desire to avoid pedant or puerile humour, +re-examination of my material showed me how near I had been to crashing +into a pitfall of another sort. Of the ladies with whose encounters with +the law I propose to deal several were assoiled of the charges +against them. Their hands, then--unless the present ruddying of female +fingernails is the revival of an old fashion--were not pink-tipped, +save, perhaps, in the way of health; nor imbrued, except in soapsuds. My +proposed facetiousness put me in peril of libel. + +Interest in the criminous doings of women is so alive and avid among +criminological writers that it is hard indeed to find material which has +not been dealt with to the point of exhaustion. Does one pick up in a +secondhand bookshop a pamphlet giving a verbatim report of a trial in +which a woman is the central figure, and does one flatter oneself that +the find is unique, and therefore providing of fresh fields, it is +almost inevitable that one will discover, or rediscover, that the case +has already been put to bed by Mr Roughead in his inimitable manner. +What a nose the man has! What noses all these rechauffeurs of crime +possess! To use a figure perhaps something unmannerly, the pigs of +Perigord, which, one hears, are trained to hunt truffles, have snouts no +keener. + +Suppose, again, that one proposes to deal with the peccancy of women +from the earliest times, it is hard to find a lady, even one whose name +has hitherto gleamed lurid in history, to whom some modern writer has +not contrived by chapter and verse to apply a coat of whitewash. + +Locusta, the poisoner whom Agrippina, wanting to kill the Emperor +Claudius by slow degrees, called into service, and whose technique Nero +admired so much that he was fain to put her on his pension list, barely +escapes the deodorant. Messalina comes up in memory. And then one +finds M. Paul Moinet, in his historical essays En Marge de l'histoire, +gracefully pleading for the lady as Messaline la calomniee--yes, and +making out a good case for her. The Empress Theodora under the pen of +a psychological expert becomes nothing more dire than a clever little +whore disguised in imperial purple. + +On the mention of poison Lucretia Borgia springs to mind. This is the +lady of whom Gibbon writes with the following ponderous falsity: + + +In the next generation the house of Este was sullied by a sanguinary and +incestuous race in the nuptials of Alfonso I with Lucretia, a bastard of +Alexander VI, the Tiberius of Christian Rome. This modern Lucretia might +have assumed with more propriety the name of Messalina, since the woman +who can be guilty, who can even be accused, of a criminal intercourse +with a father and two brothers must be abandoned to all the +licentiousness of a venal love. + + +That, if the phrase may be pardoned, is swatting a butterfly with a +sledge-hammer! Poor little Lucretia, described by the excellent M. +Moinet as a "bon petit coeur," is enveloped in the political ordure +slung by venal pamphleteers at the masterful men of her race. My friend +Rafael Sabatini, than whom no man living has dug deeper into Borgia +history, explains the calumniation of Lucretia in this fashion: Adultery +and promiscuous intercourse were the fashion in Rome at the time of +Alexander VI. Nobody thought anything of them. And to have accused the +Borgia girl, or her relatives, of such inconsiderable lapses would have +been to evoke mere shrugging. But incest, of course, was horrible. The +writers paid by the party antagonistic to the Borgia growth in power +therefore slung the more scurrile accusation. But there is, in truth, +just about as much foundation for the charge as there is for the other, +that Lucretia was a poisoner. The answer to the latter accusation, says +my same authority, may take the form of a question: WHOM DID LUCRETIA +POISON? As far as history goes, even that written by the Borgia enemies, +the reply is, NOBODY! + +Were one content, like Gibbon, to take one's history like snuff there +would be to hand a mass of caliginous detail with which to cause +shuddering in the unsuspecting reader. But in mere honesty, if in +nothing else, it behoves the conscientious writer to examine the +sources of his information. The sources may be--they too frequently +are--contaminated by political rancour and bias, and calumnious +accusation against historical figures too often is founded on mere envy. +And then the rechauffeurs, especially where rechauffage is made from +one language to another, have been apt (with a mercenary desire to +give their readers as strong a brew as possible) to attach the darkest +meanings to the words they translate. In this regard, and still apropos +the Borgias, I draw once again on Rafael Sabatini for an example of what +I mean. Touching the festivities celebrating Lucretia's wedding in the +Vatican, the one eyewitness whose writing remains, Gianandrea Boccaccio, +Ferrarese ambassador, in a letter to his master says that amid singing +and dancing, as an interlude, a "worthy" comedy was performed. The +diarist Infessura, who was not there, takes it upon himself to describe +the comedy as "lascivious." Lascivious the comedies of the time commonly +were, but later writers, instead of drawing their ideas from the +eyewitness, prefer the dark hints of Infessura, and are persuaded that +the comedy, the whole festivity, was "obscene." Hence arises the +notion, so popular, that the second Borgia Pope delighted in shows which +anticipated those of the Folies Bergere, or which surpassed the danse du +ventre in lust-excitation. + +A statue was made by Guglielmo della Porta of Julia Farnese, Alexander's +beautiful second mistress. It was placed on the tomb of her brother +Alessandro (Pope Paul III). A Pope at a later date provided the lady, +portrayed in 'a state of nature,' with a silver robe--because, say +the gossips, the statue was indecent. Not at all: it was to prevent +recurrence of an incident in which the sculptured Julia took a static +part with a German student afflicted with sex-mania. + +I become, however, a trifle excursive, I think. If I do the blame lies +on those partisan writers to whom I have alluded. They have a way of +leading their incautious latter-day brethren up the garden. They hint at +flesh-eating lilies by the pond at the path's end, and you find nothing +more prone to sarcophagy than harmless primulas. In other words, the +beetle-browed Lucretia, with the handy poison-ring, whom they promise +you turns out to be a blue-eyed, fair-haired, rather yielding little +darling, ultimately an excellent wife and mother, given to piety and +good works, used in her earlier years as a political instrument by +father and brother, and these two no worse than masterful and ambitious +men employing the political technique common to their day and age. + + + +II + +Messalina, Locusta, Lucretia, Theodora, they step aside in this +particular review of peccant women. Cleopatra, supposed to have poisoned +slaves in the spirit of scientific research, or perhaps as punishment +for having handed her the wrong lipstick, also is set aside. It were +supererogatory to attempt dealing with the ladies mentioned in the Bible +and the Apocrypha, such as Jael, who drove the nail into the head of +Sisera, or Judith, who cut off the head of Holofernes. Their stories are +plainly and excellently told in the Scriptural manner, and the adding +of detail would be mere fictional exercise. Something, perhaps, might +be done for them by way of deducing their characters and physical +shortcomings through examination of their deeds and motives--but this +may be left to psychiatrists. There is room here merely for a soupcon of +psychology--just as much, in fact, as may afford the writer an easy turn +from one plain narrative to another. You will have no more of it than +amounts, say, to the pinch of fennel that should go into the sauce for +mackerel. + +Toffana, who in Italy supplied poison to wives aweary of their husbands +and to ladies beginning to find their lovers inconvenient, and who thus +at second hand murdered some six hundred persons, has her attractions +for the criminological writer. The bother is that so many of them have +found it out. The scanty material regarding her has been turned over so +often that it has become somewhat tattered, and has worn rather thin +for refashioning. The same may be said for Hieronyma Spara, a direct +poisoner and Toffana's contemporary. + +The fashion they set passed to the Marquise de Brinvilliers, and she, +with La Vigoureux and La Voisin, has been written up so often that the +task of finding something new to say of her and her associates looks far +too formidable for a man as lethargic as myself. + +In the abundance of material that criminal history provides about women +choice becomes difficult. There is, for example, a plethora of women +poisoners. Wherever a woman alone turns to murder it is a hundred to one +that she will select poison as a medium. This at first sight may seem a +curious fact, but there is for it a perfectly logical explanation, upon +which I hope later to touch briefly. The concern of this book, however, +is not purely with murder by women, though murder will bulk largely. +Swindling will be dealt with, and casual allusion made to other crimes. + +But take for the moment the women accused or convicted of poisoning. +What an array they make! What monsters of iniquity many of them +appear! Perhaps the record, apart from those set up by Toffana and the +Brinvilliers contingent, is held by the Van der Linden woman of Leyden, +who between 1869 and 1885 attempted to dispose of 102 persons, succeeded +with no less than twenty-seven, and rendered at least forty-five +seriously ill. Then comes Helene Jegado, of France, who, according to +one account, with two more working years (eighteen instead of sixteen), +contrived to envenom twenty-six people, and attempted the lives of +twelve more. On this calculation she fails by one to reach the der +Linden record, but, even reckoning the two extra years she had to work +in, since she made only a third of the other's essays, her bowling +average may be said to be incomparably better. + +Our own Mary Ann Cotton, at work between 1852 and 1873, comes in third, +with twenty-four deaths, at least known, as her bag. Mary Ann operated +on a system of her own, and many of her victims were her own children. +She is well worth the lengthier consideration which will be given her in +later pages. + +Anna Zwanziger, the earlier 'monster' of Bavaria, arrested in 1809, was +an amateur compared with those three. + +Mrs Susannah Holroyd, of Ashton-under-Lyne, charged in September of 1816 +at the Lancashire Assizes with the murder by poison of her husband, +her own son, and the infant child of Anna Newton, a lodger of hers, was +nurse to illegitimate children. She was generally suspected of having +murdered several of her charges, but no evidence, as far as I can learn, +was brought forward to give weight to the suspicion at her trial. Then +there were Mesdames Flanagan and Higgins, found guilty, at Liverpool +Assizes in February 1884, of poisoning Thomas Higgins, husband of the +latter of the accused, by the administration of arsenic. The ladies +were sisters, living together in Liverpool. With them in the house in +Skirvington Street were Flanagan's son John, Thomas Higgins and his +daughter Mary, Patrick Jennings and his daughter Margaret. + +John Flanagan died in December 1880. His mother drew the insurance +money. Next year Thomas Higgins married the younger of the sisters, and +in the year following Mary Higgins, his daughter, died. Her stepmother +drew the insurance money. The year after that Margaret Jennings, +daughter of the lodger, died. Once again insurance money was drawn, this +time by both sisters. + +Thomas Higgins passed away that same year in a house to which what +remained of the menage had removed. He was on the point of being buried, +as having died of dysentery due to alcoholism, when the suspicions of +his brother led the coroner to stop the funeral. The brother had heard +word of insurance on the life of Thomas. A post-mortem revealed the fact +that Thomas had actually died of arsenic poisoning; upon which discovery +the bodies of John Flanagan, Mary Higgins, and Margaret Jennings were +exhumed for autopsy, which revealed arsenic poisoning in each case. The +prisoners alone had attended the deceased in the last illnesses. Theory +went that the poison had been obtained by soaking fly-papers. Mesdames +Flanagan and Higgins were executed at Kirkdale Gaol in March of 1884. + +Now, these are two cases which, if only minor in the wholesale +poisoning line when compared with the Van der Linden, Jegado, and Cotton +envenomings, yet have their points of interest. In both cases the guilty +were so far able to banish "all trivial fond records" as to dispose of +kindred who might have been dear to them: Mrs Holroyd of husband and +son, with lodger's daughter as makeweight; the Liverpool pair of nephew, +husband, stepdaughter (or son, brother-in-law, and stepniece, according +to how you look at it), with again the unfortunate daughter of a +lodger thrown in. If they "do things better on the Continent"--speaking +generally and ignoring our own Mary Ann--there is yet temptation to +examine the lesser native products at length, but space and the scheme +of this book prevent. In the matter of the Liverpool Locustas there is +an engaging speculation. It was brought to my notice by Mr Alan Brock, +author of By Misadventure and Further Evidence. Just how far did the use +of flypapers by Flanagan and Higgins for the obtaining of arsenic serve +as an example to Mrs Maybrick, convicted of the murder of her husband in +the same city five years later? + +The list of women poisoners in England alone would stretch interminably. +If one were to confine oneself merely to those employing arsenic the +list would still be formidable. Mary Blandy, who callously slew her +father with arsenic supplied her by her lover at Henley-on-Thames in +1751, has been a subject for many criminological essayists. That she has +attracted so much attention is probably due to the double fact that she +was a girl in a very comfortable way of life, heiress to a fortune of +L10,000, and that contemporary records are full and accessible. But +there is nothing essentially interesting about her case to make it +stand out from others that have attracted less notice in a literary way. +Another Mary, of a later date, Edith Mary Carew, who in 1892 was found +guilty by the Consular Court, Yokohama, of the murder of her husband +with arsenic and sugar of lead, was an Englishwoman who might have given +Mary Blandy points in several directions. + +When we leave the arsenical-minded and seek for cases where other +poisons were employed there is still no lack of material. There is, for +example, the case of Sarah Pearson and the woman Black, who were tried +at Armagh in June 1905 for the murder of the old mother of the latter. +The old woman, Alice Pearson (Sarah was her daughter-in-law), was +in possession of small savings, some forty pounds, which aroused the +cupidity of the younger women. Their first attempt at murder was with +metallic mercury. It rather failed, and the trick was turned by means of +three-pennyworth of strychnine, bought by Sarah and mixed with the old +lady's food. The murder might not have been discovered but for the fact +that Sarah, who had gone to Canada, was arrested in Montreal for some +other offence, and made a confession which implicated her husband and +Black. A notable point about the case is the amount of metallic mercury +found in the old woman's body: 296 grains--a record. + +Having regard to the condition of life in which these Irishwomen lived, +there is nothing, to my mind, in the fact that they murdered for forty +pounds to make their crime more sordid than that of Mary Blandy. + +Take, again, the case of Mary Ansell, the domestic servant, who, at +Hertford Assizes in June 1899, was found guilty of the murder of her +sister, Caroline, by the administration of phosphorus contained in a +cake. Here the motive for the murder was the insurance made by Ansell +upon the life of her sister, a young woman of weak intellect confined +in Leavesden Asylum, Watford. The sum assured was only L22 10s. If Mary +Blandy poisoned her father in order to be at liberty to marry her lover, +Cranstoun, and to secure the fortune Cranstoun wanted with her, wherein +does she shine above Mary Ansell, a murderess who not only poisoned her +sister, but nearly murdered several of her sister's fellow-inmates of +the asylum, and all for twenty odd pounds? Certainly not in being less +sordid, certainly not in being more 'romantic.' + +There is, at root, no case of murder proved and accepted as such which +does not contain its points of interest for the criminological writer. +There is, indeed, many a case, not only of murder but of lesser +crime, that has failed to attract a lot of attention, but that yet, +in affording matter for the student of crime and criminal psychology, +surpasses others which, very often because there has been nothing of +greater public moment at the time, were boomed by the Press into the +prominence of causes celebres. + +There is no need then, after all, for any crime writer who wants to +fry a modest basket of fish to mourn because Mr Roughead, Mr. Beaufroy +Barry, Mr Guy Logan, Miss Tennyson Jesse, Mr Leonard R. Gribble, and +others of his estimable fellows seem to have swiped all the sole and +salmon. It may be a matter for envy that Mr Roughead, with his uncanny +skill and his gift in piquant sauces, can turn out the haddock and hake +with all the delectability of sole a la Normande. The sigh of envy will +merge into an exhalation of joy over the artistry of it. And one may +turn, wholeheartedly and inspired, to see what can be made of one's own +catch of gudgeon. + + + +III. + +Kipling's line about the female of the species has been quoted, +particularly as a text for dissertation on the female criminal, perhaps +rather too often. There is always a temptation to use the easy gambit. + +It is quite probable that there are moments in a woman's life when she +does become more deadly than the male. The probability is one which no +man of age and experience will lack instance for making a fact. Without +seeking to become profound in the matter I will say this: it is but +lightly as compared with a man that one need scratch a woman to come on +the natural creature. + +Now, your natural creature, not inhibited by reason, lives by theft, +murder, and dissimulation. It lives, even as regards the male, but for +one purpose: to continue its species. Enrage a woman, then, or frighten +her into the natural creature, and she will discard all those petty +rules invented by the human male for his advantage over, and his safety +from, the less disciplined members of the species. All that stuff about +'honour,' 'Queensberry rules,' 'playing the game,' and what not will go +by the board. And she will fight you with tooth and talon, with lies, +with blows below the belt--metaphorically, of course. + +It may well be that you have done nothing more than hurt her pride--the +civilized part of her. But instinctively she will fight you as the +mother animal, either potentially or in being. It will not occur to her +that she is doing so. Nor will it occur to you. But the fact that she is +fighting at all will bring it about, for fighting to any female animal +means defence of her young. She may not have any young in being. That +does not affect the case. She will fight for the ova she carries, for +the ova she has yet to develop. Beyond all reason, deep, instinct deep, +within her she is the carrier of the race. This instinct is so profound +that she will have no recollection in a crisis of the myriads of her +like, but will think of herself as the race's one chance to persist. +Dangerous? Of course she's dangerous--as dangerous as Nature! Just as +dangerous, just as self-centred, as in its small way is that vegetative +organism the volvox, which, when food is scarce and the race is +threatened, against possible need of insemination, creates separate +husband cells to starve in clusters, while 'she' hogs all the +food-supply for the production of eggs. + +This small flight into biology is made merely for the dim light it may +cast on the Kipling half-truth. It is not made to explain why women +criminals are more deadly, more cruel, more deeply lost in turpitude, +than their male colleagues. But it may help to explain why so many +crime-writers, following Lombroso, THINK the female more deadly. + +There is something so deeply shocking in the idea of a woman being other +than kind and good, something so antagonistic to the smug conception +of Eve as the "minist'ring angel, thou," that leaps to extremes in +expression are easy. + +A drunken woman, however, and for example, is not essentially more +degraded than a drunken man. This in spite of popular belief. A +nymphomaniac is not essentially more degraded than a brothel-haunting +male. It may be true that moral sense decays more quickly in a woman +than in a man, that the sex-ridden or drink-avid woman touches the deeps +of degradation more quickly, but the reasons for this are patent. They +are economic reasons usually, and physical, and not adherent to any +inevitably weaker moral fibre in the woman. + +Women as a rule have less command of money than men. If they earn what +they spend they generally have to seek their satisfactions cheaply; and, +of course, since their powers of resistance to the debilitating effects +of alcohol are commonly less than those of men, they more readily lose +physical tone. With loss of health goes loss of earning power, loss of +caste. The descent, in general, must be quicker. It is much the same in +nymphomania. Unless the sex-avid woman has a decent income, such as +will provide her with those means whereby women preserve the effect of +attractiveness, she must seek assuagement of her sex-torment with men +less and less fastidious. + +But it is useless and canting to say that peccant women are worse than +men. If we are kind we say so merely because we are more apprehensive +for them. Safe women, with but rare exceptions, are notably callous +about their sisters astray, and the "we" I have used must be taken +generally to signify men. We see the danger for erring women, danger +economic and physical. Thinking in terms of the phrase that "a woman's +place is the home," we wonder what will become of them. We wonder +anxiously what man, braver or less fastidious than ourselves, will +accept the burden of rescuing them, give them the sanctuary of a home. +We see them as helpless, pitiable beings. We are shocked to see them +fall so low. + +There is something of this rather maudlin mentality, generally speaking, +in our way of regarding women criminals. To think, we say, that a WOMAN +should do such things! + +But why should we be more shocked by the commission of a crime by a +woman than by a man--even the cruellest of crimes? Take the male and +female in feral creation, and there is nothing to choose between them in +the matter of cruelty. The lion and the lioness both live by murder, and +until gravidity makes her slow for the chase the breeding female is by +all accounts the more dangerous. The she-bear will just as readily eat +up a colony of grubs or despoil the husbandry of the bees as will her +mate. If, then, the human animal drops the restraints imposed by law, +reverting thereby to the theft, murder, and cunning of savagery, +why should it be shocking that the female should equal the male in +callousness? Why should it be shocking should she even surpass the male? +It is quite possible that, since for physiological reasons she is nearer +to instinctive motivation than the male, she cannot help being more +ruthless once deterrent inhibition has been sloughed. But is she in fact +more dangerous, more deadly as a criminal, than the male? + +Lombroso--vide Mr Philip Beaufroy Barry in his essay on Anna +Zwanziger--tells us that some of the methods of torture employed by +criminal women are so horrible that they cannot be described without +outraging the laws of decency. Less squeamish than Lombroso or Mr +Barry, I gather aloud that the tortures have to do with the organs of +generation. But male savages in African and American Indian tribes have +a punishment for adulterous women which will match anything in that +line women have ever achieved, and men in England itself have wreaked +perverted vengeance on women in ways indescribable too. Though it may +be granted that pain inflicted through the genitals is particularly +sickening, pain is pain all over the body, and must reach what might be +called saturation-point wherever inflicted. And as regards the invention +of sickening punishment we need go no farther afield in search for +ingenuity than the list of English kings. Dirty Jamie the Sixth of +Scotland and First of England, under mask of retributive justice, could +exercise a vein of cruelty that might have turned a Red Indian green +with envy. Moreover, doesn't our word expressing cruelty for cruelty's +sake derive from the name of a man--the Marquis de Sade? + +I am persuaded that the reason why so many women murderers have made +use of poison in their killings is primarily a simple one, a matter of +physique. The average murderess, determined on the elimination of, for +example, a husband, must be aware that in physical encounter she would +have no chance. Then, again, there is in women an almost inborn aversion +to the use of weapons. Once in a way, where the murderess was of +Amazonian type, physical means have been employed for the slaying. + +In this regard Kate Webster, who in 1879 at Richmond murdered and +dismembered Mrs Julia Thomas, springs to mind. She was, from all +accounts, an exceedingly virile young woman, strong as a pony, and with +a devil of a temper. Mr Elliot O'Donnell, dealing with her in his essay +in the "Notable British Trials" series, seems to be rather at a +loss, considering her lack of physical beauty, to account for her +attractiveness to men and to her own sex. But there is no need to +account for it. Such a thing is no phenomenon. + +I myself, sitting in a taberna in a small Spanish port, was once +pestered by a couple of British seamen to interpret for them in their +approaches to the daughter of the house. This woman, who had a voice +like a raven, seemed able to give quick and snappy answers to the chaff +by frequenters of the taberna. Few people in the day-time, either men +or women, would pass the house if 'Fina happened to be showing without +stopping to have a word with her. She was not at all gentle in manner, +but children ran to her. And yet, without being enormously fat, 'Fina +must have weighed close on fifteen stone. She had forearms and biceps +like a coal-heaver's. She was black-haired, heavy-browed, squish-nosed, +moled, and swarthy, and she had a beard and moustache far beyond the +stage of incipiency. Yet those two British seamen, fairly decent men, +neither drunk nor brutish, could not have been more attracted had 'Fina +had the beauty of the Mona Lisa herself. I may add that there were other +women handy and that the seamen knew of them. + +This in parenthesis, I hope not inappropriately. + +Where the selected victim, or victims, is, or are, feeble-bodied you +will frequently find the murderess using physical means to her end. +Sarah Malcolm, whose case will form one of the chief features of this +volume, is an instance in point. Marguerite Diblanc, who strangled +Mme Reil in the latter's house in Park Lane on a day in April 1871, +is another. Amelia Dyer, the baby-farmer, also strangled her charges. +Elizabeth Brownrigg (1767) beat the feeble Mary Clifford to death. I do +not know that great physical difference existed to the advantage of the +murderess between her and her older victim, Mrs Phoebe Hogg, who, with +her baby, was done to death by Mrs Pearcy in October 1890, but the fact +that Mrs Hogg had been battered about the head, and that the head had +been almost severed from the body, would seem to indicate that the +murderess was the stronger of the two women. The case of Belle Gunness +(treated by Mr George Dilnot in his Rogues March[1]) might be cited. +Fat, gross-featured, far from attractive though she was, her victims +were all men who had married or had wanted to marry her. Mr Dilnot +says these victims "almost certainly numbered more than a hundred." She +murdered for money, using chloral to stupefy, and an axe for the actual +killing. She herself was slain and burned, with her three children, by +a male accomplice whom she was planning to dispose of, he having arrived +at the point of knowing too much. 1907 was the date of her death at La +Porte, U.S.A. + +It occurs when the female killer happens to be dramatical-minded that +she will use a pistol. Mme Weissmann-Bessarabo, who, with her daughter, +shot her husband in Paris (August 1920), is of this kind. She and the +daughter, Paule-Jacques, seem to have seen themselves as wild, wild +women from the Mexico where they had sometime lived, and were always +flourishing revolvers. + +I would say that the use of poison so much by women murderers has +reason, first, in the lack of physique for violent methods, but I would +put alongside that reason this other, that women poisoners usually have +had a handy proximity to their victims. They have had contact with their +victims in an attendant capacity. I have a suspicion, moreover, that a +good number of women poisoners actually chose the medium as THE KINDEST +WAY. Women, and I might add not a few men, who would be terribly shocked +by sight or news of a quick but violent death, can contemplate with +relative placidity a lingering and painful fatal illness. Propose to a +woman the destruction of a mangy stray cat or of an incurably diseased +dog by means of a clean, well-placed shot, and the chances are that she +will shudder. But--no lethal chamber being available--suggest poison, +albeit unspecified, and the method will more readily commend itself. +This among women with no murderous instincts whatever. + +I have a fancy also that in some cases of murder by poison, not only by +women, the murderer has been able to dramatize herself or himself ahead +as a tender, noble, and self-sacrificing attendant upon the victim. +No need here, I think, to number the cases where the ministrations of +murderers to their victims have aroused the almost tearful admiration of +beholders. + +I shall say nothing of the secrecy of the poison method, of the chance +which still exists, in spite of modern diagnosis, that the illness +induced by it will pass for one arising from natural causes. This is +ground traversed so often that its features are as familiar as those of +one's own house door. Nor shall I say anything of the ease with which, +even in these days, the favourite poison of the woman murderer, arsenic, +can be obtained in one form or another. + +One hears and reads, however, a great deal about the sense of power +which gradually steals upon the poisoner. It is a speculation upon +which I am not ready to argue. There is, indeed, chapter and verse for +believing that poisoners have arrived at a sense of omnipotence. But if +Anna Zwanziger (here I quote from Mr Philip Beaufroy Barry's essay on +her in his Twenty Human Monsters), "a day or two before the execution, +smiled and said it was a fortunate thing for many people that she was to +die, for had she lived she would have continued to poison men and women +indiscriminately"; if, still according to the same writer, "when the +arsenic was found on her person after the arrest, she seized the packet +and gloated over the powder, looking at it, the chronicler assures us, +as a woman looks at her lover"; and if, "when the attendants asked her +how she could have brought herself calmly to kill people with whom she +was living--whose meals and amusements she shared--she replied that +their faces were so stupidly healthy and happy that she desired to see +them change into faces of pain and despair," I will say this in no way +goes to prove the woman criminal to be more deadly than the male. This +ghoulish satisfaction, with the conjectured feeling of omnipotence, is +not peculiar to the woman poisoner. Neill Cream had it. Armstrong had +it. Wainewright, with his reason for poisoning Helen Abercrombie--"Upon +my soul I don't know, unless it was that her legs were too thick"--is +quite on a par with Anna Zwanziger. The supposed sense of power does not +even belong exclusively to the poisoner. Jack the Ripper manifestly had +something of the same idea about his use of the knife. + +As a monster in mass murder against Mary Ann Cotton I will set you +the Baron Gilles de Rais, with his forty flogged, outraged, obscenely +mutilated and slain children in one of his castles alone--his total +of over two hundred children thus foully done to death. I will set you +Gilles against anything that can be brought forward as a monster in +cruelty among women. + +Against the hypocrisy of Helene Jegado I will set you the sanctimonious +Dr Pritchard, with the nauseating entry in his diary (quoted by Mr +Roughead) recording the death of the wife he so cruelly murdered: + + +March 1865, 18, Saturday. Died here at 1 A.M. Mary Jane, my own beloved +wife, aged thirty-eight years. No torment surrounded her bedside [the +foul liar!]--but like a calm peaceful lamb of God passed Minnie away. +May God and Jesus, Holy Ghost, one in three, welcome Minnie! Prayer on +prayer till mine be o'er; everlasting love. Save us, Lord, for Thy dear +Son! + + +Against the mean murders of Flanagan and Higgins I will set you Mr +Seddon and Mr Smith of the "brides in the bath." + + + +IV + +I am conscious that in arguing against the "more deadly than the male" +conception of the woman criminal I am perhaps doing my book no great +service. It might work for its greater popularity if I argued the +other way, making out that the subjects I have chosen were monsters +of brutality, with arms up to the shoulders in blood, that they were +prodigies of iniquity and cunning, without bowels, steeped in hypocrisy, +facinorous to a degree never surpassed or even equalled by evil men. +It may seem that, being concerned to strip female crime of the lurid +preeminence so commonly given it, I have contrived beforehand to rob +the ensuing pages of any richer savour they might have had. But I don't, +myself, think so. + +If these women, some of them, are not greater monsters than their male +analogues, monsters they still remain. If they are not, others of them, +greater rogues and cheats than males of like criminal persuasion, cheats +and rogues they are beyond cavil. The truth of the matter is that I +loathe the use of superlatives in serious works on crime. I will read, I +promise you, anything decently written in a fictional way about 'master' +crooks, 'master' killers, kings, queens, princes, and a whole peerage of +crime, knowing very well that never yet has a 'master' criminal had +any cleverness but what a novelist gave him. But in works on crime that +pretend to seriousness I would eschew, pace Mr Leonard R. Gribble, all +'queens' and other honorifics in application to the lost men and women +with whom such works must treat. There is no romance in crime. Romance +is life gilded, life idealized. Crime is never anything but a sordid +business, demonstrably poor in reward to its practitioners. + +But, sordid or not, crime has its human interest. Its practitioners are +still part of life, human beings, different from law-abiding humanity by +God-alone-knows-what freak of heredity or kink in brain convolution. I +will not ask the reader, as an excuse for my book, to view the criminal +with the thought attributed to John Knox: + +"There, but for the Grace of God, goes ----" Because the phrase might as +well be used in contemplation of John D. Rockefeller or Augustus John or +Charlie Chaplin or a man with a wooden leg. I do not ask that you should +pity these women with whom I have to deal, still less that you should +contemn them. Something between the two will serve. I write the book +because I am interested in crime myself, and in the hope that you'll +like the reading as much as I like the writing of it. + + + + +II. -- A FAIR NECK FOR THE MAIDEN + +In her long history there can have been few mornings upon which +Edinburgh had more to offer her burghers in the way of gossip and rumour +than on that of the 1st of July, 1600. In this 'gate' and that 'gate,' +as one may imagine, the douce citizens must have clustered and broke +and clustered, like eddied foam on a spated burn. By conjecture, as they +have always been a people apt to take to the streets upon small occasion +as on large, it is not unlikely that the news which was to drift into +the city some thirty-five days later--namely, that an attempt on the +life of his Sacred Majesty, the High and Mighty (and Rachitic) Prince, +James the Sixth of Scotland, had been made by the brothers Ruthven in +their castle of Gowrie--it is not unlikely that the first buzz of the +Gowrie affair caused no more stir, for the time being at any rate, than +the word which had come to those Edinburgh folk that fine morning of +the first day in July. The busier of the bodies would trot from knot +to knot, anxious to learn and retail the latest item of fact and fancy +regarding the tidings which had set tongues going since the early hours. +Murder, no less. + +If the contemporary juridical records, even what is left of them, be +a criterion, homicide in all its oddly named forms must have been a +commonplace to those couthie lieges of his Slobberiness, King Jamie. It +is hard to believe that murder, qua murder, could have been of much more +interest to them than the fineness of the weather. We have it, however, +on reasonable authority, that the murder of the Laird of Warriston did +set the people of "Auld Reekie" finely agog. + +John Kincaid, of Warriston, was by way of being one of Edinburgh's +notables. Even at that time his family was considered to be old. He +derived from the Kincaids of Kincaid, in Stirlingshire, a family then +in possession of large estates in that county and here and there about +Lothian. His own property of Warriston lay on the outskirts of Edinburgh +itself, just above a mile from Holyroodhouse. Notable among his +possessions was one which he should, from all accounts, dearly have +prized, but which there are indications he treated with some contumely. +This was his wife, Jean Livingstone, a singularly beautiful girl, no +more than twenty-one years of age at the time when this story opens. +Jean, like her husband, was a person of good station indeed. She was a +daughter of the Laird of Dunipace, John Livingstone, and related through +him and her mother to people of high consideration in the kingdom. + +News of the violent death of John Kincaid, which had taken place soon +after midnight, came quickly to the capital. Officers were at once +dispatched. Small wonder that the burghers found exercise for their +clacking tongues from the dawning, for the lovely Jean was taken by the +officers 'red-hand,' as the phrase was, for the murder of her husband. +With her to Edinburgh, under arrest, were brought her nurse and two +other serving-women. + +To Pitcairn, compiler of Criminal Trials in Scotland, from indications +in whose account of the murder I have been set on the hunt for material +concerning it, I am indebted for the information that Jean and her women +were taken red-hand. But I confess being at a loss to understand it. +Warriston, as indicated, stood a good mile from Edinburgh. The informant +bringing word of the deed to town, even if he or she covered the +distance on horseback, must have taken some time in getting the proper +authorities to move. Then time would elapse in quantity before the +officers dispatched could be at the house. They themselves could hardly +have taken the Lady Warriston red-hand, because in the meantime the +actual perpetrator of the murder, a horse-boy named Robert Weir, in the +employ of Jean's father, had made good his escape. As a fact, he was +not apprehended until some time afterwards, and it would seem, from the +records given in the Pitcairn Trials, that it was not until four years +later that he was brought to trial. + +A person taken red-hand, it would be imagined, would be one found in +such circumstances relating to a murder as would leave no doubt as to +his or her having "airt and pairt" in the crime. Since it must have +taken the officers some time to reach the house, one of two things must +have happened. Either some officious person or persons, roused by the +killing, which, as we shall see, was done with no little noise, must +have come upon Jean and her women immediately upon the escape of Weir, +and have detained all four until the arrival of the officers, or else +Jean and her women must have remained by the dead man in terror, +and have blurted out the truth of their complicity when the officers +appeared. + +Available records are irritatingly uninformative upon the arrest of the +Lady Warriston. Pitcairn himself, in 1830, talks of his many "fruitless +searches" through the Criminal Records of the city of Edinburgh, the +greater part of which are lost, and confesses his failure to come on any +trace of the actual proceedings in this case, or in the case of Robert +Weir. For this reason the same authority is at a loss to know whether +the prisoners were immediately put to the knowledge of an assize, being +taken "red-hand," without the formality of being served a "dittay" +(as who should say an indictment), as in ordinary cases, before the +magistrates of Edinburgh, or else sent for trial before the baron +bailie of the regality of Broughton, in whose jurisdiction Warriston was +situated. + +It would perhaps heighten the drama of the story if it could be learned +what Jean and her women did between the time of the murder and the +arrest. It would seem, however, that the Lady Warriston had some +intention of taking flight with Weir. One is divided between an idea +that the horse-boy did not want to be hampered and that he was ready for +self-sacrifice. "You shall tarry still," we read that he said; "and if +this matter come not to light you shall say, 'He died in the gallery,' +and I shall return to my master's service. But if it be known I shall +fly, and take the crime on me, and none dare pursue you!" + +It was distinctly a determined affair of murder. The loveliness of Jean +Livingstone has been so insisted upon in many Scottish ballads,[2] and +her conduct before her execution was so saintly, that one cannot help +wishing, even now, that she could have escaped the scaffold. But there +is no doubt that, incited by the nurse, Janet Murdo, she set about +having her husband killed with a rancour which was very grim indeed. + + + "She has twa weel-made feet; + Far better is her hand; + She's jimp about the middle + As ony willy wand." + + +The reason for Jean's hatred of her husband appears in the dittay +against Robert Weir. "Forasmuch," it runs, translated to modern terms, + + +as whilom Jean Livingstone, Goodwife of Warriston, having conceived +a deadly rancour, hatred, and malice against whilom John Kincaid, of +Warriston, for the alleged biting of her in the arm, and striking her +divers times, the said Jean, in the month of June, One Thousand Six +Hundred Years, directed Janet Murdo, her nurse, to the said Robert +[Weir], to the abbey of Holyroodhouse, where he was for the time, +desiring him to come down to Warriston, and speak with her, anent the +cruel and unnatural taking away of her said husband's life. + + +And there you have it. If the allegation against John Kincaid was true +it does not seem that he valued his lovely wife as he ought to have +done. The striking her "divers times" may have been an exaggeration. +It probably was. Jean and her women would want to show there had been +provocation. (In a ballad he is accused of having thrown a plate at +dinner in her face.) But there is a naivete, a circumstantial air, about +the "biting of her in the arm" which gives it a sort of genuine ring. +How one would like to come upon a contemporary writing which would throw +light on the character of John Kincaid! Growing sympathy for Jean makes +one wish it could be found that Kincaid deserved all he got. + +Here and there in the material at hand indications are to be found that +the Lady of Warriston had an idea she might not come so badly off on +trial. But even if the King's Majesty had been of clement disposition, +which he never was, or if her judges had been likely to be moved by her +youth and beauty, there was evidence of such premeditation, such fixity +of purpose, as would no doubt harden the assize against her. + +Robert Weir was in service, as I have said, with Jean Livingstone's +father, the Laird of Dunipace. It may have been that he knew Jean before +her marriage. He seems, at any rate, to have been extremely willing to +stand by her. He was fetched by the nurse several times from Holyrood to +Warriston, but failed to have speech with the lady. On the 30th of June, +however, the Lady Warriston having sent the nurse for him once again, he +did contrive to see Jean in the afternoon, and, according to the dittay, +"conferred with her, concerning the cruel, unnatural, and abominable +murdering of the said whilom John Kincaid." + +The upshot of the conference was that Weir was secretly led to a "laigh" +cellar in the house of Warriston, to await the appointed time for the +execution of the murder. + +Weir remained in the cellar until midnight. Jean came for him at that +hour and led him up into the hall. Thence the pair proceeded to the room +in which John Kincaid was lying asleep. It would appear that they took +no great pains to be quiet in their progress, for on entering the room +they found Kincaid awakened "be thair dyn." + +I cannot do better at this point than leave description of the murder as +it is given in the dittay against Weir. The editor of Pitcairn's Trials +remarks in a footnote to the dittay that "the quaintness of the ancient +style even aggravates the horror of the scene." As, however, the ancient +style may aggravate the reader unacquainted with Scots, I shall English +it, and give the original rendering in a footnote: + + +And having entered within the said chamber, perceiving the said whilom +John to be wakened out of his sleep by their din, and to pry over his +bed-stock, the said Robert came then running to him, and most cruelly, +with clenched fists, gave him a deadly and cruel stroke on the jugular +vein, wherewith he cast the said whilom John to the ground, from out his +bed; and thereafter struck him on his belly with his feet; whereupon he +gave a great cry. And the said Robert, fearing the cry should have been +heard, he thereafter, most tyrannously and barbarously, with his hand, +gripped him by the throat, or weasand, which he held fast a long time, +while [or until] he strangled him; during the which time the said John +Kincaid lay struggling and fighting in the pains of death under him. +And so the said whilom John was cruelly murdered and slain by the said +Robert.[3] + +It will be seen that Robert Weir evolved a murder technique which, +as Pitcairn points out, was to be adopted over two centuries later in +Edinburgh at the Westport by Messrs Burke and Hare. + + + +II + +Lady Warriston was found guilty, and four days after the murder, on the +5th of July, was taken to the Girth Cross of Holyrood, at the foot +of the Canongate, and there decapitated by that machine which rather +anticipated the inventiveness of Dr Guillotin--"the Maiden." At the same +time, four o'clock in the morning, Janet Murdo, the nurse, and one of +the serving-women accused with her as accomplices were burned on the +Castle Hill of the city. + +There is something odd about the early hour at which the executions took +place. The usual time for these affairs was much later in the day, and +it is probable that the sentence against Jean ran that she should be +executed towards dusk on the 4th of the month. The family of Dunipace, +however, having exerted no influence towards saving the daughter of the +house from her fate, did everything they could to have her disposed of +as secretly and as expeditiously as possible. In their zeal to have done +with the hapless girl who, they conceived, had blotted the family honour +indelibly they were in the prison with the magistrates soon after three +o'clock, quite indecent in their haste to see her on her way to the +scaffold. In the first place they had applied to have her executed at +nine o'clock on the evening of the 3rd, another unusual hour, but the +application was turned down. The main idea with them was to have Jean +done away with at some hour when the populace would not be expecting the +execution. Part of the plan for privacy is revealed in the fact of the +burning of the nurse and the "hyred woman" at four o'clock at the Castle +Hill, nearly a mile away from the Girth Cross, so--as the Pitcairn +Trials footnote says-"that the populace, who might be so early astir, +should have their attentions distracted at two opposite stations... and +thus, in some measure, lessen the disgrace of the public execution." + +If Jean had any reason to thank her family it was for securing, probably +as much on their own behalf as hers, that the usual way of execution +for women murderers should be altered in her case to beheading by "the +Maiden." Had she been of lesser rank she would certainly have been +burned, after being strangled at a stake, as were her nurse and the +serving-woman. This was the appalling fate reserved for convicted +women[4] in such cases, and on conviction even of smaller crimes. +The process was even crueller in instances where the crime had been +particularly atrocious. "The criminal," says the Pitcairn account of +such punishment, "was 'brunt quick'!" + +Altogether, the Dunipace family do not exactly shine with a good light +as concerns their treatment of the condemned girl. Her father stood +coldly aside. The quoted footnote remarks: + + +It is recorded that the Laird of Dunipace behaved with much apathy +towards his daughter, whom he would not so much as see previous to her +execution; nor yet would he intercede for her, through whose delinquency +he reckoned his blood to be for ever dishonoured. + + +Jean herself was in no mind to be hurried to the scaffold as early as +her relatives would have had her conveyed. She wanted (poor girl!) to +see the sunrise, and to begin with the magistrates granted her request. +It would appear, however, that Jean's blood-relations opposed the +concession so strongly that it was almost immediately rescinded. The +culprit had to die in the grey dark of the morning, before anyone was +likely to be astir. + +In certain directions there was not a little heart-burning about the +untimely hour at which it was manoeuvred the execution should be carried +out. The writer of a Memorial, from which this piece of information is +drawn, refrains very cautiously from mentioning the objectors by name. +But it is not difficult, from the colour of their objections, to decide +that these people belonged to the type still known in Scotland as the +'unco guid.' They saw in the execution of this fair malefactor a moral +lesson and a solemn warning which would have a salutary and uplifting +effect upon the spectators. + +"Will you," they asked the presiding dignitaries, and the +blood-relations of the hapless Jean, "deprive God's people of that +comfort which they might have in that poor woman's death? And will you +obstruct the honour of it by putting her away before the people rise out +of their beds? You do wrong in so doing; for the more public the death +be, the more profitable it shall be to many; and the more glorious, in +the sight of all who shall see it." + +But perhaps one does those worthies an injustice in attributing cant +motives to their desire that as many people as possible should see Jean +die. It had probably reached them that the Lady Warriston's repentance +had been complete, and that after conviction of her sin had come to her +her conduct had been sweet and seemly. They were of their day and +age, those people, accustomed almost daily to beheadings, stranglings, +burnings, hangings, and dismemberings. With that dour, bitter, +fire-and-brimstone religious conception which they had through Knox from +Calvin, they were probably quite sincere in their belief that the public +repentance Jean Livingstone was due to make from the scaffold would +be for the "comfort of God's people." It was not so often that justice +exacted the extreme penalty from a young woman of rank and beauty. With +"dreadful objects so familiar" in the way of public executions, it was +likely enough that pity in the commonalty was "choked with custom +of fell deeds." Something out of the way in the nature of a dreadful +object-lesson might stir the hearts of the populace and make them +conscious of the Wrath to Come. + +And Jean Livingstone did die a good death. + +The Memorial[5] which I have mentioned is upon Jean's 'conversion' in +prison. It is written by one "who was both a seer and hearer of what +was spoken [by the Lady Warriston]." The editor of the Pitcairn Trials +believes, from internal evidence, that it was written by Mr James +Balfour, colleague of Mr Robert Bruce, that minister of the Kirk who +was so contumacious about preaching what was practically a plea of the +King's innocence in the matter of the Gowrie mystery. It tells how Jean, +from being completely apathetic and callous with regard to religion or +to the dreadful situation in which she found herself through her crime, +under the patient and tender ministrations of her spiritual advisers, +arrived at complete resignation to her fate and genuine repentance for +her misdeeds. + +Her confession, as filleted from the Memorial by the Pitcairn Trials, is +as follows: + +I think I shall hear presently the pitiful and fearful cries which +he gave when he was strangled! And that vile sin which I committed +in murdering my own husband is yet before me. When that horrible and +fearful sin was done I desired the unhappy man who did it (for my own +part, the Lord knoweth I laid never my hands upon him to do him evil; +but as soon as that man gripped him and began his evil turn, so soon as +my husband cried so fearfully, I leapt out over my bed and went to the +Hall, where I sat all the time, till that unhappy man came to me and +reported that mine husband was dead), I desired him, I say, to take me +away with him; for I feared trial; albeit flesh and blood made me think +my father's moen [interest] at Court would have saved me! + + +Well, we know what the Laird of Dunipace did about it. + +"As to these women who was challenged with me," the confession goes on, + + +I will also tell my mind concerning them. God forgive the nurse, for +she helped me too well in mine evil purpose; for when I told her I was +minded to do so she consented to the doing of it; and upon Tuesday, when +the turn was done, when I sent her to seek the man who would do it, +she said, "I shall go and seek him; and if I get him not I shall seek +another! And if I get none I shall do it myself!" + + +Here the writer of the Memorial interpolates the remark, "This the nurse +also confessed, being asked of it before her death." It is a misfortune, +equalling that of the lack of information regarding the character of +Jean's husband, that there is so little about the character of the +nurse. She was, it is to be presumed, an older woman than her mistress, +probably nurse to Jean in her infancy. One can imagine her (the stupid +creature!) up in arms against Kincaid for his treatment of her "bonny +lamb," without the sense to see whither she was urging her young +mistress; blind to the consequences, but "nursing her wrath" and +striding purposefully from Warriston to Holyroodhouse on her strong +plebeian legs, not once but several times, in search of Weir! What is +known in Scotland as a 'limmer,' obviously. + +"As for the two other women," Jean continues, + + +I request that you neither put them to death nor any torture, because I +testify they are both innocent, and knew nothing of this deed before it +was done, and the mean time of doing it; and that they knew they durst +not tell, for fear; for I compelled them to dissemble. As for mine own +part, I thank my God a thousand times that I am so touched with the +sense of that sin now: for I confess this also to you, that when that +horrible murder was committed first, that I might seem to be innocent, I +laboured to counterfeit weeping; but, do what I could, I could not find +a tear. + + +Of the whole confession that last is the most revealing touch. It is +hardly just to fall into pity for Jean simply because she was young and +lovely. Her crime was a bad one, much more deliberate than many that, in +the same age, took women of lower rank in life than Jean to the crueller +end of the stake. In the several days during which she was sending for +Weir, but failing to have speech with him, she had time to review her +intention of having her husband murdered. If the nurse was the prime +mover in the plot Jean was an unrelenting abettor. It may have been +in her calculations before, as well as after, the deed itself that the +interest of her father and family at Court would save her, should the +deed have come to light as murder. Even in these days, when justice is +so much more seasoned with mercy to women murderers, a woman in Jean's +case, with such strong evidence of premeditation against her, would +only narrowly escape the hangman, if she escaped him at all. But that +confession of trying to pretend weeping and being unable to find tears +is a revelation. I can think of nothing more indicative of terror and +misery in a woman than that she should want to cry and be unable to. +Your genuinely hypocritical murderer, male as well as female, can always +work up self-pity easily and induce the streaming eye. + +It is from internal evidences such as this that one may conclude the +repentance of Jean Livingstone, as shown in her confession, to have been +sincere. There was, we are informed by the memorialist, nothing maudlin +in her conduct after condemnation. Once she got over her first obduracy, +induced, one would imagine, by the shock of seeing the realization of +what she had planned but never pictured, the murder itself, and probably +by the desertion of her by her father and kindred, her repentance was +"cheerful" and "unfeigned." They were tough-minded men, those Scots +divines who ministered to her at the last, too stern in their theology +to be misled by any pretence at finding grace. And no pretty ways of +Jean's would have deceived them. The constancy of behaviour which is +vouched for, not only by the memorialist but by other writers, stayed +with her until the axe fell. + + + +III + +"She was but a woman and a bairn, being the age of twenty-one years," +says the Memorial. But, "in the whole way, as she went to the place of +execution, she behaved herself so cheerfully as if she had been going +to her wedding, and not to her death. When she came to the scaffold, and +was carried up upon it, she looked up to 'the Maiden' with two longsome +looks, for she had never seen it before." + +The minister-memorialist, who attended her on the scaffold, says that +all who saw Jean would bear record with himself that her countenance +alone would have aroused emotion, even if she had never spoken a word. +"For there appeared such majesty in her countenance and visage, and +such a heavenly courage in her gesture, that many said, 'That woman is +ravished by a higher spirit than a man or woman's!'" + +As for the Declaration and Confession which, according to custom, Jean +made from the four corners of the scaffold, the memorialist does not +pretend to give it verbatim. It was, he says, almost in a form of words, +and he gives the sum of it thus: + + +The occasion of my coming here is to show that I am, and have been, a +great sinner, and hath offended the Lord's Majesty; especially, of the +cruel murdering of mine own husband, which, albeit I did not with mine +own hands, for I never laid mine hands upon him all the time that he was +murdering, yet I was the deviser of it, and so the committer. But my +God hath been always merciful to me, and hath given me repentance for +my sins; and I hope for mercy and grace at his Majesty's hands, for his +dear son Jesus Christ's sake. And the Lord hath brought me hither to +be an example to you, that you may not fall into the like sin as I have +done. And I pray God, for his mercy, to keep all his faithful people +from falling into the like inconvenient as I have done! And therefore I +desire you all to pray to God for me, that he would be merciful to me! + + +One wonders just how much of Jean's own words the minister-memorialist +got into this, his sum of her confession. Her speech would be coloured +inevitably by the phrasing she had caught from her spiritual advisers, +and the sum of it would almost unavoidably have something of the +memorialist's own fashion of thought. I would give a good deal to know +if Jean did actually refer to the Almighty as "the Lord's Majesty," +and hope for "grace at his Majesty's hands." I do not think I am being +oversubtle when I fancy that, if Jean did use those words, I see an +element of confusion in her scaffold confession--the trembling confusion +remaining from a lost hope. As a Scot, I have no recollection of ever +hearing the Almighty referred to as "the Lord's Majesty" or as "his +Majesty." It does not ring naturally to my ear. Nor, at the long +distance from which I recollect reading works of early Scottish divines, +can I think of these forms being used in such a context. I may be--I +very probably am--all wrong, but I have a feeling that up to the last +Jean Livingstone believed royal clemency would be shown to her, and that +this belief appears in the use of these unwonted phrases. + +However that may be, Jean's conduct seems to have been heroic and +unfaltering. She prayed, and one of her relations or friends brought "a +clean cloath" to tie over her eyes. Jean herself had prepared for this +operation, for she took a pin out of her mouth and gave it into the +friend's hand to help the fastening. The minister-memorialist, having +taken farewell of her for the last time, could not bear the prospect of +what was about to happen. He descended from the scaffold and went away. +"But she," he says, as a constant saint of God, humbled herself on her +knees, and offered her neck to the axe, laying her neck, sweetly and +graciously, in the place appointed, moving to and fro, till she got a +rest for her neck to lay in. When her head was now made fast to "the +Maiden" the executioner came behind her and pulled out her feet, that +her neck might be stretched out longer, and so made more meet for the +stroke of the axe; but she, as it was reported to me by him who saw +it and held her by the hands at this time, drew her legs twice to her +again, labouring to sit on her knees, till she should give up her spirit +to the Lord! During this time, which was long, for the axe was but +slowly loosed, and fell not down hastily, after laying of her head, her +tongue was not idle, but she continued crying to the Lord, and uttered +with a loud voice those her wonted words, "Lord Jesus, receive my +spirit! O Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, have +mercy upon me! Into thy hand, Lord, I commend my soul!" When she came to +the middle of this last sentence, and had said, "Into thy hand, Lord," +at the pronouncing of the word "Lord" the axe fell; which was diligently +marked by one of her friends, who still held her by the hand, and +reported this to me. + + + +IV + +On the 26th of June, 1604, Robert Weir, "sumtyme servande to the Laird +of Dynniepace," was brought to knowledge of an assize. He was "Dilaitit +of airt and pairt of the crewall Murthour of umqle Johnne Kincaid of +Wariestoune; committit the first of Julij, 1600 yeiris." + + +Verdict. The Assyse, all in ane voce, be the mouth of the said Thomas +Galloway, chanceller, chosen be thame, ffand, pronouncet and declairit +the said Robert Weir to be ffylit, culpable and convict of the crymes +above specifiet, mentionat in the said Dittay; and that in respect of +his Confessioun maid thairof, in Judgement. + +Sentence. The said Justice-depute, be the mouth of James Sterling, +dempster of the Court, decernit and ordainit the said Robert Weir to be +tane to ane skaffold to be fixt beside the Croce of Edinburgh, and there +to be brokin upoune ane Row,[6] quhill he be deid; and to ly thairat, +during the space of xxiiij houris. And thaireftir, his body to be tane +upon the said Row, and set up, in ane publict place, betwix the place +of Wariestoune and the toun of Leyth; and to remain thairupoune, ay and +quhill command be gevin for the buriall thairof. Quhilk was pronouncet +for dome. + + + +V + +The Memorial before mentioned is, in the original, a manuscript +belonging to the Advocates' Library of Edinburgh. A printed copy was +made in 1828, under the editorship of J. Sharpe, in the same city. +This edition contains, among other more relative matter, a reprint of +a newspaper account of an execution by strangling and burning at the +stake. The woman concerned was not the last victim in Britain of +this form of execution. The honour, I believe, belongs to one Anne +Cruttenden. The account is full of gruesome and graphic detail, but the +observer preserves quite an air of detachment: + + +IVELCHESTER: 9th May, 1765. Yesterday Mary Norwood, for poisoning her +husband, Joseph Norwood, of Axbridge, in this county [Somerset], was +burnt here pursuant to her sentence. She was brought out of the prison +about three o'clock in the afternoon, barefoot; she was covered with a +tarred cloth, made like a shift, and a tarred bonnet over her head; +and her legs, feet, and arms had likewise tar on them; the heat of +the weather melting the tar, it ran over her face, so that she made a +shocking appearance. She was put on a hurdle, and drawn on a sledge to +the place of execution, which was very near the gallows. After spending +some time in prayer, and singing a hymn, the executioner placed her on a +tar barrel, about three feet high; a rope (which was in a pulley through +the stake) was fixed about her neck, she placing it properly with her +hands; this rope being drawn extremely tight with the pulley, the tar +barrel was then pushed away, and three irons were then fastened around +her body, to confine it to the stake, that it might not drop when the +rope should be burnt. As soon as this was done the fire was immediately +kindled; but in all probability she was quite dead before the fire +reached her, as the executioner pulled her body several times whilst +the irons were fixing, which was about five minutes. There being a good +quantity of tar, and the wood in the pile being quite dry, the fire +burnt with amazing fury; notwithstanding which great part of her could +be discerned for near half an hour. Nothing could be more affecting than +to behold, after her bowels fell out, the fire flaming between her +ribs, issuing out of her ears, mouth, eyeholes, etc. In short, it was so +terrible a sight that great numbers turned their backs and screamed out, +not being able to look at it. + + + + +III: -- THE COUNTESS AND THE COZENER + +It is hardly likely when that comely but penniless young Scot Robert +Carr, of Ferniehurst, fell from his horse and broke his leg that any of +the spectators of the accident foresaw how far-reaching it would be +in its consequences. It was an accident, none the less, which in its +ultimate results was to put several of the necks craned to see it in +peril of the hangman's noose. + +That divinely appointed monarch King James the Sixth of Scotland and +First of England had an eye for manly beauty. Though he could contrive +the direst of cruelties to be committed out of his sight, the actual +spectacle of physical suffering in the human made him squeamish. Add +the two facts of the King's nature together and it may be understood +how Robert Carr, in falling from his horse that September day in the +tilt-yard of Whitehall, fell straight into his Majesty's favour. King +James himself gave orders for the disposition of the sufferer, found +lodgings for him, sent his own surgeon, and was constant in his visits +to the convalescent. Thereafter the rise of Robert Carr was meteoric. +Knighted, he became Viscount Rochester, a member of the Privy Council, +then Earl of Somerset, Knight of the Garter, all in a very few years. It +was in 1607 that he fell from his horse, under the King's nose. In 1613 +he was at the height of his power in England. + +Return we for a moment, however, to that day in the Whitehall tilt-yard. +It is related that one woman whose life and fate were to be bound with +Carr's was in the ladies' gallery. It is very probable that a second +woman, whose association with the first did much to seal Carr's doom, +was also a spectator. If Frances Howard, as we read, showed distress +over the painful mishap to the handsome Scots youth it is almost certain +that Anne Turner, with the quick eye she had for male comeliness and +her less need for Court-bred restraint, would exhibit a sympathetic +volubility. + +Frances Howard was the daughter of that famous Elizabethan seaman Thomas +Howard, Earl of Suffolk. On that day in September she would be just over +fifteen years of age. It is said that she was singularly lovely. At that +early age she was already a wife, victim of a political marriage which, +in the exercise of the ponderous cunning he called kingcraft, King James +had been at some pains to arrange. At the age of thirteen Frances had +been married to Robert Devereux, third Earl of Essex, then but a year +older than herself. The young couple had been parted at the altar, the +groom being sent travelling to complete his growth and education, and +Frances being returned to her mother and the semi-seclusion of the +Suffolk mansion at Audley End. + +Of the two women, so closely linked in fate, the second is perhaps +the more interesting study. Anne Turner was something older than the +Countess of Essex. In the various records of the strange piece of +history which is here to be dealt with there are many allusions to a +long association between the two. Almost a foster-sister relationship +seems to be implied, but actual detail is irritatingly absent. Nor is +it clear whether Mrs Turner at the time of the tilt-yard incident +had embarked on the business activities which were to make her a much +sought-after person in King James's Court. It is not to be ascertained +whether she was not already a widow at that time. We can only judge from +circumstantial evidence brought forward later. + +In 1610, at all events, Mrs Turner was well known about the Court, and +was quite certainly a widow. Her husband had been a well-known medical +man, one George Turner, a graduate of St John's College, Cambridge. He +had been a protege of Queen Elizabeth. Dying, this elderly husband of +Mistress Turner had left her but little in the way of worldly goods, +but that little the fair young widow had all the wit to turn to good +account. There was a house in Paternoster Row and a series of notebooks. +Like many another physician of his time, George Turner had been a +dabbler in more arts than that of medicine, an investigator in sciences +other than pathology. His notebooks would appear to have contained more +than remedial prescriptions for agues, fevers, and rheums. There was, +for example, a recipe for a yellow starch which, says Rafael Sabatini, +in his fine romance The Minion,[7] "she dispensed as her own invention. +This had become so widely fashionable for ruffs and pickadills that of +itself it had rendered her famous." One may believe, also, that most +of the recipes for those "perfumes, cosmetics, unguents and mysterious +powders, liniments and lotions asserted to preserve beauty where it +existed, and even to summon it where it was lacking," were derived from +the same sources. + + +There is a temptation to write of Mistress Turner as forerunner of +that notorious Mme Rachel of whom, in his volume Bad Companions,[8] Mr +Roughead has said the final and pawky word. Mme Rachel, in the middle of +the nineteenth century, founded her fortunes as a beauty specialist (?) +on a prescription for a hair-restorer given her by a kindly doctor. +She also 'invented' many a lotion and unguent for the preservation and +creation of beauty. But at about this point analogy stops. Both Rachel +and her forerunner, Anne Turner, were scamps, and both got into serious +trouble--Anne into deeper and deadlier hot water than Rachel--but +between the two women there is only superficial comparison. Rachel was a +botcher and a bungler, a very cobbler, beside Anne Turner. + + +Anne, there is every cause for assurance, was in herself the best +advertisement for her wares. Rachel was a fat old hag. Anne, prettily +fair, little-boned, and deliciously fleshed, was neat and elegant. +The impression one gets of her from all the records, even the most +prejudiced against her, is that she was a very cuddlesome morsel indeed. +She was, in addition, demonstrably clever. Such a man of talent as Inigo +Jones supported the decoration of many of the masques he set on the +stage with costumes of Anne's design and confection. Rachel could +neither read nor write. + +It is highly probable that Anne Turner made coin out of the notes which +her late husband, so inquisitive of mind, had left on matters much more +occult than the manufacture of yellow starch and skin lotions. "It was +also rumoured," says Mr Sabatini, "that she amassed gold in another and +less licit manner: that she dabbled in fortune-telling and the arts of +divination." We shall see, as the story develops, that the rumour had +some foundation. The inquiring mind of the late Dr Turner had led him +into strange company, and his legacy to Anne included connexions more +sombre than those in the extravagantly luxurious Court of King James. + +In 1610 the elegant little widow was flourishing enough to be able to +maintain a lover in good style. This was Sir Arthur Mainwaring, member +of a Cheshire family of good repute but of no great wealth. By him she +had three children. Mainwaring was attached in some fashion to the suite +of the Prince of Wales, Prince Henry. And while the Prince's court at St +James's Palace was something more modest, as it was more refined, than +that of the King at Whitehall, position in it was not to be retained at +ease without considerable expenditure. It may be gauged, therefore, at +what expense Anne's attachment to Mainwaring would keep her, and to what +exercise of her talent and ambition her pride in it would drive her. And +her pride was absolute. It would, says a contemporary diarist, "make her +fly at any pitch rather than fall into the jaws of want."[9] + + + +II + +In his romance The Minion, Rafael Sabatini makes the first meeting of +Anne Turner and the Countess of Essex occur in 1610 or 1611. With this +date Judge A. E. Parry, in his book The Overbury Mystery,[10] seems to +agree in part. There is, however, warrant enough for believing that the +two women had met long before that time. Anne Turner herself, pleading +at her trial for mercy from Sir Edward Coke, the Lord Chief Justice, put +forward the plea that she had been "ever brought up with the Countess of +Essex, and had been a long time her servant."[11] She also made the like +extenuative plea on the scaffold.[12] Judge Parry seems to follow some +of the contemporary writers in assuming that Anne was a spy in the pay +of the Lord Privy Seal, the Earl of Northampton. If this was so there +is further ground for believing that Anne and Lady Essex had earlier +contacts, for Northampton was Lady Essex's great-uncle. The longer +association would go far in explaining the terrible conspiracy into +which, from soon after that time, the two women so readily fell +together--a criminal conspiracy, in which the reader may see something +of the "false nurse" in Anne Turner and something of Jean Livingstone in +Frances Howard, Lady Essex. + + +It was about this time, 1610-1611, that Lady Essex began to find herself +interested in the handsome Robert Carr, then Viscount Rochester. Having +reached the mature age of eighteen, the lovely Frances had been brought +by her mother, the Countess of Suffolk, to Court. Highest in the King's +favour, and so, with his remarkably good looks, his charm, and the +elegant taste in attire and personal appointment which his new wealth +allowed him lavishly to indulge, Rochester was by far the most brilliant +figure there. Frances fell in love with the King's minion. + +Rochester, it would appear, did not immediately respond to the lady's +advances. They were probably too shy, too tentative, to attract +Rochester's attention. It is probable, also, that there were plenty of +beautiful women about the Court, more mature, more practised in the arts +of coquetry than Frances, and very likely not at all 'blate'--as Carr +and his master would put it--in showing themselves ready for conquest by +the King's handsome favourite. + +Whether the acquaintance of Lady Essex with Mrs Turner was of long +standing or not, it was to the versatile Anne that her ladyship turned +as confidante. The hint regarding Anne's skill in divination will be +remembered. Having regard to the period, and to the alchemistic nature +of the goods that composed so much of Anne's stock-in-trade at the sign +of the Golden Distaff, in Paternoster Row, it may be conjectured that +the love-lorn Frances had thoughts of a philtre. + +With an expensive lover and children to maintain, to say nothing of her +own luxurious habits, Anne Turner would see in the Countess's appeal a +chance to turn more than one penny into the family exchequer. She was +too much the opportunist to let any consideration of old acquaintance +interfere with working such a potential gold-mine as now seemed to lie +open to her pretty but prehensile fingers. Lady Essex was rich. She +was also ardent in her desire. The game was too big for Anne to play +single-handed. A real expert in cozening, a master of guile, was wanted +to exploit the opportunity to its limit. + +It is a curious phenomenon, and one that constantly recurs in the +history of cozenage, how people who live by spoof fall victims so +readily to spoofery. Anne Turner had brains. There is no doubt of it. +Apart from that genuine and honest talent in costume-design which made +her work acceptable to such an outstanding genius as Inigo Jones, she +lived by guile. But I have now to invite you to see her at the feet of +one of the silliest charlatans who ever lived. There is, of course, the +possibility that Anne sat at the feet of this silly charlatan for what +she might learn for the extension of her own technique. Or, again, it +may have been that the wizard of Lambeth, whom she consulted in the Lady +Essex affair, could provide a more impressive setting for spoof than she +had handy, or that they were simply rogues together. My trouble is to +understand why, by the time that the Lady Essex came to her with her +problem, Anne had not exhausted all the gambits in flummery that were at +the command of the preposterous Dr Forman. + +The connexion with Dr Forman was part of the legacy left Anne by Dr +Turner. Her husband had been the friend and patron of Forman, so that +by the time Anne had taken Mainwaring for her lover, and had borne him +three children, she must have had ample opportunity for seeing through +the old charlatan. + +Antony Weldon, the contemporary writer already quoted, is something +too scurrilous and too apparently biased to be altogether a trustworthy +authority. He seems to have been the type of gossip (still to be met in +London clubs) who can always tell with circumstance how the duchess came +to have a black baby, and the exact composition of the party at which +Midas played at 'strip poker.' But he was, like many of his kind, an +amusing enough companion for the idle moment, and his description of Dr +Forman is probably fairly close to the truth. + +"This Forman," he says, + +was a silly fellow who dwelt in Lambeth, a very silly fellow, yet had +wit enough to cheat the ladies and other women, by pretending skill in +telling their fortunes, as whether they should bury their husbands, and +what second husbands they should have, and whether they should enjoy +their loves, or whether maids should get husbands, or enjoy their +servants to themselves without corrivals: but before he would tell them +anything they must write their names in his alphabetical book with +their own handwriting. By this trick he kept them in awe, if they should +complain of his abusing them, as in truth he did nothing else. Besides, +it was believed, some meetings were at his house, wherein the art of the +bawd was more beneficial to him than that of a conjurer, and that he was +a better artist in the one than in the other: and that you may know his +skill, he was himself a cuckold, having a very pretty wench to his wife, +which would say, she did it to try his skill, but it fared with him as +with astrologers that cannot foresee their own destiny. + + +And here comes an addendum, the point of which finds confirmation +elsewhere. It has reference to the trial of Anne Turner, to which we +shall come later. + +"I well remember there was much mirth made in the Court upon the showing +of the book, for, it was reported, the first leaf my lord Cook [Coke, +the Lord Chief Justice] lighted on he found his own wife's name." + +Whatever Anne's reason for doing so, it was to this scortatory old scab +that she turned for help in cozening the fair young Countess. The devil +knows to what obscene ritual the girl was introduced. There is evidence +that the thaumaturgy practised by Forman did not want for lewdness--as +magic of the sort does not to this day--and in this regard Master Weldon +cannot be far astray when he makes our pretty Anne out to be the veriest +baggage. + +Magic or no magic, philtre or no philtre, it was not long before Lady +Essex had her wish. The Viscount Rochester fell as desperately in love +with her as she was with him. + +There was, you may be sure, no small amount of scandalous chatter in the +Court over the quickly obvious attachment the one to the other of this +handsome couple. So much of this scandalous chatter has found record by +the pens of contemporary and later gossip-writers that it is hard indeed +to extract the truth. It is certain, however, that had the love between +Robert Carr and Frances Howard been as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, +jealousy would still have done its worst in besmirching. It was not, if +the Rabelaisian trend in so much of Jacobean writing be any indication, +a particularly moral age. Few ages in history are. It was not, with +a reputed pervert as the fount of honour, a particularly moral Court. +Since the emergence of the lovely young Countess from tutelage at Audley +End there had been no lack of suitors for her favour. And when Frances +so openly exhibited her preference for the King's minion there would be +some among those disappointed suitors who would whisper, greenly, that +Rochester had been granted that prisage which was the right of the +absent Essex, a right which they themselves had been quite ready to +usurp. It is hardly likely that there would be complete abnegation of +salty gossip among the ladies of the Court, their Apollo being snatched +by a mere chit of a girl. + +What relative happiness there may have been for the pair in their +loving--it could not, in the hindrance there was to their free mating, +have been an absolute happiness--was shattered after some time by the +return to England of the young husband. The Earl of Essex, now almost +come to man's estate, arrived to take up the position which his rank +entitled him to expect in the Court, and to assume the responsibilities +and rights which, he fancied, belonged to him as a married man. In +respect of the latter part of his intention he immediately found himself +balked. His wife, perhaps all the deeper in love with Rochester for this +threat to their happiness, declared that she had no mind to be held by +the marriage forced on her in infancy, and begged her husband to agree +to its annulment. + +It had been better for young Essex to have agreed at once. He would +have spared himself, ultimately, a great deal of humiliation through +ridicule. But he tried to enforce his rights as a husband, a proceeding +than which there is none more absurd should the wife prove obdurate. And +prove obdurate his wife did. She was to be moved neither by threat nor +by pleading. It was, you will notice, a comedy situation; husband +not perhaps amorous so much as the thwarted possessor of the +unpossessable--wife frigid and a maid, as far, at least, as the husband +was concerned, and her weeping eyes turned yearningly elsewhere. A +comedy situation, yes, and at this distance almost farcical--but for +certain elements in it approaching tragedy. + +Badgered, not only by her husband but by her own relatives, scared no +doubt, certainly unhappy, unable for politic reasons to appeal freely +to her beloved Robin, to whom might Frances turn but the helpful Turner? +And to whom, having turned to pretty Anne, was she likely to be led but +again to the wizard of Lambeth? + +Dr Forman had a heart for beauty in distress, but dissipating the +ardency of an exigent husband was a difficult matter compared with +attracting that of a negligent lover. It was also much more costly. A +powder there was, indeed, which, administered secretly by small regular +doses in the husband's food or drink, would soon cool his ardour, +but the process of manufacture and the ingredients were enormously +expensive. Frances got her powder. + +The first dose was administered to Lord Essex just before his departure +from a visit to his wife at Audley End. On his arrival back in London he +was taken violently ill, so ill that in the weeks he lay in bed his life +was despaired of. Only the intervention of the King's own physician, one +Sir Theodore Mayerne, would appear to have saved him. + +Her husband slowly convalescing, Lady Essex was summoned by her family +back to London. In London, while Lord Essex mended in health, she was +much in the company of her "sweet Turner." In addition to the house +in Paternoster Row the little widow had a pretty riverside cottage at +Hammersmith, and both were at the disposal of Lady Essex and her lover +for stolen meetings. Those meetings were put a stop to by the recovery +of Lord Essex, and with his recovery his lordship exhibited a new mood +of determination. Backed by her ladyship's family, he ordered her to +accompany him to their country place of Chartley. Her ladyship had to +obey. + +The stages of the journey were marked by the nightly illness of his +lordship. By the time they arrived at Chartley itself he was in a +condition little if at all less dangerous than that from which he had +been rescued by the King's physician. His illness lasted for weeks, and +during this time her ladyship wrote many a letter to Anne Turner and to +Dr Forman. She was afraid his lordship would live. She was afraid his +lordship would die. She was afraid she would lose the love of Rochester. +She begged Anne Turner and Forman to work their best magic for her aid. +She was afraid that if his lordship recovered the spells might prove +useless, that his attempts to assert his rights as a husband would begin +again, and that there, in the heart of the country and so far from any +refuge, they might take a form she would be unable to resist. + +His lordship did recover. His attempts to assert his rights as a husband +did begin again. The struggle between them, Frances constant in her +obduracy, lasted several months. Her obstinacy wore down his. At long +last he let her go. + + + +III + +If the fate that overtook Frances Howard and Rochester, and with them +Anne Turner and many another, is to be properly understood, a brief word +on the political situation in England at this time will be needed--or, +rather, a word on the political personages, with their antagonisms. + +Next in closeness to the King's ear after Rochester, and perhaps more +trusted as a counsellor by that "wise fool," there had been Robert +Cecil, Lord Salisbury, for a long time First Secretary of State. But +about the time when Lady Essex finally parted with her husband Cecil +died, depriving England of her keenest brain and the staunchest heart +in her causes. If there had been no Rochester the likeliest man in the +kingdom to succeed to the power and offices of Cecil would have been the +Earl of Northampton, uncle of Lord Suffolk, who was the father of Lady +Essex. Northampton, as stated, held the office of Lord Privy Seal. + +The Howard family had done the State great service in the past. Its +present representatives, Northampton and Suffolk, were anxious to do +the State great service, as they conceived it, in the future. They were, +however, Catholics in all but open acknowledgment, and as such were +opposed by the Protestants, who had at their head Prince Henry. This was +an opposition that they might have stomached. It was one that they might +even have got over, for the Prince and his father, the King, were not +the best of friends. The obstacle to their ambitions, and one they found +hard to stomach, was the upstart Rochester. And even Rochester would +hardly have stood in their way had his power in the Council depended on +his own ability. The brain that directed Robert Carr belonged to another +man. This was Sir Thomas Overbury. + +On the death of Cecil the real contenders for the vacant office of First +Secretary of State--the highest office in the land--were not the wily +Northampton and the relatively unintelligent Rochester, but the subtle +Northampton and the quite as subtle, and perhaps more spacious-minded, +Thomas Overbury. There was, it will be apprehended, a possible weakness +on the Overbury side. The gemel-chain, like that of many links, is +merely as strong as its weakest member. Overbury had no approach to the +King save through the King's favourite. Rochester could have no real +weight with the King, at least in affairs of State, except what he +borrowed from Overbury. Divided, the two were powerless. No, more than +that, there had to be no flaw in their linking. + +The wily Northampton, one may be certain, was fully aware of this +possible weakness in the combination opposed to his advancement. He +would be fully aware, that is, that it was there potentially; but when +he began, as his activities would indicate, to work for the creation +of that flaw in the relationship between Rochester and Overbury it is +unlikely that he knew the flaw had already begun to develop. Unknown to +him, circumstance already had begun to operate in his favour. + +Overbury was Rochester's tutor in more than appertained to affairs of +State. It is more than likely that in Carr's wooing of Lady Essex he +had held the role of Cyrano de Bergerac, writing those gracefully turned +letters and composing those accomplished verses which did so much to +augment and give constancy to her ladyship's love for Rochester. It is +certain, at any rate, that Overbury was privy to all the correspondence +passing between the pair, and that even such events as the supplying by +Forman and Mrs Turner of that magic powder, and the Countess's use of it +upon her husband, were well within his knowledge. + +While the affair between his alter ego and the Lady Essex might be +looked upon as mere dalliance, a passionate episode likely to wither +with a speed equal to that of its growth, Overbury, it is probable, +found cynical amusement in helping it on. But when, as time went on, +the lady and her husband separated permanently, and from mere talk of a +petition for annulment of the Essex marriage that petition was presented +in actual form to the King, Overbury saw danger. Northampton was +backing the petition. If it succeeded Lady Essex would be free to marry +Rochester. And the marriage, since Northampton was not the man to give +except in the expectation of plenty, would plant the unwary Rochester +on the hearth of his own and Overbury's enemies. With Rochester in the +Howard camp there would be short shrift for Thomas Overbury. There would +be, though Rochester in his infatuation seemed blind to the fact, as +short a shrift as the Howards could contrive for the King's minion. + +In that march of inevitability which marks all real tragedy the road +that is followed forks ever and again with an 'if.' And we who, across +the distance of time, watch with a sort of Jovian pity the tragic +puppets in their folly miss this fork and that fork on their road +of destiny select, each according to our particular temperaments, a +particular 'if' over which to shake our heads. For me, in this story of +Rochester, Overbury, Frances Howard, and the rest, the point of tragedy, +the most poignant of the issues, is the betrayal by Robert Carr of +Overbury's friendship. Though this story is essentially, or should be, +that of the two women who were linked in fate with Rochester and his +coadjutor, I am constrained to linger for a moment on that point. + +Overbury's counsel had made Carr great. With nothing but his good looks +and his personal charm, his only real attributes, Carr had been no more +than King James's creature. James, with all the pedantry, the laboured +cunning, the sleezy weaknesses of character that make him so detestable, +was yet too shrewd to have put power in the hands of the mere minion +that Carr would have been without the brain of Overbury to guide him. +Of himself Carr was the 'toom tabard' of earlier parlance in his native +country, the 'stuffed shirt' of a later and more remote generation. But +beyond the coalition for mutual help that existed between Overbury +and Carr, an arrangement which might have thrived on a basis merely +material, there was a deep and splendid friendship. 'Stuffed shirt' or +not, Robert Carr was greatly loved by Overbury. Whatever Overbury may +have thought of Carr's mental attainments, he had the greatest faith in +his loyalty as a friend. And here lies the terrible pity in that 'if' of +my choice. The love between the two men was great enough to have saved +them both. It broke on the weakness of Carr. + +Overbury was aware that, honestly presented, the petition by Lady Essex +for the annulment of her marriage had little chance of success. But for +the obstinacy of Essex it might have been granted readily enough. He +had, however, as we have seen, forced her to live with him as his wife, +in appearance at least, for several months in the country. There now +would be difficulty in putting forward the petition on the ground of +non-consummation of the marriage. + +It was, nevertheless, on this ground that the petition was brought +forward. But the non-consummation was not attributed, as it might have +been, to the continued separation that had begun at the altar; the +reason given was the impotence of the husband. Just what persuasion +Northampton and the Howards used on Essex to make him accept this +humiliating implication it is hard to imagine, but by the time the +coarse wits of the period had done with him Essex was amply punished in +ridicule for his primary obstinacy. + +Sir Thomas Overbury, well informed though he usually was, must have been +a good deal in the dark regarding the negotiations which had brought the +nullity suit to this forward state. He had warned Rochester so frankly +of the danger into which the scheme was likely to lead him that they had +quarrelled and parted. If Rochester had been frank with his friend, if, +on the ground of their friendship, he had appealed to him to set aside +his prejudice, it might well have been that the tragedy which ensued +would have been averted. Enough evidence remains to this day of +Overbury's kindness for Robert Carr, there is enough proof of the man's +abounding resource and wit, to give warrant for belief that he would +have had the will, as he certainly had the ability, to help his +friend. Overbury was one of the brightest intelligences of his age. Had +Rochester confessed the extent of his commitment with Northampton there +is little doubt that Overbury could and would have found a way whereby +Rochester could have attained his object (of marriage with Frances +Howard), and this without jeopardizing their mutual power to the Howard +menace. + +In denying the man who had made him great the complete confidence which +their friendship demanded Rochester took the tragically wrong path +on his road of destiny. But the truth is that when he quarrelled with +Overbury he had already betrayed the friendship. He had already embarked +on the perilous experiment of straddling between two opposed camps. It +was an experiment that he, least of all men, had the adroitness to bring +off. He was never in such need of Overbury's brain as when he aligned +himself in secret with Overbury's enemies. + +It is entirely probable that in linking up with Northampton Rochester +had no mind to injure his friend. The bait was the woman he loved. +Without Northampton's aid the nullity suit could not be put forward, and +without the annulment there could be no marriage for him with Frances +Howard. But he had no sooner joined with Northampton than the very +processes against which Overbury had warned him were begun. Rochester +was trapped, and with him Overbury. + +For the success of the suit, in Northampton's view, Overbury knew too +much. It was a view to which Rochester was readily persuaded; or it was +one which he was easily frightened into accepting. From that to joining +in a plot for being rid of Overbury was but a step. Grateful, perhaps, +for the undoubted services that Overbury had rendered him, Rochester +would be eager enough to find his quondam friend employment. If that +employment happened to take Overbury out of the country so much the +better. At one time the King, jealous as a woman of the friendship +existing between his favourite and Overbury, had tried to shift the +latter out of the way by an offer of the embassy in Paris. It was an +offer Rochester thought, that he might cause to be repeated. The idea +was broached to Overbury. That shrewd individual, of course, saw through +the suggestion to the intention behind it, but he was at a loss for an +outlet for his talents, having left Rochester's employ, and he believed +without immodesty that he could do useful work as ambassador in Paris. + +Overbury was offered an embassy--but in Muscovy. He had no mind to bury +himself in Russia, and he refused the offer on the ground of ill-health. +By doing this he walked into the trap prepared for him. Northampton had +foreseen the refusal when he promoted the offer on its rearranged terms. +The King, already incensed against Overbury for some hints at knowledge +of facts liable to upset the Essex nullity suit, pretended indignation +at the refusal. Overbury unwarily repeated it before the Privy Council. +That was what Northampton wanted. The refusal was high contempt of the +King's majesty. Sir Thomas Overbury was committed to the Tower. He might +have talked in Paris, or have written from Muscovy. He might safely do +either in the Tower--where gags and bonds were so readily at hand. + +Did Rochester know of the springe set to catch Overbury? The answer +to the question, whether yes or no, hardly matters. Since he was gull +enough to discard the man whose brain had lifted him from a condition in +which he was hardly better than the King's lap-dog, he was gull enough +to be fooled by Northampton. Since he valued the friendship of that +honest man so little as to consort in secret with his enemies, he was +knave enough to have been party to the betrayal. Knave or fool--what +does it matter? He was so much of both that, in dread of what Sir Thomas +might say or do to thwart the nullity suit, he let his friend rot in the +Tower for months on end, let him sicken and nearly die several times, +without a move to free him. He did this to the man who had trusted him +implicitly, a man that--to adapt Overbury's own words from his last +poignant letter to Rochester--he had "more cause to love... yea, perish +for.. . rather than see perish." + +It is not given to every man to have that greater love which will make +him lay down his life for a friend, but it is the sheer poltroon and +craven who will watch a friend linger and expire in agony without +lifting a finger to save him. Knave or fool--what does it matter when +either is submerged in the coward? + + + +IV + +Overbury lay in the Tower five months. The commission appointed to +examine into the Essex nullity suit went into session three weeks after +he was imprisoned. There happened to be one man in the commission who +cared more to be honest than to humour the King. This was the Archbishop +Abbot. The King himself had prepared the petition. It was a task that +delighted his pedantry, and his petition was designed for immediate +acceptance. But such was Abbot's opposition that in two or three months +the commission ended with divided findings. + +Meantime Overbury in the Tower had been writing letters. He had been +talking to visitors. As time went on, and Rochester did nothing to bring +about his enlargement, his writings and sayings became more threatening +Rochester's attitude was that patience was needed. In time he would +bring the King to a more clement view of Sir Thomas's offending, and +he had no doubt that in the end he would be able to secure the prisoner +both freedom and honourable employment. + +Overbury had been consigned to the Tower in April. In June he complained +of illness. Rochester wrote to him in sympathetic terms, sending him a +powder that he himself had found beneficial, and made his own physician +visit the prisoner. + +But the threats which Overbury, indignant at his betrayal by Rochester, +made by speech and writing were becoming common property in the city +and at Court One of Overbury's visitors who had made public mention of +Overbury's knowledge of facts likely to blow upon the Essex suit was +arrested on the orders of Northampton. In the absence of the King and +Rochester from London the old Earl was acting as Chief Secretary of +State--thus proving Overbury to have been a true prophet. Northampton +issued orders to the Tower that Overbury was to be closely confined, +that his man Davies was to be dismissed, and that he was to be denied +all visitors. The then Lieutenant of the Tower, one Sir William Wade, +was deprived of his position on the thinnest of pretexts, and, on the +recommendation of Sir Thomas Monson, Master of the Armoury, an elderly +gentleman from Lincolnshire, Sir Gervase Elwes, was put in his place. + +From that moment Sir Thomas Overbury was permitted no communication with +the outer world, save by letter to Lord Rochester and for food that was +brought him, as we shall presently see, at the instance of Mrs Turner. + +In place of his own servant Davies Sir Thomas was allowed the services +of an under-keeper named Weston, appointed at the same time as Sir +Gervase Elwes. This man, it is perhaps important to note, had at one +time been servant to Mrs Turner. + +The alteration in the personnel of the Tower was almost immediately +followed by severe illness on the part of the prisoner. The close +confinement to which he was subjected, with the lack of exercise, could +hardly have been the cause of such a violent sickness. It looked more as +if it had been brought about by something he had eaten or drunk. By this +time the conviction he had tried to resist, that Rochester was meanly +sacrificing him, became definite. Overbury is hardly to be blamed if he +came to a resolution to be revenged on his one-time friend by bringing +him to utter ruin. King James had been so busy in the Essex nullity +suit, had gone to such lengths to carry it through, that if it could +be wrecked by the production of the true facts he would be bound to +sacrifice Rochester to save his own face. Sir Thomas had an accurate +knowledge of the King's character. He knew the scramble James was +capable of making in a difficulty that involved his kingly dignity, and +what little reck he had of the faces he trod on in climbing from a pit +of his own digging. By a trick Overbury contrived to smuggle a letter +through to the honest Archbishop Abbot, in which he declared his +possession of facts that would non-suit the nullity action, and begged +to be summoned before the commission. + +Overbury was getting better of the sickness which had attacked him when +suddenly it came upon him again. This time he made no bones about saying +that he had been poisoned. + +Even at the last Overbury had taken care to give Rochester a chance to +prove his fidelity. He contrived that the delivery of the letter to the +Archbishop of Canterbury should be delayed until just before the nullity +commission, now augmented by members certain to vote according to the +King's desire, was due to sit again. The Archbishop carried Overbury's +letter to James, and insisted that Overbury should be heard. The King, +outward stickler that he was for the letter of the law, had to agree. + +On the Thursday of the week during which the commission was sitting +Overbury was due to be called. He was ill, but not so ill as he had +been. On the Tuesday he was visited by the King's physician. On the +Wednesday he was dead. + +Now, before we come to examine those evidences regarding Overbury's +death that were to be brought forward in the series of trials of +later date, that series which was to be known as "the Great Oyer of +Poisoning," it may be well to consider what effect upon the Essex +nullity suit Overbury's appearance before the commission might have had. +It may be well to consider what reason Rochester had for keeping his +friend in close confinement in the Tower, what reason there was for +permitting Northampton to impose such cruelly rigorous conditions of +imprisonment. + +The nullity suit succeeded. A jury of matrons was impanelled, and made +an examination of the lady appellant. Its evidence was that she was +virgo intacta. Seven out of the twelve members of the packed commission +voted in favour of the sentence of nullity. + +The kernel of the situation lies in the verdict of the jury of matrons. +Her ladyship was declared to be a maid. If in the finding gossips and +scandal-mongers found reason for laughter, and decent enough people +cause for wonderment, they are hardly to be blamed. If Frances Howard +was a virgin, what reason was there for fearing anything Overbury might +have said? What knowledge had he against the suit that put Rochester +and the Howards in such fear of him that they had to confine him in the +Tower under such miserable conditions? In what was he so dangerous that +he had to be deprived of his faithful Davies, that he had to be put in +the care of a Tower Lieutenant specially appointed? The evidence given +before the commission can still be read in almost verbatim report. It is +completely in favour of the plea of Lady Essex. Sir Thomas Overbury's, +had he given evidence, would have been the sole voice against the suit. +If he had said that in his belief the association of her ladyship with +Rochester had been adulterous there was the physical fact adduced by the +jury of matrons to confute him. And being confuted in that, what might +he have said that would not be attributed to rancour on his part? That +her ladyship, with the help of Mrs Turner and the wizard of Lambeth, had +practised magic upon her husband, giving him powders that went near to +killing him? That she had lived in seclusion for several months with her +husband at Chartley, and that the non-consummation of the marriage +was due, not to the impotence of the husband, but to refusal to him of +marital rights on the part of the wife because of her guilty love for +Rochester? His lordship of Essex was still alive, and there was abundant +evidence before the court that there had been attempt to consummate +the marriage. Whatever Sir Thomas might have said would have smashed as +evidence on that one fact. Her ladyship was a virgin. + +What did Sir Thomas Overbury know that made every one whose interest +it was to further the nullity suit so scared of him--Rochester, her +ladyship, Northampton, the Howards, the King himself? + +Sir Thomas Overbury was much too cool-minded, too intelligent, to +indulge in threats unless he was certain of the grounds, and solid upon +them, upon which he made those threats. He had too great a knowledge of +affairs not to know that the commission would be a packed one, too great +an acquaintance with the strategy of James to believe that his lonely +evidence, unless of bombshell nature, would have a chance of carrying +weight in a court of his Majesty's picking. And, then, he was of too big +a mind to put forward evidence which would have no effect but that of +affording gossip for the scandal-mongers, and the giving of which would +make him appear to be actuated by petty spite. He had too great a sense +of his own dignity to give himself anything but an heroic role. Samson +he might play, pulling the pillars of the temple together to involve +his enemies, with himself, in magnificent and dramatic ruin. But +Iachimo--no. + +In the welter of evidence conflicting with apparent fact which was given +before the commission and in the trials of the Great Oyer, in the +mass of writing both contemporary and of later days round the Overbury +mystery, it is hard indeed to land upon the truth. Feasible solution +is to be come upon only by accepting a not too pretty story which +is retailed by Antony Weldon. He says that the girl whom the jury of +matrons declared to be virgo intacta was so heavily veiled as to be +unidentifiable through the whole proceedings, and that she was not Lady +Essex at all, but the youthful daughter of Sir Thomas Monson. + +Mrs Turner, we do know, was very much a favourite with the ladies of +Sir Thomas Monson's family. Gossip Weldon has a funny, if lewd, story +to tell of high jinks indulged in by the Monson women and Mrs Turner in +which Symon, Monson's servant, played an odd part. This Symon was also +employed by Mrs Turner to carry food to Overbury in the Tower. If the +substitution story has any truth in it it might well have been a Monson +girl who played the part of the Countess. But, of course, a Monson girl +may have been chosen by the inventors to give verisimilitude to the +substitution story, simply because the family was friendly with Turner, +and the tale of the lewd high jinks with Symon added to make it seem +more likely that old Lady Monson would lend herself to such a plot. + +If there was such a plot it is not at all unlikely that Overbury knew of +it. If there was need of such a scheme to bolster the nullity +petition it would have had to be evolved while the petition was being +planned--that is, a month or two before the commission went first into +session. At that time Overbury was still Rochester's secretary, still +Rochester's confidant; and if such a scheme had been evolved for getting +over an obstacle so fatal to the petition's success it was not in +Rochester's nature to have concealed it from Overbury, the two men still +being fast friends. Indeed, it may have been Overbury who pointed +out the need there would be for the Countess to undergo physical +examination, and it may have been on the certainty that her ladyship +could not do so that Overbury rested so securely--as he most apparently +did, beyond the point of safety--in the idea that the suit was bound to +fail. It is legitimate enough to suppose, along this hypothesis, +that this substitution plot was the very matter on which the two men +quarrelled. + +That Overbury had knowledge of some such essential secret as this is +manifest in the enmity towards the man which Lady Essex exhibited, even +when he lay, out of the way of doing harm, in the Tower. It is hard +to believe that an innocent girl of twenty, conscious of her virgin +chastity, in mere fear of scandal which she knew would be baseless, +could pursue the life of a man with the venom that, as we shall +presently see, Frances Howard used towards Overbury through Mrs Turner. + + + +V + +As a preliminary to his marriage with Frances Howard, Rochester was +created Earl of Somerset, and had the barony of Brancepeth bestowed +on him by the King. Overbury was three months in his grave when the +marriage was celebrated in the midst of the most extravagant show and +entertainment. + +The new Earl's power in the kingdom was never so high as at this time. +It was, indeed, at its zenith. Decline was soon to set in. It will not +serve here to follow the whole process of decay in the King's favour +that Somerset was now to experience. There was poetic justice in his +downfall. With hands all about him itching to bring him to the ground, +he had not the brain for the giddy heights. If behind him there had been +the man whose guidance had made him sure-footed in the climb he might +have survived, flourishing. But the man he had consigned to death had +been more than half of him, had been, indeed, his substance. Alone, +with the power Overbury's talents had brought him, Somerset was bound to +fail. The irony of it is that his downfall was contrived by a creature +of his own raising. + +Somerset had appointed Sir Ralph Winwood to the office of First +Secretary of State. In that office word came to Winwood from Brussels +that new light had been thrown on the mysterious death of Sir Thomas +Overbury. Winwood investigated in secret. An English lad, one Reeves, +an apothecary's assistant, thinking himself dying, had confessed at +Flushing that Overbury had been poisoned by an injection of corrosive +sublimate. Reeves himself had given the injection on the orders of his +master, Loubel, the apothecary who had attended Overbury on the day +before his death. Winwood sought out Loubel, and from him went to Sir +Gervase Elwes. The story he was able to make from what he had from the +two men he took to the King. From this beginning rose up the Great +Oyer of Poisoning. The matter was put into the hands of the Lord Chief +Justice, Sir Edward Coke. + +The lad Reeves, whose confession had started the matter, was either dead +or dying abroad, and was so out of Coke's reach. But the man who had +helped the lad to administer the poisoned clyster, the under-keeper +Weston, was at hand. Weston was arrested, and examined by Coke. +The statement Coke's bullying drew from the man made mention of one +Franklin, another apothecary, as having supplied a phial which Sir +Gervase Elwes had taken and thrown away. Weston had also received +another phial by Franklin's son from Lady Essex. This also Sir Gervase +had taken and destroyed. Then there had been tarts and jellies supplied +by Mrs Turner. + +Coke had Mrs Turner and Franklin arrested, and after that Sir Gervase +was taken as an accessory, and on his statement that he had employed +Weston on Sir Thomas Monson's recommendation Sir Thomas also was roped +in. He maintained that he had been told to recommend Weston by Lady +Essex and the Earl of Northampton. + +The next person to be examined by Coke was the apothecary Loubel, he +who had attended Overbury on the day before his death. Though in his +confession the lad Reeves said that he had been given money and sent +abroad by Loubel, this was a matter that Coke did not probe. Loubel told +Coke that he had given Overbury nothing but the physic prescribed by Sir +Theodore Mayerne, the King's physician, and that in his opinion Overbury +had died of consumption. With this evidence Coke was very strangely +content--or, at least, content as far as Loubel was concerned, for this +witness was not summoned again. + +Other persons were examined by Coke, notably Overbury's servant +Davies and his secretary Payton. Their statements served to throw some +suspicion on the Earl of Somerset. + +But if all the detail of these examinations were gone into we should +never be done. Our concern is with the two women involved, Anne Turner +and the Countess of Somerset, as we must now call her. I am going to +quote, however, two paragraphs from Rafael Sabatini's romance The Minion +that I think may explain why it is so difficult to come to the truth of +the Overbury mystery. They indicate how it was smothered by the way in +which Coke rough-handled justice throughout the whole series of trials. + + +On October 19th, at the Guildhall, began the Great Oyer of Poisoning, as +Coke described it, with the trial of Richard Weston. + +Thus at the very outset the dishonesty of the proceedings is apparent. +Weston was an accessory. Both on his own evidence and that of Sir +Gervase Elwes, besides the apothecary's boy in Flushing, Sir Thomas +Overbury had died following upon an injection prepared by Loubel. +Therefore Loubel was the principal, and only after Loubel's conviction +could the field have been extended to include Weston and the others. But +Loubel was tried neither then nor subsequently, a circumstance regarded +by many as the most mysterious part of what is known as the Overbury +mystery, whereas, in fact, it is the clue to it. Nor was the evidence of +the coroner put in, so that there was no real preliminary formal proof +that Overbury had been poisoned at all. + + +Here Mr Sabatini is concerned to develop one of the underlying arguments +of his story--namely, that it was King James himself who had ultimately +engineered the death of Sir Thomas Overbury. It is an argument which I +would not attempt to refute. I do not think that Mr Sabatini's acumen +has failed him in the least. But the point for me in the paragraphs is +the indication they give of how much Coke did to suppress all evidence +that did not suit his purpose. + +Weston's trial is curious in that at first he refused to plead. It is +the first instance I have met with in history of a prisoner standing +'mute of malice.' Coke read him a lecture on the subject, pointing out +that by his obstinacy he was making himself liable to peine forte et +dure, which meant that order could be given for his exposure in an open +place near the prison, extended naked, and to have weights laid upon +him in increasing amount, he being kept alive with the "coarsest bread +obtainable and water from the nearest sink or puddle to the place of +execution, that day he had water having no bread, and that day he had +bread having no water." One may imagine with what grim satisfaction Coke +ladled this out. It had its effect on Weston. + +He confessed that Mrs Turner had promised to give him a reward if he +would poison Sir Thomas Overbury. In May she had sent him a phial of +"rosalgar," and he had received from her tarts poisoned with mercury +sublimate. He was charged with having, at Mrs Turner's instance, joined +with an apothecary's boy in administering an injection of corrosive +sublimate to Sir Thomas Overbury, from which the latter died. Coke's +conduct of the case obscures just how much Weston admitted, but, since +it convinced the jury of Weston's guilt, the conviction served finely +for accusation against Mrs Turner. + +Two days after conviction Weston was executed at Tyburn. + +The trial of Anne Turner began in the first week of November. It would +be easy to make a pathetic figure of the comely little widow as she +stood trembling under Coke's bullying, but she was, in actual fact, +hardly deserving of pity. It is far from enlivening to read of Coke's +handling of the trial, and it is certain that Mrs Turner was condemned +on an indictment and process which to-day would not have a ghost of +a chance of surviving appeal, but it is perfectly plain that Anne was +party to one of the most vicious poisoning plots ever engineered. + +We have, however, to consider this point in extenuation for her. It is +almost certain that in moving to bring about the death of Overbury she +had sanction, if only tacit, from the Earl of Northampton. By the time +that the Great Oyer began Northampton was dead. Two years had elapsed +from the death of Overbury. It would be quite clear to Anne that, in +the view of the powerful Howard faction, the elimination of Overbury was +politically desirable. It should be remembered, too, that she lived in +a period when assassination, secret or by subverted process of justice, +was a commonplace political weapon. Public executions by methods cruel +and even obscene taught the people to hold human life at small value, +and hardened them to cruelties that made poisoning seem a mercy. It is +not at all unlikely that, though her main object may have been to help +forward the plans of her friend the Countess, Anne considered herself a +plotter in high affairs of State. + +The indictment against her was that she had comforted, aided, and +abetted Weston--that is to say, she was made an accessory. If, however, +as was accused, she procured Weston and Reeves to administer the +poisonous injection she was certainly a principal, and as such should +have been tried first or at the same time as Weston. But Weston was +already hanged, and so could not be questioned. His various statements +were used against her unchallenged, or, at least, when challenging them +was useless. + +The indictment made no mention of her practices against the Earl of +Essex, but from the account given in the State Trials it would seem +that evidence on this score was used to build the case against her. Her +relations with Dr Forman, now safely dead, were made much of. She and +the Countess of Essex had visited the charlatan and had addressed him as +"Father." Their reason for visiting, it was said, was that "by force +of magick he should procure the then Viscount of Rochester to love the +Countess and Sir Arthur Mainwaring to love Mrs Turner, by whom she had +three children." Letters from the Countess to Turner were read. They +revealed the use on Lord Essex of those powders her ladyship had been +given by Forman. The letters had been found by Forman's wife in a packet +among Forman's possessions after his death. These, with others and with +several curious objects exhibited in court, had been demanded by Mrs +Turner after Forman's demise. Mrs Turner had kept them, and they were +found in her house. + +As indicating the type of magic practised by Forman these objects are +of interest. Among other figures, probably nothing more than dolls of +French make, there was a leaden model of a man and woman in the act of +copulation, with the brass mould from which it had been cast. There +was a black scarf ornamented with white crosses, papers with cabalistic +signs, and sundry other exhibits which appear to have created +superstitious fear in the crowd about the court. It is amusing to note +that while those exhibits were being examined one of the scaffolds +erected for seating gave way or cracked ominously, giving the crowd a +thorough scare. It was thought that the devil himself, raised by +the power of those uncanny objects, had got into the Guildhall. +Consternation reigned for quite a quarter of an hour. + +There was also exhibited Forman's famous book of signatures, in which +Coke is supposed to have encountered his own wife's name on the first +page. + +Franklin, apothecary, druggist, necromancer, wizard, and born liar, had +confessed to supplying the poisons intended for use upon Overbury. He +declared that Mrs Turner had come to him from the Countess and asked him +to get the strongest poisons procurable. He "accordingly bought seven: +viz., aqua fortis, white arsenic, mercury, powder of diamonds, lapis +costitus, great spiders, cantharides." Franklin's evidence is a palpable +tissue of lies, full of statements that contradict each other, but it is +likely enough, judging from facts elicited elsewhere, that his list +of poisons is accurate. Enough poison passed from hand to hand to have +slain an army. + +Mention is made by Weldon of the evidence given by Symon, servant to Sir +Thomas Monson, who had been employed by Mrs Turner to carry a jelly and +a tart to the Tower. Symon appears to have been a witty fellow. He was, +"for his pleasant answer," dismissed by Coke. + + +My lord told him: "Symon, you have had a hand in this poisoning +business----" + +"No, my good lord, I had but a finger in it, which almost cost me my +life, and, at the best, cost me all my hair and nails." For the truth +was that Symon was somewhat liquorish, and finding the syrup swim from +the top of the tart as he carried it, he did with his finger skim it +off: and it was believed, had he known what it had been, he would not +have been his taster at so dear a rate. + +Coke, with his bullying methods and his way of acting both as judge +and chief prosecutor, lacks little as prototype for the later Judge +Jeffreys. Even before the jury retired he was at pains to inform Mrs +Turner that she had the seven deadly sins: viz., "a whore, a bawd, a +sorcerer, a witch, a papist, a felon, and a murderer, the daughter +of the devil Forman."[13] And having given such a Christian example +throughout the trial, he besought her "to repent, and to become the +servant of Jesus Christ, and to pray Him to cast out the seven devils." +It was upon this that Anne begged the Lord Chief Justice to be merciful +to her, putting forward the plea of having been brought up with the +Countess of Essex, and of having been "a long time her servant." She +declared that she had not known of poison in the things that were sent +to Sir Thomas Overbury. + + +The jury's retirement was not long-drawn. They found her guilty. + +Says Weldon: + +The Wednesday following she was brought from the sheriff's in a coach to +Newgate and there was put into a cart, and casting money often among the +people as she was carried to Tyburn, where she was executed, and whither +many men and women of fashion followed her in coaches to see her die. + +Her speeches before execution were pious, like most speeches of the +sort, and "moved the spectators to great pity and grief for her." She +again related "her breeding with the Countess of Somerset," and pleaded +further of "having had no other means to maintain her and her children +but what came from the Countess." This last, of course, was less than +the truth. Anne was not so indigent that she needed to take to poisoning +as a means of supporting her family. She also said "that when her hand +was once in this business she knew the revealing of it would be her +overthrow." + +In more than one account written later of her execution she is said to +have worn a ruff and cuffs dressed with the yellow starch which she had +made so fashionable, and it is maintained that this association made the +starch thereafter unpopular. It is forgotten that with Anne the recipe +for the yellow starch probably was lost. Moreover, the elaborate ruff +was then being put out of fashion by the introduction of the much more +comfortable lace collar. In any case, "There is no truth," writes Judge +Parry, in the old story[14] that Coke ordered her to be executed in the +yellow ruff she had made the fashion and so proudly worn in Court. What +did happen, according to Sir Simonds d'Ewes, was that the hangman, a +coarse ruffian with a distorted sense of humour, dressed himself in +bands and cuffs of yellow colour, but no one heeded his ribaldry; only +in after days none of either sex used the yellow starch, and the fashion +grew generally to be detested. + + +Pretty much, I should think, as the tall 'choker' became detested within +the time of many of us. After Mrs Turner Sir Gervase Elwes was brought +to trial as an accessory. The only evidence against him was that of the +liar Franklin, who asserted that Sir Gervase had been in league with the +Countess. It was plain, however, both from Weston's statements and from +Sir Gervase's own, that the Lieutenant of the Tower had done his very +best to defeat the Turner-Essex-Northampton plot for the poisoning of +Overbury, throwing away the "rosalgar" and later draughts, as well +as substituting food from his own kitchen for that sent in by Turner. +"Although it must have been clear that if any of what was alleged +against him had been true Overbury's poisoning would never have taken +five months to accomplish, he was sentenced and hanged."[15] + + +This, of course, was a glaring piece of injustice, but Coke no doubt had +his instructions. Weston, Mrs Turner, Elwes, and, later, Franklin had +to be got out of the way, so that they could not be confronted with the +chief figure against whom the Great Oyer was directed, and whom it was +designed to pull down, Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset--and with him his +wife. Just as much of the statements and confessions of the prisoners in +the four preliminary trials was used by Coke as suited his purpose. It +is pointed out by Amos, in his Great Oyer of Poisoning, that a large +number of the documents appertaining to the Somerset trial show +corrections and apparent glosses in Coke's own handwriting, and that +even the confessions on the scaffold of some of the convicted are +holographs by Coke. As a sample of the suppression of which Coke was +guilty I may put forward the fact that Somerset's note to his own +physician, Craig, asking him to visit Overbury, was not produced. +Yet great play was made by Coke of this visit against Somerset. Wrote +Somerset to Craig, "I pray you let him have your best help, and as much +of your company as he shall require." + +It was never proved that it was Anne Turner and Lady Essex who corrupted +the lad Reeves, who with Weston administered the poisoned clyster that +murdered Overbury. Nothing was done at all to absolve the apothecary +Loubel, Reeves's master, of having prepared the poisonous injection, nor +Sir Theodore Mayerne, the King's physician, of having been party to its +preparation. Yet it was demonstrably the injection that killed Overbury +if he was killed by poison at all. It is certain that the poisons sent +to the Tower by Turner and the Countess did not save in early instances, +get to Overbury at all--Elwes saw to that--or Overbury must have died +months before he did die. + +According to Weldon, who may be supposed to have witnessed the trials, +Franklin confessed "that Overbury was smothered to death, not poisoned +to death, though he had poison given him." And Weldon goes on to make +this curious comment: + + +Here was Coke glad, how to cast about to bring both ends together, Mrs +Turner and Weston being already hanged for killing Overbury with poison; +but he, being the very quintessence of the law, presently informs the +jury that if a man be done to death with pistols, poniards, swords, +halter, poison, etc., so he be done to death, the indictment is good if +he be but indicted for any of those ways. But the good lawyers of those +times were not of that opinion, but did believe that Mrs Turner was +directly murthered by my lord Coke's law as Overbury was without any +law. + + +Though you will look in vain through the reports given in the State +Trials for any speech of Coke to the jury in exactly these terms, it +might be just as well to remember that the transcriptions from which +the Trials are printed were prepared UNDER Coke's SUPERVISION, and that +they, like the confessions of the convicted, are very often in his own +handwriting. + +At all events, even on the bowdlerized evidence that exists, it is plain +that Anne Turner should have been charged only with attempted murder. +Of that she was manifestly guilty and, according to the justice of the +time, thoroughly deserved to be hanged. The indictment against her was +faulty, and the case against her as full of holes as a colander. Her +trial was 'cooked' in more senses than one. + +It was some seven months after the execution of Anne Turner that the +Countess of Essex was brought to trial. This was in May. In December, +while virtually a prisoner under the charge of Sir William Smith at Lord +Aubigny's house in Blackfriars, she had given birth to a daughter. In +March she had been conveyed to the Tower, her baby being handed over to +the care of her mother, the Countess of Suffolk. Since the autumn of +the previous year she had not been permitted any communication with her +husband, nor he with her. He was already lodged in the Tower when she +arrived there. + +On a day towards the end of May she was conveyed by water from the Tower +to Westminster Hall. The hall was packed to suffocation, seats being +paid for at prices which would turn a modern promoter of a world's +heavyweight-boxing-championship fight green with envy. Her judges were +twenty-two peers of the realm, with the Lord High Steward, the Lord +Chief Justice, and seven judges at law. It was a pageant of colour, +in the midst of which the woman on trial, in her careful toilette, +consisting of a black stammel gown, a cypress chaperon or black crepe +hood in the French fashion, relieved by touches of white in the cuffs +and ruff of cobweb lawn, struck a funereal note. Preceded by the +headsman carrying his axe with its edge turned away from her, she was +conducted to the bar by the Lieutenant of the Tower. The indictment was +read to her, and at its end came the question: "Frances Howard, Countess +of Somerset, how sayest thou? Art thou guilty of this felony and murder +or not guilty?" + +There was a hushed pause for a moment; then came the low-voiced answer: +"Guilty." + +Sir Francis Bacon, the Attorney-General--himself to appear in the same +place not long after to answer charges of bribery and corruption--now +addressed the judges. His eloquent address was a commendation of the +Countess's confession, and it hinted at royal clemency. + +In answer to the formal demand of the Clerk of Arraigns if she had +anything to say why judgment of death should not be given against +her the Countess made a barely audible plea for mercy, begging their +lordships to intercede for her with the King. Then the Lord High +Steward, expressing belief that the King would be moved to mercy, +delivered judgment. She was to be taken thence to the Tower of London, +thence to the place of execution, where she was to be hanged by the neck +until she was dead--and might the Lord have mercy on her soul. + +The attendant women hastened to the side of the swaying woman. And now +the halbardiers formed escort about her, the headsman in front, with the +edge of his axe turned towards her in token of her conviction, and she +was led away. + + + +VI + +It is perfectly clear that the Countess of Somerset was led to confess +on the promise of the King's mercy. It is equally clear that she did not +know what she was confessing to. Whatever might have been her conspiracy +with Anne Turner it is a practical certainty that it did not result in +the death of Thomas Overbury. There is no record of her being allowed +any legal advice in the seven months that had elapsed since she +had first been made a virtual prisoner. She had been permitted no +communication with her husband. For all she knew, Overbury might indeed +have died from the poison which she had caused to be sent to the Tower +in such quantity and variety. And she went to trial at Westminster +guilty in conscience, her one idea being to take the blame for having +brought about the murder of Overbury, thinking by that to absolve her +husband of any share in the plot. She could not have known that her plea +of guilty would weaken Somerset's defence. The woman who could go to +such lengths in order to win her husband was unlikely to have done +anything that might put him in jeopardy. One can well imagine with what +fierceness she would have fought her case had she thought that by doing +so she could have helped the man she loved. + +But Frances Howard, no less than her accomplice Anne Turner, was the +victim of a gross subversion of justice. That she was guilty of a cruel +and determined attempt to poison Overbury is beyond question, and, being +guilty of that, she was thoroughly deserving of the fate that overcame +Anne Turner, but that at the last she was allowed to escape. Her +confession, however, shackled Somerset at his trial. It put her at the +King's mercy. Without endangering her life Somerset dared not come to +the crux of his defence, which would have been to demand why Loubel had +been allowed to go free, and why the King's physician, Mayerne, had not +been examined. To prevent Somerset from asking those questions, which +must have given the public a sufficient hint of King James's share in +the murder of Overbury, two men stood behind the Earl all through his +trial with cloaks over their arms, ready to muffle him. But, whatever +may be said of Somerset, the prospect of the cloaks would not have +stopped him from attempting those questions. He had sent word to King +James that he was "neither Gowrie nor Balmerino," those two earlier +victims of James's treachery. The thing that muffled him was the threat +to withdraw the promised mercy to his Countess. And so he kept silent, +to be condemned to death as his wife had been, and to join her in the +Tower. + +Five weary years were the couple to eat their hearts out there, their +death sentences remitted, before their ultimate banishment far from the +Court to a life of impoverished obscurity in the country. Better for +them, one would think, if they had died on Tower Green. It is hard to +imagine that the dozen years or so which they were to spend together +could contain anything of happiness for them--she the confessed would-be +poisoner, and he haunted by the memory of that betrayal of friendship +which had begun the process of their double ruin. Frances Howard died +in 1632, her husband twenty-three years later. The longer lease of life +could have been no blessing to the fallen favourite. + +There is a portrait of Frances Howard in the National Portrait Gallery +by an unknown artist. It is an odd little face which appears above +the elaborate filigree of the stiff lace ruff and under the +carefully dressed bush of dark brown hair. With her gay jacket of red +gold-embroidered, and her gold-ornamented grey gown, cut low to show the +valley between her young breasts, she looks like a child dressed up. If +there is no great indication of the beauty which so many poets shed ink +over there is less promise of the dire determination which was to pursue +a man's life with cruel poisons over several months. It is, however, a +narrow little face, and there is a tight-liddedness about the eyes which +in an older woman might indicate the bigot. Bigot she proved herself +to be, if it be bigotry in a woman to love a man with an intensity that +will not stop at murder in order to win him. That is the one thing that +may be said for Frances Howard. She did love Robert Carr. She loved him +to his ruin. + + + + +IV: -- A MODEL FOR MR HOGARTH + +On a Sunday, the 5th of February, 1733, there came toddling into that +narrow passage of the Temple known as Tanfield Court an elderly lady by +the name of Mrs Love. It was just after one o'clock of the afternoon. +The giants of St Dunstan's behind her had only a minute before rapped +out the hour with their clubs. + +Mrs Love's business was at once charitable and social. She was going, +by appointment made on the previous Friday night, to eat dinner with +a frail old lady named Mrs Duncomb, who lived in chambers on the third +floor of one of the buildings that had entry from the court. Mrs Duncomb +was the widow of a law stationer of the City. She had been a widow for a +good number of years. The deceased law stationer, if he had not left her +rich, at least had left her in fairly comfortable circumstances. It +was said about the environs that she had some property, and this fact, +combined with the other that she was obviously nearing the end of life's +journey, made her an object of melancholy interest to the womenkind of +the neighbourhood. + +Mrs Duncomb was looked after by a couple of servants. One of them, Betty +Harrison, had been the old lady's companion for a lifetime. Mrs +Duncomb, described as "old," was only sixty.[16] Her weakness and bodily +condition seem to have made her appear much older. Betty, then, also +described as "old," may have been of an age with her mistress, or even +older. She was, at all events, not by much less frail. The other servant +was a comparatively new addition to the establishment, a fresh little +girl of about seventeen, Ann (or Nanny) Price by name. + + +Mrs Love climbed the three flights of stairs to the top landing. It +surprised her, or disturbed her, but little that she found no signs of +life on the various floors, because it was, as we have seen, a Sunday. +The occupants of the chambers of the staircase, mostly gentlemen +connected in one way or another with the law, would be, she knew abroad +for the eating of their Sunday dinners, either at their favourite +taverns or at commons in the Temple itself. What did rather disturb +kindly Mrs Love was the fact that she found Mrs Duncomb's outer door +closed--an unwonted fact--and it faintly surprised her that no odour of +cooking greeted her nostrils. + +Mrs Love knocked. There was no reply. She knocked, indeed, at intervals +over a period of some fifteen minutes, still obtaining no response. The +disturbed sense of something being wrong became stronger and stronger in +the mind of Mrs Love. + +On the night of the previous Friday she had been calling upon Mrs +Duncomb, and she had found the old lady very weak, very nervous, and +very low in spirits. It had not been a very cheerful visit all round, +because the old maidservant, Betty Harrison, had also been far from +well. There had been a good deal of talk between the old women of dying, +a subject to which their minds had been very prone to revert. Besides +Mrs Love there were two other visitors, but they too failed to cheer the +old couple up. One of the visitors, a laundress of the Temple called +Mrs Oliphant, had done her best, poohpoohing such melancholy talk, and +attributing the low spirits in which the old women found themselves +to the bleakness of the February weather, and promising them that they +would find a new lease of life with the advent of spring. But Mrs Betty +especially had been hard to console. + +"My mistress," she had said to cheerful Mrs Oliphant, "will talk of +dying. And she would have me die with her." + +As she stood in considerable perturbation of mind on the cheerless +third-floor landing that Sunday afternoon Mrs Love found small matter +for comfort in her memory of the Friday evening. She remembered that old +Mrs Duncomb had spoken complainingly of the lonesomeness which had +come upon her floor by the vacation of the chambers opposite her on +the landing. The tenant had gone a day or two before, leaving the rooms +empty of furniture, and the key with a Mr Twysden. + +Mrs. Love, turning to view the door opposite to that on which she had +been rapping so long and so ineffectively, had a shuddery feeling that +she was alone on the top of the world. + +She remembered how she had left Mrs Duncomb on the Friday night. Mrs +Oliphant had departed first, accompanied by the second visitor, one +Sarah Malcolm, a charwoman who had worked for Mrs Duncomb up to the +previous Christmas, and who had called in to see how her former employer +was faring. An odd, silent sort of young woman this Sarah, good-looking +in a hardfeatured sort of way, she had taken but a very small part in +the conversation, but had sat staring rather sullenly into the fire by +the side of Betty Harrison, or else casting a flickering glance about +the room. Mrs Love, before following the other two women downstairs, had +helped the ailing Betty to get Mrs Duncomb settled for the night. In the +dim candle-light and the faint glow of the fire that scarce illumined +the wainscoted room the high tester-bed of the old lady, with its +curtains, had seemed like a shadowed catafalque, an illusion nothing +lessened by the frail old figure under the bedclothing. + +It came to the mind of Mrs Love that the illness manifesting itself in +Betty on the Friday night had worsened. Nanny, she imagined, must have +gone abroad on some errand. The old servant, she thought, was too ill to +come to the door, and her voice would be too weak to convey an answer to +the knocking. Mrs Love, not without a shudder for the chill feeling of +that top landing, betook herself downstairs again to make what inquiry +she might. It happened that she met one of her fellow-visitors of the +Friday night, Mrs Oliphant. + +Mrs Oliphant was sympathetic, but could not give any information. She +had seen no member of the old lady's establishment that day. She could +only advise Mrs Love to go upstairs again and knock louder. + +This Mrs Love did, but again got no reply. She then evolved the theory +that Betty had died during the night, and that Nanny, Mrs Duncomb being +confined to bed, had gone to look for help, possibly from her sister, +and to find a woman who would lay out the body of the old servant. With +this in her mind Mrs Love descended the stairs once more, and went to +look for another friend of Mrs Duncomb's, a Mrs Rhymer. + +Mrs Rhymer was a friend of the old lady's of some thirty years' +standing. She was, indeed, named as executrix in Mrs Duncomb's will. Mrs +Love finding her and explaining the situation as she saw it, Mrs Rhymer +at once returned with Mrs Love to Tanfield Court. + +The two women ascended the stairs, and tried pushing the old lady's +door. It refused to yield to their efforts. Then Mrs Love went to the +staircase window that overlooked the court, and gazed around to see if +there was anyone about who might help. Some distance away, at the door, +we are told, "of my Lord Bishop of Bangor," was the third of Friday +night's visitors to Mrs Duncomb, the charwoman named Sarah Malcolm. Mrs +Love hailed her. + +"Prithee, Sarah," begged Mrs Love, "go and fetch a smith to open Mrs +Duncomb's door." + +"I will go at all speed," Sarah assured her, with ready willingness, and +off she sped. Mrs Love and Mrs Rhymer waited some time. Sarah came back +with Mrs Oliphant in tow, but had been unable to secure the services of +a locksmith. This was probably due to the fact that it was a Sunday. + +By now both Mrs Love and Mrs Rhymer had become deeply apprehensive, and +the former appealed to Mrs Oliphant. "I do believe they are all dead, +and the smith is not come!" cried Mrs Love. "What shall we do, Mrs +Oliphant?" + +Mrs Oliphant, much younger than the others, seems to have been a woman +of resource. She had from Mr Twysden, she said, the key of the vacant +chambers opposite to Mrs Duncomb's. "Now let me see," she continued, "if +I cannot get out of the back chamber window into the gutter, and so into +Mrs Duncomb's apartment." + +The other women urged her to try.[17] Mrs Oliphant set off, her heels +echoing in the empty rooms. Presently the waiting women heard a +pane snap, and they guessed that Mrs Oliphant had broken through Mrs +Duncomb's casement to get at the handle. They heard, through the door, +the noise of furniture being moved as she got through the window. Then +came a shriek, the scuffle of feet. The outer door of Mrs Duncomb's +chambers was flung open. Mrs Oliphant, ashen-faced, appeared on the +landing. "God! Oh, gracious God!" she cried. "They're all murdered!" + + + +II + +All four women pressed into the chambers. All three of the women +occupying them had been murdered. In the passage or lobby little Nanny +Price lay in her bed in a welter of blood, her throat savagely cut. Her +hair was loose and over her eyes, her clenched hands all bloodied about +her throat. It was apparent that she had struggled desperately for +life. Next door, in the dining-room, old Betty Harrison lay across the +press-bed in which she usually slept. Being in the habit of keeping her +gown on for warmth, as it was said, she was partially dressed. She had +been strangled, it seemed, "with an apron-string or a pack-thread," for +there was a deep crease about her neck and the bruised indentations as +of knuckles. In her bedroom, also across her bed, lay the dead body of +old Mrs Duncomb. There had been here also an attempt to strangle, an +unnecessary attempt it appeared, for the crease about the neck was very +faint. Frail as the old lady had been, the mere weight of the murderer's +body, it was conjectured, had been enough to kill her. + +These pathological details were established on the arrival later of +Mr Bigg, the surgeon, fetched from the Rainbow Coffee-house near by by +Fairlow, one of the Temple porters. But the four women could see enough +for themselves, without the help of Mr Bigg, to understand how death +had been dealt in all three cases. They could see quite clearly also +for what motive the crime had been committed. A black strong-box, with +papers scattered about it, lay beside Mrs Duncomb's bed, its lid forced +open. It was in this box that the old lady had been accustomed to keep +her money. + +If any witness had been needed to say what the black box had contained +there was Mrs Rhymer, executrix under the old lady's will. And if Mrs. +Rhymer had been at any need to refresh her memory regarding the contents +opportunity had been given her no farther back than the afternoon of the +previous Thursday. On that day she had called upon Mrs Duncomb to take +tea and to talk affairs. Three or four years before, with her rapidly +increasing frailness, the old lady's memory had begun to fail. Mrs +Rhymer acted for her as a sort of unofficial curator bonis, receiving +her money and depositing it in the black box, of which she kept the key. + +On the Thursday, old Betty and young Nanny being sent from the room, the +old lady had told Mrs Rhymer that she needed some money--a guinea. Mrs +Rhymer had gone through the solemn process of opening the black box, +and, one must suppose--old ladies nearing their end being what they +are--had been at need to tell over the contents of the box for the +hundredth time, just to reassure Mrs Duncomb that she thoroughly +understood the duties she had agreed to undertake as executrix + +At the top of the box was a silver tankard. It had belonged to Mrs +Duncomb's husband. In the tankard was a hundred pounds. Beside the +tankard lay a bag containing guinea pieces to the number of twenty or +so. This was the bag that Mrs Rhymer had carried over to the old lady's +chair by the fire, in order to take from it the needed guinea. + +There were some half-dozen packets of money in the box, each sealed +with black wax and set aside for particular purposes after Mrs Duncomb's +death. Other sums, greater in quantity than those contained in the +packets, were earmarked in the same way. There was, for example, twenty +guineas set aside for the old lady's burial, eighteen moidores to meet +unforeseen contingencies, and in a green purse some thirty or forty +shillings, which were to be distributed among poor people of Mrs +Duncomb's acquaintance. The ritual of telling over the box contents, if +something ghostly, had had its usual effect of comforting the old lady's +mind. It consoled her to know that all arrangements were in order for +her passing in genteel fashion to her long home, that all the decorums +of respectable demise would be observed, and that "the greatest of +these" would not be forgotten. The ritual over, the black box was closed +and locked, and on her departure Mrs Rhymer had taken away the key as +usual. + +The motive for the crime, as said, was plain. The black box had been +forced, and there was no sign of tankard, packets, green purse, or bag +of guineas. + +The horror and distress of the old lady's friends that Sunday afternoon +may better be imagined than described. Loudest of the four, we are told, +was Sarah Malcolm. It is also said that she was, however, the coolest, +keen to point out the various methods by which the murderers (for the +crime to her did not look like a single-handed effort) could have got +into the chambers. She drew attention to the wideness of the kitchen +chimney and to the weakness of the lock in the door to the vacant rooms +on the other side of the landing. She also pointed out that, since the +bolt of the spring-lock of the outer door to Mrs Duncomb's rooms had +been engaged when they arrived, the miscreants could not have used that +exit. + +This last piece of deduction on Sarah's part, however, was made rather +negligible by experiments presently carried out by the porter, Fairlow, +with the aid of a piece of string. He showed that a person outside the +shut door could quite easily pull the bolt to on the inside. + +The news of the triple murder quickly spread, and it was not long before +a crowd had collected in Tanfield Court, up the stairs to Mrs. Duncomb's +landing, and round about the door of Mrs Duncomb's chambers. It did not +disperse until the officers had made their investigations and the bodies +of the three victims had been removed. And even then, one may be sure, +there would still be a few of those odd sort of people hanging about +who, in those times as in these, must linger on the scene of a crime +long after the last drop of interest has evaporated. + + + +III + +Two further actors now come upon the scene. And for the proper grasping +of events we must go back an hour or two in time to notice their +activities. + +They are a Mr Gehagan, a young Irish barrister, and a friend of his +named Kerrel.[18] These young men occupy chambers on opposite sides +of the same landing, the third floor, over the Alienation Office in +Tanfield Court. + + +Mr Gehagan was one of Sarah Malcolm's employers. That Sunday morning at +nine she had appeared in his rooms to do them up and to light the fire. +While Gehagan was talking to Sarah he was joined by his friend Kerrel, +who offered to stand him some tea. Sarah was given a shilling and sent +out to buy tea. She returned and made the brew, then remained about +the chambers until the horn blew, as was then the Temple custom, for +commons. The two young men departed. After commons they walked for a +while in the Temple Gardens, then returned to Tanfield Court. + +By this time the crowd attracted by the murder was blocking up the +court, and Gehagan asked what was the matter. He was told of the murder, +and he remarked to Kerrel that the old lady had been their charwoman's +acquaintance. + +The two friends then made their way to a coffee-house in Covent Garden. +There was some talk there of the murder, and the theory was advanced by +some one that it could have been done only by some laundress who knew +the chambers and how to get in and out of them. From Covent Garden, +towards night, Gehagan and Kerrel went to a tavern in Essex Street, and +there they stayed carousing until one o'clock in the morning, when they +left for the Temple. They were not a little astonished on reaching their +common landing to find Kerrel's door open, a fire burning in the +grate of his room, and a candle on the table. By the fire, with a dark +riding-hood about her head, was Sarah Malcolm. To Kerrel's natural +question of what she was doing there at such an unearthly hour she +muttered something about having things to collect. Kerrel then, +reminding her that Mrs Duncomb had been her acquaintance, asked her if +anyone had been "taken up" for the murder. + +"That Mr Knight," Sarah replied, "who has chambers under her, has been +absent two or three days. He is suspected." + +"Well," said Kerrel, remembering the theory put forward in the +coffee-house, and made suspicious by her presence at that strange hour, +"nobody that was acquainted with Mrs Duncomb is wanted here until the +murderer is discovered. Look out your things, therefore, and begone!" + +Kerrel's suspicion thickened, and he asked his friend to run downstairs +and call up the watch. Gehagan ran down, but found difficulty in opening +the door below, and had to return. Kerrel himself went down then, and +came back with two watchmen. They found Sarah in the bedroom at a chest +of drawers, in which she was turning over some linen that she claimed +to be hers. The now completely suspicious Kerrel went to his closet, and +noticed that two or three waistcoats were missing from a portmanteau. +He asked Sarah where they were; upon which Sarah, with an eye to the +watchmen and to Gehagan, begged to be allowed to speak with him alone. + +Kerrel refused, saying he could have no business with her that was +secret. + +Sarah then confessed that she had pawned the missing waistcoats for two +guineas, and begged him not to be angry. Kerrel asked her why she had +not asked him for money. He could readily forgive her for pawning the +waistcoats, but, having heard her talk of Mrs Lydia Duncomb, he was +afraid she was concerned with the murder. A pair of earrings were found +in the drawers, and these Sarah claimed, putting them in her corsage. An +odd-looking bundle in the closet then attracted Kerrel's attention, and +he kicked it, and asked Sarah what it was. She said it was merely dirty +linen wrapped up in an old gown. She did not wish it exposed. Kerrel +made further search, and found that other things were missing. He told +the watch to take the woman and hold her strictly. + +Sarah was led away. Kerrel, now thoroughly roused, continued his search, +and he found underneath his bed another bundle. He also came upon some +bloodstained linen in another place, and in a close-stool a silver +tankard, upon the handle of which was a lot of dried blood. + +Kerrel's excitement passed to Gehagan, and the two of them went at +speed downstairs yelling for the watch. After a little the two watchmen +reappeared, but without Sarah. They had let her go, they said, because +they had found nothing on her, and, besides, she had not been charged +before a constable. + +One here comes upon a recital by the watchmen which reveals the +extraordinary slackness in dealing with suspect persons that +characterized the guardians of the peace in London in those times. They +had let the woman go, but she had come back. Her home was in Shoreditch, +she said, and rather than walk all that way on a cold and boisterous +night she had wanted to sit up in the watch-house. The watchmen refused +to let her do this, but ordered her to "go about her business," advising +her sternly at the same time to turn up again by ten o'clock in the +morning. Sarah had given her word, and had gone away. + +On hearing this story Kerrel became very angry, threatening the two +watchmen, Hughes and Mastreter, with Newgate if they did not pick her +up again immediately. Upon this the watchmen scurried off as quickly as +their age and the cumbrous nature of their clothing would let them. +They found Sarah in the company of two other watchmen at the gate of +the Temple. Hughes, as a means of persuading her to go with them more +easily, told her that Kerrel wanted to speak with her, and that he was +not angry any longer. Presently, in Tanfield Court, they came on the two +young men carrying the tankard and the bloodied linen. This time it was +Gehagan who did the talking. He accused Sarah furiously, showing her the +tankard. Sarah attempted to wipe the blood off the tankard handle with +her apron. Gehagan stopped her. + +Sarah said the tankard was her own. Her mother had given it her, and she +had had it for five years. It was to get the tankard out of pawn that +she had taken Kerrel's waistcoats, needing thirty shillings. The blood +on the handle was due to her having pricked a finger. + +With this began the series of lies Sarah Malcolm put up in her defence. +She was hauled into the watchman's box and more thoroughly searched. A +green silk purse containing twenty-one guineas was found in the bosom of +her dress. This purse Sarah declared she had found in the street, and as +an excuse for its cleanliness, unlikely with the streets as foul as they +were at that age and time of year, said she had washed it. Both bundles +of linen were bloodstained. There was some doubt as to the identity of +the green purse. Mrs Rhymer, who, as we have seen, was likelier than +anyone to recognize it, would not swear it was the green purse that had +been in Mrs Duncomb's black box. There was, however, no doubt at all +about the tankard. It had the initials "C. D." engraved upon it, and +was at once identified as Mrs Duncomb's. The linen which Sarah had +been handling in Mr Kerrel's drawer was said to be darned in a way +recognizable as Mrs Duncomb's. It had lain beside the tankard and the +money in the black box. + + + +IV + +There was, it will be seen, but very little doubt of Sarah Malcolm's +guilt. According to the reports of her trial, however, she fought +fiercely for her life, questioning the witnesses closely. Some of them, +such as could remember small points against her, but who failed in +recollection of the colour of her dress or of the exact number of the +coins said to be lost, she vehemently denounced. + +One of the Newgate turnkeys told how some of the missing money was +discovered. Being brought from the Compter to Newgate, Sarah happened to +see a room in which debtors were confined. She asked the turnkey, Roger +Johnson, if she could be kept there. Johnson replied that it would cost +her a guinea, but that from her appearance it did not look to him as if +she could afford so much. Sarah seems to have bragged then, saying that +if the charge was twice or thrice as much she could send for a friend +who would pay it. Her attitude probably made the turnkey suspicious. +At any rate, after Sarah had mixed for some time with the felons in the +prison taproom, Johnson called her out and, lighting the way by use of a +link, led her to an empty room. + +"Child," he said, "there is reason to suspect that you are guilty of +this murder, and therefore I have orders to search you." He had, he +admitted, no such orders. He felt under her arms; whereupon she started +and threw back her head. Johnson clapped his hand on her head and felt +something hard. He pulled off her cap, and found a bag of money in her +hair. + +"I asked her," Johnson said in the witness-box, "how she came by it, +and she said it was some of Mrs Duncomb's money. 'But, Mr Johnson,' says +she, 'I'll make you a present of it if you will keep it to yourself, and +let nobody know anything of the matter. The other things against me +are nothing but circumstances, and I shall come well enough off. And +therefore I only desire you to let me have threepence or sixpence a +day till the sessions be over; then I shall be at liberty to shift for +myself.'" + +To the best of his knowledge, said this turnkey, having told the money +over, there were twenty moidores, eighteen guineas, five broad pieces, +a half-broad piece, five crowns, and two or three shillings. He +thought there was also a twenty-five-shilling piece and some others, +twenty-three-shilling pieces. He had sealed them up in the bag, and +there they were (producing the bag in court). + +The court asked how she said she had come by the money. + +Johnson's answer was that she had said she took the money and the bag +from Mrs Duncomb, and that she had begged him to keep it secret. "My +dear," said this virtuous gaoler, "I would not secrete the money for the +world. + +"She told me, too," runs Johnson's recorded testimony, "that she had +hired three men to swear the tankard was her grandmother's, but could +not depend on them: that the name of one was William Denny, another was +Smith, and I have forgot the third. After I had taken the money away she +put a piece of mattress in her hair, that it might appear of the same +bulk as before. Then I locked her up and sent to Mr Alstone, and told +him the story. 'And,' says I, 'do you stand in a dark place to be +witness of what she says, and I'll go and examine her again."' + +Sarah interrupted: "I tied my handkerchief over my hair to hide the +money, but Buck,[19] happening to see my hair fall down, he told +Johnson; upon which Johnson came to see me and said, 'I find the cole's +planted in your hair. Let me keep it for you and let Buck know nothing +about it.' So I gave Johnson five broad pieces and twenty-two guineas, +not gratis, but only to keep for me, for I expected it to be returned +when sessions was over. As to the money, I never said I took it from +Mrs Duncomb; but he asked me what they had to rap against me. I told him +only a tankard. He asked me if it was Mrs Duncomb's, and I said yes." + + +The Court: "Johnson, were those her words: 'This is the money and bag +that I took'?" + +Johnson: "Yes, and she desired me to make away with the bag." + +Johnson's evidence was confirmed in part by Alstone, another officer of +the prison. He said he told Johnson to get the bag from the prisoner, as +it might have something about it whereby it could be identified. Johnson +called the girl, while Alstone watched from a dark corner. He saw Sarah +give Johnson the bag, and heard her ask him to burn it. Alstone also +deposed that Sarah told him (Alstone) part of the money found on her was +Mrs Duncomb's. + +There is no need here to enlarge upon the oddly slack and casual +conditions of the prison life of the time as revealed in this evidence. +It will be no news to anyone who has studied contemporary criminal +history. There is a point, however, that may be considered here, and +that is the familiarity it suggests on the part of Sarah with prison +conditions and with the cant terms employed by criminals and the people +handling them. + +Sarah, though still in her earliest twenties,[20] was known already--if +not in the Temple--to have a bad reputation. It is said that her closest +friends were thieves of the worst sort. She was the daughter of an +Englishman, at one time a public official in a small way in Dublin. Her +father had come to London with his wife and daughter, but on the death +of the mother had gone back to Ireland. He had left his daughter behind +him, servant in an ale-house called the Black Horse. + + +Sarah was a fairly well-educated girl. At the ale-house, however, she +formed an acquaintance with a woman named Mary Tracey, a dissolute +character, and with two thieves called Alexander. Of these three +disreputable people we shall be hearing presently, for Sarah tried to +implicate them in this crime which she certainly committed alone. It is +said that the Newgate officers recognized Sarah on her arrival. She had +often been to the prison to visit an Irish thief, convicted for stealing +the pack of a Scots pedlar. + +It will be seen from Sarah's own defence how she tried to implicate +Tracey and the two Alexanders: + +"I freely own that my crimes deserve death; I own that I was accessory +to the robbery, but I was innocent of the murder, and will give an +account of the whole affair. + +"I lived with Mrs Lydia Duncomb about three months before she was +murdered. The robbery was contrived by Mary Tracey, who is now in +confinement, and myself, my own vicious inclinations agreeing with hers. +We likewise proposed to rob Mr Oakes in Thames Street. She came to me at +my master's, Mr Kerrel's chambers, on the Sunday before the murder +was committed; he not being then at home, we talked about robbing Mrs +Duncomb. I told her I could not pretend to do it by myself, for I should +be found out. 'No,' says she, 'there are the two Alexanders will help +us.' Next day I had seventeen pounds sent me out of the country, which +I left in Mr Kerrel's drawers. I met them all in Cheapside the following +Friday, and we agreed on the next night, and so parted. + +"Next day, being Saturday, I went between seven and eight in the evening +to see Mrs Duncomb's maid, Elizabeth Harrison, who was very bad. I +stayed a little while with her, and went down, and Mary Tracey and the +two Alexanders came to me about ten o'clock, according to appointment." + +On this statement the whole implication of Tracey and the Alexanders by +Sarah stands or falls. It falls for the reason that the Temple porter +had seen no stranger pass the gate that night, nobody but Templars going +to their chambers. The one fact riddles the rest of Sarah's statement in +defence, but, as it is somewhat of a masterpiece in lying invention, +I shall continue to quote it. "Mary Tracey would have gone about the +robbery just then, but I said it was too soon. Between ten and eleven +she said, 'We can do it now.' I told her I would go and see, and so went +upstairs, and they followed me. I met the young maid on the stairs with +a blue mug; she was going for some milk to make a sack posset. She asked +me who were those that came after me. I told her they were people going +to Mr Knight's below. As soon as she was gone I said to Mary Tracey, +'Now do you and Tom Alexander go down. I know the door is ajar, because +the old maid is ill, and can't get up to let the young maid in when she +comes back.' Upon that, James Alexander, by my order, went in and hid +himself under the bed; and as I was going down myself I met the young +maid coming up again. She asked me if I spoke to Mrs Betty. I told her +no; though I should have told her otherwise, but only that I was afraid +she might say something to Mrs Betty about me, and Mrs Betty might tell +her I had not been there, and so they might have a suspicion of me." + +There is a possibility that this part of her confession, the tale of +having met the young maid, Nanny, may be true.[21] And here may the +truth of the murder be hidden away. Very likely it is, indeed, that +Sarah encountered the girl going out with the blue mug for milk to make +a sack posset, and she may have slipped in by the open door to hide +under the bed until the moment was ripe for her terrible intention. On +the other hand, if there is truth in the tale of her encountering the +girl again as she returned with the milk--and her cunning in answering +"no" to the maid's query if she had seen Mrs Betty has the real +ring--other ways of getting an entry were open to her. We know that the +lock of the vacant chambers opposite Mrs Duncomb's would have yielded +to small manipulation. It is not at all unlikely that Sarah, having been +charwoman to the old lady, and with the propensities picked up from her +Shoreditch acquaintances, had made herself familiar with the locks on +the landing. So that she may have waited her hour in the empty rooms, +and have got into Mrs Duncomb's by the same method used by Mrs Oliphant +after the murder. She may even have slipped back the spring-catch of the +outer door. One account of the murder suggests that she may have +asked Ann Price, on one pretext or other, to let her share her bed. It +certainly was not beyond the callousness of Sarah Malcolm to have chosen +this method, murdering the girl in her sleep, and then going on to +finish off the two helpless old women. + + +The truth, as I have said, lies hidden in this extraordinarily +mendacious confection. Liars of Sarah's quality are apt to base their +fabrications on a structure, however slight, of truth. I continue with +the confession, then, for what the reader may get out of it. + +"I passed her [Nanny Price] and went down, and spoke with Tracey and +Alexander, and then went to my master's chambers, and stirred up the +fire. I stayed about a quarter of an hour, and when I came back I saw +Tracey and Tom Alexander sitting on Mrs Duncomb's stairs, and I sat down +with them. At twelve o'clock we heard some people walking, and by and by +Mr Knight came home, went to his room, and shut the door. It was a very +stormy night; there was hardly anybody stirring abroad, and the watchmen +kept up close, except just when they cried the hour. At two o'clock +another gentleman came, and called the watch to light his candle, upon +which I went farther upstairs, and soon after this I heard Mrs Duncomb's +door open; James Alexander came out, and said, 'Now is the time.' Then +Mary Tracey and Thomas Alexander went in, but I stayed upon the stair +to watch. I had told them where Mrs Duncomb's box stood. They came out +between four and five, and one of them called to me softly, and said, +'Hip! How shall I shut the door?' Says I, ''Tis a spring-lock; pull it +to, and it will be fast.' And so one of them did. They would have shared +the money and goods upon the stairs, but I told them we had better go +down; so we went under the arch by Fig-tree Court, where there was a +lamp. I asked them how much they had got. They said they had found fifty +guineas and some silver in the maid's purse, about one hundred pounds +in the chest of drawers, besides the silver tankard and the money in the +box and several other things; so that in all they had got to the value +of about three hundred pounds in money and goods. They told me that they +had been forced to gag the people. They gave me the tankard with what +was in it and some linen for my share, and they had a silver spoon and +a ring and the rest of the money among themselves. They advised me to be +cunning and plant the money and goods underground, and not to be seen to +be flush. Then we appointed to meet at Greenwich, but we did not go.[22] + + +"I was taken in the manner the witnesses have sworn, and carried to the +watch-house, from whence I was sent to the Compter, and so to Newgate. +I own that I said the tankard was mine, and that it was left me by my +mother: several witnesses have swore what account I gave of the tankard +being bloody; I had hurt my finger, and that was the occasion of it. I +am sure of death, and therefore have no occasion to speak anything but +the truth. When I was in the Compter I happened to see a young man[23] +whom I knew, with a fetter on. I told him I was sorry to see him there, +and I gave him a shilling, and called for half a quartern of rum to make +him drink. I afterwards went into my room, and heard a voice call +me, and perceived something poking behind the curtain. I was a little +surprised, and looking to see what it was, I found a hole in the wall, +through which the young man I had given the shilling to spoke to me, and +asked me if I had sent for my friends. I told him no. He said he would +do what he could for me, and so went away; and some time after he called +to me again, and said, 'Here is a friend.' + + +"I looked through, and saw Will Gibbs come in. Says he, 'Who is there +to swear against you?' I told him my two masters would be the chief +witnesses. 'And what can they charge you with?' says he. I told him the +tankard was the only thing, for there was nothing else that I thought +could hurt me. 'Never fear, then,' says he; 'we'll do well enough. We +will get them that will rap the tankard was your grandmother's, and that +you was in Shoreditch the night the act was committed; and we'll have +two men that shall shoot your masters. But,' said he, 'one of the +witnesses is a woman, and she won't swear under four guineas; but the +men will swear for two guineas apiece,' and he brought a woman and three +men. I gave them ten guineas, and they promised to wait for me at the +Bull Head in Broad Street. But when I called for them, when I was going +before Sir Richard Brocas, they were not there. Then I found I should +be sent to Newgate, and I was full of anxious thoughts; but a young man +told me I had better go to the Whit than to the Compter. + +"When I came to Newgate I had but eighteenpence in silver, besides the +money in my hair, and I gave eighteenpence for my garnish. I was ordered +to a high place in the gaol. Buck, as I said before, having seen my hair +loose, told Johnson of it, and Johnson asked me if I had got any cole +planted there. He searched and found the bag, and there was in +it thirty-six moidores, eighteen guineas, five crown pieces, two +half-crowns, two broad pieces of twenty-five shillings, four of +twenty-three shillings, and one half-broad piece. He told me I must be +cunning, and not to be seen to be flush of money. Says I, 'What would +you advise me to do with it?' 'Why,' says he, 'you might have thrown it +down the sink, or have burnt it, but give it to me, and I'll take care +of it.' And so I gave it to him. Mr Alstone then brought me to the +condemned hold and examined me. I denied all till I found he had +heard of the money, and then I knew my life was gone. And therefore I +confessed all that I knew. I gave him the same account of the robbers as +I have given you. I told him I heard my masters were to be shot, and +I desired him to send them word. I described Tracey and the two +Alexanders, and when they were first taken they denied that they knew Mr +Oakes, whom they and I had agreed to rob. + +"All that I have now declared is fact, and I have no occasion to murder +three persons on a false accusation; for I know I am a condemned woman. +I know I must suffer an ignominious death which my crimes deserve, and I +shall suffer willingly. I thank God He has given me time to repent, when +I might have been snatched off in the midst of my crimes, and without +having an opportunity of preparing myself for another world." There is +a glibness and an occasional turn of phrase in this confession which +suggests some touching up from the pen of a pamphleteer, but one may +take it that it is, in substance, a fairly accurate report. In spite of +the pleading which threads it that she should be regarded as accessory +only in the robbery, the jury took something less than a quarter of +an hour to come back with their verdict of "Guilty of murder." Sarah +Malcolm was sentenced to death in due form. + + + +V + +Having regard to the period in which this confession was made, and +considering the not too savoury reputations of Mary Tracey and the +brothers Alexander, we can believe that those three may well have +thought themselves lucky to escape from the mesh of lies Sarah tried to +weave about them.[24] It was not to be doubted on all the evidence that +she alone committed that cruel triple murder, and that she alone stole +the money which was found hidden in her hair. The bulk of the stolen +clothing was found in her possession, bloodstained. A white-handled +case-knife, presumably that used to cut Nanny Price's throat, was seen +on a table by the three women who, with Sarah herself, were first on the +scene of the murder. It disappeared later, and it is to be surmised that +Sarah Malcolm managed to get it out of the room unseen. But to the last +moment possible Sarah tried to get her three friends involved with her. +Say, which is not at all unlikely, that Tracey and the Alexanders may +have first suggested the robbery to her, and her vindictive maneouvring +may be understood. + + +It is said that when she heard that Tracey and the Alexanders had been +taken she was highly pleased. She smiled, and said that she could now +die happy, since the real murderers had been seized. Even when the three +were brought face to face with her for identification she did not lack +brazenness. "Ay," she said, "these are the persons who committed the +murder." "You know this to be true," she said to Tracey. "See, Mary, +what you have brought me to. It is through you and the two Alexanders +that I am brought to this shame, and must die for it. You all promised +me you would do no murder, but, to my great surprise, I found the +contrary." + +She was, you will perceive, a determined liar. Condemned, she behaved +with no fortitude. "I am a dead woman!" she cried, when brought back to +Newgate. She wept and prayed, lied still more, pretended illness, and +had fits of hysteria. They put her in the old condemned hold with a +constant guard over her, for fear that she would attempt suicide. + +The idlers of the town crowded to the prison to see her, for in the time +of his Blessed Majesty King George II Newgate, with the condemned hold +and its content, composed one of the fashionable spectacles. Young +Mr Hogarth, the painter, was one of those who found occasion to visit +Newgate to view the notorious murderess. He even painted her portrait. +It is said that Sarah dressed specially for him in a red dress, but that +copy--one which belonged to Horace Walpole--which is now in the National +Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, shows her in a grey gown, with a white +cap and apron. Seated to the left, she leans her folded hands on a table +on which a rosary and a crucifix lie. Behind her is a dark grey wall, +with a heavy grating over a dark door to the right. There are varied +mezzotints of this picture by Hogarth himself still extant, and there is +a pen-and-wash drawing of Sarah by Samuel Wale in the British Museum. + +The stories regarding the last days in life of Sarah Malcolm would +occupy more pages than this book can afford to spend on them. To the +last she hoped for a reprieve. After the "dead warrant" had arrived, to +account for a paroxysm of terror that seized her, she said that it was +from shame at the idea that, instead of going to Tyburn, she was to be +hanged in Fleet Street among all the people that knew her, she having +just heard the news in chapel. This too was one of her lies. She had +heard the news hours before. A turnkey, pointing out the lie to her, +urged her to confess for the easing of her mind. + +One account I have of the Tanfield Court murders speaks of the custom +there was at this time of the bellman of St Sepulchre's appearing +outside the gratings of the condemned hold just after midnight on the +morning of executions.[25] This performance was provided for by bequest +from one Robert Dove, or Dow, a merchant-tailor. Having rung his bell +to draw the attention of the condemned (who, it may be gathered, were +not supposed to be at all in want of sleep), the bellman recited these +verses: + + All you that in the condemned hold do lie, + Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die. + Watch all and pray; the hour is drawing near + That you before th' Almighty must appear. + + Examine well yourselves, in time repent, + That you may not t'eternal flames be sent: + And when St 'Pulchre's bell to-morrow tolls, + The Lord above have mercy on your souls! + Past twelve o'clock![26] + + +A fellow-prisoner or a keeper bade Sarah Malcolm heed what the bellman +said, urging her to take it to heart. Sarah said she did, and threw the +bellman down a shilling with which to buy himself a pint of wine. + +Sarah, as we have seen, was denied the honour of procession to Tyburn. +Her sentence was that she was to be hanged in Fleet Street, opposite the +Mitre Court, on the 7th of March, 1733. And hanged she was accordingly. +She fainted in the tumbril, and took some time to recover. Her last +words were exemplary in their piety, but in the face of her vindictive +lying, unretracted to the last, it were hardly exemplary to repeat them. + +She was buried in the churchyard of St Sepulchre's. + + + + +V: -- ALMOST A LADY[27] + + +Born (probably illegitimately) in a fisherman's cottage, reared in a +workhouse, employed in a brothel, won at cards by a royal duke, mistress +of that duke, married to a baron, received at Court by three kings +(though not much in the way of kings), accused of cozenage and +tacitly of murder, died full of piety, 'cutting up' for close on +L150,000--there, as it were in a nutshell, you have the life of Sophie +Dawes, Baronne de Feucheres. + +In the introduction to her exhaustive and accomplished biography of +Sophie Dawes,[28] from which a part of the matter for this resume is +drawn, Mme Violette Montagu, speaking of the period in which Sophie +lived, says that "Paris, with its fabulous wealth and luxury, seems to +have been looked upon as a sort of Mecca by handsome Englishwomen with +ambition and, what is absolutely necessary if they wish to be really +successful, plenty of brains." + + +It is because Sophie had plenty of brains of a sort, besides the +attributes of good looks, health, and by much a disproportionate share +of determination, and because, with all that she attained to, she died +quite ostracized by the people with whom it had been her life's ambition +to mix, and was thus in a sense a failure--it is because of these things +that it is worth while going into details of her career, expanding the +precis with which this chapter begins. + +Among the women selected as subjects for this book Sophie Dawes as a +personality wins 'hands down.' Whether she was a criminal or not is a +question even now in dispute. Unscrupulous she certainly was, and a good +deal of a rogue. That modern American product the 'gold-digger' is +what she herself would call a 'piker' compared with the subject of +this chapter. The blonde bombshell, with her 'sugar daddy,' her alimony +'racket,' and the hundred hard-boiled dodges wherewith she chisels +money and goods from her prey, is, again in her own crude phraseology, +'knocked for a row of ash-cans' by Sophie Dawes. As, I think, you will +presently see. + +Sophie was born at St Helens, Isle of Wight--according to herself in +1792. There is controversy on the matter. Mme Montagu in her book says +that some of Sophie's biographers put the date at 1790, or even 1785. +But Mme Montagu herself reproduces the list of wearing apparel with +which Sophie was furnished when she left the 'house of industry' (the +workhouse). It is dated 1805. In those days children were not maintained +in poor institutions to the mature ages of fifteen or twenty. They were +supposed to be armed against life's troubles at twelve or even younger. +Sophie, then, could hardly have been born before 1792, but is quite +likely to have been born later. + +The name of Sophie's father is given as "Daw." Like many another +celebrity, as, for example, Walter Raleigh and Shakespeare, Sophie +spelled her name variously, though ultimately she fixed on "Dawes." +Richard, or Dickey, Daw was a fisherman for appearance sake and a +smuggler for preference. The question of Sophie's legitimacy anses from +the fact that her mother, Jane Callaway, was registered at death as "a +spinster." Sophie was one of ten children. Dickey Daw drank his family +into the poorhouse, an institution which sent Sophie to fend for herself +in 1805, procuring her a place as servant at a farm on the island. + +Service on a farm does not appear to have appealed to Sophie. She +escaped to Portsmouth, where she found a job as hotel chambermaid. +Tiring of that, she went to London and became a milliner's assistant. +A little affair we hear, in which a mere water-carrier was an equal +participant, lost Sophie her place. We next have word of her imitating +Nell Gwynn, both in selling oranges to playgoers and in becoming an +actress--not, however, at Old Drury, but at the other patent theatre, +Covent Garden. Save that as a comedian she never took London by storm, +and that she lacked Nell's unfailing good humour, Sophie in her career +matches Nell in more than superficial particulars. Between selling +oranges and appearing on the stage Sophie seems to have touched bottom +for a time in poverty. But her charms as an actress captivated an +officer by and by, and she was established as his mistress in a house +at Turnham Green. Tiring of her after a time--Sophie, it is probable, +became exigeant with increased comfort--her protector left her with an +annuity of L50. + +The annuity does not appear to have done Sophie much good. We next +hear of her as servant-maid in a Piccadilly brothel, a lupanar +much patronized by wealthy emigres from France, among whom was +Louis-Henri-Joseph, Duc de Bourbon and later Prince de Conde, a man at +that time of about fifty-four. + +The Duc's attention was directed to the good looks of Sophie by a +manservant of his. Mme Montagu says of Sophie at this time that "her +face had already lost the first bloom of youth and innocence." Now, one +wonders if that really was so, or if Mme Montagu is making a shot at a +hazard. She describes Sophie a little earlier than this as having +developed into a fine young woman, not exactly pretty or handsome, but +she held her head gracefully, and her regular features were illumined +by a pair of remarkably bright and intelligent eyes. She was tall and +squarely built, with legs and arms which might have served as models +for a statue of Hercules. Her muscular force was extraordinary. Her lips +were rather thin, and she had an ugly habit of contracting them when she +was angry. Her intelligence was above the average, and she had a good +share of wit. + + +At the time when the Duc de Bourbon came upon her in the Piccadilly +stew the girl was probably no more than eighteen. If one may judge +her character from the events of her subsequent career there was an +outstanding resiliency and a resoluteness as main ingredients of her +make-up, qualities which would go a long way to obviating any marks that +might otherwise have been left on her by the ups and downs of a mere +five years in the world. If, moreover, Mme Montagu's description of her +is a true one it is clear that Sophie's good looks were not of the sort +to make an all-round appeal. The ways in which attractiveness goes, +both in men and in women, are infinite in their variety. The reader may +recall, in this respect, what was said in the introductory chapter about +Kate Webster and the instance of the bewhiskered 'Fina of the Spanish +tavern. And since a look of innocence and the bloom of youth may, and +very often do, appear on the faces of individuals who are far from being +innocent or even young, it may well be that Sophie in 1810, servant-maid +in a brothel though she was, still kept a look of country freshness and +health, unjaded enough to whet the dulled appetence of a bagnio-haunting +old rip. The odds are, at all events, that Sophie was much less +artificial in her charms than the practised ladies of complacency upon +whom she attended. With her odd good looks she very likely had just that +subacid leaven for which, in the alchemy of attraction, the Duc was in +search. + +The Duc, however, was not the only one to whom Sophie looked desirable. +Two English peers had an eye on her--the Earl of Winchilsea and the Duke +of Kent. This is where the card affair comes in. The Duc either played +whist with the two noblemen for sole rights in Sophie or, what is more +likely, cut cards with them during a game. The Duc won. Whether his win +may be regarded as lucky or not can be reckoned, according to the taste +and fancy of the reader, from the sequelae of some twenty years. + + + +II + +With the placing of Sophie dans ses meubles by the Duc de Bourbon there +began one of the most remarkable turns in her career. In 1811 he took a +house for her in Gloucester Street, Queen's Square, with her mother as +duenna, and arranged for the completion of her education. + +As a light on her character hardly too much can be made of this stage in +her development. It is more than likely that the teaching was begun at +Sophie's own demand, and by the use she made of the opportunities given +her you may measure the strength of her ambition. Here was no rich +man's doxy lazily seeking a veneer of culture, enough to gloss the rough +patches of speech and idea betraying humble origin. This fisherman's +child, workhouse girl, ancilla of the bordels, with the thin smattering +of the three R's she had acquired in the poor institution, set herself, +with a wholehearted concentration which a Newnham 'swot' might envy, +to master modern languages, with Greek, Latin, and music. At the end of +three years she was a good linguist, could play and sing well enough to +entertain and not bore the most intelligent in the company the Duc +kept, and to pass in that company--the French emigre set in London--as +a person of equal education. If, as it is said, Sophie, while she could +read and write French faultlessly, never could speak it without an +English accent, it is to be remembered that the flexibility of tongue +and mind needed for native-sounding speech in French (or any other +language) is so exceptional as to be practically non-existent among her +compatriots to this day. The fault scarcely belittles her achievement. +As well blame a one-legged man for hopping when trying to run. +Consider the life Sophie had led, the sort of people with whom she had +associated, and that temptation towards laissez-faire which conquers all +but the rarest woman in the mode of life in which she was existing, +and judge of the constancy of purpose that kept that little nose so +steadfastly in Plutarch and Xenophon. + +If in the year 1812 the Duc began to allow his little Sophie about +L800 a year in francs as pin-money he was no more generous than Sophie +deserved. The Duc was very rich, despite the fact that his father, the +old Prince de Conde, was still alive, and so, of course, was enjoying +the income from the family estates. + +There is no room here to follow more than the barest outline of the Duc +de Bourbon's history. Fully stated, it would be the history of France. +He was a son of the Prince de Conde who collected that futile army +beyond the borders of France in the royalist cause in the Revolution. +Louis-Henri was wounded in the left arm while serving there, so badly +wounded that the hand was practically useless. He came to England, +where he lived until 1814, when he went back to France to make his +unsuccessful attempt to raise the Vendee. Then he went to Spain. + +At this time he intended breaking with Sophie, but when he got back to +Paris in 1815 he found the lady waiting for him. It took Sophie some +eighteen months to bring his Highness up to scratch again. During this +time the Duc had another English fancy, a Miss Harris, whose reign in +favour, however, did not withstand the manoeuvring of Sophie. + +Sophie as a mistress in England was one thing, but Sophie unattached as +a mistress in France was another. One wonders why the Duc should have +been squeamish on this point. Perhaps it was that he thought it would +look vulgar to take up a former mistress after so long. At all events, +he was ready enough to resume the old relationship with Sophie, provided +she could change her name by marriage. Sophie was nothing loth. The idea +fell in with her plans. She let it get about that she was the natural +daughter of the Duc, and soon had in tow one Adrien-Victor de Feucheres. +He was an officer of the Royal Guard. Without enlarging on the all-round +tawdriness of this contract it will suffice here to say that Sophie and +Adrien were married in London in August of 1818, the Duc presenting +the bride with a dowry of about L5600 in francs. Next year de Feucheres +became a baron, and was made aide-de-camp to the Duc. + +Incredible as it may seem, de Feucheres took four years to realize what +was the real relationship between his wife and the Prince de Conde. The +aide-de-camp and his wife had a suite of rooms in the Prince's favourite +chateau at Chantilly, and the ambition which Sophie had foreseen would +be furthered by the marriage was realized. She was received as La +Baronne de Feucheres at the Court of Louis XVIII. She was happy--up to a +point. Some unpretty traits in her character began to develop: a violent +temper, a tendency to hysterics if crossed, and, it is said, a leaning +towards avaricious ways. At the end of four years the Baron de Feucheres +woke up to the fact that Sophie was deceiving him. It does not appear, +however, that he had seen through her main deception, because it was +Sophie herself, we are told, who informed him he was a fool--that she +was not the Prince's daughter, but his mistress. + +Having waked up thus belatedly, or having been woken up by Sophie in her +ungoverned ill-temper, de Feucheres acted with considerable dignity. He +begged to resign his position as aide to the Prince, and returned his +wife's dowry. The departure of Sophie's hitherto complacent husband +rather embarrassed the Prince. He needed Sophie but felt he could not +keep her unattached under his roof and he sent her away--but only for a +few days. Sophie soon was back again in Chantilly. + +The Prince made some attempt to get de Feucheres to return, but without +success. De Feucheres applied for a post in the Army of Spain, an +application which was granted at once. It took the poor man seven years +to secure a judicial separation from his wife. + +The scandal of this change in the menage of Chantilly--it happened in +1822--reached the ears of the King, and the Baronne de Feucheres was +forbidden to appear at Court. All Sophie's energies from then on were +concentrated on getting the ban removed. She explored all possible +avenues of influence to this end, and, incidentally drove her old lover +nearly frantic with her complaints giving him no peace. Even a rebuff +from the Duchesse de Berry, widow of the son of that prince who was +afterwards Charles X, did not put her off. She turned up one day at the +Tuileries, to be informed by an usher that she could not be admitted. + +This desire to be reinstated in royal favour is at the back of all +Sophie's subsequent actions--this and her intention of feathering her +own nest out of the estate of her protector. It explains why she worked +so hard to have the Prince de Conde assume friendly relations with a +family whose very name he hated: that of the Duc d'Orleans. It is a clue +to the mysterious death, eight years later, of the Prince de Conde, last +of the Condes, in circumstances which were made to pass as suicide, but +which in unhampered inquiry would almost certainly have been found to +indicate murder. + + + +III + +Louis-Henri-Joseph, Duc de Bourbon and Prince de Conde, seems to have +been rather a simple old man: a useless old sinner, true enough, +but relatively harmless in his sinning, relatively venial in his +uselessness. It were futile to seek for the morality of a later age in a +man of his day and rank and country, just as it were obtuse to look for +greatness in one so much at the mercy of circumstance. As far as bravery +went he had shown himself a worthy descendant of "the Great Conde." But, +surrounded by the vapid jealousies of the most useless people who had +ever tried to rule a country, he, no more than his father, had +the faintest chance to show the Conde quality in war. Adrift as a +comparatively young man, his world about his ears, with no occupation, +small wonder that in idleness he fell into the pursuit of satisfactions +for his baser appetites. He would have been, there is good reason to +believe, a happy man and a busy one in a camp. There is this to be +said for him: that alone among the spineless crowd of royalists feebly +waiting for the miracle which would restore their privilege he attempted +a blow for the lost cause. But where in all that bed of disintegrating +chalk was the flint from which he might have evoked a spark? + +The great grief of the Prince's life was the loss of his son, the young +Duc d'Enghien, shamefully destroyed by Bonaparte. It is possible that +much of the Prince's inertia was due to this blow. He had married, at +the early age of fourteen, Louise-Marie-Therese-Mathilde d'Orleans, +daughter of Louis-Philippe, Duc d'Orleans and the Duchesse de Chartres, +the bride being six years older than her husband. Such a marriage could +not last. It merely sustained the honeymoon and the birth of that only +son. The couple were apart in eighteen months, and after ten years they +never even saw each other again. About the time when Sophie's husband +found her out and departed the Princesse died. The Prince was advised +to marry again, on the chance that an heir might be born to the large +fortune he possessed. But Sophie by then had become a habit with +the Prince--a bad one--and the old man was content to be left to his +continual hunting, and not to bother over the fact that he was the last +of his ancient line. + +It may be easily believed that the Prince's disinclination to marry +again contented Sophie very well. And the fact that he had no direct +heir was one in which she saw possibilities advantageous to herself. + +The Prince was then sixty-six years old. In the course of nature he was +almost bound to predecease her. His wealth was enormous, and out of +it Sophie wanted as much by bequest as she could get. She was much too +shrewd, however, to imagine that, even if she did contrive to be made +his sole heir, the influential families who had an eye upon the great +possessions of the Prince, and who through relationship had some right +to expect inheritance, would allow such a will to go uncontested. She +therefore looked about among the Prince's connexions for some one who +would accept coheirship with herself, and whose family would be strong +enough in position to carry through probate on such terms, but at the +same time would be grateful enough to her and venal enough to further +her aim of being reinstated at Court. Her choice in this matter shows +at once her political cunning, which would include knowledge of affairs, +and her ability as a judge of character. + +It should be remembered that, in spite of his title of Duc de Bourbon, +Sophie's elderly protector was only distantly of that family. He was +descended in direct line from the Princes de Conde, whose connexion with +the royal house of France dated back to the sixteenth century. The other +line of 'royal' ducs in the country was that of Orleans, offshoot of +the royal house through Philippe, son of Louis XIII, and born in 1640. +Sophie's protector, Louis-Henri-Joseph, Prince de Conde, having married +Louise-Marie, daughter of the great-grandson of this Philippe, was thus +the brother-in-law of that Louis-Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, who in +the Revolution was known as "Egalite." This was a man whom, for his +political opinion and for his failure to stand by the King, Louis XVI, +the Prince de Conde utterly detested in memory. As much, moreover, as he +had hated the father did the Prince de Conde detest Egalite's son. But +it was out of this man's family that Sophie selected, though ultimately, +her coheir. + +Before she arrived at this point, however, Sophie had been at pains to +do some not very savoury manoeuvring. + +By a dancer at the Opera, called Mimi, the Prince de Conde had an +illegitimate daughter, whom he had caused to be educated and whom he had +married to the Comte de Rully. The Comtesse de Rully and her husband had +a suite at Chantilly. This was an arrangement which Sophie, as reigning +Queen of Chantilly, did not like at all. While the Rully woman remained +at Chantilly Sophie could not think that her sway over the Prince was +quite as absolute as she wished. It took her six years of badgering her +protector, from 1819 to 1825, to bring about the eviction. + +But meantime (for Sophie's machinations must be taken as concurrent with +events as they transpire) the Baronne de Feucheres had approached +the son of Philippe-Egalite, suggesting that the last-born of his +six children, the Duc d'Aumale, should have the Prince de Conde +for godfather. If she could persuade her protector to this the Duc +d'Orleans, in return, was to use his influence for her reinstatement at +Court. And persuade the old man to this Sophie did, albeit after a great +deal of badgering on her part and a great deal of grumbling on the part +of the Prince. + +The influence exerted at Court by the Duc d'Orleans does not seem to +have been very effective. The King who had dismissed her the Court, +Louis XVIII, died in 1824. His brother, the Comte d'Artois, ascended +the throne as Charles X, and continued by politically foolish recourses, +comparable in history to those of the English Stuarts, to alienate the +people by attempting to regain that anachronistic absolute power which +the Revolution had destroyed. He lasted a mere six years as king. The +revolution of 1830 sent him into exile. But up to the last month or so +of those six years he steadfastly refused to have anything to do with +the Baronne de Feucheres--not that Sophie ever gave up manoeuvring and +wheedling for a return to Court favour. + +About 1826 Sophie had a secret proposition made to the King that she +should try to persuade the Prince de Conde to adopt as his heir one +of the brothers of the Duchesse de Berry, widow of the King's second +son--or would his Majesty mind if a son of the Duc d'Orleans was +adopted? The King did not care at all. + +After that Sophie pinned her faith in the power possessed by the Duc +d'Orleans. She was not ready to pursue the course whereby her return to +Court might have been secured--namely, to abandon her equivocal position +in the Prince de Conde's household, and thus her power over the Prince. +She wanted first to make sure of her share of the fortune he would +leave. She knew her power over the old man. Already she had persuaded +him to buy and make over to her the estates of Saint-Leu and Boissy, as +well as to make her legacies to the amount of a million francs. Much as +she wanted to be received again at Court, she wanted more just as much +as she could grab from the Prince's estate. To make her inheritance +secure she needed the help of the Duc d'Orleans. + +The Duc d'Orleans was nothing loth. He had the mind of a French +bourgeois, and all the bourgeois itch for money. He knew that the Prince +de Conde hated him, hated his politics, hated his very name. But during +the seven years it took Sophie to bring the Prince to the point of +signing the will she had in mind the son of Philippe-Egalite fawned +like a huckster on his elderly and, in more senses than one, distant +relative. The scheme was to have the Prince adopt the little Duc +d'Aumale, already his godchild, as his heir. + +The ways by which Sophie went about the job of persuading her old lover +do not read pleasantly. She was a termagant. The Prince was stubborn. He +hated the very idea of making a will--it made him think of death. He +was old, ill, friendless. Sophie made his life a hell, but he had +become dependent upon her. She ill-used him, subjecting him to physical +violence, but yet he was afraid she might, as she often threatened, +leave him. Her way of persuading him reached the point, it is on +record, of putting a knife to his throat. Not once but several times +his servants found him scratched and bruised. But the old man could not +summon up the strength of mind to be quit of this succubine virago. + +At last, on the 29th of August, 1829, Sophie's 'persuasions' succeeded. +The Prince consented to sign the will, and did so the following morning. +In its terms the Duc d'Aumale became residuary legatee, and 2,000,000 +francs, free of death-duty, were bequeathed to the Prince's "faithful +companion, Mme la baronne de Feucheres," together with the chateaux +and estates of Saint-Leu-Taverny, Boissy, Enghien, Montmorency, and +Mortefontaine, and the pavilion in the Palais-Bourbon, besides all the +Prince's furniture, carriages, horses, and so on. Moreover, the estate +and chateau of Ecouen was also given her, on condition that she allowed +the latter to be used as an orphanage for the descendants of soldiers +who had served with the Armies of Conde and La Vendee. The cost +of running this establishment, however, was to be borne by the Duc +d'Aumale. + +It might be thought that Sophie, having got her way, would have turned +to kindness in her treatment of her old lover. But no. All her mind +was now concentrated on working, through the Duc d'Orleans, for being +received again at Court. She ultimately succeeded in this. On the 7th +of February, 1830, she appeared in the presence of the King, the Dauphin +and Dauphine. In the business of preparing for this great day Chantilly +and the Prince de Conde were greatly neglected. The beggar on horseback +had to be about Paris. + +But events were shaping in France at that time which were to be +important to the royal family, to Sophie and her supporters of the house +of Orleans, and fatal in consequence to the old man at Chantilly. + +On the 27th of July revolution broke out in France. Charles X and +his family had to seek shelter in England, and Louis-Philippe, Duc +d'Orleans, became--not King of France, but "King of the French" by +election. This consummation had not been achieved without intrigue on +the part of Egalite's son. It was not an achievement calculated to abate +the Prince de Conde's hatred for him. Rather did it inflame that hatred. +In the matter of the famous will, moreover, as the King's son the little +Duc d'Aumale would be now in no need of the provision made for him +by his unwilling godfather, while members of the exiled royal +family--notably the grandson of Charles, the Duc de Bordeaux, certainly +cut out of the Prince's will by the intrigues of Sophie and family--were +in want of assistance. This is a point to be remembered in the light of +subsequent events. + + + +IV + +While she had been looking after herself Sophie Dawes had not been +unmindful ofthe advancement of hangers-on of her own family. She had +about her a nephew and a niece. The latter, supposed by some to have a +closer relationship to Sophie than that of mere niece, she had contrived +to marry off to a marquis. The Marquise de Chabannes de la Palice need +not here concern us further. But notice must be taken of the nephew. +A few million francs, provided by the Prince de Conde, had secured for +this James Dawes the title of Baron de Flassans, from a domain also +bestowed upon him by Sophie's elderly lover. De Flassans, with some +minor post in the Prince's household, acted as his aunt's jackal. + +If Sophie, after the election to kingship of Louis-Philippe, found +it necessary to be in Paris a great deal to worship at the throne her +nephew kept her well informed about the Prince de Conde's activities. +The old man, it appeared, had suddenly developed the habit of writing +letters. The Prince, then at the chateau of Saint-Leu expressed a desire +to remove to Chantilly. He was behaving very oddly all round, was glad +to have Sophie out of his sight, and seemed unwilling even to hear her +name. The projected move to Chantilly, as a fact, was merely a blind to +cover a flight out of Sophie's reach and influence. Rumour arose about +Saint-Leu and in Paris that the Prince had made another will--one in +which neither Sophie nor the Duc d'Aumale was mentioned. This was a move +of which Sophie had been afraid. She saw to it that the Prince did not +get away from Saint-Leu. Rumour and the Prince's conduct made Sophie +very anxious. She tried to get him to make over to her in his lifetime +those properties which he had left to her in his will, and it is +probable enough that she would have forced this request but for the fact +that, to raise the legal costs, the property of Saint-Leu would have had +to be sold. + +This was the position of affairs about the middle of August 1830. It was +believed the Prince had already signed a will in favour of the exiled +little Duc de Bordeaux, but that he had kept the act secret from his +mistress. + +On the morning of the 11th of the month the Prince was met outside his +bedroom in his night attire. It was a young man called Obry who thus met +the Prince. He was the old man's godchild. The old man's left eye +was bleeding, and there was a scratch on his cheek as if made by a +fingernail. To Obry the Prince attributed these wounds to the spite of +the Baronne de Feucheres. Half an hour later he told his valet he had +hit his head against a night-table. Later again in the day he gave +another version still: he had fallen against the door to a secret +staircase from his bedroom while letting the Baronne de Feucheres +out, the secret staircase being in communication with Sophie's private +apartments. + +For the next ten days or so the Prince was engaged in contriving his +flight from the gentle Sophie, a second plan which again was spoiled by +Sophie's spies. There was something of a fete at Saint-Leu on the 26th, +the Prince's saint's day. There was a quarrel between Sophie and the +Prince on the morning of the 26th in the latter's bedroom. Sophie had +then been back in Saint-Leu for three days. At midnight on the 26th the +old man retired after playing a game or two at whist. He was to go on +the 30th to Chantilly. He was accompanied to his bedroom by his surgeon +and a valet, one Lecomte, and expressed a desire to be called at eight +o'clock. Lecomte found a paper in the Prince's trousers and gave it to +the old man, who placed it on the mantelshelf. Then the valet, as he +said later, locked the door of the Prince's dressing-room, thus--except +for the entrance from the secret staircase--locking the old man in his +room. + +The Prince's apartments were on the first floor of the chateau. His +bedroom was approached through the dressing-room from the main corridor. +Beyond the dressing-room was a passage, turning left from which was +the bedroom, and to the right in which was an entrance to an anteroom. +Facing the dressing-room door in this same passage was the entrance to +the secret staircase already mentioned. The staircase gave access to the +Baronne de Feucheres' apartments on the entrance floor. These, however, +were not immediately under the Prince's rooms. An entresol intervened, +and here the rooms were occupied by the Abbe Briant, a creature of +Sophie's and her secretary, the Widow Lachassine, Sophie's lady's-maid, +and a couple named Dupre. These last, also spies of Sophie's, had their +room direcdy below the Prince's bedroom, and it is recorded that the +floor was so thin that they could hear not only the old man's every +movement, but anything he said. + +Adjacent to the Prince's room, and on the same floor, were the rooms +occupied by Lambot, the Prince's aide, and the valet Lecomte. Lambot was +a lover of Sophie's, and had been the great go-between in her intrigues +with the Orleans family over the will. Lecomte was in Sophie's pay. +Close to Sophie's apartments on the entrance floor were the rooms +occupied by her nephew and his wife, the de Flassans. It will be seen, +therefore, that the wing containing the Prince's rooms was otherwise +occupied almost completely by Sophie's creatures. + +You have, then, the stage set for the tragedy which was about to ensue: +midnight; the last of the Condes peaceably in his bedroom for the night, +and locked in it (according to Lecomte). About him, on all sides, are +the creatures of his not too scrupulous mistress. All these people, with +the exception of the Baronne de Flassans, who sat up writing letters +until two, retire about the same time. + +And at eight o'clock next morning, there being no answer to Lecomte's +knocking to arouse the Prince, the door is broken open at the orders of +the Baronne de Feucheres. The Prince is discovered dead in his bedroom, +suspended by the neck, by means of two of his own handkerchiefs knotted +together, from the fastening of one of the French windows. + +The fastening was only about two and a half feet off the floor. +The handkerchief about the dead man's neck was loose enough to have +permitted insertion of all the fingers of a hand between it and the +neck. The second handkerchief was tied to the first, and its other end +was knotted to the window-fastening, and the dead man's right cheek was +pressed against the closed shutter. The knees were bent a little, +the feet were on the floor. None of the usual indications of death by +strangulation were present. The eyes were half closed. The face was pale +but not livid. The mouth was almost closed. There was no protrusion of +the tongue. + +On the arrival of the civil functionaries, the Mayor of Saint-Leu and +a Justice of the Peace from Enghien, the body was taken down and put +on the bed. It was then found that the dead man's ankles were greatly +bruised and his legs scratched. On the left side of the throat, at a +point too low for it to have been done by the handkerchief, there was +some stripping of the skin. A large red bruise was found between the +Prince's shoulders. + +The King, Louis-Philippe, heard about the death of the Prince de +Conde at half-past eleven that same day. He immediately sent his High +Chancellor, M. Pasquier, and his own aide-de-camp, M. de Rumigny, to +inquire into the matter. It is not stretching things too far to say +that the King's instructions to these gentlemen are revealed in phrases +occurring in the letters they sent his Majesty that same evening. Both +recommend that Drs. Marc and Marjolin should be sent to investigate +the Prince's tragic death. But M. Pasquier mentions that "not a single +document has been found, so a search has already been made." And M. de +Rumigny thinks "it is important that nobody should be accused who +is likely to benefit by the will." What document was expected to be +discovered in the search? Why, a second will that would invalidate +the first. Who was to benefit by the first will? Why, the little Duc +d'Aumale and Dame Sophie Dawes, Baronne de Feucheres! + +The post-mortem examination was made by the King's own physicians. +During the examination the Prince's doctors, MM. Dubois and Gendrin, +his personal secretary, and the faithful one among his body-servants, +Manoury, were sent out of the room. The verdict was suicide. The +Prince's own doctors maintained that suicide by the handkerchiefs from +the window-fastening was impossible. Dr Dubois wrote his idea of how the +death had occurred: + + +The Prince very likely was asleep in his bed. The murderers must have +been given entrance to his bedroom--I have no wish to ask how or by +whom. They then threw themselves on the Prince, gripped him firmly, +and could easily pin him down on his bed; then the most desperate and +dexterous of the murderers suffocated him as he was thus held firmly +down; finally, in order to make it appear that he had committed suicide +and to hinder any judicial investigations which might have discovered +the identity of the assassins, they fastened a handkerchief about their +victim's neck, and hung him up by the espagnolette of the window. + + +And that, at all hazards, is about the truth of the death of the Duc de +Bourbon and Prince de Conde. There was some official display of rigour +in investigation by the Procureur; there was much play with some +mysterious papers found a good time after the first discovery +half-burned in the fireplace of the Prince's bedroom; there was a lot +put forward to support the idea of suicide; but the blunt truth of the +affair is that the Prince de Conde was murdered, and that the murder +was hushed up as much as possible. Not, however, with complete success. +There were few in France who gave any countenance to the theory of +suicide. + +The Prince, it will be remembered, had a practically disabled left arm. +It is said that he could not even remove his hat with his left hand. The +knots in the handkerchiefs used to tie him to the espagnolette were both +complicated and tightly made. Impossible for a one-handed man. His bed, +which at the time of his retiring to it stood close to the alcove +wall, was a good foot and a half away from that wall in the morning. +Impossible feat also for this one-handed man. It was the Prince's habit +to lie so much to one side of the bed that his servants had to prop the +outside edge up with folded blankets. On the morning when his death was +discovered it was seen that the edges still were high, while the centre +was very much pressed down. There was, in fact, a hollow in the bed's +middle such as might have been made by some one standing on it with +shoes on. It is significant that the bedclothes were neatly turned down. +If the Prince had got up on a sudden impulse to commit suicide he is +hardly likely, being a prince, to have attempted remaking his bed. He +must, moreover, since he could normally get from bed only by rolling on +his side, have pressed out that heightened edge. Manoury, the valet who +loved him, said that the bed in the morning looked more as if it had +been SMOOTHED OUT than remade. This would tend to support the theory of +Dr Dubois. The murderers, having suffocated the Prince, would be likely +to try effacing the effects of his struggling by the former method +rather than the latter. + +But the important point of the affair, as far as this chapter on it is +concerned, is the relation of Sophie Dawes with it on the conclusion +of murder. How deeply was she implicated? Let us see how she acted +on hearing that there was no reply to Lecomte's knocking, and let us +examine her conduct from that moment on. + +Note that the Baronne de Feucheres was the first person whom Lecomte and +the Prince's surgeon apprised of the Prince's silence. She rushed out of +her room and made for the Prince's, not by the secret staircase, but by +the main one. She knew, however, that the door to the secret staircase +from the Prince's room was not bolted that night. This knowledge was +admitted for her later by the Prince's surgeon, M. Bonnie. She had gone +up to the Prince's room by the main staircase in order to hide the fact, +an action which gives a touch of theatricality to her exhibited concern +about the Prince's silence. + +The search for documents spoken of by M. Pasquier in his letter to +the King had been carried out by Sophie in person, with the aid of her +nephew de Flassans and the Abbe Briant. It was a thorough search, and a +piece of indecorousness which she excused on the ground of being afraid +the Prince's executors might find a will which made her the sole heir, +to the exclusion of the Duc d'Aumale. + +Regarding the 'accident' which had happened to the Prince on the 11th of +August, she said it was explained by an earlier attempt on his part to +do away with himself. She tried to deny that she had been at Saint-Leu +at the time of the actual happening, when the fact was that she only +left for Paris some hours later. + +When, some time later, the Prince's faithful valet Manoury made mention +of the fact that the Prince had wanted to put the width of the country +between himself and his mistress, Sophie first tried to put the fear +of Louis-Philippe into the man, then, finding he was not to be silenced +that way, tried to buy him with a promise of employment. + +It is beyond question that the Prince de Conde was murdered. He was +murdered in a wing of the chateau in which he was hemmed in on all sides +by Sophie's creatures. It is impossible that Sophie was not privy, at +the least, to the deed. It is not beyond the bounds of probability that +she was an actual participator in the murder. + +She was a violent woman, as violent and passionate as she was +determined. Not once but many times is it on record that she physically +ill-used her elderly lover. There was one occasion, it is said, when +the Prince suddenly came upon her in a very compromising position with +a younger man in the park of one of his chateaux. Sophie, before +the Prince could utter a protest, cut him across the face with her +riding-whip, and finished up by thrashing him with his own cane. + +Here you have the stuff, at any rate, of which your murderesses of the +violent type are made. It is the metal out of which your Kate Websters, +your Sarah Malcolms, your Meteyards and Brownriggs fashion themselves. +It takes more than three years of scholastic self-discipline, such as +Sophie Dawes in her ambition subjected herself to, to eradicate the +inborn harridan. The very determination which was at the back of +Sophie's efforts at self-education, that will to have her own way, would +serve to heighten the sick rage with which she would discover that her +carefully wrought plans of seven years had come to pieces. What was +it that the Abbe Pelier de Lacroix had in "proof of the horrible +assassination" of the Prince de Conde, but that he was prevented from +placing before the lawyers in charge of the later investigation, if not +the fact that the Prince had made a later will than the one by which +Sophie inherited so greatly? The Abbe was the Prince's chaplain. He +published a pamphlet declaring that the Prince had made a will leaving +his entire fortune to the little Duc de Bordeaux, but that Sophie had +stolen this later will. Who likelier to be a witness to such a will than +the Prince's chaplain? + +It needs no great feat of imagination to picture what the effect of +such a discovery would be on a woman of Sophie's violent temper, or to +conceive how little the matter of taking a life especially the life of +a feeble old man she was used to bullying and mishandling--would be +allowed to stand in the way of rescuing her large gains. Murder of the +Prince was her only chance. It had taken her seven years to bring him to +the point of signing that first will. He was seventy-four years of age, +enfeebled, obstinate, and she knew of his plans to flee from her. Even +supposing that she could prevent his flight, could she begin all over +again to another seven years of bullying and wheedling--always with +the prospect of the old man dying before she could get him to the point +again of doing as she wished? The very existence of the second will was +a menace. It only needed that the would-be heirs of the Prince should +hear of it, and there would be a swoop on their part to rescue the +testator from her clutches. In the balance against 2,000,000 francs and +some halfdozen castles with their estates the only wonder is that any +reasonable person, knowing the history of Sophie Dawes, should hesitate +about the value she was likely to place on the old man's life. + +The inquiry begun in September of 1830 into the circumstances +surrounding the death of the Prince was cooked before it was dressed. +The honest man into whose hands it was placed at first, a M. de la +Hurpoie, proved himself too zealous. After a night visit from the +Procureur he was retired into private life. After that the investigators +were hand-picked. They concluded the investigation the following June, +with the declaration that the Prince had committed suicide, a verdict +which had its reward--in advancement for the judges. + +In the winter of 1831-32 there was begun a lawsuit in which the Princes +de Rohan brought action against Sophie and the Duc d'Aumale for the +upsetting of the will under which the latter two had inherited the +Prince de Conde's fortune. The grounds for the action were the undue +influence exerted by Sophie. The Princes de Rohan lost. + +Thus was Sophie twice 'legally' vindicated. But public opinion refused +her any coat of whitewash. Never popular in France, she became less and +less popular in the years that followed her legal triumphs. Having used +her for his own ends, Louis-Philippe gradually shut off from her the +light of his cod-like countenance.[29] + + +Sophie found little joy in her wide French possessions. She found +herself without friends before whom she could play the great lady in her +castles. She gradually got rid of her possessions, and returned to her +native land. She bought an estate near Christchurch, in Hampshire, and +took a house in Hyde Park Square, London. But she did not long enjoy +those English homes. While being treated for dropsy in 1840 she died +of angina. According to the famous surgeon who was at her bedside just +before her demise, she died "game." + +It may almost be said that she lived game. There must have been a +fighting quality about Sophie to take her so far from such a bad start. +Violent as she was of temper, greedy, unscrupulous, she seems yet to +have had some instincts of kindness. The stories of her good deeds are +rather swamped by those of her bad ones. She did try to do some good +with the Prince's money round about Chantilly, took a definite and +lasting interest in the alms-houses built there by "the Great Conde," +and a request in her own will was to the effect that if she had ever +done anything for the Orleans gang, the Prince de Conde's wishes +regarding the use of the chateau of Ecouen as an orphanage might be +fulfilled as a reward to her. The request never was fulfilled, but it +does show that Sophie had some affinity in kindness to Nell Gwynn. + +How much farther--or how much better--would Sophie Dawes have fared had +her manners been less at the mercy of her temper? It is impossible +to say. That she had some quality of greatness is beyond doubt. The +resolution of character, the will to achieve, and even the viraginous +temper might have carried her far had she been a man some thirty years +earlier in the country of her greater activities. Under Napoleon, as +a man, Sophie might have climbed high on the way to glory. As a woman, +with those traits, there is almost tragic inevitability in the manner +in which we find her ranged with what Dickens called "Glory's bastard +brother"--Murder. + + + + +VI: -- ARSENIC A LA BRETONNE + +On Tuesday, the 1st of July, in the year 1851, two gentlemen, sober +of face as of raiment, presented themselves at the office of the +Procureur-General in the City of Rennes. There was no need for them to +introduce themselves to that official. They were well-known medical +men of the city, Drs Pinault and Boudin. The former of the two acted as +spokesman. + +Dr Pinault confessed to some distress of mind. He had been called in by +his colleague for consultation in the case of a girl, Rosalie Sarrazin, +servant to an eminent professor of law, M. Bidard. In spite of the +ministrations of himself and his colleague, Rosalie had died. The +symptoms of the illness had been very much the same as in the case of a +former servant of M. Bidard's, a girl named Rose Tessier, who had also +died. With this in mind they had persuaded the relatives of Rosalie to +permit an autopsy. They had to confess that they had found no trace of +poison in the body, but they were still convinced the girl had died of +poisoning. With his colleague backing him, Dr Pinault was able to put +such facts before the Procureur-General that that official almost at +once reached for his hat to accompany the two doctors to M. Bidard's. + +The door of the Professor's house was opened to them by Helene Jegado, +another of M. Bidard's servants. She was a woman of forty odd, somewhat +scraggy of figure and, while not exactly ugly, not prepossessing of +countenance. Her habit of looking anywhere but into the face of anyone +addressing her gave her rather a furtive air. + +Having ushered the three gentlemen into the presence of the Professor, +the servant-woman lingered by the door. + +"We have come, M. Bidard," said the Procureur, "on a rather painful +mission. One of your servants died recently--it is suspected, of +poisoning." + +"I am innocent!" + +The three visitors wheeled to stare, with the Professor, at the +grey-faced woman in the doorway. It was she who had made the +exclamation. + +"Innocent of what?" demanded the Law officer. "No one has accused you of +anything!" + +This incautious remark on the part of the servant, together with the +facts already put before him by the two doctors and the information +he obtained from her employer, led the Procureur-General to have her +arrested. Helene Jegado's past was inquired into, and a strange and +dreadful Odyssey the last twenty years of her life proved to be. It was +an Odyssey of death. + +Helene was born at Plouhinec, department of Morbihan, on (according to +the official record) "28 prairial," in the eleventh year of the republic +(1803). Orphaned at the age of seven, she was sheltered by the cure of +Bubry, M. Raillau, with whom two of her aunts were servants. Sixteen +years later one of those aunts, Helene Liscouet, took Helene with her +into service with M. Conan, cure at Seglien, and it was here that Helene +Jegado's evil ways would appear first to become manifest. A girl looking +after the cure's sheep declared she had found grains of hemp in soup +prepared for her by Helene. + +It was not, however, until 1833 that causing death is laid at her +charge. + +In that year she entered the service of a priest in Guern, one Le Drogo. +In the space of little more than three months, from the 28th of June to +the 3rd of October, seven persons in the priest's household died. All +those people died after painful vomitings, and all of them had eaten +food prepared by Helene, who nursed each of them to the last. The +victims of this fatal outbreak of sickness included Helene's own sister +Anna (apparently on a visit to Guern from Bubry), the rector's father +and mother, and Le Drogo himself. This last, a strong and vigorous man, +was dead within thirty-two hours of the first onset of his illness. +Helene, it was said, showed the liveliest sorrow over each of the +deaths, but on the death of the rector was heard to say, "This won't be +the last!" Nor was it. Two deaths followed that of Le Drogo. + +Such a fatal outbreak did not pass without suspicion. The body of +the rector was examined by Dr Galzain, who found indications of grave +disorder in the digestive tracts, with inflammation of the intestines. +His colleague, Dr Martel, had suspicions of poison, but the pious sorrow +of Helene lulled his mind as far as she was concerned. + +We next find Helene returned to Bubry, replacing her sister Anna in the +service of the cure there. In three months three people died: Helene's +aunt Marie-Jeanne Liscouet and the cure's niece and sister. This last, +a healthy girl of about sixteen, was dead within four days, and it is to +be noted that during her brief illness she drank nothing but milk from +the hands of Helene. But here, as hitherto, Helene attended all the +sufferers. Her grief over their deaths impressed every one with whom she +came in contact. + +From Bubry Helene went to Locmine. Her family connexion as servants with +the clergy found her room for three days in the rectory, after which +she became apprentice to a needlewoman of the town, one Marie-Jeanne +Leboucher, with whom she lived. The Widow Leboucher was stricken ill, as +also was one of her daughters. Both died. The son of the house, Pierre, +also fell ill. But, not liking Helene, he refused her ministrations, and +recovered. By this time Helene had become somewhat sensitive. + +"I'm afraid," she said to a male relative of the deceased sempstress, +"that people will accuse me of all those deaths. Death follows me +wherever I go." She quitted the Leboucher establishment in distress. + +A widow of the same town offered her house room. The widow died, having +eaten soup of Helene's preparing. On the day following the Widow Lorey's +death her niece, Veuve Cadic, arrived. The grief-stricken Helene threw +herself into the niece's arms. + +"My poor girl!" exclaimed the Veuve Cadic. + +"Ai--but I'm so unhappy!" Helene grieved. "Where-ever I go--Seglien, +Guern, Bubry, Veuve Laboucher's--people die!" + +She had cause for grief, sure enough. In less than eighteen months +thirteen persons with whom she had been closely associated had died of +violent sickness. But more were to follow. + +In May of 1835 Helene was in service with the Dame Toussaint, of +Locmine. Four more people died. They were the Dame's confidential maid, +Anne Eveno, M. Toussaint pere, a daughter of the house, Julie, and, +later, Mme Toussaint herself. They had eaten vegetable soup prepared by +Helene Jegado. Something tardily the son of the house, liking neither +Helene's face nor the deathly rumours that were rife about her, +dismissed her. + +To one as burdened with sorrow as Helene Jegado appeared to be the life +conventual was bound to hold appeal. She betook herself to the pleasant +little town of Auray, which sits on a sea arm behind the nose of +Quiberon, and sought shelter in the convent of the Eternal Father there. +She was admitted as a pensionnaire. Her sojourn in the convent did not +last long, for queer disorders marked her stay. Linen in the convent +cupboards and the garments of the pupils were maliciously slashed. +Helene was suspect and was packed off. + +Once again Helene became apprentice to a sempstress, this time an old +maid called Anne Lecouvrec, proprietress of the Bonnes-oeuvres in Auray. +The ancient lady, seventy-seven years of age, tried Helene's soup. She +died two days later. To a niece of the deceased Helene made moan: "Ah! I +carry sorrow. My masters die wherever I go!" + +The realization, however, did not prevent Helene from seeking further +employment. She next got a job with a lady named Lefur in Ploermel, +and stayed for a month. During that time Helene's longing for the life +religious found frequent expression, and she ultimately departed to pay +a visit, so she said, to the good sisters of the Auray community. Some +time before her departure, however, she persuaded Anne Lefur to accept a +drink of her preparing, and Anne, hitherto a healthy woman, became very +ill indeed. In this case Helene did not show her usual solicitude. She +rather heartlessly abandoned the invalid--which would appear to have +been a good thing for the invalid, for, lacking Helene's ministrations, +she got better. + +Helene meantime had found a place in Auray with a lady named Hetel. The +job lasted only a few days. Mme Hetel's son-in-law, M. Le Dore, having +heard why Helene was at need to leave the convent of the Eternal Father, +showed her the door of the house. That was hasty, but not hasty enough. +His mother-in-law, having already eaten meats cooked by Helene, was +in the throes of the usual violent sickness, and died the day after +Helene's departure. + +Failing to secure another place in Auray, Helene went to Pontivy, and +got a position as cook in the household of the Sieur Jouanno. She had +been there some few months when the son of the house, a boy of fourteen, +died after a sickness of five days that was marked by vomiting and +convulsions. In this case an autopsy was immediately held. It revealed +an inflamed condition of the stomach and some corrosion of the +intestines. But the boy had been known to be a vinegar-drinker, and the +pathological conditions discovered by the doctor were attributed by him +to the habit. + +Helene's next place was with a M. Kerallic in Hennebont. M. Kerallic was +recovering from a fever. After drinking a tisane prepared by Helene he +had a relapse, followed by repeated and fierce vomiting that destroyed +him in five days. This was in 1836. After that the trail of death which +had followed Helene's itineracy about the lower section of the Brittany +peninsula was broken for three years. + +In 1839 we hear of her again, in the house of the Dame Veron, where +another death occurred, again with violent sickness. + +Two years elapse. In 1841 Helene was in Lorient, domestic servant to a +middle-aged couple named Dupuyde-Lome, with whom lived their daughter +and her husband, a M. Breger. First the little daughter of the young +couple died, then all the members of the family were seized by illness, +its onset being on the day following the death of the child. No more +of the family died, but M. Dupuy and his daughter suffered from bodily +numbness for years afterwards, with partial paralysis and recurrent +pains in the extremities. + +Helene seems to have made Lorient too hot for herself, and had to go +elsewhere. Port Louis is her next scene of action. A kinswoman of her +master in this town, one Duperron, happened to miss a sheet from +the household stock. Mlle Leblanc charged Helene with the theft, and +demanded the return of the stolen article. It is recorded that Helene +refused to give it up, and her answer is curious. + +"I am going into retreat," she declared. "God has forgiven me my sins!" + +There was perhaps something prophetic in the declaration. By the time +Helene was brought to trial, in 1854, her sins up to this point of +record were covered by the prescription legale, a sort of statute of +limitations in French law covering crime. Between 1833 and 1841 the +wanderings of Helene Jegado through those quiet Brittany towns had been +marked by twenty-three deaths, six illnesses, and numerous thefts. + +There is surcease to Helene's death-dealing between the years of +1841 and 1849, but on the inquiries made after her arrest a myriad of +accusers sprang up to tell of thefts during that time. They were petty +thefts, but towards the end of the period they begin to indicate a +change in Helene's habits. She seems to have taken to drink, for her +thefts are mostly of wine and eau de vie. + +In March 1848 Helene was in Rennes. On the 6th of November of the +following year, having been dismissed from several houses for theft, +she became sole domestic servant to a married couple called Rabot. Their +son, Albert, who was already ill, died in the end of December. He had +eaten a farina porridge cooked by Helene. In the following February, +having discovered Helene's depredations from the wine-cupboard, M. Rabot +gave her notice. This was on the 3rd of the month. (Helene was to leave +on the 13th.) The next day Mme Rabot and Rabot himself, having taken +soup of Helene's making, became very ill. Rabot's mother-in-law ate a +panade prepared by Helene. She too fell ill. They all recovered after +Helene had departed, but Rabot, like M. Dupuy-de-Lome, was partially +paralysed for months afterwards. + +In Helene's next situation, with people called Ozanne, her way of +abstracting liquor again was noticed. She was chided for stealing eau +de vie. Soon after that the Ozannes' little son died suddenly, very +suddenly. The doctor called in thought it was from a croup fever. + +On the day following the death of the little Ozanne Helene entered the +service of M. Roussell, proprietor of the Bout-du-Monde hotel in Rennes. +Some six weeks later Roussell's mother suddenly became ill. She had had +occasion to reproach Helene for sullen ill-manners or something of that +sort. She ate some potage which Helene had cooked. The illness that +ensued lasted a long time. Eighteen months later the old lady had hardly +recovered. + +In the hotel with Helene as fellow-servant there was a woman of thirty, +Perrotte Mace, very greatly relied upon by her masters, with whom she +had been five years. She was a strongly built woman who carried herself +finely. Perrotte openly agreed with the Veuve Roussell regarding +Helene's behaviour. This, with the confidence reposed in Perrotte by the +Roussells, might have been enough to set Helene against her. But there +was an additional cause for jealousy: Jean Andre, the hotel ostler, but +also described as a cabinet-maker, though friendly enough with Helene, +showed a marked preference for the younger, and comelier, Perrotte. The +Veuve Roussell fell ill in the middle of June. In August Perrotte was +seized by a similar malady, and, in spite of all her resistance, had to +take to her bed. Vomiting and purging marked the course of her illness, +pains in the stomach and limbs, distension of the abdomen, and swelling +of the feet. With her strong constitution she put up a hard fight for +her life, but succumbed on the 1st of September, 1850. The doctors +called in, MM. Vincent and Guyot, were extremely puzzled by the course +of the illness. At times the girl would seem to be on the mend, then +there would come a sudden relapse. After Perrotte's death they pressed +for an autopsy, but the peasant relatives of the girl showed the usual +repugnance of their class to the idea. Helene was taken red-handed +in the theft of wine, and was dismissed. Fifteen days later she took +service with the Bidards. + +These are the salient facts of Helene's progression from 1833 to 1851 as +brought out by the investigations made by and for the Procureur-General +of Rennes. All possible channels were explored to discover where Helene +had procured the arsenic, but without success. Under examination by the +Juge d'instruction she stoutly denied all knowledge of the poison. "I +don't know anything about arsenic--don't know what it is," she repeated. +"No witness can say I ever had any." It was believed that she had +secured a large supply in her early days, and had carried it with her +through the years, but that at the first definite word of suspicion +against her had got rid of it. During her trial mention was made of +packets found in a chest she had used while at Locsine, the place where +seven deaths had occurred. But it was never clearly established that +these packets had contained arsenic. It was never clearly established, +though it could be inferred, that Helene ever had arsenic at all. + + + +II + +The first hearings of Helene's case were taken before the Juge +d'instruction in Rennes, and she was remanded to the assizes for +Ille-et-Vilaine, which took place, apparently, in the same city. The +charges against her were limited to eleven thefts, three murders by +poisoning, and three attempts at murder by the like means. Under the +prescription legale twenty-three poisonings, six attempts at poisoning, +and a number of thefts, all of which had taken place within the space of +ten years, had to be left out of the indictment. We shall see, however, +that, under the curious rules regarding permissible evidence which +prevail in French criminal law, the Assize Court concerned itself quite +largely with this prescribed matter. + +The trial began on the 6th of December, 1851, at a time when France was +in a political uproar--or, more justly perhaps, was settling down from +political uproar. The famous coup d'etat of that year had happened four +days before. Maitre Dorange, defending Helene, asked for a remand to +a later session on the ground that some of his material witnesses were +unavailable owing to the political situation. An eminent doctor, M. +Baudin, had died "pour maintien des lois." There was some argument on +the matter, but the President ruled that all material witnesses were +present. Scientific experts could be called only to assist the court. + +The business of this first day was taken up almost completely by +questions on the facts produced in investigation, and these mostly facts +covered by the prescription. The legal value of this run of questions +would seem doubtful in the Anglo-Saxon idea of justice, but it gives +an indication of the shiftiness in answer of the accused. It was a long +interrogation, but Helene faced it with notable self-possession. On +occasion she answered with vigour, but in general sombrely and with +lowered eyes. At times she broke into volubility. This did not serve to +remove the impression of shiftiness, for her answers were seldom to the +point. + +Wasn't it true, she was asked, that in Locmine she had been followed and +insulted with cries: "C'est la femme au foie blanc; elle porte la mort +avec elle!"? Nobody had ever said anything of the sort to her, was +her sullen answer. A useless denial. There were plenty of witnesses to +express their belief in her "white liver" and to tell of her reputation +of carrying death. + +Asked why she had been dismissed from the convent at Auray, she answered +that she did not know. The Mother Superior had told her to go. She had +been too old to learn reading and writing. Pressed on the point of the +slashed garments of the pupils and the linen in the convent cupboards, +Helene retorted that somebody had cut her petticoats as well, and that, +anyhow, the sisters had never accused her of working the mischief. + +This last answer was true in part. The evidence on which Helene had been +dismissed the convent was circumstantial. A sister from the community +described Helene's behaviour otherwise as edifying indeed. + +After the merciless fashion of French judges, the President came back +time and again to attack Helene on the question of poison. If Perrotte +Mace did not get the poison from her--from whom, then? + +"I don't know anything of poison," was the reply, with the pious +addendum, "and, God willing, I never will!" + +This, with variations, was her constant answer. + +"Qu'est-ce que c'est l'arsenic? Je n'en ai jamais vu d'arsenic, moi!" + +The President had occasion later to take her up on these denials. The +curate of Seglien came to give evidence. He had been curate during the +time of M. Conan, in whose service Helene had been at that time. He +could swear that M. Conan had repeatedly told his servants to watch that +the domestic animals did not get at the poisoned bait prepared for the +rats. M. Conan's servants had complete access to the arsenic used. + +Helene interposed at this point. "I know," she said, "that M. Conan had +asked for arsenic, but I wasn't there at the time. My aunt told me about +it." + +The President reminded her that in her interrogaion she had declared +she knew nothing of arsenic, nor had heard anyone speak of it. Helene +sullenly persisted in her first declaration, but modified it with the +admission that her aunt had told her the stuff was dangerous, and not to +be used save with the strictest precautions. + +This evidence of the arsenic at Seglien was brought forward on the +second day of the trial, when witnesses began to be heard. Before +pursuing the point of where the accused might have obtained the poison I +should like to quote, as typical of the hypocritical piety exhibited by +Helene, one of her answers on the first day. + +After reminding her that Rose Tessier's sickness had increased after +taking a tisane that Helene had prepared the President asked if it was +not the fact that she alone had looked after Rose. + +"No," Helen replied. "Everybody was meddling. All I did was put +the tisane on to boil. I have suffered a great deal," she added +gratuitously. "The good God will give me grace to bear up to the end. If +I have not died of my sufferings in prison it is because God's hand has +guided and sustained me." + +With that in parenthesis, let us return to the evidence of the witnesses +on the second day of the trial. A great deal of it had to do with +deaths on which, under the prescription, no charge could be made +against Helene, and with thefts that equally could not be the subject of +accusation. + +Dr Galzain, of Ponivy, who, eighteen years before, had performed the +autopsy on Le Drogo, cure of Guern, testified that though he had then +been puzzled by the pathological conditions, he was now prepared to say +they were consistent with arsenical poisoning. + +Martel, a pharmacist, brother of the doctor who had attended Le Drogo, +spoke of his brother's suspicions, suspicions which had recurred on +meeting with the cases at Bubry. They had been diverted by the lavishly +affectionate attendance Helene had given to the sufferers. + +Relatives of the victims of Locmine told of Helene's predictions of +death, and of her plaints that death followed her everywhere. They also +remarked on the very kind ministrations of Helene. + +Dr Toussaint, doctor at Locmine, and son to the house in which Helene +had for a time been servant, told of his perplexity over the symptoms +in the cases of the Widow Lorey and the youth Leboucher. In 1835 he +had been called in to see Helene herself, who was suffering from an +intermittent fever. Next day the fever had disappeared. He was told that +she had been dosing herself, and he was shown a packet which had been +in her possession. It contained substances that looked like +kermes-mineral,[30] some saffron, and a white powder that amounted to +perhaps ten grammes. He had disliked Helene at first sight. She had not +been long in his mother's service when his mother's maid-companion (Anne +Eveno), who also had no liking for Helene, fell ill and died. His +father fell violently ill in turn, seemed to get better, and looked like +recovering. But inexplicable complications supervened, and his father +died suddenly of a haemorrhage of the intestinal canal. His sister +Julie, who had been the first to fall sick, also seemed to recover, but +after the death of the father had a relapse. In his idea Helene, having +cured herself, was able to drug the invalids in her care. The witness +ordered her to be kept completely away from the sufferers, but one night +she contrived to get the nurses out of the way. A confrere he called in +ordered bouillon to be given. Helene had charge of the kitchen, and it +was she who prepared the bouillon. It was she who administered it. Three +hours later his sister died in agony. + + +The witness suggested an autopsy. His family would not agree. The pious +behaviour of Helene put her beyond suspicion, but he took it on himself +to dismiss her. During the illness of his father, when Helene herself +was ill, he went reluctantly to see her, being told that she was dying. +Instead of finding her in bed he came upon her making some sort of white +sauce. As soon as he appeared she threw herself into bed and pretended +to be suffering intense pain. A little later he asked to see the sauce. +It had disappeared. + +He had advised his niece to reserve his sister's evacuations. His niece +replied that Helene was so scrupulously tidy that such vessels were +never left about, but were taken away at once to be emptied and cleaned. +"I revised my opinion of the woman after she had gone," added the +witness. "I thought her very well behaved." + + +HELENE. I never had any drugs in my possession--never. When I had fever +I took the powders given me by the doctor, but I did not know what they +were! + +THE PRESIDENT. Why did you say yesterday that nothing was ever found in +your luggage? + +HELENE. I didn't remember. + +THE PRESIDENT. What were you doing with the saffron? Wasn't it in your +possession during the time you were in Seglien? + +HELENE. I was taking it for my blood. + +THE PRESIDENT. And the white powder--did it also come from Seglien? + +HELENE [energetically]. Never have I had white powder in my luggage! +Never have I seen arsenic! Never has anyone spoken to me of arsenic! + +Upon this the President rightly reminded her that she had said only that +morning that her aunt had talked to her of arsenic at Seglien, and had +warned her of its lethal qualities. "You deny the existence of that +white powder," said the President, "because you know it was poison. You +put it away from you with horror!" + +The accused several times tried to answer this charge, but failed. Her +face was beaded with moisture. + + +THE PRESIDENT. Had you or had you not any white powder at Losmine? + +HELENE. I can't say if I still had fever there. + +THE PRESIDENT. What was that powder? When did you first have it? + +HELENE. I had taken it at Locmine. Somebody gave it to me for two sous. + +THE PRESIDENT. Why didn t you say so at the beginning, instead of +waiting until you are confounded by the witness? [To Dr Toussaint] +What would the powder be, monsieur? What powder would one prescribe for +fever? + +DR TOUSSAINT. Sulphate of quinine; but that's not what it was. + + +Questioned by the advocate for the defence, the witness said he would +not affirm that the powder he saw was arsenic. His present opinion, +however, was that his father and sister had died from injections of +arsenic in small doses. + +A witness from Locmine spoke of her sister's two children becoming ill +after taking chocolate prepared by the accused. The latter told her +that a mob had followed her in the street, accusing her of the deaths of +those she had been servant to. + +Then came one of those curious samples of 'what the soldier said' that +are so often admitted in French criminal trials as evidence. Louise +Clocher said she had seen Helene on the road between Auray and Lorient +in the company of a soldier. When she told some one of it people said, +"That wasn't a soldier! It was the devil you saw following her!" + +One rather sympathizes with Helene in her protest against this +testimony. + +From Ploermel, Auray, Lorient, and other places doctors and relatives +of the dead came to bear witness to Helene's cooking and nursing +activities, and to speak of the thefts she had been found committing. +Where any suspicion had touched Helene her piety and her tender care of +the sufferers had disarmed it. The astonishing thing is that, with all +those rumours of 'white livers' and so on, the woman could proceed from +place to place within a few miles of each other, and even from house to +house in the same towns, leaving death in her tracks, without once being +brought to bay. Take the evidence of M. Le Dore, son-in-law of that +Mme Hetel who died in Auray, His mother-in-law became ill just after +Helene's reputation was brought to his notice. The old lady died next +day. + +"The day following the revelation," said M. Le Dore, "I put Helene out. +She threw herself on the ground uttering fearsome yells. The day's meal +had been prepared. I had it thrown out, and put Helene herself to the +door with her luggage, INTO WHICH SHE HASTILY STOWED A PACKET. Mme Hetel +died next day in fearful agony." + +I am responsible for the italicizing. It is hard to understand why M. Le +Dore did no more than put Helene to the door. He was suspicious enough +to throw out the meal prepared by Helene, and he saw her hastily stow a +packet in her luggage. But, though he was Mayor of Auray, he did nothing +more about his mother-in-law's death. It is to be remarked, however, +that the Hetels themselves were against the brusque dismissal of Helene. +She had "smothered the mother with care and attentions." + +But one gets perhaps the real clue to Helene's long immunity from the +remark made in court by M. Breger, son-in-law of that Lorient couple, M. +and Mme Dupuyde-Lome. He had thought for a moment of suspecting Helene +of causing the child's death and the illness of the rest of the family, +but "there seemed small grounds. What interest had the girl in cutting +off their lives?" + +It is a commonplace that murder without motive is the hardest to +detect. The deaths that Helene Jegado contrived between 1833 and 1841, +twenty-three in number, and the six attempts at murder which she made +in that length of time, are, without exception, crimes quite lacking in +discoverable motive. It is not at all on record that she had reason for +wishing to eliminate any one of those twenty-three persons. She seems to +have poisoned for the mere sake of poisoning. Save to the ignorant and +superstitious, such as followed her in the streets to accuse her +of having a "white liver" and a breath that meant death, she was an +unfortunate creature with an odd knack of finding herself in houses +where 'accidents' happened. Time and again you find her being taken in +by kindly people after such 'accidents,' and made an object of sympathy +for the dreadful coincidences that were making her so unhappy. It was +out of sympathy that the Widow Lorey, of Locmine, took Helene into +her house. On the widow's death the niece arrived. In court the niece +described the scene on her arrival. "Helene embraced me," she said. +"'Unhappy me!' she wept. 'Wherever I go everybody dies!' I pitied and +consoled her." She pitied and consoled Helene, though they were saying +in the town that the girl had a white liver and that her breath brought +death! + +Where Helene had neglected to combine her poisoning with detected +pilfering the people about her victims could see nothing wrong in +her conduct. Witness after witness--father, sister, husband, niece, +son-in-law, or relation in some sort to this or that victim of +Helene's--repeated in court, "The girl went away with nothing against +her." And even those who afterwards found articles missing from their +household goods: "At the same time I did not suspect her probity. She +went to Mass every morning and to the evening services. I was very +surprised to find some of my napkins among the stuff Helene was accused +of stealing." + +"I did not know of Helene's thefts until I was shown the objects +stolen," said a lady of Vannes. "Without that proof I would never have +suspected the girl. Helene claimed affiliation with a religious +sisterhood, served very well, and was a worker." + +It is perhaps of interest to note how Helene answered the testimony +regarding her thieving proclivities. Mme Lejoubioux, of Vannes, said her +furnishing bills went up considerably during the time Helene was in her +service. Helene had purloined two cloths. + +Helene: "That was for vengeance. I was furious at being sent away." + +Sieur Cesar le Clerc and Mme Gauthier swore to thefts from them by +Helene. + +Helene: "I stole nothing from Mme Gauthier except one bottle of wine. If +I commit a larceny it is from choler. WHEN I'M FURIOUS I STEAL!" + +It was when Helene began to poison for vengeance that retribution fell +upon her. Her fondness for the bottle started to get her into trouble. +It made her touchy. Up to 1841 she had poisoned for the pleasure of it, +masking her secret turpitude with an outward show of piety, of being +helpful in time of trouble. By the time she arrived in Rennes, in 1848, +after seven years during which her murderous proclivities seem to +have slept, her character as a worker, if not as a Christian, had +deteriorated. Her piety, in the face of her fondness for alcohol and +her slovenly habits, and against her now frequently exhibited bursts of +temper and ill-will, appeared the hypocrisy it actually was. Her essays +in poisoning now had purpose and motive behind them. Nemesis, so long at +her heels, overtook her. + + + +III + +It is not clear in the accounts available to me just what particular +murders by poison, what attempts at poisoning, and what thefts Helene +was charged with in the indictment at Rennes. Twenty-three poisonings, +six attempts, and a number of thefts had been washed out, it may be +as well to repeat, by the prescription legale. But from her arrival in +Rennes, leaving the thefts out of account, her activities had accounted +for the following: In the Rabot household one death (Albert, the son) +and three illnesses (Rabot, Mme Rabot, the mother-in-law); in the Ozanne +establishment one death (that of the little son), in the hotel of the +Roussells one death (that of Perrotte Mace) and one illness (that of +the Veuve Roussell); at the Bidards two deaths (Rose Tessier and Rosalie +Sarrazin). In this last establishment there was also one attempt at +poisoning which I have not yet mentioned, that of a young servant, named +Francoise Huriaux, who for a short time had taken the place of Rose +Tessier. We thus have five deaths and five attempts in Rennes, all +of which could be indictable. But, as already stated, the indictment +covered three deaths and three attempts. + +It is hard to say, from verbatim reports of the trial, where the matter +of the indictment begins to be handled. It would seem from the evidence +produced that proof was sought of all five deaths and all five attempts +that Helene was supposed to be guilty of in Rennes. The father of the +boy Ozanne was called before the Rabot witnesses, though the Rabot death +and illnesses occurred before the death of the Ozanne child. We may, +however, take the order of affairs as dealt with in the court. We +may see something of motive on Helene's part suggested in M. Ozanne's +evidence, and an indication of her method of covering her crime. + +M. Ozanne said that Helene, in his house, drank eau de vie in secret, +and, to conceal her thefts, filled the bottle up with cider. He +discovered the trick, and reproached Helene for it. She denied the +accusation with vigour, and angrily announced her intention of leaving. +Mme Ozanne took pity on Helene, and told her she might remain several +days longer. On the Tuesday following the young child became ill. The +illness seemed to be a fleeting one, and the father and mother thought +he had recovered. On the Saturday, however, the boy was seized by +vomiting, and the parents wondered if they should send for the doctor. +"If the word was mine," said Helene, who had the boy on her knees, "and +the child as ill as he looks, I should not hesitate." The doctor was +sent for about noon on Sunday. He thought it only a slight illness. +Towards evening the child began to complain of pain all over his body. +His hands and feet were icy cold. His body grew taut. About six o'clock +the doctor came back. "My God!" he exclaimed. "It's the croup!" He tried +to apply leeches, but the boy died within a few minutes. Helene hastened +the little body into its shroud. + +Helene, said Ozanne, always talked of poison if anyone left their food. +"Do you think I'm poisoning you?" she would ask. + +A girl named Cambrai gave evidence that Helene, coming away from the +cemetery after the burial of the child, said to her, "I am not so sorry +about the child. Its parents have treated me shabbily." The witness +thought Helene too insensitive and reproached her. + +"That's a lie!" the accused shouted. "I loved the child!" + +The doctor, M. Brute, gave evidence next. He still believed the child +had died of a croup affection, the most violent he had ever seen. The +President questioned him closely on the symptoms he had seen in the +child, but the doctor stuck to his idea. He had seen nothing to make him +suspect poisoning. + +The President: "It is strange that in all the cases we have under review +the doctors saw nothing at first that was serious. They admit illness +and prescribe mild remedies, and then, suddenly, the patients get worse +and die." + +M. Victor Rabot was called next. To begin with, he said, Helene's +services were satisfactory. He had given her notice because he found her +stealing his wine. Upon this Helene showed the greatest discontent, and +it was then that Mme Rabot fell ill. A nurse was put in charge of her, +but Helene found a way to get rid of her. Helene had no love for his +child. The child had a horror of the servant, because she was dirty and +took snuff. In consequence Helene had a spite against the boy. Helene +had never been seen eating any of the dishes prepared for the family, +and even insisted on keeping certain of the kitchen dishes for her own +use. + +At the request of his father-in-law Helene had gone to get a bottle +of violet syrup from the pharmacist. The bottle was not capped. His +father-in-law thought the syrup had gone bad, because it was as red as +mulberry syrup, and refused to give it to his daughter (Mme Rabot). The +bottle was returned to the pharmacist, who remarked that the colour of +the syrup had changed, and that he did not recognize it as his own. + +Mme Rabot having corroborated her husband's evidence, and told of +Helene's bad temper, thieving, and disorderliness, Dr Vincent Guyot, of +Rennes, was called. + +Dr Guyot described the illness of the boy Albert and its result. He then +went on to describe the illness of Mme Rabot. He and his confreres had +attributed her sickness to the fact that she was enceinte, and to +the effect of her child's death upon her while in that condition. A +miscarriage of a distressing nature confirmed the first prognosis. But +later he and his confreres saw reason to change their minds. He believed +the boy had been poisoned, though he could not be certain. The mother, +he was convinced, had been the victim of an attempt at poisoning, an +opinion which found certainty in the case of Mme Briere. If Mme Rabot's +pregnancy went some way in explaining her illness there was nothing of +this in the illness of her mother. The explanation of everything was in +repeated dosing of an arsenical substance. + +The witness had also attended Mme Roussell, of the Bout-du-Monde hotel. +It was remarkable that the violent sickness to which this lady was +subject for twenty days did not answer to treatment, but stopped only +when she gave up taking food prepared for her by Helene Jegado. + +He had also looked after Perrotte Mace. Here also he had had doubts +of the nature of the malady; at one time he had suspected pregnancy, a +suspicion for which there were good grounds. But the symptoms that later +developed were not consistent with the first diagnosis. When Perrotte +died he and M. Revault, his confrere, thought the cause of death would +be seen as poison in an autopsy. But the post-mortem was rejected by the +parents. His feeling to-day was that Mme Roussell's paralysis was due +to arsenical dosage, and that Perrotte had died of poisoning. Helene, +speaking to him of Perrotte, had said, "She's a chest subject. She'll +never get better!" And she had used the same phrase, "never get better," +with regard to little Rabot. + +M. Morio, the pharmacist of Rennes from whom the violet syrup was +bought, said that Helene had often complained to him about Mme Roussell. +During the illness of the Rabot boy she had said that the child was +worse than anyone imagined, and that he would never recover. In the +matter of the violet syrup he agreed it had come back to him looking +red. The bottle had been put to one side, but its contents had been +thrown away, and he had therefore been unable to experiment with it. +He had found since, however, that arsenic in powder form did not turn +violet syrup red, though possibly arsenic in solution with boiling water +might produce the effect. The change seen in the syrup brought back from +M. Rabot's was not to be accounted for by such fermentation as the mere +warmth of the hand could bring about. + +Several witnesses, interrupted by denials and explanations from the +accused, testified to having heard Helene say that neither the Rabot boy +nor his mother would recover. + +The evidence of M. Roussell, of the Bout-du-Monde hotel, touched on +the illnesses of his mother and Perrotte. He knew nothing of the food +prepared by Helene; nor had the idea of poison occurred to him until her +arrest. Helene's detestable character, her quarrels with other servants, +and, above all, the thefts of wine he had found her out in were the sole +causes of her dismissal. He had noticed that Helene never ate with the +other domestics. She always found an excuse for not doing so. She said +she had stomach trouble and could not hold down her food. + +The Veuve Roussell had to be helped into court by her son. She dealt +with her own illness and with the death of Perrotte. Her illness did not +come on until she had scolded Helene for her bad ways. + +Dr Revault, confrere of Guyot, regretted the failure to perform a +post-mortem on the body of Perrotte. He had said to Roussell that if +Perrotte's illness was analogous to cholera it was, nevertheless, not +that disease. He believed it was due to a poison. + +The President: "Chemical analysis has proved the presence of arsenic in +the viscera of Perrotte. Who administered that arsenic, the existence of +which was so shrewdly foreseen by the witness? Who gave her the arsenic? +[To Helene] Do you know? Was it not you that gave it her, Helene?" + +At this Helene murmured something unintelligible, but, gathering her +voice, she protested, "I have never had arsenic in my hands, Monsieur le +President--never!" + +Something of light relief was provided by Jean Andre, the cabinet-making +ostler of Saint-Gilles, he for whose attention Helene had been a rival +with Perrotte Mace. + +"The service Helene gave was excellent. So was mine. She nursed Perrotte +perfectly, but said it was in vain, because the doctors were mishandling +the disease. She told me one day that she was tired of service, and that +her one wish was to retire." + +"Did you attach a certain idea to the confidence about retiring?" + +"No!" Andre replied energetically. + +"You were in hospital. When you came back, did Helene take good care of +you?" + +"She gave me bouillon every morning to build me up." + +"The bouillon she gave you did you no harm?" + +"On the contrary, it did me a lot of good." + +"Wasn't the accused jealous of Perrotte--that good-looking girl who gave +you so much of her favour?" + +"In her life Perrotte was a good girl. She never was out of sorts for a +moment--never rubbed one the wrong way." + +"Didn't Helene say to you that Perrotte would never recover?" + +"Yes, she said that. 'She's a lost woman,' she said; 'the doctors are +going the wrong way with the disease.' + +"All the same," Andre went on, "Helene never ate with us. She worked +night and day, but ate in secret, I believe. Anyhow, a friend of mine +told me he'd once seen her eating a crust of bread, and chewing some +other sort of food at the same time. As for me--I don't know; but I +don't think you can live without eating." + +"I couldn't keep down what I ate," Helene interposed. "I took some +bouillon here and there; sometimes a mouthful of bread--nothing in +secret. I never thought of Andre in marriage--not him more than another. +That was all a joke." + +A number of witnesses, friends of Perrotte, who had seen her during her +illness, spoke of the extreme dislike the girl had shown for Helene +and for the liquids the latter prepared for her. Perrotte would say to +Helene, "But you're dirty, you ugly Bretonne!" Perrotte had a horror of +bouillon: "Ah--these vegetable soups! I've had enough of them! It was +what Helene gave me that night that made me ill!" The witnesses did not +understand all this, because the accused seemed to be very good to her +fellow-servant. At the bedside Helene cried, "Ah! What can I do that +will save you, my poor Perrotte?" When Perrotte was dying she wanted to +ask Helene's pardon. Embracing the dying girl, the accused replied, +"Ah! There's no need for that, my poor Perrotte. I know you didn't mean +anything." + +A witness telling of soup Helene had made for Perrotte, which the +girl declared to have been poisoned, it was asked what happened to the +remainder of it. The President passed the question to Helene, who said +she had thrown it into the hearth. + + + +IV + +The most complete and important testimony in the trial was given by M. +Theophile Bidard, professor to the law faculty of Rennes. + +The facts he had to bring forward, he said, had taken no significance +in his mind until the last of them transpired. He would have to go back +into the past to trace them in their proper order. + +He recalled the admission of Helene to his domestic staff and the good +recommendations on which he had engaged her. From the first Helene +proved herself to have plenty of intelligence, and he had believed that +her intelligence was combined with goodness of heart. This was because +he had heard that by her work she was supporting two small children, as +well as her poor old mother, who had no other means of sustenance. + +(The reader will recollect that Helene was orphaned at the age of +seven.) + +Nevertheless, said M. Bidard, Helene was not long in his household +before her companion, Rose Tessier, began to suffer in plenty from the +real character of Helene Jegado. + +Rose had had a fall, an accident which had left her with pains in her +back. There were no very grave symptoms but Helene prognosticated dire +results. One night, when the witness was absent in the country, Helene +rose from her bed, and, approaching her fellow-servant's room, called +several times in a sepulchral voice, "Rose, Rose!" That poor girl took +fright, and hid under the bedclothes, trembling. + +Next day Rose complained to witness, who took his domestics to task. +Helene pretended it was the farm-boy who had perpetrated the bad joke. +She then declared that she herself had heard some one give a loud knock. +"I thought," she said, "that I was hearing the call for poor Rose." + +On Sunday, the 3rd of November, 1850, M. Bidard, who had been in the +country, returned to Rennes. After dinner that day, a meal which she +had taken in common with Helene, Rose was seized with violent sickness. +Helene lavished on her the most motherly attention. She made tea, and +sat up the night with the invalid. In the morning, though she still +felt ill, Rose got up. Helene made tea for her again. Rose once more was +sick, violently, and her sickness endured until the witness himself had +administered copious draughts of tea prepared by himself. Rose passed a +fairly good night, and Dr Pinault, who was called in, saw nothing more +in the sickness than some nervous affection. But on the day of the 5th +the vomitings returned. Helene exclaimed, "The doctors do not understand +the disease. Rose is going to die!" The prediction seemed foolish as far +as immediate appearances were concemed, for Rose had an excellent pulse +and no trace of fever. + +In the night between Tuesday and Wednesday the patient was calm, but on +the morning of Wednesday she had vomitings with intense stomach pains. +From this time on, said the witness, the life of Rose, which was to last +only thirty-six hours, was nothing but a long-drawn and heart-rending +cry of agony. She drew her last breath on the Thursday evening at +half-past five. During her whole illness, added M. Bidard, Rose was +attended by none save Helene and himself. + +Rose's mother came. In Rose the poor woman had lost a beloved child and +her sole support. She was prostrated. Helene's grief seemed to equal +the mother's. Tears were ever in her eyes, and her voice trembled. Her +expressions of regret almost seemed to be exaggerated. + +There was a moment when the witness had his doubts. It was on the way +back from the cemetery. For a fleeting instant he thought that the +shaking of Helene's body was more from glee than sorrow, and he +momentarily accused her in his mind of hypocrisy. But in the following +days Helene did nothing but talk of "that poor Rose," and M. Bidard, +before her persistence, could only believe he had been mistaken. "Ah!" +Helene said. "I loved her as I did that poor girl who died in the +Bout-du-Monde." + +The witness wanted to find some one to take Rose's place. Helene tried +to dissuade him. "Never mind another femme de chambre," she said. "I +will do everything." M. Bidard contented himself with engaging another +girl, Francoise Huriaux, strong neither in intelligence nor will, but +nevertheless a sweet little creature. Not many days passed before Helene +began to make the girl unhappy. "It's a lazy-bones," Helene told the +witness. "She does not earn her keep." ("Le pain qu'elle mange, elle le +vole.") M. Bidard shut her up. That was his affair, he said. + +Francoise meantime conceived a fear of Helene. She was so scared of +the older woman that she obeyed all her orders without resistance. The +witness, going into the kitchen one day, found Helene eating her soup +at one end of the table, while Francoise dealt with hers at the other +extreme. He told Helene that in future she was to serve the repast in +common, on a tablecloth, and that it was to include dessert from his +table. This order seemed to vex Helene extremely. "That girl seems to +live without eating," she said, "and she never seems to sleep." + +One day the witness noticed that the hands and face of Francoise were +puffy. He spoke to Helene about it, who became angry. She accused her +companion of getting up in the night to make tea, so wasting the sugar, +and she swore she would lock the sugar up. M. Bidard told her to do +nothing of the sort. He said if Francoise had need of sugar she was to +have it. "All right--I see," Helene replied sullenly, obviously put out. + +The swelling M. Bidard had seen in the face and hands of Francoise +attacked her legs, and all service became impossible for the girl. The +witness was obliged to entrust Helene with the job of finding another +chambermaid. It was then that she brought Rosalie Sarrazin to him. "A +very good girl," she said. "If her dress is poor it is because she gives +everything to her mother." + +The words, M. Bidard commented, were said by Helene with remarkable +sincerity. It was said that Helene had no moral sense. It seemed to +him, from her expressions regarding that poor girl, who, like herself, +devoted herself to her mother, that Helene was far from lacking in that +quality. + +Engaging Rosalie, the witness said to his new domestic, "You will find +yourself dealing with a difficult companion. Do not let her be insolent +to you. You must assert yourself from the start. I do not want Helene to +rule you as she ruled Francoise." At the same time he repeated his order +regarding the service of the kitchen meals. Helene manifested a sullen +opposition. "Who ever heard of tablecloths for the servants?" she said. +"It is ridiculous!" + +In the first days the tenderness between Helene and the new girl was +quite touching. But circumstance arose to end the harmony. Rosalie could +write. On the 23rd of May the witness told Helene that he would like her +to give him an account of expenses. The request made Helene angry, and +increased her spite against the more educated Rosalie. Helene attempting +to order Rosalie about, the latter laughingly told her, "M. Bidard pays +me to obey him. If I have to obey you also you'll have to pay me too." +From that time Helene conceived an aversion from the girl. + +About the time when Helene began to be sour to Rosalie she herself was +seized by vomitings. She complained to Mlle Bidard, a cousin of the +witness, that Rosalie neglected her. But when the latter went up to her +room Helene yelled at her, "Get out, you ugly brute! In you I've brought +into the house a stick for my own back!" + +This sort of quarrelling went on without ceasing. At the beginning of +June the witness said to Helene, "If this continues you'll have to look +for another place." + +"That's it!" Helene yelled, in reply. "Because of that girl I'll have to +go!" + +On the 10th of June M. Bidard gave Helene definite notice. It was to +take effect on St John's Day. At his evening meal he was served with a +roast and some green peas. These last he did not touch. In spite of his +prohibition against her serving at table, it was Helene who brought the +peas in. "How's this?" she said to him. "You haven't eaten your green +peas--and them so good!" Saying this, she snatched up the dish and +carried it to the kitchen. Rosalie ate some of the peas. No sooner had +she taken a few spoonfuls, however, than she grew sick, and presently +was seized by vomiting. Helene took no supper. She said she was out of +sorts and wanted none. + +The witness did not hear of these facts until next day. He wanted to see +the remainder of the peas, but they could not be found. Rosalie still +kept being sick, and he bade her go and see his doctor, M. Boudin. +Helene, on a sudden amiable to Rosalie where she had been sulky, offered +to go with her. Dr Boudin prescribed an emetic, which produced good +effects. + +On the 15th of June Rosalie seemed to have recovered. In the meantime +a cook presented herself at his house to be engaged in place of Helene. +The latter was acquainted with the new-comer. A vegetable soup had been +prescribed for Rosalie, and this Helene prepared. The convalescent ate +some, and at once fell prey to violent sickness. That same day Helene +came in search of the witness. "You're never going to dismiss me for +that young girl?" she demanded angrily. M. Bidard relented. He said that +if she would promise to keep the peace with Rosalie he would let her +stay on. Helene seemed to be satisfied, and behaved better to Rosalie, +who began to mend again. + +M. Bidard went into the country on the 21st of June, taking Rosalie with +him. They returned on the 22nd. The witness himself went to the pharmacy +to get a final purgative of Epsom salts, which had been ordered for +Rosalie by the doctor. This the witness himself divided into three +portions, each of which he dissolved in separate glasses of whey +prepared by Helene. The witness administered the first dose. Helene gave +the last. The invalid vomited it. She was extremely ill on the night of +the 22nd-23rd, and Helene returned to misgivings about the skill of the +doctors. She kept repeating, "Ah! Rosalie will die! I tell you she will +die!" On the day of the 23rd she openly railed against them. M. Boudin +had prescribed leeches and blisters. "Look at that now, monsieur," +Helene said to the witness. "To-morrow's Rosalie's name-day, and they're +going to put leeches on her!" Rather disturbed, M. Bidard wrote to Dr +Pinault, who came next day and gave the treatment his approval. + +Dr Boudin had said the invalid might have gooseberry syrup with seltzer +water. Two glasses of the mixture given to Rosalie by her mother seemed +to do the girl good, but after the third glass she did not want any +more. Helene had given her this third glass. The invalid said to the +witness, "I don't know what Helene has put into my drink, but it burns +me like red-hot iron." + +"Struck by those symptoms," added M. Bidard, "I questioned Helene +at once. It has not been given me more than twice in my life to see +Helene's eyes. I saw at that moment the look she flung at Rosalie. It +was the look of a wild beast, a tiger-cat. At that moment my impulse was +to go to my work-room for a cord, and to tie her up and drag her to the +justiciary. But one reflection stopped me. What was this I was about to +do--disgrace a woman on a mere suspicion? I hesitated. I did not know +whether I had before me a poisoner or a woman of admirable devotion." + +The witness enlarged on the tortures of mind he experienced during the +night, but said he found reason to congratulate himself on not having +given way to his first impulse. On the morning of the 24th Helene came +running to him, all happiness, to say that Rosalie was better. + +Three days later Rosalie seemed to be nearly well, so much so that M. +Bidard felt he might safely go into the country. Next day, however, he +was shocked by the news that Rosalie was as ill as ever. He hastened to +return to Rennes. + +On the night of the 28th-29th the sickness continued with intensity. +Every two hours the invalid was given calming medicine prescribed by Dr +Boudin. Each time the sickness redoubled in violence. Believing it was +a case of worms, the witness got out of bed, and substituted for +the medicine a strong infusion of garlic. This stopped the sickness +temporarily. At six in the morning it began again. + +The witness then ran to Dr Pinault's, but met the doctor in the street +with his confrere, Dr Guyot. To the two doctors M. Bidard expressed the +opinion that there were either worms in the intestines or else the +case was one of poisoning. "I have thought that," said Dr Pinault, +"remembering the case of the other girl." The doctors went back with +M. Bidard to his house. Magnesia was administered in a strong dose. The +vomiting stopped. But it was too late. + +Until that day the witness's orders that the ejected matter from the +invalid should be conserved had been ignored. The moment a vessel was +dirty Helene took it away and cleaned it. But now the witness took the +vessels himself, and locked them up in a cupboard for which he alone had +the key. His action seemed to disturb Helene Jegado. From this he judged +that she had intended destroying the poison she had administered. + +From that time Rosalie was put into the care of her mother and a nurse. +Helene tried hard to be rid of the two women, accusing them of tippling +to the neglect of the invalid. "I will sit up with her," she said to the +witness. The witness did not want her to do so, but he could not prevent +her joining the mother. + +In the meantime Rosalie suffered the most dreadful agonies. She +could neither sit up nor lie down, but threw herself about with great +violence. During this time Helene was constantly coming and going about +her victim. She had not the courage, however, to watch her victim die. +At five in the morning she went out to market, leaving the mother alone +with her child. The poor mother, worn out with her exertions, also went +out, to ask for help from friends. Rosalie died in the presence of +the witness at seven o'clock in the morning of the 1st of July. Helene +returned. "It is all over," said the witness. Helene's first move was +to look for the vessels containing the ejections of the invalid to throw +them out. These were green in hue. M. Bidard stopped her, and locked the +vessels up. That same day justice was invoked. + +M. Bidard's deposition had held his hearers spellbound for over an hour +and a half. He had believed, he added finally, that, in spite of her +criminal conduct, Helene at least was a faithful servant. He had been +wrong. She had put his cellar to pillage, and in her chest they had +found many things belonging to him, besides a diamond belonging to his +daughter and her wedding-ring. + +The President questioned Helene on the points of this important +deposition. Helene simply denied everything. It had not been she who +was jealous of Rosalie, but Rosalie who had been jealous of her. She +had given the two girls all the nursing she could, with no intention but +that of helping them to get better. To the observation of the President, +once again, that arsenic had been administered, and to his question, +what person other than she had a motive for poisoning the girls, or had +such opportunity for doing so, Helene answered defiantly, "You won't +redden my face by talking of arsenic. I defy anybody to say they saw me +give arsenic." + +The Procureur-General invited M. Bidard to say what amount of +intelligence he had found in Helene. M. Bidard declared that he had +never seen in any of his servants an intelligence so acute or subtle. He +held her to be a phenomenon in hypocrisy. He put forward a fact which he +had neglected to mention in his deposition. It might throw light on the +character of the accused. Francoise had a dress hanging up to dry in +the mansard. Helene went up to the garret above this, made a hole in the +ceiling, and dropped oil of vitriol on her companion's dress to burn it. + +Dr Pinault gave an account of Rosalie's illness, and spoke of the +suspicions he and his colleagues had had of poisoning. It was a crime, +however, for which there seemed to be no motive. The poisoner could +hardly be M. Bidard, and as far as suspicion might touch the cook, she +seemed to be lavish in her care of the patient. It was not until the +very last that he, with his colleagues, became convinced of poison. + +Rosalie dead, the justiciary went to M. Bidard's. The cupboards were +searched carefully. The potion which Rosalie had thought to be mixed +with burning stuff was still there, just sampled. It was put into a +bottle and capped. + +An autopsy could not now be avoided. It was held next day. M. Pinault +gave an account of the results. Most of the organs were in a normal +condition, and such slight alterations as could be seen in others would +not account for death. It was concluded that death had been occasioned +by poison. The autopsy on the exhumed body of Perrotte Mace was +inconclusive, owing to the condition of adipocere. + +Dr Guyot spoke of the case of Francoise Huriaux, and was now sure she +had been given poison in small doses. Dr Boudin described the progress +of Rosalie's illness. He was in no doubt, like his colleagues, that she +had been poisoned. + +The depositions of various witnesses followed. A laundress said that +Helene's conduct was to be explained by jealousy. She could not put up +with any supervision, but wanted full control ofthe household and ofthe +money. + +Francoise Huriaux said Helene was angry because M. Bidard would not have +her as sole domestic. She had resented Francoise's being engaged. The +witness noticed that she became ill whenever she ate food prepared for +her by Helene. When she did not eat Helene was angry but threw out the +food Francoise refused. + +Several witnesses testified to the conduct of Helene towards +Rosalie Sarrazin during her fatal illness. Helene was constant, +self-sacrificing, in her attention to the invalid. One incident, +however, was described by a witness which might indicate that Helene's +solicitude was not altogether genuine. One morning, towards the end of +Rosalie's life, the patient, in her agony, escaped from the hold of her +mother, and fell into an awkward position against the wall. Rosalie's +mother asked Helene to place a pillow for her. "Ma foi!" Helene replied. +"You're beginning to weary me. You're her mother! Help her yourself!" + +The testimony of a neighbour, one Francoise Louarne, a domestic servant, +supports the idea that Helene resented the presence of Rosalie in the +house. Helene said to this witness, "M. Bidard has gone into the country +with his housemaid. Everything SHE does is perfect. They leave me +here--to work if I want to, eat my bread dry: that's my reward. But +the housemaid will go before I do. Although M. Bidard has given me my +notice, he'll have to order me out before I'll go. Look!" Helene added. +"Here's the bed of the ugly housemaid--in a room not too far from the +master's. Me--they stick me up in the mansard!" Later, when Rosalie was +very ill, Helene pretended to be grieved. "You can't be so very sorry," +the witness remarked; "you've said plenty that was bad about the girl." + +Helene vigorously denounced the testimony as all lies. The woman had +never been near Bidard's house. + +The pharmacist responsible for dispensing the medicines given to Rosalie +was able to show that arsenic could not have got into them by mistake on +his part. + +At the hearing of the trial on the 12th of December Dr Pinault was asked +to tell what happened when the emissions of Rosalie Sarrazin were being +transferred for analysis. + + +DR PINAULT. As we were carrying out the operation Helene came in, and it +was plain that she was put out of countenance. + +M. BIDARD [interposing]. We were in my daughter's room, where nobody +ever came. When Helene came to the door I was surprised. There was no +explanation for her appearance except that she was inquisitive. + +DR PINAULT. She seemed to be disturbed at not finding the emissions by +the bed of the dead girl, and it was no doubt to find them that she came +to the room. + +HELENE. I had been given a funnel to wash. I was bringing it back. + +M. BIDARD. Helene, with her usual cleverness, is making the most of +a fact. She had already appeared when she was given the funnel. Her +presence disturbed me. And to get rid of her I said, "Here, Helene, take +this away and wash it." + +The accused persisted in denying M. Bidard's version of the incident. + + + +V + +M. Malagutti, professor of chemistry to the faculty of sciences in +Rennes, who, with M. Sarzeau, had been asked to make a chemical analysis +of the reserved portions of the bodies of Rosalie, Perrotte Mace, +and Rose Tessier, gave the results of his and his colleague's +investigations. In the case of Rosalie they had also examined the +vomitings. The final test on the portions of Rosalie's body carried out +with hydrochloronitric acid--as best for the small quantities likely to +result in poisoning by small doses--gave a residue which was submitted +to the Marsh test. The tube showed a definite arsenic ring. Tests on the +vomit gave the same result. + +The poisoning of Perrotte Mace had also been accomplished by small +doses. Arsenic was found after the strictest tests, which obviated all +possibility that the substance could have come from the ground in which +the body was interred. + +In the case of Rose Tessier the tests yielded a huge amount of arsenic. +Rose had died after an illness of only four days. The large amount of +arsenic indicated a brutal and violent poisoning, in which the substance +could not be excreted in the usual way. + +The President then addressed the accused on this evidence. She alone +had watched near all three of the victims, and against all three she had +motives of hate. Poisoning was established beyond all doubt. Who was the +poisoner if not she, Helene Jegado? + +Helene: "Frankly, I have nothing to reproach myself with. I gave them +only what came from the pharmacies on the orders of the doctors." + +After evidence of Helene's physical condition, by a doctor who had +seen her in prison (she had a scirrhous tumour on her left breast), the +speech for the defence was made. + +M. Dorange was very eloquent, but he had a hopeless case. The defence +he put up was that Helene was irresponsible, but the major part of +the advocate's speech was taken up with a denouncement of capital +punishment. It was a barbarous anachronism, a survival which disgraced +civilization. + +The President summed up and addressed the jury: + +"Cast a final scrutiny, gentlemen of the jury," he said, "at the +matter brought out by these debates. Consult yourselves in the calm and +stillness of your souls. If it is not proved to you that Helene Jegado +is responsible for her actions you will acquit her. If you think that, +without being devoid of free will and moral sense, she is not, according +to the evidence, as well gifted as the average in humanity, you will +give her the benefit of extenuating circumstance. + +"But if you consider her culpable, if you cannot see in her either +debility of spirit or an absence or feebleness of moral sense, you will +do your duty with firmness. You will remember that for justice to be +done chastisement will not alone suffice, but that punishment must be in +proportion to the offence." + +The President then read over his questions for the jury, and that body +retired. After deliberations which occupied an hour and a half the jury +came back with a verdict of guilty on all points. The Procureur asked +for the penalty of death. + + +THE PRESIDENT. Helene Jegado, have you anything to say upon the +application of the penalty? + +HELENE. No, Monsieur le President, I am innocent. I am resigned to +everything. I would rather die innocent than live in guilt. You have +judged me, but God will judge you all. He will see then ... Monsieur +Bidard. All those false witnesses who have come here to destroy me... +they will see.... + +In a voice charged with emotion the President pronounced the sentence +condemning Helene Jegado to death. + +An appeal was put forward on her behalf, but was rejected. + +On the scaffold, a few moments before she passed into eternity, having +no witness but the recorder and the executioner, faithful to the habits +of her life, Helene Jegado accused a woman not named in any of the +processes of having urged her to her first crimes and of being her +accomplice. The two officials took no notice of this indirect confession +of her own guilt, and the sentence was carried out. The Procureur of +Rennes, hearing of this confession, took the trouble to search out the +woman named in it. She turned out to be a very old woman of such a +pious and kindly nature that the people about her talked of her as the +"saint." + +It were superfluous to embark on analysis of the character of Helene +Jegado. Earlier on, in comparing her with Van der Linden and the +Zwanziger woman, I have lessened her caliginosity as compared with that +of the Leyden poisoner, giving her credit for one less death than her +Dutch sister in crime. Having investigated Helene's activities rather +more closely, however, I find I have made mention of no less than +twenty-eight deaths attributed to Helene, which puts her one up on the +Dutchwoman. The only possible point at which I may have gone astray in +my calculations is in respect of the deaths at Guern. The accounts +I have of Helene's bag there insist on seven, but enumerate only +six--namely, her sister Anna, the cure, his father and mother, and two +more (unnamed) after these. The accounts, nevertheless, insist more than +once that between 1833 and 1841 Helene put away twenty-three persons. +If she managed only six at Guern, that total should be twenty-two. From +1849 she accounted for Albert Rabot, the infant Ozanne, Perrotte +Mace, Rose Tessier, and Rosalie Sarrazin--five. We need no chartered +accountant to certify our figures if we make the total twenty-eight. +Give her the benefit of the doubt in the case of Albert Rabot, who was +ill anyhow when Helene joined the household, and she still ties with Van +der Linden with twenty-seven deaths. + +There is much concerning Helene Jegado, recorded incidents, that I might +have introduced into my account of her activities, and that might have +emphasized the outstanding feature of her dingy make-up--that is, her +hypocrisy. When Rosalie Sarrazin was fighting for her life, bewailing +the fact that she was dying at the age of nineteen, Helene Jegado took a +crucifix and made the girl kiss it, saying to her, "Here is the Saviour +Who died for you! Commend your soul to Him!" This, with the canting +piety of the various answers which she gave in court (and which, let me +say, I have transcribed with some reluctance), puts Helene Jegado almost +on a level with the sanctimonious Dr Pritchard--perhaps quite on a level +with that nauseating villain. + +With her twenty-three murders all done without motive, and the five +others done for spite--with her twenty-eight murders, only five of which +were calculated to bring advantage, and that of the smallest value--it +is hard to avoid the conclusion that Helene Jegado was mad. In spite, +however, of evidence called in her defence--as, for example, that of Dr +Pitois, of Rennes, who was Helene's own doctor, and who said that "the +woman had a bizarre character, frequently complaining of stomach pains +and formications in the head"--in spite of this doctor's hints of +monomania in the accused, the jury, with every chance allowed them to +find her irresponsible, still saw nothing in her extenuation. And very +properly, since the law held the extreme penalty for such as she, Helene +went to the scaffold. Her judges might have taken the sentimental view +that she was abnormal, though not mad in the common acceptation of the +word. Appalled by the secret menace to human life that she had been +scared to think of the ease and the safety in which she had been allowed +over twenty odd years to carry agonizing death to so many of her kind, +and convinced from the inhuman nature of her practices that she was a +lusus naturae, her judges, following sentimental Anglo-Saxon example, +might have given her asylum and let her live for years at public +expense. But possibly they saw no social or Civic advantage in +preserving her, so anti-social as she was. They are a frugal nation, the +French. + + + +VI + +Having made you sup on horror a la Bretonne, or Continental fashion, I +am now to give you a savoury from England. This lest you imagine that +France, or the Continent, has a monopoly in wholesale poison. Let me +introduce you, as promised earlier, to Mary Ann Cotton aged forty-one, +found guilty of and sentenced to death for the murder of a child, +Charles Edward Cotton, by giving him arsenic. + +Rainton, in Durham, was the place where, in 1832 Mary Ann found mortal +existence. At the age of fifteen or sixteen she began to earn her own +living as a nursemaid, an occupation which may appear to have given +her a distaste for infantile society. At the age of nineteen and at +Newcastle she married William Mowbray, a collier, and went with him to +live in Cornwall. Here the couple remained for some years. + +It was a fruitful marriage. Mary bore William five children in Cornwall, +but, unfortunately, four of the children died--suddenly. With the +remaining child the pair moved to Mary's native county. They had hardly +settled down in their new home when the fifth child also died. It died, +curiously enough, of the ailment which had supposedly carried off the +other four children--gastric fever. + +Not long after the death of this daughter the Mowbrays removed to +Hendon, Sunderland, and here a sixth child was born. It proved to be of +as vulnerable a constitution as its brothers and sisters, for it lasted +merely a year. Four months later, while suffering from an injured +foot, which kept him at home, William Mowbray fell ill, and died with a +suddenness comparable to that which had characterized the deaths of his +progeny. His widow found a job at the local infirmary, and there she +met George Ward. She married Mr Ward, but not for long. In a few months +after the nuptials George Ward followed his predecessor, Mowbray, from +an illness that in symptoms and speed of fatality closely resembled +William's. + +We next hear of Mary as housekeeper to a widower named Robinson, whose +wife she soon became. Robinson had five children by his former wife. +They all died in the year that followed his marriage with Mary Ann, and +all of 'gastric fever.' + +The second Mrs Robinson had two children by this third husband. Both of +these perished within a few weeks of their birth. + +Mary Ann's mother fell ill, though not seriously. Mary Ann volunteered +to nurse the old lady. It must now be evident that Mary Ann was a +'carrier' of an obscure sort of intestinal fever, because soon after her +appearance in her mother's place the old lady died of that complaint. + +On her return to her own home, or soon after it, Mary was accused by +her husband of robbing him. She thought it wise to disappear out of +Robinson's life, a deprivation which probably served to prolong it. + +Under her old name of Mowbray, and by means of testimonials which on +later investigation proved spurious, Mary Ann got herself a housekeeping +job with a doctor in practice at Spennymore. Falling into error +regarding what was the doctor's and what was her own, and her errors +being too patent, she was dismissed. + +Wallbottle is the scene of Mary Ann's next activities. Here she made the +acquaintance of a married man with a sick wife. His name was Frederick +Cotton. Soon after he had met Mary Ann his wife died. She died of +consumption, with no more trace of gastric fever than is usual in her +disease. But two of Cotton's children died of intestinal inflammation +not long after their mother, and their aunt, Cotton's sister, who kept +house for him, was not long in her turn to sicken and die in a like +manner. + +The marriage which Mary Ann brought off with Frederick Cotton at +Newcastle anticipated the birth of a son by a mere three months. With +two of Cotton's children by his former marriage, and with the infant +son, the pair went to live at West Auckland. Here Cotton died--and the +three children--and a lodger by the curious name of Natrass. + +Altogether Mary Ann, in the twenty years during which she had been +moving in Cornwall and about the northeastern counties, had, as it +ultimately transpired, done away with twenty-four persons. Nine of these +were the fruit of her own loins. One of them was the mother who gave +her birth. Retribution fell upon her through her twenty-fourth victim, +Charles Edward Cotton, her infant child. His death created suspicion. +The child, it was shown, was an obstacle to the marriage which she was +already contemplating--her fifth marriage, and, most likely, bigamous at +that. The doctor who had attended the child refused a death certificate. +In post-mortem examination arsenic was found in the child's body. Cotton +was arrested. + +She was brought to trial in the early part of 1873 at Durham Assizes. As +said already, she was found guilty and sentenced to death, the sentence +being executed upon her in Durham Gaol in March of that year. Before +she died she made the following remarkable statement: "I have been a +poisoner, but not intentionally." + +It is believed that she secured the poison from a vermicide in which +arsenic was mixed with soft soap. One finds it hard to believe that she +extracted the arsenic from the preparation (as she must have done +before administering it, or otherwise it must have been its own emetic) +unintentionally. + +What advantage Mary Ann Cotton derived from her poisonings can have been +but small, almost as small as that gained by Helene Jegado. Was it for +social advancement that she murdered husbands and children? Was she a +'climber' in that sphere of society in which she moved? One hesitates to +think that passion swayed her in being rid of the infant obstacle to the +fifth marriage of her contemplation. With her "all o'er-teeming loins," +this woman, Hecuba in no other particular, must have been a very sow +were this her motive. + +But I have come almost by accident on the word I need to compare Mary +Ann Cotton with Jegado. The Bretonne, creeping about her native province +leaving death in her track, with her piety, her hypocrisy, her enjoyment +of her own cruelty, is sinister and repellent. But Mary Ann, moving from +mate to mate and farrowing from each, then savaging both them and the +litter, has a musty sowishness that the Bretonne misses. Both foul, yes. +But we needn't, we islanders, do any Jingo business in setting Mary Ann +against Helene. + + + + +VII: -- THE MERRY WIDOWS + +Twenty years separate the cases of these two women, the length of France +lies between the scenes in which they are placed: Mme Boursier, Paris, +1823; Mme Lacoste, Riguepeu, a small town in Gascony, 1844. I tie their +cases together for reasons which cannot be apparent until both their +stories are told--and which may not be so apparent even then. That is +not to say I claim those reasons to be profound, recondite, or settled +in the deeps of psychology. The matter is, I would not have you believe +that I join their cases because of similarities that are superficial. +My hope is that you will find, as I do, a linking which, while neither +profound nor superficial, is curious at least. As I cannot see that +the one case transcends the other in drama or interest, I take them +chronologically, and begin with the Veuve Boursier: + +At the corner of Rue de la Paix and Rue Neuve Saint-Augustine in 1823 +there stood a boutique d'epiceries. It was a flourishing establishment, +typical of the Paris of that time, and its proprietors were people +of decent standing among their neighbours. More than the prosperous +condition of their business, which was said to yield a profit of over +11,000 francs per annum, it was the happy and cheerful relationship +existing between les epoux Boursier that made them of such good +consideration in the district. The pair had been married for thirteen +years, and their union had been blessed by five children. + +Boursier, a middle-aged man of average height, but very stout of build +and asthmatically short of neck, was recognized as a keen trader. He did +most of his trading away from the house in the Rue de la Paix, and paid +frequent visits, sometimes entire months in duration, to Le Havre and +Bordeaux. It is nowhere suggested that those visits were made on any +occasion other than that of business. M. Boursier spent his days away +from the house, and his evenings with friends. + +It does not anywhere appear that Mme Boursier objected to her husband's +absenteeism. She was a capable woman, rather younger than her husband, +and of somewhat better birth and education. She seems to have been +content with, if she did not exclusively enjoy, having full charge of +the business in the shop. Dark, white of tooth, not particularly pretty, +this woman of thirty-six was, for her size, almost as stout as her +husband. It is said that her manner was a trifle imperious, but that +no doubt resulted from knowledge of her own capability, proved by +the successful way in which she handled her business and family +responsibilities. + +The household, apart from Mme and M. Boursier, and counting those +employed in the epicerie, consisted of the five children, Mme Boursier's +aunt (the Veuve Flamand), two porters (Delonges and Beranger), Mlle +Reine (the clerk), Halbout (the book-keeper), and the cook (Josephine +Blin). + +On the morning of the 28th of June, which would be a Sunday, Boursier +was called by the cook to take his usual dejeuner, consisting of chicken +broth with rice. He did not like the taste of it, but ate it. Within a +little time he was violently sick, and became so ill that he had to go +to bed. The doctor, who was called almost immediately, saw no cause for +alarm, but prescribed mild remedies. As the day went on, however, the +sickness increased in violence. Dr Bordot became anxious when he saw the +patient again in the evening. He applied leeches and mustard poultices. +Those ministrations failing to alleviate the sufferings ofthe invalid, +Dr Bordot brought a colleague into consultation, but neither the +new-comer, Dr Partra, nor himself could be positive in diagnosis. +Something gastric, it was evident. They did what they could, though +working, as it were, in the dark. + +The patient was no better next day. As night came on he was worse than +ever. A medical student named Toupie was enlisted as nurse and watcher, +and sat with the sufferer through the night--but to no purpose. At four +o'clock in the morning of the Tuesday, the 30th, there came a crisis in +the illness of Boursier, and he died. + +The grief exhibited by Mme Boursier, so suddenly widowed, was just +what might have been expected in the circumstances from a woman of her +station. She had lost a good-humoured companion, the father of her +five children, and the man whose genius in trading had done so much to +support her own activities for their mutual profit. The Veuve Boursier +grieved in adequate fashion for the loss of her husband, but, being +a capable woman and responsible for the direction of affairs, did not +allow her grief to overwhelm her. The dead epicier was buried without +much delay--the weather was hot, and he had been of gross habit--and the +business at the corner of Rue de la Paix went on as near to usual as the +loss of the 'outside' partner would allow. + +Rumour, meantime, had got to work. There were circumstances about the +sudden death of Boursier which the busybodies of the environs felt +they might regard as suspicious. For some time before the death of the +epicier there had been hanging about the establishment a Greek called +Kostolo. He was a manservant out of employ, and not, even on the +surface, quite the sort of fellow that a respectable couple like the +Boursiers might be expected to accept as a family friend. But such, no +less, had been the Greek's position with the household. So much so that, +although Kostolo had no money and apparently no prospects, Boursier +himself had asked him to be godfather to a niece. The epicier found the +Greek amusing, and, on falling so suddenly ill, made no objection when +Kostolo took it on himself to act as nurse, and to help in the preparing +of drinks and medicines that were prescribed. + +It is perhaps to the rather loud-mouthed habits of this Kostolo that the +birth of suspicion among the neighbours may be attributed. On the death +of Boursier he had remarked that the nails of the corpse were blue a +colour, he said, which was almost a certain indication of poisoning. +Now, the two doctors who had attended Boursier, having failed to account +for his illness, were inclined to suspect poisoning as the cause of +his death. For this reason they had suggested an autopsy, a suggestion +rejected by the widow. Her rejection of the idea aroused no immediate +suspicion of her in the minds of the doctors. + +Kostolo, in addition to repeating outside the house his opinion +regarding the blueness of the dead Boursier's nails, began, several +days after the funeral, to brag to neighbours and friends of the warm +relationship existing between himself and the widow. He dropped hints of +a projected marriage. Upon this the neighbours took to remembering how +quickly Kostolo's friendship with the Boursier family had sprung up, and +how frequently he had visited the establishment. His nursing activities +were remembered also. And it was noticed that his visits to the Boursier +house still went on; it was whispered that he visited the Veuve Boursier +in her bedroom. + +The circumstances in which Boursier had fallen ill were well known. +Nobody, least of all Mme Boursier or Kostolo, had taken any trouble to +conceal them. Anybody who liked to ask either Mme Boursier or the +Greek about the soup could have a detailed story at once. All the +neighbourhood knew it. And since the Veuve Boursier's story is +substantially the same as other versions it may as well be dealt with +here and now. + +M. Boursier, said his widow, tasted his soup that Sunday morning. "What +a taste!" he said to the cook, Josephine. "This rice is poisoned." + +"But, monsieur," Josephine protested, "that's amazing! The potage ought +to be better than usual this morning, because I made a liaison for it +with three egg-yolks!" + +M. Boursier called his wife, and told her he couldn't eat his potage au +riz. It was poisoned. Mme Boursier took a spoonful of it herself, she +said, and saw nothing the matter with it. Whereupon her husband, saying +that if it was all right he ought to eat it, took several spoonfuls +more. + +"The poor man," said his widow, "always had a bad taste in his mouth, +and he could not face his soup." Then, she explained, he became very +sick, and brought up what little of the soup he had taken, together with +flots de bile. + +All this chatter of poison, particularly by Kostolo and the widow, +together with the persistent rumours of an adulterous association +between the pair, gave colour to suspicions of a criminal complicity, +and these in process of time came to the ears of the officers of +justice. The two doctors were summoned by the Procureur-General, who +questioned them closely regarding Boursier's illness. To the mind of +the official everything pointed to suspicion of the widow. Word of the +growing suspicion against her reached Mme Boursier, and she now hastened +to ask the magistrates for an exhumation and a post-mortem examination. +This did not avert proceedings by the Procureur. It was already known +that she had refused the autopsy suggested by the two doctors, and it +was stated that she had hurried on the burial. + +Kostolo and the Widow Boursier were called before the Juge +d'instruction. + + + +II + +There is about the Greek Kostolo so much gaudy impudence and barefaced +roguery that, in spite of the fact that the main concern of these pages +is with women, I am constrained to add his portrait to the sketches I +have made in illustration. He is of the gallery in which are Jingle and +Montague Tigg, with this difference--that he is rather more sordid than +either. + +Brought before the Procureur du Roi, he impudently confessed that he had +been, and still was, Mme Boursier's lover. He told the judge that in +the lifetime of her husband Mme Boursier had visited him in his rooms +several times, and that she had given him money unknown to her husband. + +Mme Boursier at first denied the adulterous intimacy with Kostolo, but +the evidence in the hands of the Procureur was too much for her. She had +partially to confess the truth of Kostolo's statement in this regard. +She emphatically denied, however, that she had ever even thought of, let +alone agreed to, marriage with the Greek. She swore that she had been +intimate with Kostolo only once, and that, as far as giving him money +was concerned, she had advanced him but one small sum on his IOU. + +These confessions, together with the information which had come to +him from other investigations, served to increase the feeling of +the Procureur that Boursier's death called for probing. He issued an +exhumation order, and on the 31st of July an autopsy on the body of +Boursier was carried out by MM. Orfila and Gardy, doctors and professors +of the Paris faculty of medicine. Their finding was that no trace +existed of any disorders to which the death of Boursier might be +attributed--such, for example, as cerebral congestion, rupture of the +heart or of a larger vessel--but that, on the other hand, they had come +upon a sufficiency of arsenic in the intestines to have caused death. + +On the 2nd of August the same two professors, aided by a third, M. +Barruel, carried out a further examination of the body. Their testimony +is highly technical. It is also rather revolting. I am conscious +that, dealing, as I have had to, with so much arsenical poisoning +(the favourite weapon of the woman murderer), a gastric odour has been +unavoidable in many of my pages--perhaps too many. For that reason +I shall refrain from quoting either in the original French or in +translation more than a small part of the professors' report. I shall, +however, make a lay shot on the evidence it supplies. Boursier's +interior generally was in foul condition, which is not to be explained +by any ingestion of arsenic, but which suggests chronic and morbid +pituitousness. The marvel is that the man's digestion functioned at all. +This insanitary condition, however, was taken by the professors, as +it were, in their stride. They concentrated on some slight traces of +intestinal inflammation. + +"One observed," their report went on, about the end of the ileum some +grains of a whitish appearance and rather stubbornly attached. These +grains, being removed, showed all the characteristics of white arsenic +oxide. Put upon glowing charcoal they volatilized, giving off white +smoke and a garlic odour. Treated with water, they dissolved, and the +solution, when brought into contact with liquid hydrosulphuric acid, +precipitated yellow sulphur of arsenic, particularly when one heated it +and added a few drops of hydrochloric acid. + +These facts (including, I suppose, the conditions I have hinted +at) allowed them to conclude (a) that the stomach showed traces of +inflammation, and (b) that the intestinal canal yielded a quantity of +arsenic oxide sufficient to have produced that inflammation and to have +caused death. + +The question now was forward as to where the arsenic found in the body +had come from. Inquiry established the fact that on the 15th of May, +1823--that is to say, several weeks before his death--Boursier had +bought half a pound of arsenic for the purpose of destroying the rats in +his shop cellars. In addition, he had bought prepared rat-poison. Only a +part of those substances had been used. The remaining portions could not +be found about the shop, nor could Mme Boursier make any suggestions for +helping the search. She declared she had never seen any arsenic about +the house at all. + +There was, however, sufficient gravity in the evidences on hand to +justify a definite indictment of Mme Boursier and Nicolas Kostolo, the +first of having poisoned her husband, and the second of being accessory +to the deed. + +The pair were brought to trial on the 27th of November, 1823, before the +Seine Assize Court, M. Hardouin presiding. The prosecution was conducted +by the Avocat-General, M. de Broe. Maitre Couture defended Mme Boursier. +Maitre Theo. Perrin appeared for Kostolo. + +The case created great excitement, not only in Paris, but throughout the +country. Another poisoning case had not long before this occupied the +minds of the public very greatly--that of the hypocritical Castaing for +the murder of Auguste Ballet. Indeed, there had been a lot of poisoning +going on in French society about this period. Political and religious +controversy, moreover, was rife. The populace were in a mood either to +praise extravagantly or just as extravagantly to condemn. It happened +that rumour convinced them of the guilt of the Veuve Boursier and +Kostolo, and the couple were condemned in advance. Such was the popular +spite against Mme Boursier and Kostolo that, it is said, Maitre Couture +at first refused the brief for the widow's defence. He had already made +a success of his defence of a Mme Lavaillaut, accused of poisoning, and +was much in demand in cases where women sought judicial separation from +their husbands. People were calling him "Providence for women." He did +not want to be nicknamed "Providence for poisoners." But Mme Boursier's +case being more clearly presented to him he took up the brief. + +The accused were brought into court. + +Kostolo was about thirty years of age. He was tall, distinctly +good-looking in an exotic sort of way, with his dark hair, complexion, +and flashing eyes. He carried himself grandly, and was elegantly clad +in a frac noir. Not quite, as Army men were supposed once to say, "the +clean potato," it was easy enough to see that women of a kind would +be his ready victims. It was plain, in the court, that Master Nicolas +thought himself the hero of the occasion. + +There was none of this flamboyance about the Widow Boursier. She was +dressed in complete mourning, and covered her face with a handkerchief. +It was manifest that, in the phrase of the crime reporters, "she felt +her position keenly." The usual questions as to her name and condition +she answered almost inaudibly, her voice choked with sobs. + +Kostolo, on the contrary, replied in organ tones. He said that he was +born in Constantinople, and that he had no estate. + +The acte d'accusation was read. It set forth the facts of the adulterous +association of the two accused, of the money lent by Mme Boursier +to Kostolo, of their meetings, and all the suspicious circumstances +previous to the death of the epicier. + +The cook-girl, Josephine Blin, had prepared the potage au riz in the +kitchen, using the small iron pan that it was her wont to employ. Having +made the soup, she conveyed it in its terrine to a small secretaire in +the dining-room. This secretaire stood within the stretch of an arm from +the door of the comptoir in which Mme Boursier usually worked. According +to custom, Josephine had divided the potage in two portions--one for +Boursier and the other for the youngest child. The youngster and she had +eaten the second portion between them, and neither had experienced any +ill-effects. + +Josephine told her master that the soup was ready. He came at her call, +but did not eat the soup at once, being otherwise occupied. The soup +stood on the secretaire for about fifteen minutes before Boursier +started to eat it. + +According to the accused, the accusation went on, after Boursier's death +the two doctors asked that they might be allowed to perform an autopsy, +since they were at a loss to explain the sudden illness. This Mme +Boursier refused, in spite of the insistence of the doctors. She +refused, she said, in the interest of her children. She insisted, +indeed, on a quick burial, maintaining that, as her husband had been +tres replet, the body would rapidly putrefy, owing to the prevailing +heat, and that thus harm would be done to the delicate contents of the +epicerie. + +Led by rumours of the bluish stains--almost certain indications of +a violent death--the authorities, said the accusation, ordered an +exhumation and autopsy. Arsenic was found in the body. It was clear that +Boursier, ignorant, as he was, of his wife's bad conduct, had not killed +himself. This was a point that the widow had vainly attempted, during +the process of instruction, to maintain. She declared that one Clap, +a friend of her late husband, had come to her one day to say that a +certain Charles, a manservant, had remarked to him, "Boursier poisoned +himself because he was tired of living." Called before the Juge +d'instruction, Henri Clap and Charles had concurred in denying this. + +The accusation maintained that the whole attitude of Mme Boursier proved +her a poisoner. As soon as her husband became sick she had taken the +dish containing the remains of the rice soup, emptied it into a dirty +vessel, and passed water through the dish. Then she had ordered Blin to +clean it, which the latter did, scrubbing it out with sand and ashes. + +Questioned about arsenic in the house, Mme Boursier said, to begin with, +that Boursier had never spoken to her about arsenic, but later admitted +that her husband had mentioned both arsenic and mort aux rats to her. + +Asked regarding the people who frequented the house she had mentioned +all the friends of Boursier, but neglected to speak of Kostolo. Later +she had said she never had been intimate with the Greek. But Kostolo, +"barefaced enough for anything," had openly declared the nature of his +relations with her. Then Mme Boursier, after maintaining that she +had been no more than interested in Kostolo, finding pleasure in his +company, had been constrained to confess that she had misconducted +herself with the Greek in the dead man's room. She had given Kostolo the +run of her purse, the accusation declared, though she denied the fact, +insisting that what she had given him had been against his note. There +was only one conclusion, however. Mme Boursier, knowing the poverty of +her paramour, had paid him as her cicisbeo, squandering upon him her +children's patrimony. + +The accusation then dealt with the supposed project of marriage, and +declared that in it there was sufficient motive for the crime. Kostolo +was Mme Boursier's accomplice beyond any doubt. He had acted as nurse to +the invalid, administering drinks and medicines to him. He had had full +opportunity for poisoning the grocer. Penniless, out of work, it would +be a good thing for him if Boursier was eliminated. He had been blatant +in his visits to Mme Boursier after the death of the husband. + +Then followed the first questioning of the accused. + +Mme Boursier said she had kept tryst with Kostolo in the Champs-Elysees. +She admitted having been to his lodgings once. On the mention of the +name of Mlle Riene, a mistress of Kostolo's, she said that the woman +was partly in their confidence. She had gone with Mlle Riene twice to +Kostolo's rooms. Once, she admitted, she had paid a visit to Versailles +with Kostolo unknown to her husband. + +Asked if her husband had had any enemies, Mme Boursier said she knew of +none. + +The questioning of Kostolo drew from him the admission that he had had +a number of mistresses all at one time. He made no bones about his +relations with them, nor about his relations with Mme Boursier. He was +quite blatant about it, and seemed to enjoy the show he was putting up. +Having airily answered a question in a way that left him without any +reputation, he would sweep the court with his eyes, preening himself +like a peacock. + +He was asked about a journey Boursier had proposed making. At what time +had Boursier intended making the trip? + +"Before his death," Kostolo replied. + +The answer was unintentionally funny, but the Greek took credit for the +amusement it created in court. He conceived himself a humorist, and the +fact coloured all his subsequent answers. + +Kostolo said that he had called to see Boursier on the first day of his +illness at three in the afternoon. He himself had insisted on helping to +nurse the invalid. Mme Boursier had brought water, and he had given it +to the sick man. + +After Boursier's death he had remarked on the blueness of the +fingernails. It was a condition he had seen before in his own country, +on the body of a prince who had died of poison, and the symptoms of +whose illness had been very like those in Boursier's. He had then +suspected that Boursier had died of poisoning. + +The loud murmurs that arose in court upon his blunt confession of having +misconducted himself with Mme Boursier fifteen days after her husband's +death seemed to evoke nothing but surprise in Kostolo. He was then asked +if he had proposed marriage to Mme Boursier after Boursier's death. + +"What!" he exclaimed, with a grin. "Ask a woman with five children to +marry me--a woman I don't love?" + +Upon this answer Kostolo was taken to task by the President of the +court. M. Hardouin pointed out that Kostolo lived with a woman who kept +and fed him, giving him money, but that at the same time he was taking +money from Mme Boursier as her lover, protesting the while that he loved +her. What could the Greek say in justification of such conduct? + +"Excuse me, please, everybody," Kostolo replied, unabashed. "I don't +know quite how to express myself, but surely what I have done is quite +the common thing? I had no means of living but from what Mme Boursier +gave me." + +The murmurs evoked by the reply Kostolo treated with lofty disdain. He +seemed to find his audience somewhat prudish. + +To further questioning he answered that he had never proposed marriage +to the Veuve Boursier. Possibly something might have been said in fun. +He knew, of course, that the late Boursier had made a lot of money. + +The cook, Josephine Blin, was called. At one time she had been suspect. +Her version of the potage incidents, though generally in agreement with +that of the accused widow, differed from it in two essential points. +When she took Boursier's soup into the dining-room, she said, Mme +Boursier was in the comptoir, three or four paces away from the desk on +which she put the terrine. This Mme Boursier denied. She said she had +been in the same comptoir as her husband. Josephine declared that Mme +Boursier had ordered her to clean the soup-dish out with sand, but her +mistress maintained she had bade the girl do no more than clean it. +For the rest, Josephine thought about fifteen minutes elapsed before +Boursier came to take the soup. During that time she had seen Mme +Boursier writing and making up accounts. + +Toupie, the medical student, said he had nursed Boursier during the +previous year. Boursier was then suffering much in the same way as +he had appeared to suffer during his fatal illness. He had heard Mme +Boursier consulting with friends about an autopsy, and her refusal had +been on their advice. + +The doctors called were far from agreeing on the value of the +experiments they had made. Orfila, afterwards to intervene in the much +more universally notorious case of Mme Lafarge, stuck to his opinion of +death by arsenic. If his evidence in the Lafarge case is read it will +be seen that in the twenty years that had passed from the Boursier trial +his notions regarding the proper routine of analysis for arsenic in a +supposedly poisoned body had undergone quite a change. But by then the +Marsh technique had been evolved. Here, however, he based his opinion on +experiments properly described as "very equivocal;" and stuck to it. He +was supported by a colleague named Lesieur. + +M. Gardy said he had observed that the greater part of the grains about +the ileum, noted on the 1st of August, had disappeared next day. The +analysis had been made with quantities too small. He now doubted greatly +if the substance taken to be arsenic oxide would account for death. + +M. Barruel declared that from the glareous matter removed from the body +only a grain of the supposed arsenic had been extracted, and that with +difficulty. He had put the substance on glowing charcoal, but, in his +opinion, the experiment was VERY EQUIVOCAL. It was at first believed +that there was a big amount of arsenic, but he felt impelled to say that +the substance noted was nothing other than small clusters of fat. The +witness now refused to conclude, as he had concluded on the 1st of +August, that enough poison had been in the body to cause death. + +It would almost seem that the medical evidence should have been enough +to destroy the case for the prosecution, but other witnesses were +called. + +Bailli, at one time a clerk to Boursier, said he had helped his patron +to distribute arsenic and rat-poison in the shop cellars. He was well +aware that the whole of the poison had not been used, but in the course +of his interrogation he had failed to remember where the residue of +the poisons had been put. He now recollected. The unused portion of the +arsenic had been put in a niche of a bottle-rack. + +In view of evidence given by a subsequent witness Bailli's rather sudden +recovery of memory might have been thought odd if a friend of his +had not been able to corroborate his statement. The friend was one +Rousselot, another grocer. He testified that he and Bailli had searched +together. Bailli had then cudgelled that dull ass, his brain, to some +effect, for they had ultimately come upon the residue of the arsenic +bought by Boursier lying with the remainder of the mort aux rats. Both +the poisons had been placed at the bottom of a bottle-rack, and a plank +had been nailed over them. + +Rousselot, asked why he had not mentioned this fact before, answered +stupidly, "I thought you knew it!" + +The subsequent witness above referred to was an employee in the +Ministere du Roi, a man named Donzelle. In a stammering and rather +confused fashion he attempted to explain that the vacillations of the +witness Bailli had aroused his suspicions. He said that Bailli, who at +first had been vociferous in his condemnation of the Widow Boursier, had +later been rather more vociferous in her defence. The witness (Donzelle) +had it from a third party that Mme Boursier's sister-in-law had +corrupted other witnesses with gifts of money. Bailli, for example, +could have been seen carrying bags of ecus under his arm, coming out of +the house of the advocate briefed to defend Mme Boursier. + +Bailli, recalled, offered to prove that if he had been to Maitre +Couture's house he had come out of it in the same fashion as he had gone +in--that was, with a bag of bay salt under each arm. + +Maitre Couture, highly indignant, rose to protest against the +insinuation of the witness Donzelle, but the President of the court +and the Avocat-General hastened to say that the eminent and honourable +advocate was at no need to justify himself. The President sternly +reprimanded Donzelle and sent him back to his seat. + + + +III + +The Avocat-General, M. de Broe, stated the case for the prosecution. He +made, as probably was his duty, as much as he could of the arsenic said +to have been found in the body (that precipitated as yellow sulphur of +arsenic), and of the adultery of Mme Boursier with Kostolo. He dwelt on +the cleaning of the soup-dish, and pointed out that while the soup stood +on the desk Mme Boursier had been here and there near it, never out of +arm's reach. In regard to Kostolo, the Greek was a low scallywag, but +not culpable. + +The prosecution, you observe, rested on the poison's being administered +in the soup. + +In his speech for the defence the eloquent Maitre Couture began by +condemning the gossip and the popular rumour on which the case had +been begun. He denounced the action of the magistrates in instituting +proceedings as deplorably unconsidered and hasty. + +Mme Boursier, he pointed out, had everything to lose through the loss of +her husband. Why should she murder a fine merchant like Boursier for a +doubtful quantity like Kostolo? He spoke of the happy relationship that +had existed between husband and wife, and, in proof of their kindness +for each other, told of a comedy interlude which had taken place on the +Sunday morning. + +Boursier, he said, had to get up before his wife that morning, rising at +six o'clock. His rising did not wake his wife, and, perhaps humorously +resenting her lazy torpor, he found a piece of charcoal and decorated +her countenance with a black moustache. It was true that Mme Boursier +showed some petulance over her husband's prank when she got down +at eight o'clock, but her ill-humour did not last long. Her husband +caressed and petted her, and before long the wife joined her +merry-minded husband in laughing over the joke against her. That, said +Maitre Couture, that mutual laughter and kindness, seemed a strange +preliminary to the supposed poisoning episode of two hours or so later. + +The truth of the matter was that Boursier carried the germ of death in +his own body. What enemy had he made? What vengeance had he incurred? +Maitre Couture reminded the jury of Boursier's poor physical condition, +of his stoutness, of the shortness of his neck. He brought forward +Toupie's evidence of Boursier's illness of the previous year, alike in +symptoms and in the sufferings of the invalid to that which proved fatal +on Tuesday the 30th of June. Then Maitre Couture proceeded to tear the +medical evidence to pieces, and returned to the point that Mme Boursier +had been sleeping so profoundly, so serenely, on the morning of her +supposed contemplated murder that the prank played on her by her +intended victim had not disturbed her. + +The President's address then followed. The jury retired, and returned +with a verdict of "Not guilty." + +On this M. Hardouin discharged the accused, improving the occasion with +a homily which, considering the ordeal that Mme Boursier had had to +endure through so many months, and that might have been considered +punishment enough, may be quoted merely as a fine specimen of salting +the wound: + +"Veuve Boursier," said he, "you are about to recover that liberty which +suspicions of the gravest nature have caused you to lose. The jury +declares you not guilty of the crime imputed to you. It is to be +hoped that you will find a like absolution in the court of your own +conscience. But do not ever forget that the cause of your unhappiness +and of the dishonour which, it may be, covers your name was the disorder +of your ways and the violation of the most sacred obligations. It is to +be hoped that your conduct to come may efface the shame of your conduct +in the past, and that repentance may restore the honour you have lost." + + + +IV + +Now we come, as the gentleman with the crimson handkerchief coyly +showing between dress waistcoat and shirt might have said, waving +his pointer as the canvas of the diorama rumbled on its rollers, to +Riguepeu! + +Some twenty years have elapsed since the Veuve Boursier stumbled from +the stand of the accused in the Assize Court of the Seine, acquitted of +the poisoning of her grocer husband, but convicted of a moral flaw which +may (or may not) have rather diminished thereafter the turnover of the +epicerie in the Rue de la Paix. One hopes that her punishment finished +with her acquittal, and that the mood of the mob, as apt as a flying +straw to veer for a zephyr as for a whirlwind, swung to her favour from +mere revulsion on her escape from the scaffold. The one thing is as +likely as the other. Didn't the heavy man of the fit-up show, eighteen +months after his conviction for rape (the lapse of time being occupied +in paying the penalty), return as an actor to the scene of his +delinquency to find himself, not, as he expected, pelted with dead cats +and decaying vegetables, but cheered to the echo? So may it have been +with the Veuve Boursier. + +Though in 1844, the year in which the poison trial at Auch was opened, +four years had passed since the conviction of Mme Lafarge at Tulle, +controversy on the latter case still was rife throughout France. The two +cases were linked, not only in the minds of the lay public, but +through close analogy in the idea of lawyers and experts in medical +jurisprudence. From her prison cell Marie Lafarge watched the progress +of the trial in Gascony. And when its result was published one may be +sure she shed a tear or two. + +But to Riguepeu... + +You will not find it on anything but the biggest-scale maps. It is +an inconsiderable town a few miles from Vic-Fezensac, a town not much +bigger than itself and some twenty kilometres from Auch, which is the +capital of the department of Gers. You may take it that Riguepeu lies in +the heart of the Armagnac district. + +Some little distance from Riguepeu itself, on the top of a rise, stood +the Chateau Philibert, a one-floored house with red tiles and green +shutters. Not much of a chateau, it was also called locally La Maison de +Madame. It belonged in 1843 to Henri Lacoste, together with considerable +land about it. It was reckoned that Lacoste, with the land and other +belongings, was worth anything between 600,000 and 700,000 francs. + +Henri had become rich late in life. The house and the domain had been +left him by his brother Philibert, and another brother's death had also +been of some benefit to him. Becoming rich, Henri Lacoste thought it +his duty to marry, and in 1839, though already sixty-six years of age, +picked on a girl young enough to have been his granddaughter. + +Euphemie Verges was, in fact, his grand-niece. She lived with her +parents at Mazeyrolles, a small village in the foothills of the +Pyrenees. Compared with Lacoste, the Verges were said to be poor. +Lacoste took it on himself to look after the girl's education, having +her sent at his charges to a convent at Tarbes. In 1841, on the 2nd of +May, the marriage took place. + +If this marriage of youth with crabbed age resulted in any unhappiness +the neighbours saw little of it. Though it was rumoured that for her +old and rich husband Euphemie had given up a young man of her fancy in +Tarbes, her conduct during the two years she lived with Lacoste seemed +to be irreproachable. Lacoste was rather a nasty old fellow from all +accounts. He was niggardly, coarse, and a womanizer. Euphemie's position +in the house was little better than that of head domestic servant, but +in this her lot was the common one for wives of her station in this part +of France. She appeared to be contented enough with it. + +About two years after the marriage, on the 16th of May, 1843, to be +exact, after a trip with his wife to the fair at Riguepeu, old Lacoste +was taken suddenly ill, ultimately becoming violently sick. Eight days +later he died. + +By a will which Henri had made two months after his marriage his wife +was his sole beneficiary, and this will was no sooner proved than the +widow betook herself to Tarbes, where she speedily began to make full +use of her fortune. Milliners and dressmakers were called into service, +and the widow blossomed forth as a lady of fashion. She next set up her +own carriage. If these proceedings had not been enough to excite envy +among her female neighbours the frequent visits paid to her in her +genteel apartments by a young man did the trick. The young man came on +the scene less than two months after the death of the old man. It was +said that his visits to the widow were prolonged until midnight. Scandal +resulted, and out of the scandal rumour regarding the death of Henri +Lacoste. It began to be said that the old man had died of poison. + +It was in December, six months after the death of Lacoste, that the +rumours came to the ears of the magistrates. Nor was there lack of +anonymous letters. It was the Widow Lacoste herself, however, who +demanded an exhumation and autopsy on the body of her late husband--this +as a preliminary to suing her traducers. Note, in passing, how her +action matches that of Veuve Boursier. + +On the orders of the Juge d'instruction an autopsy was begun on the 18th +of December. The body of Lacoste was exhumed, the internal organs +were extracted, and these, with portions of the muscular tissue, were +submitted to analysis by a doctor of Auch, M. Bouton, and two chemists +of the same city, MM. Lidange and Pons, who at the same time examined +samples of the soil in which the body had been interred. The finding was +that the body of Lacoste contained some arsenical preparation. + +The matter now appearing to be grave, additional scientific assurance +was sought. Three of the most distinguished chemists in Paris were +called into service for a further analysis. They were MM. Devergie, +Pelouze, and Flandin. Their report ran in part: + + +The portion of the liver on which we have experimented proved to contain +a notable quantity of arsenic, amounting to more than five milligrammes; +the portions of the intestines and tissue examined also contained +appreciable traces which, though in smaller proportion than contained by +the liver, accord with the known features of arsenical poisoning. There +is no appearance of the toxic element in the earth taken from the grave +or in the material of the coffin. + + +As soon as Mme Lacoste was apprised of the findings of the autopsy she +got into her carriage and was driven to Auch, where she visited a friend +of her late husband and of herself. To him she announced her intention +of surrendering herself to the Procureur du Roi. The friend strongly +advised her against doing any such thing, advice which Mme Lacoste +accepted with reluctance. + +On the 5th of January a summons to appear was issued for Mme Lacoste. +She was seen that day in Auch, walking the streets on the arm of a +friend. She even went to the post-office, but the police agents failed +to find her. She stopped the night in the town. Next day she was at +Riguepeu. She was getting out of her carriage when a servant pointed +out gendarmes coming up the hill with the Mayor. When those officials +arrived Euphemie was well away. Search was made through the house and +outbuildings, but without result. "Don't bother yourself looking any +further, Monsieur le Maire," said one of the servants. "The mistress +isn't far away, but she's in a place where I could hide a couple of oxen +without you finding them." + +From then on Mme Lacoste was hunted for everywhere. The roads to Tarbes, +Toulouse, and Vic-Fezensac were patrolled by brigades of gendarmes day +and night, but there was no sign of the fugitive. It was rumoured that +she had got away to Spain, that she was cached in a barrel at Riguepeu, +that she was in the fields disguised as a shepherd, that she had taken +the veil. + +In the meantime the process against her went forward. Evidence was +to hand which seemed to inculpate with Mme Lacoste a poor and old +schoolmaster of Riguepeu named Joseph Meilhan. The latter, arrested, +stoutly denied not only his own part in the supposed crime, but also +the guilt of Mme Lacoste. "Why doesn't she come forward?" he asked. "She +knows perfectly well she has nothing to fear--no more than I have." + +From the 'information' laid by the court of first instance at Auch a +warrant was issued for the appearance of Mme Lacoste and Meilhan before +the Assize of Gers. Mme Lacoste was apparently well instructed by her +friends. She did not come into the open until the last possible moment. +She gave herself up at the Auch prison on the 4th of July. + +Her health seemed to have suffered little from the vicissitudes of her +flight. It was noticed that her hair was short, a fact which seemed to +point to her having disguised herself. But, it is said, she exhibited a +serenity of mind which consorted ill with the idea of guilt. She faced +an interrogation lasting three hours without faltering. + +On the 10th of July she appeared before the Gers Assize Court, held at +Auch. The President was M. Donnoderie. Counsel for the prosecution, +as it were, was the Procureur du Roi, M. Cassagnol. Mme Lacoste was +defended by Maitre Alem-Rousseau, leader of the bar of Auch. + +The case aroused the liveliest interest, people flocking to the town +from as far away as Paris itself--so much so that at 6.30 in the morning +the one-time palace of the Archbishops of Auch, in the hall of which the +court was held, was packed. + +The accused were called. First to appear was Joseph Meilhan. He was +a stout little old boy of sixty-six, rosy and bright-eyed, with short +white hair and heavy black eyebrows. He was calm and smiling, completely +master of himself. + +Mme Lacoste then appeared on the arm of her advocate. She was dressed +in full widow's weeds. A little creature, slender but not rounded of +figure, she is described as more agreeable-looking than actually pretty. + +After the accused had answered with their names and descriptions the +acte d'accusation was read. It was a long document. It recalled the +circumstances of the Lacoste marriage and of the death of the old man, +with the autopsy and the finding of traces of arsenic. It spoke of the +lowly household tasks that Mme Lacoste had performed with such goodwill +from the beginning, and of the reward for her diligence which came to +her by the making of a holograph will in which her husband made her his +sole heir. + +But the understanding between husband and wife did not last long, the +acte went on. Lacoste ardently desired a son and heir, and his wife +appeared to be barren. He confided his grief to an old friend, one +Lespere. Lespere pointed out that Euphemie was not only Lacoste's wife, +but his kinswoman as well. To this Lacoste replied that the fact did +not content him. "I tell you on the quiet," he said to his friend, "I've +made my arrangements. If SHE knew--she's capable of poisoning me to get +herself a younger man." Lespere told him not to talk rubbish, in effect, +but Lacoste was stubborn on his notion. + +This was but a year after the marriage. It seemed that Lacoste had a +melancholy presentiment of the fate which was to be his. + +It was made out that Euphemie suffered from the avarice and jealousy of +her old husband. She was given no money, was hardly allowed out of the +house, and was not permitted even to go to Vespers alone. And then, said +the accusation, she discovered that her husband wanted an heir. She +had reason to fear that he would go about getting one by an illicit +association. + +In the middle of 1842 she overheard her husband bargaining with one of +the domestics. The girl was asking for 100 pistoles (say, L85), while +her husband did not want to give more than 600 francs (say, L24). +"Euphemie Verges had no doubt," ran the accusation, "that this was the +price of an adulterous contract, and she insisted on Marie Dupuys' being +sent from the house. This was the cause of disagreement between the +married pair, which did not conclude with the departure of the servant." + +Later another servant, named Jacquette Larrieux, told Mme Lacoste in +confidence that the master was trying to seduce her by the offer of a +pension of 2000 francs or a lump sum of 20,000. + +Euphemie Verges, said the accusation, thus thought herself exposed +daily, by the infidelity of her husband, to the loss of all her hopes. +Also, talking to a Mme Bordes about the two servants some days after +Lacoste's death, she said, "I had a bad time with those two girls! If my +husband had lived longer I might have had nothing, because he wanted a +child that he could leave everything to." + +The acte d'accusation enlarged on the situation, then went on to bring +in Joseph Meilhan as Euphemie's accomplice. It made him out to be a bad +old man indeed. He had seduced, it was said, a young girl named Lescure, +who became enceinte, afterwards dying from an abortion which Meilhan was +accused of having procured. It might be thought that the society of such +a bad old man would have disgusted a young woman, but Euphemie Verges +admitted him to intimacy. He was, it was said, the confidant for +her domestic troubles, and it was further rumoured that he acted as +intermediary in a secret correspondence that she kept up with a young +man of Tarbes who had been courting her before her marriage. The +counsels of such a man were not calculated to help Mme Lacoste in her +quarrels with her unfaithful and unlovable husband. + +Meanwhile M. Lacoste was letting new complaints be heard regarding his +wife. Again Lespere was his confidant. His wife was bad and sulky. He +was very inclined to undo what he had done for her. This was in March of +1843. + +Towards the end of April he made a like complaint to another old +friend, one Dupouy, who accused him of neglecting old friends through +uxoriousness. Lacoste said he found little pleasure in his young wife. +He was, on the contrary, a martyr. He was on the point of disinheriting +her. + +And so, with the usual amount of on dit and disait-on, the acte +d'accusation came to the point of Lacoste at the Riguepeu fair. He set +out in his usual health, but, several hours later, said to one Laffon, +"I have the shivers, cramps in the stomach. After being made to drink by +that ---- Meilhan I felt ill." + +Departing from the fair alone, he met up with Jean Durieux, to whom he +said, "That ---- of a Meilhan asked me to have a drink, and afterwards I +had colic, and wanted to vomit." + +Arrived home, Lacoste said to Pierre Cournet that he had been seized by +a colic which made him ill all over, plaguing him, giving him a desire +to vomit which he could not satisfy. Cournet noticed that Lacoste was as +white as a sheet. He advised going to bed and taking hot water. Lacoste +took the advice. During the night he was copiously sick. The old man was +in bed in an alcove near the kitchen, but next night he was put into a +room out of the way of noise. + +Euphemie looked after her husband alone, preparing his drinks and +admitting nobody to see him. She let three days pass without calling a +doctor. Lacoste, it was true, had said he did not want a doctor, but, +said the accusation, "there is no proof that he persisted in that wish." + +On the fourth day she sent a summary of the illness to Dr Boubee, asking +for written advice. On the fifth day a surgeon was called, M. Lasmolles, +who was told that Lacoste had eaten a meal of onions, garlic stems, and +beans. But the story of this meal was a lie, a premeditated lie. On the +eve of the fair Mme Lacoste was already speaking of such a meal, saying +that that sort of thing always made her husband ill. + +According to the accusation, the considerable amount of poison found in +the body established that the arsenic had been administered on several +occasions, on the first by Meilhan and on the others by Mme Lacoste. + +When Henri Lacoste had drawn his last breath his wife shed a few tears. +But presently her grief gave place to other preoccupations. She herself +looked out the sheet for wrapping the corpse, and thereafter she began +to search in the desk for the will which made her her husband's sole +heir. + +Next day Meilhan, who had not once looked in on Lacoste during his +illness, hastened to visit the widow. The widow invited him to dinner. +The day after that he dined with her again, and they were seen walking +together. Their intimacy seemed to grow daily. But the friendship of +Mme Lacoste for Meilhan did not end there. Not very many days after +the death of Lacoste Meilhan met the Mayor of Riguepeu, M. Sabazan, and +conducted him in a mysterious manner into his schoolroom. Telling the +Mayor that he knew him to be a man of discretion, he confided in him +that the Veuve Lacoste intended giving him (Meilhan) a bill on one +Castera. Did the Mayor know Castera to be all right? The Mayor replied +that a bill on Castera was as good as gold itself. Meilhan said that Mme +Lacoste had assured him this was but the beginning of what she meant to +do for him. + +Meilhan wrote to Castera, who called on him. The schoolmaster told +Castera that in return for 2000 francs which she had borrowed from him +Mme Lacoste had given him a note for 1772 francs, which was due from +Castera to Henri Lacoste as part inheritance from a brother. Meilhan +showed Castera the original note, which was to be renewed in Meilhan's +favour. The accusation dwelt on the different versions regarding his +possession of the note given by Meilhan to the Mayor and to Castera. +Meilhan was demonstrably lying to conceal Mme Lacoste's liberality. + +Some little time after this Meilhan invited the Mayor a second time into +the schoolroom, and told him that Mme Lacoste meant to assure him of a +life annuity of 400 francs, and had asked him to prepare the necessary +document for her to sign. But there was another proposition. If Meilhan +would return the note for 1772 francs owing by Castera she would make +the annuity up to 500. What, asked Meilhan, would M. le Maire do in +his place? The Mayor replied that in Meilhan's place he would keep the +Castera note and be content with the 400 annuity. Then Meilhan asked +the Mayor to draw up for him a specimen of the document necessary for +creating the annuity. This M. Sabazan did at once, and gave the draft to +Meilhan. + +Some days later still Meilhan told M. Sabazan that Mme Lacoste did not +wish to use the form of document suggested by the Mayor, but had written +one herself. Meilhan showed the Mayor the widow's document, and begged +him to read it to see if it was in proper form. Sabazan read the +document. It created an annuity of 400 francs, payable yearly in the +month of August. The Mayor did not know actually if the deed was in +the writing of Mme Lacoste. He did not know her fist. But he could be +certain that it was not in Meilhan's hand. + +This deed was later shown by Meilhan to the cure of Riguepeu, who saw +at least that the deed was not in Meilhan's writing. He noticed that it +showed some mistakes, and that the signature of the Widow Lacoste began +with the word "Euphemie." + +In the month of August Meilhan was met coming out of Mme Lacoste's by +the Mayor. Jingling money in his pocket, the schoolmaster told the +Mayor he had just drawn the first payment of his annuity. Later Meilhan +bragged to the cure of Basais that he was made for life. He took a +handful of louis from his pocket, and told the priest that this was his +daily allowance. + +"Whence," demanded the acte d'accusation, "came all those riches, if +they were not the price of his share in the crime?" + +But the good offices of Mme Lacoste towards Meilhan did not end with +the giving of money. In the month of August Meilhan was chased from his +lodgings by his landlord, Lescure, on suspicion of having had intimate +relations with the landlord's wife. The intervention of the Mayor was +ineffective in bringing about a reconciliation between Meilhan and +Lescure. Meilhan begged Mme Lacoste to intercede, and where the Mayor +had failed she succeeded. + +While Mme Lacoste was thus smothering Meilhan with kindnesses she was +longing herself to make the most of the fortune which had come to her. +From the first days of her widowhood she was constantly writing letters +which Mme Lescure carried for her. Euphemie had already begun to talk of +remarriage. Her choice was already made. "If I marry again," she said, a +few days after the death of Lacoste, "I won't take anybody but M. Henri +Berens, of Tarbes. He was my first love." + +The accusation told of Euphemie's departure for Tarbes, where almost +her first caller was this M. Henri Berens. The next day she gave up +the lodgings rented by her late husband, to establish herself in rich +apartments owned by one Fourcade, which she furnished sumptuously. The +accusation dwelt on her purchase of horses and a carriage and on her +luxurious way of living. It also brought forward some small incidents +illustrative of her distaste for the memory of her late husband. It +dealt with information supplied by her landlord which indicated that her +conscience was troubled. Twice M. Fourcade found her trembling, as with +fear. On his asking her what was the matter she replied, "I was thinking +of my husband--if he saw me in a place furnished like this!" + +(It need hardly be pointed out, considering the sour and avaricious +ways of her late husband, that Euphemie need not have been +conscience-stricken with his murder to have trembled over her lavish +expenditure of his fortune. But the point is typical of the trivialities +with which the acte d'accusation was padded out.) + +The accusation claimed that a young man had several times been seen +leaving Euphemie's apartments at midnight, and spoke of protests made by +Mme Fourcade. Euphemie declared herself indifferent to public opinion. + +Public opinion, however, beginning to rise against her, Euphemie had +need to resort to lying in order to explain her husband's death. To some +she repeated the story of the onion-garlic-and-beans meal, adding that, +in spite of his indigestion, he had eaten gluttonously later in the day. +To others she attributed his illness to two indigestible repasts made at +the fair. To others again she said Lacoste had died of a hernia, forced +out by his efforts to vomit. She was even accused of saying that +the doctor had attributed the death to this cause. This, said the +indictment, was a lie. Dr Lasmolles declared that he had questioned +Lacoste about the supposed hernia, and that the old man denied having +any such thing. + +What had brought about Lacoste's fatal illness was the wine Meilhan had +made him drink at Rigeupeu fair. + +With the rise of suspicion against her and her accomplice, Mme Lacoste +put up a brave front. She wrote to the Procureur du Roi, demanding an +exhumation, with the belief, no doubt, that time would have effaced the +poison. At the same time she sent the bailiff Labadie to Riguepeu, to +find out the names of those who were traducing her, and to say that she +intended to prosecute her calumniators with the utmost rigour of the +law. This, said the accusation, was nothing but a move to frighten the +witnesses against her into silence. Instead of making good her threats +the Widow Lacoste disappeared. + +On the arrest of Meilhan search of his lodgings resulted in the finding +of the note on Castera for 1772 francs, and of a sum of 800 francs in +gold and silver. But of the deed creating the annuity of 400 francs +there was no trace. + +Meilhan denied everything. In respect of the wine he was said to have +given Lacoste he said he had passed the whole of the 16th of May in the +company of a friend called Mothe, and that Mothe could therefore prove +Meilhan had never had a drink with Lacoste. Mothe, however, declared he +had left Meilhan that day at three o'clock in the afternoon, and it was +just at this time that Meilhan had taken Lacoste into the auberge where +he lived to give him the poisoned drink. It was between three and four +that Lacoste first showed signs of being ill. + +Asked to explain the note for 1772 francs, Meilhan said that, about two +months after Lacoste's death, the widow complained of not having any +ready money. She had the Castera note, and he offered to discount it +for her. This was a palpable lie, said the accusation. It was only a +few days after Lacoste's death that Meilhan spoke to the Mayor about +the Castera note. Meilhan's statement was full of discrepancies. He told +Castera that he held the note against 2000 francs previously lent to +the widow. He now said that he had discounted the note on sight. But +the fact was that since Meilhan had come to live in Riguepeu he had been +without resources. He had stripped himself in order to establish his son +in a pharmacy at Vic-Fezensac. His profession of schoolmaster scarcely +brought him in enough for living expenses. How, then, could he possibly +be in a position to lend Mme Lacoste 2000 francs? And how had he managed +to collect the 800 odd francs that were found in his lodgings? The +real explanation lay in the story he had twice given to the Mayor, M. +Sabazan: he was in possession of the Castera note through the generosity +of his accomplice. + +Meilhan was in still greater difficulty to explain the document which +had settled on him an annuity of 400 francs, and which had been seen in +his hands. Denial was useless, since he had asked the Mayor to make a +draft for him, and since he had shown that functionary the deed signed +by Mme Lacoste. Here, word for word, is the explanation given by the +rubicund Joseph: + +"My son," he said, "kept asking me to contribute to the upkeep of one of +his boys who is in the seminary of Vic-Fezensac. I consistently refused +to do so, because I wanted to save what little I might against the time +when I should be unable to work any longer. Six months ago my son wrote +to the cure, begging him to speak to me. The cure, not wishing to do +so, sent on the letter to the Mayor, who communicated with me. I replied +that I did not wish to do anything, adding that I intended investing my +savings in a life annuity. At the same time I begged M. Sabazan to make +me a draft in the name of Mme Lacoste. She knew nothing about it. M. +Sabazan sent me on the draft. It seemed to me well drawn up. I rewrote +it, and showed it to M. Sabazan. At the foot of the deed I put the words +'Veuve Lacoste,' but I had been at pains to disguise my handwriting. +I did all this with the intention of making my son believe, when my +infirmities obliged me to retire to his household, that my income came +from a life annuity some one had given me; and to hide from him where +I had put my capital I wanted to persuade M. Sabazan that the deed +actually existed, so that he could bear witness to the fact to my son." +Here, said the accusation, Meilhan was trying to make out that it was on +the occasion of a letter from his son that he had spoken to the Mayor of +the annuity. + +The cure of Riguepeu, however, while admitting that he had received +such a letter from Meilhan's son, declared that this was long before +the death of Henri Lacoste. The Mayor also said that he had spoken +to Meilhan of his son's letter well before the time when the accused +mentioned the annuity to him and asked for a draft of the assignment. + +The accusation ridiculed Meilhan's explanation, dubbing it just +another of the schoolmaster's lies. It brought forward a contradictory +explanation given by Meilhan to one Thener, a surgeon, whom he knew to +be in frequent contact with the son whom the document was intended to +deceive. Meilhan informed Thener that he had fabricated the deed, and +had shown it round, in order to inspire such confidence in him as would +secure him refuge when he had to give up schoolmastering. + +These contradictory and unbelievable explanations were the fruit of +Meilhan's efforts to cover the fact that the annuity was the price paid +him by the Widow Lacoste for his part in the murder of her husband. It +was to be remembered that M. Sabazan, whose testimony was impeccable, +had seen Meilhan come from the house of Mme Lacoste, and that Meilhan +had jingled money, saying he had just drawn the first payment of his +annuity. + +The accusation, in sum, concentrated on the suspicious relationship +between Meilhan and the Widow Lacoste. It was a long document, but +something lacking in weight of proof--proof of the actual murder, that +is, if not of circumstance. + + + +V + +The process in a French criminal court was--and still is--somewhat +long-winded. The Procureur du Roi had to go over the accusation in +detail, making the most of Mme Lacoste's intimacy with the ill-reputed +old fellow. That parishioner, far from being made indignant by the +animadversions of M. Cassagnol, listened to the recital of his misdeeds +with a faint smile. He was perhaps a little astonished at some of the +points made against him, but, it is said, contented himself with +a gesture of denial to the jury, and listened generally as if with +pleasure at hearing himself so well spoken of. + +He was the first of the accused to be questioned. + +It was brought out that he had been a soldier under the Republic, and +then for a time had studied pharmacy. He had been a corn-merchant in a +small way, and then had started schoolmaster. + +Endeavour was made to get him to admit guilty knowledge of the death of +the Lescure girl. He had never even heard of an abortion. The girl had +a stomach-ache. This line failing, he was interrogated on the matter of +being chased from his lodgings by the landlord-father, it would seem, of +the aforementioned girl. (It may be noted that Meilhan lived on in the +auberge after her death.) Meilhan had an innocent explanation of the +incident. It was all a mistake on the part of Lescure. And he hadn't +been chased out of the auberge. He had simply gone out with his coat +slung about his shoulders. Mme Lacoste went with him to patch the matter +up. + +He had not given Lacoste a drink, hadn't even spoken with him, at the +Riguepeu fair, but had passed the day with M. Mothe. Cournet had told +him of Lacoste's having a headache, but had said nothing of vomitings. +He had not seen Lacoste during the latter's illness, because Lacoste was +seeing nobody. + +This business of the annuity had got rather entangled, but he would +explain. He had lodged 1772 francs with Mme Lacoste, and she had given +him a bill on Castera. Whether he had given the money before or after +getting the bill he could not be sure. He thought afterwards. He had +forgotten the circumstances while in prison. + +Meilhan stuck pretty firmly to his story that it was to deceive his son +that he had fabricated the deed of annuity. He couldn't help it if the +story sounded thin. It was the fact. + +How had he contrived to save, as he said, 3000 francs? His yearly income +during his six years at Riguepeu had been only 500 francs. The court had +reason to be surprised. + +"Ah! You're surprised!" exclaimed Meilhan, rather put out. But at +Breuzeville, where he was before Riguepeu, he had bed and board free. In +Riguepeu he had nothing off the spit for days on end. He spent only 130 +francs a year, he said, giving details. And then he did a little trade +in corn. + +He had destroyed the annuity deed only because it was worthless. As for +what he had said to the Mayor about drawing his first payment of the +pension, he had done it because he was a bit conscience-stricken over +fabricating the deed. He had been bragging--that was all. + +The President, having already chidden Meilhan for being prolix in his +answers, now scolded him for anticipating the questions. But the fact +was that Meilhan was not to be pinned down. + +The first questions put to Mme Lacoste were with regard to her marriage +and her relations with her husband. She admitted, incidentally, having +begun to receive a young man some six weeks after her husband's death, +but she had not known him before marriage. Meilhan had carried no +letters between them. She had married Lacoste of her own free will. +Lacoste had not asked any attentions from her that were not ordinarily +sought by a husband, and her care of him had been spontaneous. It was +true he was jealous, but he had not formally forbidden her pleasures. +She had renounced them, knowing he was easily upset. It was true that +she had seldom gone out, but she had never wanted to. Lacoste was no +more avaricious than most, and it was untrue that he had denied her any +necessaries. + +Taken to the events of the fair day, Tuesday, the 16th of May, Mme +Lacoste maintained that her husband, on his return, complained only of +a headache. He had gone to bed early, but he usually did. That night he +slept in the same alcove as herself, but next night they separated. +In spite of the contrary evidence of witnesses, of which the President +reminded her, Mme Lacoste firmly maintained that it was not until the +Wednesday-Thursday night that Lacoste started to vomit. It was not until +that night that she began to attend to him. She had given him lemonade, +washed him, and so on. + +The President was saying that nobody had been allowed near him, and that +a doctor was not called, when the accused broke in with a lively denial. +Anybody who wanted to could see him, and a doctor was called. This was +towards the last, the President pointed out. Mme Lacoste's advocate +intervened here, saying that it was the husband who did not wish a +doctor called, for reasons of his own. The President begged to be +allowed to hear the accused's own answers. He pointed out that the +ministrations of the accused had effected no betterment, but that the +illness had rapidly got worse. The delay in calling a doctor seemed to +lend a strange significance to the events. + +Mme Lacoste answered in lively fashion, accenting her phrases with the +use of her hands: "But, monsieur, you do not take into account that it +was not until the night of Wednesday and the Thursday that my husband +began to vomit, and that it was two days after that he--he succumbed." + +The President said a way remained of fixing the dates and clearing up +the point. He had a letter written by M. Lacoste to the doctor in which +he himself explained the state of his illness. It was pointed out to +him that the letter had been written by Mme Lacoste at her husband's +dictation. + +The letter was dated the 19th (Friday). It was directed to M. Boubee, +doctor of medicine, in Vic-Fezensac. Perhaps it would be better to give +it in the original language. It is something frank in detail: + + +Depuis quelque temps j'avais perdu l'appetit et m'endormais de suite +quand j'etais assis. Mercredi il me vint un secours de nature par un +vomissement extraordinaire. Ces vomissements m'ont dure pendant un jour +et une nuit; je ne rendais que de la bile. La nuit passee, je n'en ai +pas rendu; dans ce moment, j'en rends encore. Vous sentez combien ces +efforts reiteres m'ont fatigue; ces grands efforts m'ont fait partir de +la bile par en bas; je vous demanderai, monsieur, si vous ne trouveriez +pas a propos que je prisse une medecine d'huile de ricin ou autre, +celle que vous jugerez a propos. Je vous demanderai aussi si je pourrais +prendre quelques bains. [signe] + +LACOSTE PHILIBERT + + +Je rends beaucoup de vents par en bas. Pour la boisson, je ne bois que +de l'eau chaude et de l'eau sucree. (Il n'y a pas eu de fievre encore.) + + +The Procureur du Roi maintained that this letter showed the invalid had +already been taken with vomiting before it was considered necessary to +call in a doctor. But Mme Lacoste's advocate pointed out that the +letter was written by her, when she had overcome Lacoste's distaste for +doctors. + +The President made much of the fact that Mme Lacoste had undertaken even +the lowliest of the attentions necessary in a sick-room, when other, +more mercenary, hands could have been engaged in them. The accusation +from this was that she did these things from a desire to destroy +incriminating evidences. Mme Lacoste replied that she had done +everything out of affection for her husband. + +Asked by the court why she had not thought to give Dr Boubee any +explanations of the illness, she replied that she knew her husband was +always ill, but that he hid his maladies and was ashamed of them. He +had, it appeared, hernias, tetters, and other maladies besides. It was +easy for her to gather as much, in spite of the mystery Lacoste made of +them; she had seen him rubbing his limbs at times with medicaments, and +at others she had seen him taking medicines internally. He was always +vexed when she found him at it. She did not know what doctor prescribed +the medicaments, nor the pharmacist who supplied them. Her husband +thought he knew more than the doctors, and usually dealt with quacks. + +Mme Lacoste was questioned regarding her husband's will, and on his +longing to have an heir of his own blood. She knew of the will, but did +not hear any word of his desire to alter it until after his death. With +regard to Lacoste's attempts to seduce the servants, she declared this +was a vague affair, and she had found the first girl in question a place +elsewhere. + +Her letter to the Procureur du Roi demanding an exhumation and justice +against her slanderers was read. Then a second one, in which she excused +her absence, saying that she would give herself up for judgment at +the right time, and begged him to add her letter to the papers of the +process. + +The President then returned to the question of her husband's attempts +to seduce the servants. She denied that this was the cause of quarrels. +There had been no quarrels. She did not know that her husband was +complaining outside about her. + +She denied all knowledge of the arsenic found in Lacoste's body, but +suggested that it might have come from one or other of the medicines he +took. + +Questioned with regard to her intimacy with Meilhan, she declared that +she knew nothing of his morals. She had intervened in the Lescure affair +at the request of Mme Lescure, who came to deny the accusation made by +Lescure. This woman had never acted as intermediary between herself and +Meilhan. Meilhan had not been her confidant. She looked after her late +husband's affairs herself. She had handed over the Castera note to +Meilhan against his loan of 2000 francs, but she had never given him +money as a present. Nor had she ever spoken to Meilhan of an annuity. +But Meilhan, it was objected, had been showing a deed signed "Euphemie +Lacoste." The accused quickly replied that she never signed herself +"Euphemie," but as "Veuve Lacoste." Upon this the President called for +several letters written by the accused. It was found that they were all +signed "Veuve Lacoste." + +The evidence of the Fourcades regarding her conduct in their house at +Tarbes was biased, she said. She had refused to take up some people +recommended by her landlady. The young man who had visited her never +remained longer than after ten o'clock or half-past, and she saw nothing +singular in that. + +The examination-in-chief of Mme Lacoste ended with her firm declaration +that she knew nothing of the poisoning of her husband, and that she +had spoken the truth through all her interrogations. Some supplementary +questions were answered by her to the effect that she knew, during +her marriage, that her husband had at one time suffered from venereal +disease; and that latterly there had been recrudescences of the +affection, together with the hernia already mentioned, for which her +husband took numerous medicaments. + +Throughout this long examination Mme Lacoste showed complete +self-possession, save that at times she exhibited a Gascon impatience in +answering what she conceived to be stupid questions. + + + +VI + +The experts responsible for the analysis of Lacoste's remains were now +called. All three of those gentlemen from Paris, MM. Pelouze, Devergie, +and Flandin, agreed in their findings. Two vessels were exhibited, on +which there glittered blobs of some metallic substance. This substance, +the experts deposed, was arsenic obtained by the Marsh technique from +the entrails and the muscular tissue from Lacoste's body. They could be +sure that the substances used as reagents in the experiments were pure, +and that the earth about the body was free from arsenic. + +M. Devergie said that science did not admit the presence of arsenic as +a normal thing in the human body. What was not made clear by the expert +was whether the amount of arsenic found in the body of Lacoste was +consistent with the drug's having been taken in small doses, or whether +it had been given in one dose. Devergie's confrere Flandin later +declared his conviction that the death of Lacoste was due to one dose of +the poison, but, from a verbatim report, it appears that he did not give +any reason for the opinion. + +At this point Mme Lacoste was recalled, and repeated her statement that +she had seen her husband rubbing himself with an ointment and drinking +some white liquid on the return of a syphilitic affection. + +Dr Lasmolles testified that Lacoste, though very close-mouthed, had told +him of a skin affection that troubled him greatly. The deceased dosed +himself, and did not obey the doctors' orders. It was only from a farmer +that he understood Lacoste to have a hernia, and Lacoste himself did +not admit it. The doctor did not believe the man poisoned. He had been +impressed by the way Mme Lacoste looked after her husband, and the +latter did not complain about anyone. M. Lasmolles had heard no mention +from Lacoste of the glass of wine given him by Meilhan. + +After M. Devergie had said that he had heard of arsenical remedies used +externally for skin diseases, but never of any taken internally, M. +Plandin expressed his opinion as before quoted. + +The next witness was one Dupouy, of whom some mention has already been +made. Five days before his death Lacoste told him that, annoyed with +his wife, he definitely intended to disinherit her. Dupouy admitted, +however, that shortly before this the deceased had spoken of taking a +pleasure trip with Mme Lacoste. + +Lespere then repeated his story of the complaints made to him by Lacoste +of his wife's conduct, of his intention of altering his will, and of +his belief that Euphemie was capable of poisoning him in order to get a +younger man. It was plain that this witness, a friend of Lacoste's for +forty-six years, was not ready to make any admissions in her favour. He +swore that Lacoste had told him his wife did not know she was his +sole heir. He was allowed to say that on the death of Lacoste he had +immediately assumed that the poisoning feared by Lacoste had been +brought about. He had heard nothing from Lacoste of secret maladies or +secret remedies, but had been so deep in Lacoste's confidence that he +felt sure his old friend would have mentioned them. He had heard of such +things only at the beginning of the case. + +The Procureur du Roi remarked here that reliance on the secret remedies +was the 'system' of the defence. + +That seemed to be the case. The 'system' of the prosecution, on the +other hand, was to snatch at anything likely to appear as evidence +against the two accused. The points mainly at issue were as follows: + +(1) Did Meilhan have a chance of giving Lacoste a drink at the fair? + +(2) Did Lacoste become violently sick immediately on his return from the +fair? + +(3) Did Lacoste suffer from the ailments attributed to him by his wife, +and was he in the habit of dosing himself? + +(4) Did Meilhan receive money from Mme Lacoste, and, particularly, did +she propose to allow him the supposed annuity? + + +With regard to (1), several witnesses declared that Lacoste had +complained to them of feeling ill after drinking with Meilhan, but none +could speak of seeing the two men together. M. Mothe, the friend +cited by Meilhan, less positive in his evidence in court than the acte +d'accusation made him out to be, could not remember if it was on the +16th of May that he had spent the whole afternoon with Meilhan. It was +so much his habit to be with Meilhan during the days of the fair that +he had no distinct recollection of any of them. Another witness, having +business with Lacoste, declared that on the day in question it was +impossible for Meilhan to have been alone with Lacoste during the time +that the latter was supposed to have taken the poisoned drink. Lescure, +in whose auberge Lacoste was supposed to have had the drink, failed to +remember such an incident. The evidence that Meilhan had given Lacoste +the drink was all second-hand; that to the contrary was definite. + +For the most part the evidence with regard to (2), that Lacoste became +very ill immediately on his return from the fair, was hearsay. The +servants belonging to the Lacoste household all maintained that +the vomiting did not seize the old man until the night of +Wednesday-Thursday. Indeed, two witnesses testified that the old man, in +spite of his supposed headache, essayed to show them how well he could +dance. This was on his return from the fair where he was supposed +to have been given a poisoned drink at three o'clock. The evidence +regarding the seclusion of Lacoste by his wife was contradictory, but +the most direct of it maintained that it was the old man himself, if +anyone, who wanted to be left alone. On this point arises the question +of the delay in calling the doctor. Witness after witness testified to +Lacoste's hatred of the medical faculty and to his preference for dosing +himself. He declared his faith in a local vet. + +On (3), the bulk of the evidence against Lacoste's having the suggested +afflictions came simply from witnesses who had not heard of them. +There was, on the contrary, quite a number of witnesses to declare that +Lacoste did suffer from a skin disease, and that he was in the habit +of using quack remedies, the stronger the better. It was also testified +that Lacoste was in the habit of prescribing his remedies for other +people. A witness declared that a woman to whom Lacoste had given +medicine for an indisposition had become crippled, and still was +crippled. + +With regard to (4), the Mayor merely repeated the evidence given in +his first statement, but the cure', who also saw the deed assigning an +annuity to Meilhan, said that it was not in Mme Lacoste's writing, and +that it was signed with the unusual "Euphemie." This last witness added +that Mme Lacoste's reputation was irreproachable, and that her relations +with her husband were happy. + +Evidence from a business-man in Tarbes showed that Mme Lacoste's +handling of her fortune was careful to a degree, her expenditure being +well within her income. This witness also proved that the Fourcades' +evidence of Euphemie's misbehaviour could have been dictated from spite. +Fourcade had been found out in what looked like a swindle over money +which he owed to the Lacoste estate. + +The court then went more deeply into the medico-legal evidence. It were +tedious to follow the course of this long argument. After a lengthy +dissertation on the progress of an acute indigestion and the effects of +a strangulated hernia M. Devergie said that, as the poison existed in +the body, from the symptoms shown in the illness it could be assumed +that death had resulted from arsenic. The duration of the illness was in +accord with the amount of arsenic found. + +M. Flandin agreed with this, but M. Pelouze abstained from expressing +an opinion. He, however, rather gave the show away, by saying that if +he was a doctor he would take care to forbid any arsenical preparations. +"These preparations," he said moodily, "can introduce a melancholy +obscurity into the investigations of criminal justice." + +Some sense was brought into the discussion by Dr Molas, of Auch. He put +forward the then accepted idea of the accumulation of arsenic taken in +small doses, and the power of this accumulation, on the least accident, +of determining death. + +This was rather like chucking a monkey-wrench into the cerebration +machinery of the Paris experts. They admitted that the absorption and +elimination of arsenic varied with the individual, and generally handed +the case over to the defence. M. Devergie was the only one who stuck +out, but only partially even then. "I persist in believing," he said, +"that M. Lacoste succumbed to poisoning by arsenic; but I use the word +'poisoning' only from the point of view of science: arsenic killed him." + + + +VII + +The speech of the Procureur du Roi was another resume of the acte +d'accusation, with consideration of that part of the evidence which +suited him best. + +This was followed by the speech of Maitre Canteloup in defence of +Meilhan. The speech was a good effort which demonstrated that, whatever +rumour might accuse the schoolmaster of, there were plenty of people of +standing who had found him upright and free from stain through a long +life. It reproached the accusation with jugglery over dates and so +forth in support of its case, and confidently predicted the acquittal of +Meilhan. + +Then followed the speech of Maitre Alem-Rousseau on behalf of the Veuve +Lacoste. Among other things the advocate brought forward the fact that +Euphemie was not so poorly born as the prosecution had made out, but +that she had every chance of inheriting some 20,000 francs from her +parents. It was notorious that when Henri Lacoste first broached the +subject of marriage with Euphemie he was not so rich as he afterwards +became, but, in fact, believed he had lost the inheritance from his +brother Philibert, this last having made a will in favour of a young +man of whom popular rumour made him the father. This was in 1839. The +marriage was celebrated in May of 1841. Henri Lacoste, it is true, had +hidden his intentions, but when news of the marriage reached the ears +of brother Philibert that brother was so delighted that he destroyed the +will which disinherited Henri. It was thus right to say that Euphemie +became the benefactor of her husband. Where was the speculative marriage +on the part of Euphemie that the prosecution talked about? + +Maitre Alem-Rousseau made short work of the medico-legal evidence (he +had little bother with the facts of the illness). Poison was found in +the body. The question was, how had it got there? Was it quite certain +that arsenic could not get into the human body save by ingestion, that +it could not exist in the human body normally? The science of the day +said no, he knew, but the science of yesterday had said yes. Who knew +what the science of to-morrow would say? + +The advocate made use of the evidence of a witness whose testimony I +have failed to find in the accounts of the trial. This witness spoke +of Lacoste's having asked, in Bordeaux, for a certain liquor of +"Saint-Louis," a liquor which Mme Lacoste took to be an anisette. "No," +said Lacoste, "women don't take it." Maitre Alem-Rousseau had tried to +discover what this liquor of Saint-Louis was. During the trial he had +come upon the fact that the arsenical preparation known as Fowler's +solution had been administered for the first time in the hospital of +Saint-Louis, in Paris. He showed an issue of the Hospital Gazette in +which the advertisement could be read: "Solution de Fowler telle qu'on +l'administre a SAINT-LOUIS!" The jury could make what they liked of that +fact. + +The advocate now produced documents to prove that the marriage of +Euphemie with her grand-uncle had not been so much to her advantage, but +had been--it must have been--a marriage of affection. At the time when +the marriage was arranged, he proved, Lacoste had no more than 35,000 +francs to his name. Euphemie had 15,000 francs on her marriage and the +hope of 20,000 francs more. The pretence of the prosecution, that her +contentment with the abject duties which she had to perform in the +house was dictated by interest, fell to the ground with the preliminary +assumption that she had married for her husband's money. + +Maitre Alem, defending the widow's gayish conduct after her husband's +death, declared it to be natural enough. It had been shown to be +innocent. He trounced the Press for helping to exaggerate the rumours +which envy of Mme Lacoste's good fortune had created. He asked the jury +to acquit Mme Lacoste. + +The Procureur du Roi had another say. It was again an attempt to destroy +the 'system' of the defence, but by making a mystery of the fact that +the Lacoste-Verges marriage had not taken place in a church he gave the +wily Maitre Alem an opportunity for following him. + +The summing-up of the President on the third day of the trial was, it is +said, a model of clarity and impartiality. The jury returned on all the +points put to them a verdict of "Not guilty" for both the accused. + + + +VIII + +Another verdict may now seem to have been hardly possible. The +accusation was built up on the jealousy of neighbours, on chance +circumstances, on testimonies founded on petty spite. But, combined with +the medico-legal evidence, the weight of circumstance might easily have +hoisted the accused in the balance. + +It will be seen, then, how much on foot the case of the Veuve Lacoste +was with that of the Veuve Boursier, twenty years before. + +It is on the experience of cases such as these two that the technique +of investigation into arsenical poison has been evolved. In the case of +Veuve Boursier you find M. Orfila discovering oxide of arsenic where M. +Barruel saw only grains of fat. Four years previous to the case of the +Veuve Lacoste that same Orfila came into the trial of Mme Lafarge with +the first use in medical jurisprudence of the Marsh test, and based +on the experiment a cocksure opinion which had much to do with the +condemnation of that unfortunate woman. In the Lacoste trial you find +the Parisian experts giving an opinion of no greater value than that +of Orfila's in the Lafarge case, but find also an element of doubt +introduced by the country practitioner, with his common sense on the +then moot question of the accumulation, the absorption, and elimination +of the drug. + +Nowadays we are quite certain that our experts in medical jurisprudence +know all there is to know about arsenical poisoning. What are the +chances, however, in spite of our apparently well-founded faith, that +some bristle-headed local chemist with a fighting chin will not +spring up at an arsenic-poisoning trial and, with new facts about the +substance, blow to pieces the cocksure evidence of the leading expert +in pathology? It may seem impossible that such a thing can ever happen +again--a mistake regarding the action of arsenic on the human body. But +when we discover it becoming a commonplace of science that one human may +be poisoned by an everyday substance which thousands of his fellows +eat with enjoyment as well as impunity--a substance, for instance, as +everyday as porridge--who will dare say even now that the last word has +been said and written of arsenic? + +But that, as the late George Moore so doted on saying, is quelconque. M. +Orfila, sure about the grocer of the Rue de la Paix, was defeated by M. +Barruel. M. Orfila, sure about the death of Charles Lafarge, is declared +by to-day's experts in criminal jurisprudence and pathology to have been +talking through his hat. According to the present experts, says "Philip +Curtin," Lafarge was not poisoned at all, but died a natural death. +Because of M. Devergie it was for the Veuve Lacoste as much 'touch and +go' as it was for the Veuve Boursier twenty years before. Well might +Marie-Fortunee Lafarge, hearing in prison of the verdict in the Lacoste +trial, say, "Ma condamnation a sauve Madame Lacoste!" + +In all this there's a moral lesson somewhere, but I'm blessed if I can +put my finger on it. + + + + +INDEX + + Abbot, George, Archbishop of Canterbury + Alem-Rousseau, Maitre; on arsenic + Amos (Great Oyer of Poisoning) + Ansell, Mary + Aqua fortis--see Poisons + Armstrong, poisoner + Arsenic--see Poisons + Artois, Comte d'--see Charles X + Aumale, Duc d' + + Bacon, Sir Francis + Balfour, Rev. James + Ballet, Auguste + Barruel, Dr. + Barry, Philip Beaufroy + Berry, Duchesse de + Bidard, Professor; evidence against Helene Jegado + Black, Mrs (Armagh) + Blandy, Mary + Bordeaux, Duc de + Bordot, Dr. + Borgia, Cesare + Borgia, Lucretia + Borgia, Rodrigo, Pope Alexander VI + Borrow, George + Boubee, Dr. + Boudin, Dr. + Bourbon, Louis-Henri-Joseph, Duc de, afterwards Prince de Conde + Bourbon, Louise-Marie-Therese-Mathilde d'Orleans, Duchesse de + Boursier, Veuve; case compared with Veuve Lacoste's + Bouton, Dr. + Briant, Abbe + Brock, Alan + Broe, M. de, Avocat-General + Brownrigg, Elizabeth + Bruce, Rev. Robert + Burke and Hare + Burning at the stake + + Canteloup, Maitre + Cantharides--see Poisons + Carew, Edith Mary + Carr, Robert + Cassagnol, M., Procureur du Roi, Auch + Castaing, poisoner + Cecil, Robert, Lord Salisbury + Chabannes de la Palice, Marquise de + Charles X, King of France; flight from France + Cleopatra + Coke, Sir Edward, Lord Chief Justice + Conde, Louis-Henri-Joseph, Prince de--see Bourbon, Duc de Conde, + Louis-Joseph, Prince de + Cotton, Mary Ann + Couture, Maitre; speech in defence of Mme Boursier + Cream, Neill + "Curtin, Philip" + + Dawes, James, made Baron de Flassans + Dawes, Sophie, + Devergie, M., chemist + Diamond powder--see Poisons + Diblanc, Marguerite + Dilnot, George + Donnoderie, M., Assize President, Auch + Dorange, Maitre; defence of Helene Jegado + Dubois, Dr, his account of the Prince de Conde's death + Dunnipace, Laird of--see Livingstone, John + Dyer, Amelia + + "Egalite"--see Orleans, Louis-Philippe + Elwes, Sir Gervase + Enghien, Duc d' + Essex, Countess of--see Howard, Frances + Essex, Robert Devereux, third Earl of + + Farnese, Julia + Feucheres, Adrien-Victor, Baron de; marriage with Sophie Dawes; + separation + Feucheres, Baronne de--see Dawes, Sophie + Flanagan, Mrs. poisoner + Flandin, M., chemist + Flassans, Baronde--see Dawes, James + Fly-papers, for arsenic + Forman, Dr + "Fowler's solution" + Franklin, apothecary + + Gardy, Dr + Gendrin, Dr + Gibbon, Edward + Gowrie mystery + Gribble, Leonard R. + Gunness, Belle + + Hardouin, M., Assize President, Seine + Harris, Miss + Henry, Prince of Wales, son of James VI and I + Higgins, Mrs, poisoner + Hogarth, William + Holroyd, Susannah, poisoner + Howard family + Howard, Frances, Countess of + Essex, Countess of Somerset; early marriage; attracted to Robert + Carr; begs Essex to agree to annul marriage; administers poison to + husband; annulment petition presented; nullity suit succeeds; + enmity to Overbury inexplicable; arrest and trial; death; portrait + Howard, Thomas, Earl of Suffolk + + Jack the Ripper + Jael + James VI and I, cruelty and inclemency of; double dealing + of; share in Overbury's murder + Jegado, Helene + Jesse, Tennyson + Jones, Inigo + Judith + + Kent, Edward Augustus, Duke of + Kincaid, John, Laird of Warriston + Kipling, Rudyard + Kostolo (the Boursier case) + + Lacenaire, murderer and robber, his verses against King Louis- + Philippe + Lacoste, Henri + Lacoste, Veuve + Lacroix, Abbe Pelier de, his evidence re death of Prince de Conde + refused + Lafarge, Marie-Fortunee + Lambot, aide-de-camp to last Prince de Conde + Lapis costitus--see Poisons + Lavaillaut, Mme + Lecomte, valet to last Prince de Conde + Lesieur, chemist + Lidange, chemist + Linden, Mme van der + Livingstone, or Kincaid, Jean + Livingstone, John, of Dunipace + Locusta + Logan, Guy + Lombroso, Cesare + Loubel, apothecary + + MACE, PERROTTE (Jegado victim) + "Maiden," the + Mainwaring, Sir Arthur + Malcolm, Sarah; portraits of + Malgutti, Professor, his evidence re arsenic in Jegado trial + Manoury, valet to last Prince de Conde + "Marsh technique," arsenic + Maybrick, Mrs, poisoner + Mayerne, Sir Theodore + Meilhan, Joseph + Mercury--see Poisons + Messalina + Moinet, Paul + Molas, Dr, arsenic theory + Monson, Sir Thomas + Montagu, Violette + Murdo, Janet + 'Mute of malice,' + + Northampton, Henry Howard, Earl of + Norwood, Mary + + O'Donnell, Elliot + Orfila, Professor; change of opinions re arsenic; intervention in + Lafarge case + Orleans, Louis-Philippe, Duc d', (King of the French); bourgeois + traits of; elected King + Orleans, Louis-Philippe ("Egalite"), Duc d' + Orleans, Louise-Marie-Therese-Mathilde d'--see Bourbon, Louise- + Marie-Therese-Mathilde d'Orleans, Duchesse de + Overbury, Sir Thomas + + Parry, Judge A. E. + Partra, Dr + Pasquier, M. + Paul III, Pope + Pearcy, Mrs, murderess + Pearson, Sarah + Pelouze, chemist + Perrin, Maitre Theo. + Phosphorus--see Poisons + Piddington, Rev. Mr. + Pinault, Dr. of Rennes + Pitcairn's trials + Pitois, Dr. his estimate of character of Helene Jegado + Poisons: aqua fortis; arsenic (from fly-papers),(white),(from a + vermicide); cantharides; diamond powder; great spiders; lapis + costitus; mercury (metallic),(corrosive sublimate); phosphorus; + porridge; "rosalgar"; strychnine + Poisons, reasons murderesses are inclined to use + Pons, chemist + Porridge, poisoning--see Poisons + Porta, Guglielmo della + Pritchard, Dr, poisoner + + Rachel, MME + Rais, Gilles de + Rochester, Viscount--see Carr, Robert + Rohan, the Princes de, their lawsuit v. Sophie Dawes + "Rosalgar"--see Poisons + Roughead, William + Row, breaking on--see Wheel + Rully, Comtesse de + Rumigny, M. de, aide-de-camp to Louis-Philippe + + Sabatini, Rafael + Saint-Louis, Liquor of--see + "Fowler's solution + Sarrazin, Rosalie (Jegado victim) + Sarzeau, Dr, his evidence re arsenic in Jegado case + Seddon, poisoner + Smith ("brides in the bath") + Somerset, Countess of--see Howard, Frances + Somerset, Earl of--see Carr, Robert + Spara, Hieronyma + Spiders, great--see Poisons + Strychnine--see Poisons + Suffolk, Countess of + Suffolk, Earl of--see Howard, Thomas + + Tessier, Rose (Jegado victim) + Toffana, poisoner + Turner, Anne; as beauty specialist; her lover; relations with + Countess of Essex; a spy for Northampton (?); causes poisoned food + to be carried to Overbury in the Tower; arrest; trial; condemnation + and execution + Turner, Dr George + + Vigoureux, La + Voisin, La + + Wade, Sir Willlam + Wainewright, poisoner + Walpole, Horace + Warriston, Lady--see Livingstone, Jean + Webster, Kate + Weir, Robert + Weissmann-Bessarabo, Mme + Weissmann-Bessarabo, Paule Jacques + Weldon, Antony + Wheel,Breaking on the + Winchilsea, Earl of + + Zwanziger, Anna + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + + +[Footnote 1: Bles, 1934.] + +[Footnote 2: A stanza in one ballad runs:] + +[Footnote 3: "And haifing enterit within the faid chalmer, perfaving the faid +vmqle Johnne to be walknit out of his fleip, be thair dyn, and to preife +ouer his bed ftok, the faid Robert cam than rynnand to him, and maift +crewallie, with thair faldit neiffis gaif him ane deidlie and crewall +straik on the vane-organe, quhairwith he dang the faid vmqle Johnne +to the grund, out-ouer his bed; and thaireftir, crewallie ftrak him on +bellie with his feit; quhairvpoun he gaif ane grit cry: And the faid +Robert, feiring the cry fould haif bene hard, he thaireftir, maift +tyrannouflie and barbarouflie, with his hand, grippit him be the thrott +or waifen, quhilk he held faft ane lang tyme quhill he wirreit him; +during the quhilk tyme, the faid Johnne Kincaid lay ftruggilling and +fechting in the panes of daith vnder him. And fa, the faid vmqle Johnne +was crewallie murdreit and flaine be the faid Robert."] + +[Footnote 4: Men convicted of certain crimes were also subject to the same form +of execution adulterating and uttering base coins (Alan Napier, cutler +in Glasgow, was strangled and burned at the stake in December 1602) +sorcery, witchcraft, incantation, poisoning (Bailie Paterson suffered a +like fate in December 1607). For bestiality John Jack was strangled on +the Castle Hill (September 1605), and the innocent animal participator +in his crime burned with him.] + +[Footnote 5: The Memorial is fully entitled: A Worthy and Notable Memorial of +the Great Work of Mercy which God wrought in the Conversion of Jean +Livingstone Lady Warristoun, who was apprehended for the Vile and +Horrible Murder of her own Husband, John Kincaid, committed on +Tuesday, July 1, 1600, for which she was execute on Saturday following; +Containing an Account of her Obstinacy, Earnest Repentance, and her +Turning to God; of the Odd Speeches she used during her Imprisonment; of +her Great and Marvellous Constancy; and of her Behaviour and Manner +of Death: Observed by One who was both a Seer and Hearer of what was +spoken.] + +[Footnote 6: A 'row' is a wheel. This is one of the very few instances on +which the terrible and vicious punishment of 'breaking on a wheel' was +employed in Scotland. Jean Livingstone's accomplice was, according to +Birrell's Diary, broken on a cartwheel, with the coulter of a plough +in the hand of the hangman. The exotic method of execution suggests +experiment by King Jamie.] + +[Footnote 7: Hutchinson, 1930.] + +[Footnote 8: Edinburgh, W. Green and Son, Ltd., 1930.] + +[Footnote 9: Antony Weldon, The Court and Character of King James (1651).] + +[Footnote 10: Fisher Unwin, 1925.] + +[Footnote 11: State Trials (Cobbett's edition).] + +[Footnote 12: Antony Weldon.] + +[Footnote 13: State Trials.] + +[Footnote 14: Probably started by Michael Sparke ("Scintilla") in Truth Brought +to Light (1651).] + +[Footnote 15: Sabatini, The Minion.] + +[Footnote 16: According to one account. The Newgate Calendar (London 1773) gives +Mrs Duncomb's age as eighty and that of the maid Betty as sixty.] + +[Footnote 17: One account says it was Sarah Malcolm who entered via the gutter +and window. Borrow, however, in his Celebrated Trials, quotes Mrs +Oliphant's evidence in court on this point.] + +[Footnote 18: Or Kerrol--the name varies in different accounts of the crime.] + +[Footnote 19: Peter Buck, a prisoner.] + + +[Footnote 20: Born 1711, Durham, according to The Newgate Calendar.] + +[Footnote 21: This confession, however, varies in several particulars with that +contained in A Paper delivered by Sarah Malcolm on the Night before +her Execution to the Rev. Mr Piddington, and published by Him (London, +1733).] + +[Footnote 22: In Mr Piddington's paper the supposed appointment is for "3 or 4 +o'clock at the Pewter Platter, Holbourn Bridge."] + +[Footnote 23: One Bridgewater.] + +[Footnote 24: On more than one hand the crime is ascribed to Sarah's desire to +secure one of the Alexanders in marriage.] + +[Footnote 25: It was once done by the parish priest. (Stowe's Survey of London, +p. 195, fourth edition, 1618.)] + +[Footnote 26: The bequest of Dove appears to have provided for a further pious +admonition to the condemned while on the way to execution. It was +delivered by the sexton of St Sepulchre's from the steps of that church, +a halt being made by the procession for the purpose. This admonition, +however, was in fair prose.] + +[Footnote 27: Thanks to my friend Billy Bennett, of music-hall fame, for his hint +for the chapter title.] + +[Footnote 28: Sophie Dawes, Queen of Chantilly (John Lane, 1912).] + +[Footnote 29: Lacenaire, the notorious murderer-robber in a biting song, written +in prison, expressed the popular opinion regarding Louis-Philippe's +share in the Feucheres-Conde affair. The song, called Petition d'un +voleur a un roi son voisin, has this final stanza: + + "Sire, oserais-je reclamer? + Mais ecoutez-moi sans colere: + Le voeu que je vais exprimer + Pourrait bien, ma foi, vous deplaire. + Je suis fourbe, avare, mechant, + Ladre, impitoyable, rapace; + J'ai fait se pendre mon parent: + Sire, cedez-moi votre place."] + +[Footnote 30: Or, simply, kermes--a pharmaceutical composition, containing +antimony and sodium sulphates and oxide of antimony--formerly used as an +expectorant.] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of She Stands Accused, by Victor MacClure + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHE STANDS ACCUSED *** + +***** This file should be named 488.txt or 488.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/8/488/ + +Produced by Mike Lough + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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