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      She Stands Accused, by Victor Macclure
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of She Stands Accused, by Victor MacClure

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Title: She Stands Accused

Author: Victor MacClure

Release Date: April, 1996 [EBook #488]
Last Updated: February 6, 2013

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</pre>
    <div style="height: 8em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h1>
      SHE STANDS ACCUSED
    </h1>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      By Victor Macclure
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        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
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        TO RAFAEL SABATINI TO WHOSE VIRTUES AS AN AUTHOR AND AS A FRIEND THE
        WRITER WISHES HIS BOOK WERE WORTHIER OF DEDICATION
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p class="toc">
        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
      </p>
      <p>
        <br />
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I. &mdash; INTRODUCTORY </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II. &mdash; A FAIR NECK FOR THE MAIDEN </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III: &mdash; THE COUNTESS AND THE COZENER </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> IV: &mdash; A MODEL FOR MR HOGARTH </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> V: &mdash; ALMOST A LADY[27] </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> VI: &mdash; ARSENIC A LA BRETONNE </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VII: &mdash; THE MERRY WIDOWS </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> INDEX </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_FOOT"> FOOTNOTES: </a>
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      I. &mdash; INTRODUCTORY
    </h2>
    <p>
      I had a thought to call this book Pale Hands or Fair Hands Imbrued&mdash;so
      easy it is to fall into the ghastly error of facetiousness.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;unless the present ruddying of female
      fingernails is the revival of an old fashion&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the mention of poison Lucretia Borgia springs to mind. This is the lady
      of whom Gibbon writes with the following ponderous falsity:
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;they too frequently are&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      II
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;but this may be left to
      psychiatrists. There is room here merely for a soupcon of psychology&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Anna Zwanziger, the earlier 'monster' of Bavaria, arrested in 1809, was an
      amateur compared with those three.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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"&mdash;speaking
      generally and ignoring our own Mary Ann&mdash;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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;a record.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.'
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      III.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;metaphorically, of course.
    </p>
    <p>
      It may well be that you have done nothing more than hurt her pride&mdash;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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      But why should we be more shocked by the commission of a crime by a woman
      than by a man&mdash;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?
    </p>
    <p>
      Lombroso&mdash;vide Mr Philip Beaufroy Barry in his essay on Anna
      Zwanziger&mdash;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&mdash;the
      Marquis de Sade?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      This in parenthesis, I hope not inappropriately.
    </p>
    <p>
      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<a href="#linknote-1" name="linknoteref-1"
      id="linknoteref-1">[1]</a>) 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;no
      lethal chamber being available&mdash;suggest poison, albeit unspecified,
      and the method will more readily commend itself. This among women with no
      murderous instincts whatever.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;whose meals
      and amusements she shared&mdash;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&mdash;"Upon my soul I don't know,
      unless it was that her legs were too thick"&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      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!]&mdash;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!
    </p>
    <p>
      Against the mean murders of Flanagan and Higgins I will set you Mr Seddon
      and Mr Smith of the "brides in the bath."
    </p>
    <p>
      IV
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      "There, but for the Grace of God, goes &mdash;&mdash;" 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      II. &mdash; A FAIR NECK FOR THE MAIDEN
    </h2>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      It was distinctly a determined affair of murder. The loveliness of Jean
      Livingstone has been so insisted upon in many Scottish ballads,<a
      href="#linknote-2" name="linknoteref-2" id="linknoteref-2">[2]</a> 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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
   "She has twa weel-made feet;
   Far better is her hand;
   She's jimp about the middle
   As ony willy wand."
</pre>
    <p>
      The reason for Jean's hatred of her husband appears in the dittay against
      Robert Weir. "Forasmuch," it runs, translated to modern terms,
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      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.<a
      href="#linknote-3" name="linknoteref-3" id="linknoteref-3">[3]</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      II
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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<a
      href="#linknote-4" name="linknoteref-4" id="linknoteref-4">[4]</a> 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'!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      And Jean Livingstone did die a good death.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Memorial<a href="#linknote-5" name="linknoteref-5" id="linknoteref-5">[5]</a>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Her confession, as filleted from the Memorial by the Pitcairn Trials, is
      as follows:
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      Well, we know what the Laird of Dunipace did about it.
    </p>
    <p>
      "As to these women who was challenged with me," the confession goes on,
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "As for the two other women," Jean continues,
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      III
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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!'"
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;I very probably am&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      IV
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,<a href="#linknote-6" name="linknoteref-6"
      id="linknoteref-6">[6]</a> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      V
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      III: &mdash; THE COUNTESS AND THE COZENER
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,<a href="#linknote-7" name="linknoteref-7"
      id="linknoteref-7">[7]</a> "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      There is a temptation to write of Mistress Turner as forerunner of that
      notorious Mme Rachel of whom, in his volume Bad Companions,<a
      href="#linknote-8" name="linknoteref-8" id="linknoteref-8">[8]</a> 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&mdash;Anne
      into deeper and deadlier hot water than Rachel&mdash;but between the two
      women there is only superficial comparison. Rachel was a botcher and a
      bungler, a very cobbler, beside Anne Turner.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."<a
      href="#linknote-9" name="linknoteref-9" id="linknoteref-9">[9]</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      II
    </p>
    <p>
      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,<a href="#linknote-10"
      name="linknoteref-10" id="linknoteref-10">[10]</a> 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."<a href="#linknote-11" name="linknoteref-11"
      id="linknoteref-11">[11]</a> She also made the like extenuative plea on
      the scaffold.<a href="#linknote-12" name="linknoteref-12"
      id="linknoteref-12">[12]</a> 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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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'&mdash;as Carr
      and his master would put it&mdash;in showing themselves ready for conquest
      by the King's handsome favourite.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "This Forman," he says,
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;as
      magic of the sort does not to this day&mdash;and in this regard Master
      Weldon cannot be far astray when he makes our pretty Anne out to be the
      veriest baggage.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      What relative happiness there may have been for the pair in their loving&mdash;it
      could not, in the hindrance there was to their free mating, have been an
      absolute happiness&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;but for certain elements in it
      approaching tragedy.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      III
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;or,
      rather, a word on the political personages, with their antagonisms.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the death of Cecil the real contenders for the vacant office of First
      Secretary of State&mdash;the highest office in the land&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Overbury was offered an embassy&mdash;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&mdash;where gags and bonds were so
      readily at hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;to adapt Overbury's own words from his last poignant letter to
      Rochester&mdash;he had "more cause to love... yea, perish for.. . rather
      than see perish."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;what does it matter when either is
      submerged in the coward?
    </p>
    <p>
      IV
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      What did Sir Thomas Overbury know that made every one whose interest it
      was to further the nullity suit so scared of him&mdash;Rochester, her
      ladyship, Northampton, the Howards, the King himself?
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;no.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;as he most apparently did, beyond the point of
      safety&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      V
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;or, at least, content as far as Loubel was concerned, for
      this witness was not summoned again.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      On October 19th, at the Guildhall, began the Great Oyer of Poisoning, as
      Coke described it, with the trial of Richard Weston.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here Mr Sabatini is concerned to develop one of the underlying arguments
      of his story&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Two days after conviction Weston was executed at Tyburn.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The indictment against her was that she had comforted, aided, and abetted
      Weston&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      My lord told him: "Symon, you have had a hand in this poisoning business&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."<a
      href="#linknote-13" name="linknoteref-13" id="linknoteref-13">[13]</a> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The jury's retirement was not long-drawn. They found her guilty.
    </p>
    <p>
      Says Weldon:
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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<a href="#linknote-14" name="linknoteref-14" id="linknoteref-14">[14]</a>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."<a href="#linknote-15" name="linknoteref-15"
      id="linknoteref-15">[15]</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;Elwes saw to that&mdash;or Overbury must have died
      months before he did die.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a hushed pause for a moment; then came the low-voiced answer:
      "Guilty."
    </p>
    <p>
      Sir Francis Bacon, the Attorney-General&mdash;himself to appear in the
      same place not long after to answer charges of bribery and corruption&mdash;now
      addressed the judges. His eloquent address was a commendation of the
      Countess's confession, and it hinted at royal clemency.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;and
      might the Lord have mercy on her soul.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      VI
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      IV: &mdash; A MODEL FOR MR HOGARTH
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.<a href="#linknote-16"
      name="linknoteref-16" id="linknoteref-16">[16]</a> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;an unwonted fact&mdash;and
      it faintly surprised her that no odour of cooking greeted her nostrils.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "My mistress," she had said to cheerful Mrs Oliphant, "will talk of dying.
      And she would have me die with her."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Prithee, Sarah," begged Mrs Love, "go and fetch a smith to open Mrs
      Duncomb's door."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The other women urged her to try.<a href="#linknote-17"
      name="linknoteref-17" id="linknoteref-17">[17]</a> 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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      II
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;a guinea.
      Mrs Rhymer had gone through the solemn process of opening the black box,
      and, one must suppose&mdash;old ladies nearing their end being what they
      are&mdash;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
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      III
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      They are a Mr Gehagan, a young Irish barrister, and a friend of his named
      Kerrel.<a href="#linknote-18" name="linknoteref-18" id="linknoteref-18">[18]</a>
      These young men occupy chambers on opposite sides of the same landing, the
      third floor, over the Alienation Office in Tanfield Court.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "That Mr Knight," Sarah replied, "who has chambers under her, has been
      absent two or three days. He is suspected."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Kerrel refused, saying he could have no business with her that was secret.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      IV
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      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).
    </p>
    <p>
      The court asked how she said she had come by the money.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."'
    </p>
    <p>
      Sarah interrupted: "I tied my handkerchief over my hair to hide the money,
      but Buck,<a href="#linknote-19" name="linknoteref-19" id="linknoteref-19">[19]</a>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The Court: "Johnson, were those her words: 'This is the money and bag that
      I took'?"
    </p>
    <p>
      Johnson: "Yes, and she desired me to make away with the bag."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Sarah, though still in her earliest twenties,<a href="#linknote-20"
      name="linknoteref-20" id="linknoteref-20">[20]</a> was known already&mdash;if
      not in the Temple&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will be seen from Sarah's own defence how she tried to implicate Tracey
      and the two Alexanders:
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      There is a possibility that this part of her confession, the tale of
      having met the young maid, Nanny, may be true.<a href="#linknote-21"
      name="linknoteref-21" id="linknoteref-21">[21]</a> 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&mdash;and her cunning in answering "no" to the
      maid's query if she had seen Mrs Betty has the real ring&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.<a href="#linknote-22"
      name="linknoteref-22" id="linknoteref-22">[22]</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      "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<a
      href="#linknote-23" name="linknoteref-23" id="linknoteref-23">[23]</a>
      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.'
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      V
    </p>
    <p>
      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.<a href="#linknote-24" name="linknoteref-24" id="linknoteref-24">[24]</a>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;one
      which belonged to Horace Walpole&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.<a href="#linknote-25" name="linknoteref-25" id="linknoteref-25">[25]</a>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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!<a href="#linknote-26" name="linknoteref-26"
      id="linknoteref-26">[26]</a>
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      She was buried in the churchyard of St Sepulchre's.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      V: &mdash; ALMOST A LADY<a href="#linknote-27" name="linknoteref-27"
      id="linknoteref-27">[27]</a>
    </h2>
    <p>
      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&mdash;there, as it
      were in a nutshell, you have the life of Sophie Dawes, Baronne de
      Feucheres.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the introduction to her exhaustive and accomplished biography of Sophie
      Dawes,<a href="#linknote-28" name="linknoteref-28" id="linknoteref-28">[28]</a>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Sophie was born at St Helens, Isle of Wight&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;Sophie, it is probable, became exigeant with increased
      comfort&mdash;her protector left her with an annuity of L50.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Duc, however, was not the only one to whom Sophie looked desirable.
      Two English peers had an eye on her&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      II
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;the French emigre set in London&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;that she was
      not the Prince's daughter, but his mistress.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;but only for a few
      days. Sophie soon was back again in Chantilly.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The scandal of this change in the menage of Chantilly&mdash;it happened in
      1822&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      This desire to be reinstated in royal favour is at the back of all
      Sophie's subsequent actions&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      III
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;a bad one&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before she arrived at this point, however, Sophie had been at pains to do
      some not very savoury manoeuvring.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;not that Sophie ever gave up manoeuvring and
      wheedling for a return to Court favour.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;or
      would his Majesty mind if a son of the Duc d'Orleans was adopted? The King
      did not care at all.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;notably the
      grandson of Charles, the Duc de Bordeaux, certainly cut out of the
      Prince's will by the intrigues of Sophie and family&mdash;were in want of
      assistance. This is a point to be remembered in the light of subsequent
      events.
    </p>
    <p>
      IV
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;except for the entrance
      from the secret staircase&mdash;locking the old man in his room.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      The Prince very likely was asleep in his bed. The murderers must have been
      given entrance to his bedroom&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;in
      advancement for the judges.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.<a href="#linknote-29" name="linknoteref-29"
      id="linknoteref-29">[29]</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      How much farther&mdash;or how much better&mdash;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"&mdash;Murder.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      VI: &mdash; ARSENIC A LA BRETONNE
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Having ushered the three gentlemen into the presence of the Professor, the
      servant-woman lingered by the door.
    </p>
    <p>
      "We have come, M. Bidard," said the Procureur, "on a rather painful
      mission. One of your servants died recently&mdash;it is suspected, of
      poisoning."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I am innocent!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Innocent of what?" demanded the Law officer. "No one has accused you of
      anything!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was not, however, until 1833 that causing death is laid at her charge.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "My poor girl!" exclaimed the Veuve Cadic.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ai&mdash;but I'm so unhappy!" Helene grieved. "Where-ever I go&mdash;Seglien,
      Guern, Bubry, Veuve Laboucher's&mdash;people die!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;which would appear to have been a
      good thing for the invalid, for, lacking Helene's ministrations, she got
      better.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      In 1839 we hear of her again, in the house of the Dame Veron, where
      another death occurred, again with violent sickness.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I am going into retreat," she declared. "God has forgiven me my sins!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      II
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The trial began on the 6th of December, 1851, at a time when France was in
      a political uproar&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;from whom, then?
    </p>
    <p>
      "I don't know anything of poison," was the reply, with the pious addendum,
      "and, God willing, I never will!"
    </p>
    <p>
      This, with variations, was her constant answer.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Qu'est-ce que c'est l'arsenic? Je n'en ai jamais vu d'arsenic, moi!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,<a
      href="#linknote-30" name="linknoteref-30" id="linknoteref-30">[30]</a>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      HELENE. I never had any drugs in my possession&mdash;never. When I had
      fever I took the powders given me by the doctor, but I did not know what
      they were!
    </p>
    <p>
      THE PRESIDENT. Why did you say yesterday that nothing was ever found in
      your luggage?
    </p>
    <p>
      HELENE. I didn't remember.
    </p>
    <p>
      THE PRESIDENT. What were you doing with the saffron? Wasn't it in your
      possession during the time you were in Seglien?
    </p>
    <p>
      HELENE. I was taking it for my blood.
    </p>
    <p>
      THE PRESIDENT. And the white powder&mdash;did it also come from Seglien?
    </p>
    <p>
      HELENE [energetically]. Never have I had white powder in my luggage! Never
      have I seen arsenic! Never has anyone spoken to me of arsenic!
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      The accused several times tried to answer this charge, but failed. Her
      face was beaded with moisture.
    </p>
    <p>
      THE PRESIDENT. Had you or had you not any white powder at Losmine?
    </p>
    <p>
      HELENE. I can't say if I still had fever there.
    </p>
    <p>
      THE PRESIDENT. What was that powder? When did you first have it?
    </p>
    <p>
      HELENE. I had taken it at Locmine. Somebody gave it to me for two sous.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      DR TOUSSAINT. Sulphate of quinine; but that's not what it was.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      One rather sympathizes with Helene in her protest against this testimony.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;father, sister, husband, niece,
      son-in-law, or relation in some sort to this or that victim of Helene's&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Helene: "That was for vengeance. I was furious at being sent away."
    </p>
    <p>
      Sieur Cesar le Clerc and Mme Gauthier swore to thefts from them by Helene.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      III
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Helene, said Ozanne, always talked of poison if anyone left their food.
      "Do you think I'm poisoning you?" she would ask.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "That's a lie!" the accused shouted. "I loved the child!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      At this Helene murmured something unintelligible, but, gathering her
      voice, she protested, "I have never had arsenic in my hands, Monsieur le
      President&mdash;never!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Did you attach a certain idea to the confidence about retiring?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "No!" Andre replied energetically.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You were in hospital. When you came back, did Helene take good care of
      you?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "She gave me bouillon every morning to build me up."
    </p>
    <p>
      "The bouillon she gave you did you no harm?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "On the contrary, it did me a lot of good."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Wasn't the accused jealous of Perrotte&mdash;that good-looking girl who
      gave you so much of her favour?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "In her life Perrotte was a good girl. She never was out of sorts for a
      moment&mdash;never rubbed one the wrong way."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Didn't Helene say to you that Perrotte would never recover?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes, she said that. 'She's a lost woman,' she said; 'the doctors are
      going the wrong way with the disease.'
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;I don't know; but I don't think you
      can live without eating."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I couldn't keep down what I ate," Helene interposed. "I took some
      bouillon here and there; sometimes a mouthful of bread&mdash;nothing in
      secret. I never thought of Andre in marriage&mdash;not him more than
      another. That was all a joke."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      IV
    </p>
    <p>
      The most complete and important testimony in the trial was given by M.
      Theophile Bidard, professor to the law faculty of Rennes.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      (The reader will recollect that Helene was orphaned at the age of seven.)
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;I see," Helene replied sullenly, obviously put
      out.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "That's it!" Helene yelled, in reply. "Because of that girl I'll have to
      go!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;in a room not too far from the master's. Me&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      Helene vigorously denounced the testimony as all lies. The woman had never
      been near Bidard's house.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      DR PINAULT. As we were carrying out the operation Helene came in, and it
      was plain that she was put out of countenance.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      HELENE. I had been given a funnel to wash. I was bringing it back.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The accused persisted in denying M. Bidard's version of the incident.
    </p>
    <p>
      V
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;as
      best for the small quantities likely to result in poisoning by small doses&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      Helene: "Frankly, I have nothing to reproach myself with. I gave them only
      what came from the pharmacies on the orders of the doctors."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The President summed up and addressed the jury:
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      THE PRESIDENT. Helene Jegado, have you anything to say upon the
      application of the penalty?
    </p>
    <p>
      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....
    </p>
    <p>
      In a voice charged with emotion the President pronounced the sentence
      condemning Helene Jegado to death.
    </p>
    <p>
      An appeal was put forward on her behalf, but was rejected.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;perhaps quite on a level
      with that nauseating villain.
    </p>
    <p>
      With her twenty-three murders all done without motive, and the five others
      done for spite&mdash;with her twenty-eight murders, only five of which
      were calculated to bring advantage, and that of the smallest value&mdash;it
      is hard to avoid the conclusion that Helene Jegado was mad. In spite,
      however, of evidence called in her defence&mdash;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"&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      VI
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a fruitful marriage. Mary bore William five children in Cornwall,
      but, unfortunately, four of the children died&mdash;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&mdash;gastric fever.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.'
    </p>
    <p>
      The second Mrs Robinson had two children by this third husband. Both of
      these perished within a few weeks of their birth.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;and the three
      children&mdash;and a lodger by the curious name of Natrass.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      VII: &mdash; THE MERRY WIDOWS
    </h2>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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:
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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).
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;the
      weather was hot, and he had been of gross habit&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      M. Boursier, said his widow, tasted his soup that Sunday morning. "What a
      taste!" he said to the cook, Josephine. "This rice is poisoned."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Kostolo and the Widow Boursier were called before the Juge d'instruction.
    </p>
    <p>
      II
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;that he is rather more sordid
      than either.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;such, for example,
      as cerebral congestion, rupture of the heart or of a larger vessel&mdash;but
      that, on the other hand, they had come upon a sufficiency of arsenic in
      the intestines to have caused death.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;that
      is to say, several weeks before his death&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The accused were brought into court.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Kostolo, on the contrary, replied in organ tones. He said that he was born
      in Constantinople, and that he had no estate.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Led by rumours of the bluish stains&mdash;almost certain indications of a
      violent death&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then followed the first questioning of the accused.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Asked if her husband had had any enemies, Mme Boursier said she knew of
      none.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was asked about a journey Boursier had proposed making. At what time
      had Boursier intended making the trip?
    </p>
    <p>
      "Before his death," Kostolo replied.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What!" he exclaimed, with a grin. "Ask a woman with five children to
      marry me&mdash;a woman I don't love?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The murmurs evoked by the reply Kostolo treated with lofty disdain. He
      seemed to find his audience somewhat prudish.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      It would almost seem that the medical evidence should have been enough to
      destroy the case for the prosecution, but other witnesses were called.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Rousselot, asked why he had not mentioned this fact before, answered
      stupidly, "I thought you knew it!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;that
      was, with a bag of bay salt under each arm.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      III
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The prosecution, you observe, rested on the poison's being administered in
      the soup.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The President's address then followed. The jury retired, and returned with
      a verdict of "Not guilty."
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      IV
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      But to Riguepeu...
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;this as a
      preliminary to suing her traducers. Note, in passing, how her action
      matches that of Veuve Boursier.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;no more than I have."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The case aroused the liveliest interest, people flocking to the town from
      as far away as Paris itself&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      This was but a year after the marriage. It seemed that Lacoste had a
      melancholy presentiment of the fate which was to be his.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      &mdash;&mdash; Meilhan I felt ill."
    </p>
    <p>
      Departing from the fair alone, he met up with Jean Durieux, to whom he
      said, "That &mdash;&mdash; of a Meilhan asked me to have a drink, and
      afterwards I had colic, and wanted to vomit."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Whence," demanded the acte d'accusation, "came all those riches, if they
      were not the price of his share in the crime?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;if he saw me in a place furnished like this!"
    </p>
    <p>
      (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.)
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      What had brought about Lacoste's fatal illness was the wine Meilhan had
      made him drink at Rigeupeu fair.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;proof of the actual murder,
      that is, if not of circumstance.
    </p>
    <p>
      V
    </p>
    <p>
      The process in a French criminal court was&mdash;and still is&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was the first of the accused to be questioned.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;that was all.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;he succumbed."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      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]
    </p>
    <p>
      LACOSTE PHILIBERT
    </p>
    <p>
      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.)
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      VI
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Procureur du Roi remarked here that reliance on the secret remedies
      was the 'system' of the defence.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      (1) Did Meilhan have a chance of giving Lacoste a drink at the fair?
    </p>
    <p>
      (2) Did Lacoste become violently sick immediately on his return from the
      fair?
    </p>
    <p>
      (3) Did Lacoste suffer from the ailments attributed to him by his wife,
      and was he in the habit of dosing himself?
    </p>
    <p>
      (4) Did Meilhan receive money from Mme Lacoste, and, particularly, did she
      propose to allow him the supposed annuity?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      VII
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;it
      must have been&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      VIII
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;a substance, for instance, as everyday as porridge&mdash;who
      will dare say even now that the last word has been said and written of
      arsenic?
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      In all this there's a moral lesson somewhere, but I'm blessed if I can put
      my finger on it.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      INDEX
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Abbot, George, Archbishop of Canterbury
  Alem-Rousseau, Maitre; on arsenic
  Amos (Great Oyer of Poisoning)
  Ansell, Mary
  Aqua fortis&mdash;see Poisons
  Armstrong, poisoner
  Arsenic&mdash;see Poisons
  Artois, Comte d'&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;see Livingstone, John
  Dyer, Amelia

  "Egalite"&mdash;see Orleans, Louis-Philippe
  Elwes, Sir Gervase
  Enghien, Duc d'
  Essex, Countess of&mdash;see Howard, Frances
  Essex, Robert Devereux, third Earl of

  Farnese, Julia
  Feucheres, Adrien-Victor, Baron de; marriage with Sophie Dawes;
  separation
  Feucheres, Baronne de&mdash;see Dawes, Sophie
  Flanagan, Mrs. poisoner
  Flandin, M., chemist
  Flassans, Baronde&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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'&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;see Poisons
  Porta, Guglielmo della
  Pritchard, Dr, poisoner

  Rachel, MME
  Rais, Gilles de
  Rochester, Viscount&mdash;see Carr, Robert
  Rohan, the Princes de, their lawsuit v. Sophie Dawes
  "Rosalgar"&mdash;see Poisons
  Roughead, William
  Row, breaking on&mdash;see Wheel
  Rully, Comtesse de
  Rumigny, M. de, aide-de-camp to Louis-Philippe

  Sabatini, Rafael
  Saint-Louis, Liquor of&mdash;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&mdash;see Howard, Frances
  Somerset, Earl of&mdash;see Carr, Robert
  Spara, Hieronyma
  Spiders, great&mdash;see Poisons
  Strychnine&mdash;see Poisons
  Suffolk, Countess of
  Suffolk, Earl of&mdash;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&mdash;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
</pre>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_FOOT" id="link2H_FOOT">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      FOOTNOTES:
    </h2>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-1" id="linknote-1">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      1 (<a href="#linknoteref-1">return</a>)<br /> [ Bles, 1934.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-2" id="linknote-2">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      2 (<a href="#linknoteref-2">return</a>)<br /> [ A stanza in one ballad
      runs:]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-3" id="linknote-3">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      3 (<a href="#linknoteref-3">return</a>)<br /> [ "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."]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-4" id="linknote-4">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      4 (<a href="#linknoteref-4">return</a>)<br /> [ 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.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-5" id="linknote-5">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      5 (<a href="#linknoteref-5">return</a>)<br /> [ 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.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-6" id="linknote-6">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      6 (<a href="#linknoteref-6">return</a>)<br /> [ 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.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-7" id="linknote-7">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      7 (<a href="#linknoteref-7">return</a>)<br /> [ Hutchinson, 1930.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-8" id="linknote-8">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      8 (<a href="#linknoteref-8">return</a>)<br /> [ Edinburgh, W. Green and
      Son, Ltd., 1930.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-9" id="linknote-9">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      9 (<a href="#linknoteref-9">return</a>)<br /> [ Antony Weldon, The Court
      and Character of King James (1651).]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-10" id="linknote-10">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      10 (<a href="#linknoteref-10">return</a>)<br /> [ Fisher Unwin, 1925.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-11" id="linknote-11">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      11 (<a href="#linknoteref-11">return</a>)<br /> [ State Trials (Cobbett's
      edition).]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-12" id="linknote-12">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      12 (<a href="#linknoteref-12">return</a>)<br /> [ Antony Weldon.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-13" id="linknote-13">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      13 (<a href="#linknoteref-13">return</a>)<br /> [ State Trials.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-14" id="linknote-14">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      14 (<a href="#linknoteref-14">return</a>)<br /> [ Probably started by
      Michael Sparke ("Scintilla") in Truth Brought to Light (1651).]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-15" id="linknote-15">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      15 (<a href="#linknoteref-15">return</a>)<br /> [ Sabatini, The Minion.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-16" id="linknote-16">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      16 (<a href="#linknoteref-16">return</a>)<br /> [ According to one account.
      The Newgate Calendar (London 1773) gives Mrs Duncomb's age as eighty and
      that of the maid Betty as sixty.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-17" id="linknote-17">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      17 (<a href="#linknoteref-17">return</a>)<br /> [ 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.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-18" id="linknote-18">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      18 (<a href="#linknoteref-18">return</a>)<br /> [ Or Kerrol&mdash;the name
      varies in different accounts of the crime.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-19" id="linknote-19">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      19 (<a href="#linknoteref-19">return</a>)<br /> [ Peter Buck, a prisoner.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-20" id="linknote-20">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      20 (<a href="#linknoteref-20">return</a>)<br /> [ Born 1711, Durham,
      according to The Newgate Calendar.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-21" id="linknote-21">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      21 (<a href="#linknoteref-21">return</a>)<br /> [ 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).]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-22" id="linknote-22">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      22 (<a href="#linknoteref-22">return</a>)<br /> [ In Mr Piddington's paper
      the supposed appointment is for "3 or 4 o'clock at the Pewter Platter,
      Holbourn Bridge."]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-23" id="linknote-23">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      23 (<a href="#linknoteref-23">return</a>)<br /> [ One Bridgewater.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-24" id="linknote-24">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      24 (<a href="#linknoteref-24">return</a>)<br /> [ On more than one hand the
      crime is ascribed to Sarah's desire to secure one of the Alexanders in
      marriage.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-25" id="linknote-25">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      25 (<a href="#linknoteref-25">return</a>)<br /> [ It was once done by the
      parish priest. (Stowe's Survey of London, p. 195, fourth edition, 1618.)]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-26" id="linknote-26">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      26 (<a href="#linknoteref-26">return</a>)<br /> [ 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.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-27" id="linknote-27">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      27 (<a href="#linknoteref-27">return</a>)<br /> [ Thanks to my friend Billy
      Bennett, of music-hall fame, for his hint for the chapter title.]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-28" id="linknote-28">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      28 (<a href="#linknoteref-28">return</a>)<br /> [ Sophie Dawes, Queen of
      Chantilly (John Lane, 1912).]
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-29" id="linknote-29">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      29 (<a href="#linknoteref-29">return</a>)<br /> [ 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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
    "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."]
</pre>
    <p>
      <a name="linknote-30" id="linknote-30">
      <!-- Note --></a>
    </p>
    <p class="foot">
      30 (<a href="#linknoteref-30">return</a>)<br /> [ Or, simply, kermes&mdash;a
      pharmaceutical composition, containing antimony and sodium sulphates and
      oxide of antimony&mdash;formerly used as an expectorant.]
    </p>
    <div style="height: 6em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
<pre xml:space="preserve">





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