Classic Scottish Murder Stories (19 page)

Dr Littlejohn turned up at 9.30am and found Dr Carmichael desperately trying to produce artificial respiration. He advised removal to the Royal Infirmary, and himself reported the apparent leak of gas to the Gas Company. Mamma arrived, with her own doctor, Dr Gordon of George Square, and he helped Dr Carmichael with artificial respiration. At one stage, Chantrelle was asked to help, but he could not seem to stick to it. At one o'clock, the dying woman was taken to the hospital, where Dr Maclagan, Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, examined her. His immediate opinion was that this was a case of narcotic poisoning, not gas inhalation. There was no smell of coal-gas. There was no pulse at the wrist, and the heartbeat was intermittent. They carried on the artificial respiration and applied another brandy enema and an electrical stimulus, but
they knew that it was hopeless. By 4.00pm she was dead. Chantrelle told his hated mother-in-law that they had murdered his wife in the infirmary with their inept treatments. She observed that he did not bother to show distress to her, but then she did not expect him to do so.

The post-mortem took place at the Royal Infirmary on January 3rd, and no cause, absolutely no cause, of death was found. On the 4th, two gas-fitters and a criminal officer went to No. 81a and searched the premises until they found Chantrelle's ‘leak'. A bracket had been removed in the architrave of the window of Madame's bedroom, and when they opened the shutter they saw a freshly broken gas pipe. The fracture had obviously been caused by bending the pipe backward and forward, which could have been done very quickly in two turns. Confronted with this evidence, Chantrelle denied any knowledge of the pipe. This was foolish, because another gas-fitter had been called out in August 1876 on report of a leak, and had found an escape of gas from a small hole in precisely that same pipe. He remembered that Chantrelle had watched the operation with interest as he tightened the pipe, remarking with typical philanthropy, ‘It must have been that damn dirty German' – apparently a former tenant.

The funeral of Elizabeth Chantrelle at the Grange Cemetery on January 5th was dramatic, pre-Raphaelite even, in its staged perfection. Chantrelle had her buried in her wedding dress, and he made a show of trying to fling himself into the open grave. Those present were naturally surprised but no doubt, except for mother-in-law, thought that guilt over his long course of cruelty had brought about a release of remorse. On his return home, he was arrested for the murder of his wife. Behind the scenes, chemical analysis had been made of stains of vomit on the dead woman's nightdress and sheet, and three-quarters of a grain of opium in solid form had been found, accompanied by portions of grapes and orange. The same fruits had also been recognized in the contents of the stomach.

Thinking now that even if opium might have escaped absorption in the stomach, it might have passed into the intestines, which had not, unaccountably, been retained, the experts arranged an exhumation on January 10th for the purpose of removing the intestines. Yet again, the results of analysis were negative. The investigations made by the police were proving more successful. It turned out that Chantrelle kept a veritable miniature pharmacy in a locked cupboard in his class-room, which contained harmless homeopathic drugs side-by-side with poisons such as arsenic and tartar emetic. On November 25th, 1877, he had bought in from Robertsons' chemists a drachm, i.e. 60 grains of extract of opium comprising 30 doses, each capable of taking a human life. Extract of opium is the stronger form. Most suspiciously, this hoard of opium was nowhere to be found in Chantrelle's den.

As the situation stood, Chantrelle had not been clever enough by half. He had certainly honoured his boast that he could administer poison to his wife in such a way that the whole Faculty of Edinburgh could not detect it, but, though he had had ample time to clear up, he had left stains of poisoned vomit patent for all to see. The faked gas leak was clumsily staged, and should have been done earlier. Bricks of circumstantial evidence grew into a castle, and on 8th and 9th January, the prisoner made his pre-trial declarations. He was beginning to rant and ramble, deprived as he was of his supportive alcohol, and he does not always appear quite sane, although his sanity was never at issue.

The chief burden of his storm of words was that his wife had twice been unfaithful to him – with a bank clerk, and a neighbour – and that he had nobly forgiven her. She had had her ‘peculiarities'. Jealousy. Threats of suicide. (Some there were, it is true in her immature love-letters.) He used to find her stooped over her washing tub in the bedroom with her head bent forward and her nose on the edge of the tub, as if about to immerse her face in the water. She read ‘penny trashy novels'.
She used to take chloral. (Of which there was a very minute trace in the tissues of the stomach.)

The trial of Eugène Marie Chantrelle at Edinburgh began on May 7th, 1878. The appearance in the witness-box of the eldest son, Eugène, aged nine, a brave manikin, traumatised for life, caused a sensation. He once saw Papa strike Mamma with his hand on the side of her head. Cross-examined, ‘My father has always been kind to me. He gave me everything I asked for. He gave me pennies to buy toys, and took me out for walks. On New Year's Day, Papa was kind to Mamma, as far as I saw'.

In general, however,
Chantrelle
was a great medical trial. John Trayner displayed all the brilliance in the defence of the crime which his client had lacked in its commission. Chantrelle was not grateful, and turned on him at one stage: ‘Is that all?' he was heard to demand. Little was made of the possibility of suicide. Trayner's brief was to attack the weakest part of the Crown case – the absence of opium in the body. He compared the eight or nine symptoms of opium poisoning as laid down in Taylor's
Medical Jurisprudence
and estimated that five symptoms were ‘a' wanting' during the fatal illness: stertorous breathing, profuse perspiration, rattle in the throat at the end, drooping or relaxation of the jaw, and a stronger pulse than was found. He argued that it was impossible to prove that the stains on the night-gown and sheet were actually vomit. (Dr Carmichael, at the scene, had observed that vomited matter was oozing from the mouth.)

Found guilty and sentenced to death, to his evident surprise, Chantrelle was allowed to address the court. He presented a lost and grotesque spectacle, ghastly pale, his whiskers fanned out more sparsely than of yore, gesticulating, losing the thread, his voice rising higher and higher. Still showing off his superior medical and chemical skills, he shot away at a tangent from his established defence by saying that he was satisfied that opium was found outside the body, but ‘It did not proceed from Madame Chantrelle's stomach, but ‘was
rubbed in by some
person for a purpose which I do not know.
I know my word goes for nothing. I don't wish it to go for anything'.

Afterwards, although it was a popular verdict, a public petition was prepared and submitted to the Home Secretary. It was alleged that two members of the jury had been fast asleep, during the judge's summing-up, and that another had been suffering from a form of temporary blindness – amaurosis – which had rendered him incapable of appreciating the written evidence, which was a palpably absurd suggestion. Still scheming, Chantrelle was responsible for the claim that he was ‘very poor' and therefore was not adequately defended. He now put forward the alternative theory that his wife had died of kidney disease, and that the kidneys had not been properly examined. Nausea, vomiting and lassitude had been her chronic symptoms. When he discovered his wife beyond medical aid, the new explanation continued, an
evil thought
occurred to him for the first time – he would cheat the insurance company by hurriedly breaking the gas pipe and striving to persuade the medical attendants that her death was not due to natural causes.

All his ingenuity, emanating from a mind cleared of alcohol, was useless, and soon he realized that ‘If it is to be, it must be'. They could not get him to admit his crime. When his last night came, he slept well and had to be roused at 5.00am. He enjoyed a light breakfast of coffee and eggs, and was allowed to smoke. Invited to solicit some small extra treat, he caustically suggested, ‘Three bottles of champagne and ***.' Knowing his vices, it is only too easy for us to supply the missing words. Fortified with a nip of spirits (brandy perhaps) he gave no trouble as Marwood the hangman pinioned him, and, dressed in his suit of mourning, stoically took part in a short religious service in the chief warder's room. They heard him joining in the singing from the 51st Psalm: ‘Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow...Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God...a broken and
contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise...' For some reasons of tact, decency or expediency, the first six verses were omitted. Would he have sung ‘For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.'? His was the first execution in Scotland to be conducted in private and he was observed to inspect the gallows' equipment with an interested and scientific eye.

The author's husband, Richard Whittington-Egan, treasures amongst his criminous memorabilia a poignant relic – a double linen cuff, Isabella-coloured now, which once belonged to Madame Chantrelle. Another rare item in the collection is a volume specially bound for Chantrelle in red leather, entitled
Pleasures of Literature
by Robert Aris Wilmott (Bell and Daldy, 186 Fleet Street, 1860). Across the outside front cover,
COURS DE M. CHANTRELLE
is tooled in gilt letters. Inside appears the hand-written inscription ‘IInd Prize 1st Class, Awarded to Miss ****** Session 1869-1870. E. Chantrelle'. The embarrassed donee had later obliterated her own name.

Richard Whittington-Egan discovered documents which charge Chantrelle with full rape. In a letter (preserved in Edinburgh's Central Library) Miss Ellen Lucy Holme wrote from Cromer on July 1st, 1867:

The desperate letters from the betrayed governess somehow got into the hands of the prosecution during preparations for the trial of Chantrelle, and she was traced to a different address in Norfolk. A proof was taken from her, dated February 2nd, 1878, ten years after the outrage. She was now a spinster of 38, and she stated: ‘My father is a clergyman in the Church of England and resides at Dawlish in Devonshire. I was not happy at home. My stepmother was not kind. We then resided in Edinburgh. I resolved to look for a situation as a governess. One day my stepmother taunted me by saying that no-one would have me. I then determined I would take any situation rather than remain at home. After this I saw an advertisement in, I think, an Edinburgh paper for a housekeeper, not a governess, and to apply personally at 81 George Street...

‘I said to the servant who opened the door that I had come about the advertisement. I was shown into a large front room (the dining-room) where a gentleman was whom I afterwards knew as Mr Chantrelle. He seemed to avoid the subject of a housekeeper. He began to sympathize with me and I was at the time so very unhappy at home that anyone who spoke kindly to me at once drew my heart. I never dreamt of any danger. He drew me to him and before I could realize anything, he threw me down forcibly on the floor. I resisted as much as I could but he was very strong and evidently carried away by his passions. I screamed out, too, and he said, “Hush. Hush.” I was dreadfully frightened and have always been very nervous. He put his hand on my mouth. He then had forcible connection with me while he held me down. He said, “You will come again, won't you?” I had of course then seen that he never wanted a housekeeper. Before he forced me, he had asked me to take some claret, but I would not, I have always felt since that I should never have gone. I had not the least idea that the
advertisement was not in good faith.'

Her son, born on September 22nd, 1867, (one year before the Chantrelle marriage) at Cromer was ‘very like his father'. She had supported herself partly by teaching and her father gave her an allowance. Which was worse, to be the legitimate child of Eugène Marie Chantrelle, or not even to bear his name?

T
ime has etched out some of the layers of sadness in the strange, forgotten case of the boy stowaways on the cargo ship
Arran
. Looking back now, wincing at the tale of cruelty, the boys' forced trek on the ice-fields off Newfoundland has in the mind's eye the pictorial quality of some epic Arctic film. Whether the cruelty, which reads like outright torture, amounted to pathological sadism is doubtful. The year was 1868. Ocean-going ships were not known for their humane discipline, and a fierce dominance kept down the ever-present threat of mutiny. On land, poor boys, waifs and strays – burnt chimney sweeps, maimed infant mill-workers, Dr Barnardo's ragged destitutes found huddled in rows under the tarpaulins on roofs – were exploited and expendable. Whether the final harsh act which led to two deaths at sea should have been tried as murder, not reduced, as it was, to manslaughter, is a different matter. We should probably regard it as murder.

Bound for Quebec, on April 7th 1868, the
Arran
set sail from the great port of Greenock, on the south bank of the Clyde. A wooden sailing ship of 1063 tons register, she was laden with coal and oakum, that being, since we have lost touch with these things, hempen fibre, made from old ropes, and used for caulking ships' seams. A full crew of 22 were under Robert Watt, captain, aged 28, of Saltcoats, in Ayrshire, and his brother-in-law, James Kerr, mate, aged 31, of Lochranza, Isle of Arran. Both men were of fierce, commanding aspect, bearded like the pard, but not of identical disposition: the captain was supposed to be weak, dominated by the vicious mate.