Helen Vardon's confession
pounds. On this tray I placed--with great care to avoid shocks--two
half-hundredweights. I then added weights, five pounds at a time,
until the total weight, including that of the tray and chain, reached
170 pounds. This was evidently very near the limit of what the peg
would bear, for it was bending noticeably under the weight; and when
I added another five pounds the peg doubled under, breaking half-way
through. I have brought it with me for your inspection.” He opened the
green suit-case and produced the peg, which he handed to the coroner.
“You see,” he said, “that, in spite of its massive appearance, it had
very little strength. It is merely a piece of thinnish, brass tube.”
The coroner was impressed, but puzzled. “You consider,” said he, as he
handed the peg to the foreman of the jury, “that the test is
conclusive?”
“Quite,” replied Dr. Thorndyke. “Clearly, a peg which breaks under a
weight of 175 pounds could not have supported a body weighing 231
pounds.”
“Yes,” agreed the coroner, “that appears to be undeniable.” He again
reflected for a few moments, and then said:
“I notice that you went to the chambers provided with this apparatus.
The suggestion is that you had already a definite suspicion in your
mind. Is that the case?”
“Yes; I had already come to the conclusion that deceased had never
hung from that peg.”
“Will you tell us what led you to that conclusion?”
“When I received instructions to investigate the case, I proceeded to
make an inspection of the body, and it struck me, at once, that the
appearances were not quite in agreement with the alleged facts, which
I had learned from a verbatim report of the evidence. The amount of
injury to the structures of the neck was much less than I should have
expected in the case of so heavy a man, and the characteristic signs
of death by hanging were absent. It is my invariable rule, in all
cases of suspicious death, no matter what the apparent cause of the
death may be, to examine the contents of the stomach and the
secretions. In this case the procedure appeared to be necessary, and I
made a careful examination of the contents of the stomach. The
examination disclosed the presence of small quantities of veronal and
alcohol, but when I tested for alkaloids, I obtained from the stomach
and its contents no less than twenty-three minims of nicotine, the
alkaloid of tobacco. Now nicotine--which differs from all other
alkaloids but conein, the alkaloid of hemlock, in being a liquid--is
an intensely poisonous substance. The fatal dose has not been exactly
ascertained, but it may be stated at not more than five minims; that
is, roughly, five drops. So that the quantity of this virulent poison
actually obtained from the stomach of deceased was about four times
the fatal dose. But this was only a part of the quantity that had been
swallowed, for the examination was made ten days after death, by which
time an appreciable amount of the poison would have been lost by
post-mortem diffusion. I also examined the liver and other organs and
the secretions, and in these I detected minute quantities of nicotine.
The evidence afforded by these minute quantities is very important.
Nicotine is a poison that acts with great rapidity--in fact, with the
exception of hydrocyanic acid (prussic acid) it is probably the most
rapidly-acting poison known. The importance, therefore, of these
minute traces of the poison in remote organs is this: their existence
proves that the poison entered the stomach during life--while the
blood was still circulating; and the minuteness of the quantity
absorbed proves that death occurred very rapidly--practically
instantaneously.
“But the very large quantity of the poison and the evidence of its
almost instantaneous effect created this dilemma: a witness had stated
that she saw deceased hanging from the peg; but since death was
practically instantaneous, he could not have hanged himself after
taking the poison; and obviously he could not have taken the poison
after he had hanged himself. This discrepancy, coupled with the
absence of appreciable injury to the neck, raised a doubt as to
whether deceased had ever hung from the peg at all. That doubt was
increased by certain other circumstances. There were, for instance,
post-mortem lacerations of the hamstring muscles and other muscles of
the thighs, which could not be accounted for in the case of a body
which had hung vertically, fully extended. There were faint
impressions below the knees of some coarse-textured fabric, not part
of his clothing, and there was the condition of a length of red,
worsted rope by which deceased was said to have been suspended. Both
ends of this rope--which had formed part of a loop--had been cut
through with a very sharp instrument; and both ends were cut cleanly
right through. But this could not possibly have happened in the
alleged circumstances. If a body of this great weight had been
suspended by two thicknesses of a flimsy, woollen rope, and an attempt
had been made to cut that rope, the cutting instrument would not have
passed right through, but would have divided the rope until the
remaining portion was too weak to sustain the weight, and then that
portion would have broken, leaving a ragged end. Having regard to the
great evidential importance of the question, I decided to clear up the
doubt, if possible, by examining the peg itself. There are not many
pegs which could carry this great weight without either bending,
breaking or pulling out of the woodwork, and I thought it probable
that an actual test with weights would settle the question. I
accordingly obtained the keys from Mrs. Otway, went to the chambers
and applied the tests as I have stated.”
“If the deceased was not suspended at all,” the coroner objected, “how
do you account for the marks of the rope on his neck?”
“He _was_ suspended--or rather partially suspended. I looked about the
chambers for the probable means of suspension, and decided that this
was the knob of the bedpost at the right-hand side of the head of the
bed. On this side of the bed was a hard jute matting, the texture of
which corresponded exactly with the impressions on the knees, the
faintness of which is accounted for by the partial protection
furnished by the pyjamas. The procedure seems to have been this: the
rope was secured to the neck of deceased immediately after death,
while he was lying on the bed. It was then hitched over the knob of
the bedpost and the body drawn off the bed so that it was supported
against the bedpost in a kneeling position. This would account for the
shallowness of the marks on the neck, the impressions of the matting
on the knees, and the post-mortem lacerations of the muscles. With
regard to these latter, it is evident that the body was left suspended
in an approximately kneeling position for a good many hours--probably
for the purpose of producing as deep an indentation as possible on the
neck--and that during that time cadaveric rigidity became well
established; so that when the rope was cut and the body allowed to
fall to the floor, the legs were found to have stiffened and to be
firmly set in the kneeling posture. As deceased was to be represented
as having hanged himself from the peg, it would be necessary to
straighten out the legs by force; but as the muscles were already
rigid, the forcible extension would tend to produce such lacerations
as were found. These lacerations were, of course, under the skin and
would not be noticeable excepting on close examination.”
“Is that the whole of your evidence?” the coroner asked, as Dr.
Thorndyke paused.
“It is the whole of my evidence concerning the immediate circumstances
of the death of Lewis Otway. I have certain other information, but you
will probably not consider it of much importance to the enquiry. I
have examined the two hairs that were found adhering to Mr. Vardon’s
stick. They were not his hairs. As a matter of fact, the wound on his
head was on a part in which there was no hair; but in any case, these
were not his hairs. One of these was apparently a hair of Lewis
Otway’s--probably taken from his hair brush. His hair was white, but
was dyed with a stain containing sulphide of lead. This hair was of a
similar character and stained with the same material. The other was
white and appeared to be a woman’s hair. It was cut at both ends, and
was evidently part of a much longer hair. I have also made some
enquiries concerning the anonymous letters. Mrs. Otway consulted me
about them a month or two back, and I promised her to look into the
matter, and did so. I collected very few facts, but if I may look at
the letters, I can tell you at once whether those facts throw any
light on the authorship of these letters.”
“It really is not of much importance to us,” said the coroner, “though
it may be important evidence in another place. Still, you may as well
look at the letters.” He handed the bundle of letters to Dr.
Thorndyke, who examined each of them closely, holding them up to the
light to inspect the watermark and comparing them with some other
letters which he produced from his pocket.
“I think,” said he, as he returned the letters to the coroner, “there
is no doubt that all these letters were written by Morris Goldstein. I
have several letters which were received from and signed by him, which
are identically similar in character. All are typed on the same
foreign paper--made in Sweden--with an old Calligraph machine which
had three type-bars slightly bent--the lower-case ‘g’ and ‘s’ and the
capital ‘O.’ I have further evidence on the subject, if you care to
hear it.”
The foreman of the jury interposed at this point. “We don’t want to
hear any more about those letters. If deceased did not commit suicide,
the letters don’t matter.”
“They will matter a good deal in another court,” said the coroner,
“but I agree with you that they do not affect our probable verdict;
but there is one question to which we may as well have a definite
answer, and then we need not detain Dr. Thorndyke any longer. You have
told us, sir, that the immediate cause of Lewis Otway’s death was
nicotine poisoning. Can you say whether the poison was taken by
deceased himself, or whether it was administered by some other
person?”
“The medical evidence proper furnishes no answer to that question, but
from the attendant circumstances I infer that the poison was
administered by some other person--probably while deceased was asleep.
But that is only an opinion, based on the circumstantial evidence.”
“Exactly. It is really a question for the jury. And now I don’t think
we need trouble you any further.” The coroner bowed, a little stiffly,
and as Dr. Thorndyke walked back to his chair, he once more faced the
jury.
“Well, gentlemen,” said he, “you have heard Dr. Thorndyke’s very
remarkable evidence, and you will see that it compels us completely to
revise our views of the case. The suicide by hanging, which we have
been considering at such length, is seen to be an illusion, carefully,
elaborately and ingeniously prepared. The question now is, was there
a suicide at all? The cause of death was poisoning by nicotine, and
death was almost instantaneous. Is this, then, a case of suicidal
poisoning or of homicide?
“It is unnecessary for me to dwell on the suggested probabilities. You
have heard a witness swear, in the most circumstantial manner, that
she saw deceased hanging from a peg, and that she cut the body down.
You now know that deceased could never have hung from that peg. That
statement was false. But what was the object of that false statement?
Its object must be considered in conjunction with the illusory
appearances produced by an elaborate set of preparations--the
cord-marks on the neck, the overturned chair, the end of the rope