Classic Scottish Murder Stories

by Molly Whittington-Egan

  The boys went to bed. Alexis slept, and William said that he did, too. At 2 am, Mr King woke up and was sick again. He staggered in to see his wife, and found that she was dead. She had slipped away, all on her own. He called the boys and told them to telephone his brother, Dr Robert King and David Peebles. Then he lay down in the library, where he spent the remainder of the night. He recovered. At 2.15am on his own initiative, William rang for Dr Macdonald.

  The chill, dim house was suddenly ablaze with lights and thronged with people anxious to help and full of questions. Mr King lay on his sofa, helpless and bereaved. William, in great distress on his knees beside his dead mother, was heard to lament, in curiously stilted terms, ‘Why was Mother taken and I not taken? Why did I not take my exam?’ Mrs Peebles, wife of the chemist, arrived at 3.20am, saw the remains of a meal on the table, but did not notice any bread. (The loaf had not been intact, having been broached at tea-time, and the four slices taken at supper could have finished it, except, perhaps, for the end-crust.) She took all the cups, saucers and plates to the kitchen and washed them.

  The doctors’ joint and several opinion was that the cheese had been contaminated by an irritant poison, probably arsenic. On the morning of the following day, Detective Inspector David Fleming made the first of a number of visits to the house. He removed a glass jar of jelly, a tin box of coffee, and a paper bag of sugar, all found in the sideboard in the parlour. No cheese appeared to be left, so he visited the grocer’s shop in Roseburn Terrace and appropriated the whole cheese from which the Kings’ portion had been cut. On the Sunday, he took from the pocket of a grey jacket belonging to William, which was hanging in the wardrobe, a glass bottle containing a white powder and labelled Potass. Ferricyanide. He bore it away for analysis, together with other bottles from William’s miniature laboratory in the back garden, where there was a great deal of photographic apparata. Two days later he was back at the house, asking about poisons – weed-killer, fly-killer, mouse-killer, rat-killer – but father and sons all stated categorically that they had no poisons whatsoever. The cheese, they said, must have been lethal. William was to say that he had never smelt or tasted a cheese like it, with a very sharp ‘kick’: the cheese-dish stank of it for three days after being washed (possibly by poor, kind Mrs Peebles!).

  The post-mortem on the body of Mrs Agnes Scott King made by Professor Harvey Littlejohn on June 2nd had indicated that death had been caused by an irritant poison. She had been an apparently healthy woman, although it was known that she had been complaining of pain in the region of the heart, and had consulted Dr Macdonald. Any thoughts that she, rather than her husband, had succumbed because of some innate fragility were soon dispelled by the results of chemical analysis of internal organs. The horrifically large quantity of 3.01 grains of arsenious oxide (white arsenic in powder form) was found in the tissues tested, and, allowing for vomiting and purging, the computation was that the whole dose of arsenic taken in must have been in the region of 10 grains. The fatal dose in an adult is usually stated as from two to three grains. Mother had had no chance at all.

  One week after the death, Detective Inspector Fleming was told at Surgeons’ Hall that the glass bottle taken from the pocket of William’s grey jacket actually contained three-quarters of an ounce of arsenious oxide, not potassium ferricyanide (which is comparatively less toxic, although capable of poisoning). Considerably activated by this discovery, he proceeded to the garage, Liddle and Johnston’s, and triumphantly abstracted from the office two books which William had kept there: Death and its Mystery at the Moment of Death, and Death and its Mystery after Death. Rather more evidential than this adolescent reading matter, which Edith Ross knew all about, was the order form for ‘1lb arsenious oxide’, in William King’s handwriting, signed ‘Liddle and Johnston’, which a firm of wholesale chemical dealers, Baird’s, of 39 Lothian Street, produced upon enquiry as to whether they had recently sold any arsenic. The clue which led Fleming to the dealers was a bottle found at the garage which bore the firm’s label. On Tuesday June 10th, William was arrested in Douglas Gardens. After caution, he was searched, and some arsenic powder was found loosely adhering to the lining of the left hip-pocket of his trousers.

  His splendid subsequent explanation deserves to be in a textbook of defences. Around May 26th, he said, he had his mind set on certain chemical experiments. He particularly wanted to derive a magenta dye from coal-tar, and he saw in his textbooks, (not, apparently, produced) that he needed arsenious oxide to bring about the desired reaction. Secondly, he wanted to make a crystal of arsenious oxide and sulphur for his wireless set. He had previously made a crystal of lead sulphite, but it was no good.

  The quantity of arsenic that he required was 2 ounces (875 grains) but that was too much to obtain from an ordinary retail chemist, and it occurred to him that he might be able to get it through the garage, Liddle and Johnston’s, from the wholesale chemist, Baird’s. He made a telephone enquiry and was told that 2 ounces was too small a quantity to supply to the garage, but that 1lb (7,000 grains) could be made available. It was a simple matter to fill in one of the garage’s order forms. He did not bother to initial the order, because he expected that he would have to sign the poisons books personally when he collected the arsenic. (This does not seem to have been the case.)

  He did not think it necessary, the explanation continued, to tell anyone connected with the garage that he had ordered in some arsenic, because he thought that an invoice would be sent. (Indeed, that had been duly done, and the account had not been paid.) He was not wearing his suit of blue dungarees (which would have made him look like a garage employee) when he collected the arsenic, whatever the assistant at Baird’s had said to the police to the contrary.

  The 1lb parcel of arsenic was wrapped in brown paper, which he took off. The inner wrapping of white paper was labelled POISON. He put the packet in his left-hip trouser-pocket, where his mother came across it the following morning, as she went through his pockets. (This was theoretically the ‘What trash is this?’ incident, attested to by Alexis, and by Mr King, although the latter used milder language – ‘Willie, is this some more chemicals or stuff that you have been buying?’). Mother told him to put it in the outhouse and took it downstairs herself. He forgot all about it (although he had been to such pains to obtain it) and did not know where she had put it. He could only explain his failure of memory by the fact that he had other things to think of. He was so absolutely nervous at having the police about that he forgot to tell them about the arsenic. He thought anyone in a similar position would be in a nervous state. Anyway, he did remember about the packet on Monday June 2nd, when he looked for it and happened to notice it on the pantry shelf. (His mother would surely have seen the POISON label and been more careful or perhaps she was inured to his chemicals.) It was sort of hidden (that was the implication) in the right angle formed by the first shelf and the sliding door of the pantry press. A little of the contents had run out – one of the corners was ‘kind of burst’. He first learned of the leakage in his pocket much later, at the police station.

  When he found the packet, he thought that he had better take what he required (surely he was not even contemplating chemical experiments three days after Mother’s death?) and throw the rest away, because he knew it was so dangerous. The only bottle that was available at the time was the small one labelled ‘Potass. Ferricyanide’ and he filled it with about 2 ounces of the arsenic. He never thought of taking the POISON label off the packet, and putting it on the bottle for reasons of safety. Then he put it in his grey jacket pocket. He poured the remainder of the contents of the packet down the pantry sink (in which he had been sick) and threw the wrapper in the fire.

  William Laurie King was put to his trial at the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh on August 26th 1924. He pleaded Not Guilty. The fifteen jurors, five of whom were women, liked him. He was a golden boy, blond and rosy-cheeked, and he was sturdy, more like a son of the manse, a Boy Scout, than a scheming murder
er riddled with hatred and resentment. The judge did not like him at all and made some remarks calculated to cut to the quick. He said this was a young man of no moral character, no moral courage, prone to resort to cowardly expedients and incapable of facing up to unpleasant situations. Father and Alexis, called by the Crown, consistently maintained that there had been no hatred, only love, behind the walls at Wester Coates Terrace. This must have weighed with the jury, as must his father and brother’s insistence that William had had no opportunity to add poison to food at the fatal supper. He had not left the room during the whole evening (i.e. to tamper with the food waiting in the pantry), they said, and he had not, definitely not, had the opportunity to sprinkle arsenic on the slices of bread as he cut them. There had, it was true, been a moment when Alexis had stretched across the table between William and his father, but they did not accept that this was sufficient opportunity for the notional sleight of hand. William did not do it.

  The defence favoured the theory that the cheese had become contaminated by the arsenic, accidentally, on the pantry shelf, even though William, giving evidence, floated the idea that the spilled arsenic was lying on the shelf on which the stale bread (i.e. that left over from tea-time) was put when taken out of the crock.

  The Crown suggested that there had been no intent to harm Mrs King. The meaning here is that only Father’s slice of bread was (lavishly) poisoned. It was sheer bad luck that Mother snaffled his rejected half-slice. This theory then requires that William sat mute and let her eat it. The judge would say, perhaps, that such was his character. Or could the boy, if wickedly inclined, have thought, ‘So what?’ In the alternative, Mother’s first, whole slice was poisoned, too, and she increased the dose by taking Father’s. In that case, why did she not, too, complain about the taste?

  Arsenic is, famously, a tasteless poison. Why should Mr King have said that the cheese (put on the slice of bread) burned his throat? Judging by the chemical analysis of Mrs King’s organs, a large quantity of arsenic was ingested. Taylor’s Medical Jurisprudence states that in cases where a large quantity has been taken, the powder is described as having a roughish or bitter taste. This is not the same as burning. Dry or burning feeling about the mouth is one of the first symptoms of arsenical poisoning, and that might have been what Mr King was experiencing.

  The defence made the rather good suggestion that William might have contaminated the food accidentally by first putting his hand in his pocket, but the Dean of Faculty, for the accused, was shot down in flames by Professor Harvey Littlejohn, who opined that such a route would not bring up enough arsenic to poison anybody. (If his hand had been wet, might he have dredged up more? Could he have sneezed, wiped his mouth or his eyes, or touched coffee?) Much was made of the failure to obtain medical help at the right time, but this was not adequately proved. Even the judge allowed that young people were habitually unobservant, especially of symptoms of illness.

  The Crown ridiculed William’s explanation for his acquisition of arsenic. Dr Drinkwater, who had analysed various items taken from the Kings’ house, stated that he had never heard of the use of arsenic for wireless. (Some readers might know better?) It was very difficult to make crystals from arsenious oxide (and therefore a challenge to William King, perhaps!) and the crystal thus produced was no bigger than a millet seed, and far too small.

  As for photography, Dr Drinkwater went on, arsenic had no use in that field. Using arsenic for the purpose of making a magenta dye was ‘quite beyond the scope of an amateuW/As we have seen, however, and the opinion was already in evidence in cross-examination, a practising chemist had said that William knew more than he did. It appears that magenta dyes were used routinely in colour photography, but, against William, Taylor says that arsenates (salts of arsenic acid) were used in the manufacture of magenta colour, i.e. not white arsenic.

  Ferricyanide was a part of the colour process in photography. We know that William had in his possession a bottle which had once (presumably) contained ferricyanide, and it is reasonable to assume that it had been used in photography. Potassium ferricyanide (as on the label) or red prussiate of potash, is formed of dark red crystals, and it was, therefore, guileless to place white arsenic in the bottle. There was no attempt to disguise arsenic as something else. It is not patent from the report available that the defence put up a spirited reply to Dr Drinkwater, but the jury believed William anyway.

  The learned judge summed up largely for the defendant, in spite of his reservations as to his moral character, which, he felt, explained many features of William King’s actions and explanations. He referred to the absence of motive (since the conflict over his career had been resolved). There was the absence of opportunity to administer the poison. (He obviously did not go with the ‘sleight of hand’ suggestion.) It was, also, a very serious point that the lad, according to the evidence, himself suffered from sickness. (Perhaps, but there was no evidence that he was seriously ill, nor that he had eaten less bread than his parents.)

  If he had intended murder, the judge continued, why would he have left a bottle containing the article that would convict him, in his jacket hanging openly in his bedroom? That was a very difficult fact to square with guilt.

  Loud applause greeted the unanimous verdict of Not Guilty and William King returned to his motherless family. Did he abandon chemistry, raze his miniature laboratory to the ground, and embrace his father’s profession, in an attempt to make amends for the accident?

  CHAPTER 5

  THE RUNNING GIRL

  A girl, running. That is the emblem of the Christina Gilmour case. The fair girl running, running, in the home-fields by night in the autumn of 1842, heavy skirts bunched, one arm awkward, slightly crippled. She was in no danger at all, for no-one was chasing her. Her condition was, in fact, sexual frustration, or, to use that favourite Victorian euphemism, unrequited love. And so, restless, agitated and depressed, trying to relieve the tension, and sending out a message of her desolation, she floundered through mud and frost. Once she had feared the dark, but now her need for one man, and her repudiation of another, drove her out of the house when she should have slept.

  This was dairy country, in Ayrshire, where Christina’s father, Alexander Cochran, farmed at South Grange, Dunlop. The family had a long tradition of cheese-making, a circumstance oft mentioned by chroniclers, but tenuous to connect with the unco events which were to ensue. Christina was the eldest daughter, born on November 16th 1818, the year when Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published. She was pretty and cheerful, and great things were expected of her. They sent her to boarding-schools and a dressmaking establishment in Paisley and Glasgow. It is a pity to disappoint the keen diagnostician, but the slightly impaired right arm, which she could not raise to her head, appears to have been present long before 1842, and was not, therefore, a hysterical conversion symptom.

  The focus of all this wasted love was one John Anderson, ten years her senior, whose father farmed at Broadley, about one mile away. They had known each other since childhood, when she had attended classes at the parish school, which was held in a house belonging to his father. There was an understanding, but it must be said that John Anderson was not a strong believer in the doctrine enshrined in the motto that amor vincit omnia. The received version of events was to the effect that he had delayed marriage because he was not in a fit financial position to support a wife, but when a rival appeared, he simply caved in, and Christina was left, for all he cared, like Andromeda chained to a rock.

  There is no doubt that her parents were to blame. Alexander Cochran was a strict authoritarian, of his class and of his time. He approved of John Gilmour, a better match, younger, too, who farmed on his own account at Town of Inchinnan, near Renfrew. Ardently Gilmour wooed, ‘passionate and irrepressible’, and when Christina drew back, he threatened suicide – an unhealthy element in the case, and not without its repercussions. The story is that no-one told him about John Anderson, who continued to visit Christina at the cheese farm. On
e day, she gambled, and lost, by revealing to Anderson that she was engaged to Gilmour. Anderson’s only hope now, and Christina’s, was an elopement, but he was no Robert Browning, and did the gentlemanly thing, and freed her.

  This was when Christina became ill, but her morbid state was not recognised as such. There are old photographs of inmates of Victorian asylums, and they include victims of ‘disappointed love’, defeated women with their mouths drawn down, their eyebrows crinkled: sometimes they did get better. Christina belonged with them, being looked after, for her own safety, and the safety of others. Father would not confront the truth, even when she began to eat voraciously, to gorge, and her mother had to set limits to her diet. Like a lamb, she was led off to choose her wedding dress. Twice there had to be a postponement, and finally, on November 29th, 1842, the marriage took place, and the new Mrs Gilmour was installed in her matrimonial home, the lonely farm, Town of Inchinnan. The minister, Mathew Dickie, who performed the ceremony, perceived nothing unusual in the bride’s demeanour, but then, if she had cried, he would have thought nothing of it.

  The marriage was a nullity. Christina sat up in a chair by the fireside on the first night, and it was said that she never undressed during the short term of the marriage. Gilmour did not force her, to his lasting credit, and he did not know, at least at first, that she was pining for another John. During these stressful days, one would not have been surprised to hear that he again threatened suicide.

  A curious incident was afterwards reported, to the effect that the newly-married couple, keeping up appearances, visited some neighbours and while they were there, Christina fell into a ‘stupor’ from which she recovered with a ‘sort of epileptic start’. There is no other suggestion that she was an epileptic, and here there is, indeed, a strong intimation of hysteria.