Classic Scottish Murder Stories

by Molly Whittington-Egan

  As they were talking in the upstairs room, George Keith and the minister suddenly saw from the window that the corpse, which had been waiting outside the house, had gone without them. It was three to four miles to the graveyard. The young laird left in pursuit of the cortège, on foot, and the minister set off on horseback. George caught up after one and a half miles. Soon afterwards, George wrote a letter to his uncle, James Gordon, of Techmuiry (who was brother to Northfield’s first wife) expressing his strong suspicion that his father had been strangled by Helen and William Keith, and asking how to proceed. The uncle advised him not to prosecute unless he had clear evidence. He himself did not attend the funeral, and never had much to do with Northfield after his second marriage, which he considered to have been a disgraceful affair. He did go to his niece’s wedding (that was the daughter from the first marriage) but only on condition that Helen Keith was not admitted.

  The air was thick with accusation, and those who lived and worked around them were intrigued to note that the widow and her cherished young William were beginning to fall out after the funeral. William told a servant, Janet Watt, that his mother was a liar, a thief, and a murderer. William Taylor, who saw, heard and knew everything, overheard William saying to his mother that if it had been her four quarters, his father might have been living yet. The meaning of ‘four quarters’ is obscure: it might refer to the portions of the settlement on the estate; or to instalments of her allowance; or, in an old meaning used here to belittle, a quarter was a farthing. His mother would never get justice, William was said to have continued in the same unfilial vein, till she was hung up beside William Wast, and he, William Keith, would be happy to pull on her feet. This ghastly reference was to a felon of the same parish, a ship’s captain who had murdered his wife and had been executed in 1752, his body left hanging in chains at Aberdeen for many years.

  James Booth, a tailor of Banff, came upon Helen and William Keith quarrelling in his house. The mother said to her son, ‘I know as much of you as would get you hanged.’ This dreadful state of affairs continued for ten years. The widow and her five children had to vacate the big house in favour of the rightful heir. William Keith grew to manhood, married and had children. He was not living with his mother. At the time of the harvest of 1761, the widow went to William Keith and offered her services as a shearer, but he turned her away, remarking to his shearers that his mother would never get justice till she was hanged.

  When he had, at first, been living with his mother, William had been afflicted with ‘ghosts and apparitions’, like Macbeth. Isobel Robertson, a servant, knew all about it: the young man was trying to sleep in the bed in which his father had died, but was ‘troubled’ and a lad, James Irvine, was deputed to share the bed with him. There was a rumour that he was afraid of his stepbrother, George.

  The Church and the Faculty of Medicine had failed him, but eventually, still in the grip of his obsession, whether or not it was justified, George Keith turned to the law for retribution. He had no new evidence. Certain witnesses who might have supported the widow’s side had died. He had marshalled a formidable band of witnesses to buttress his assertions. It was ten years after the event when George Keith laid information and set on the prosecution of his stepmother and stepbrother.

  He himself was not allowed to testify at the trial of Helen and William Keith on July 13th, 1766, because it was argued that he had acted as an agent, attended the precognition, and directed the questions to be put to the witnesses. The proceedings were remarkable in so many ways. The defence objected that the judge had left the court on one occasion, so that anyone could have approached the jury, but it turned out that he had only retired to a corner for the benefit of a little fresh air. A member of the jury, William Forbes of Skellater, found himself in deep trouble for absconding and being seen making for the New Inn, but he had, he claimed, gone out on a necessary occasion.

  The long and singular indictment charged that after the execution of the will, the prisoners became impatient for Northfield’s death in order to obtain the benefits, but as counsel for the two Keiths pointed out, they were in fact better off before the death of the laird, following which the heir came into his inheritance. Furthermore, it did not make sense that they should ‘wantonly imbrue their hands in the blood of a husband and a father, merely to obtain a few days, perhaps a few hours, earlier possession of the moderate allowance which he had left them.’

  What was really needed was medical evidence as to the condition of Northfield’s body both before and after death, but, as we have seen, none was available. The only medical evidence came from Dr Alexander Irvine, of Banff, who stated that the blue marks, as described, could not, in his experience, have been caused by any disease in the absence of external violence. Counsel for the defence, however, well argued that the jury should bear in mind ‘how various the appearances of dead bodies often are’, and that the marks were spoken of by ‘ignorant country people’ remembering events that had taken place ten years previously.

  The indictment, incidentally, charged that ‘there had been no such plaister or dressing tied on with garters upon the deceased that evening’ but no evidence to support that important contention, framed in the mind of George Keith, has survived. Years afterwards, it began to be suggested that the blue marks were, in fact, hypostatic lividity, which theory might be supported by the vivid words of the coffin-maker, John Strachan, to the effect that the marks were of a blackish blue, like the neck of a fowl newly strangled. Such changes begin to develop an hour or two after death.

  The jury, however, convicted both parties by a majority of nine to six, for what was the future science of forensic pathology to William Forbes of Skellater (even though that gentleman was, as it happens, of the precedent family of Dr Forbes Winslow, famous Victorian alienist)? Quite soon, Helen and William Watt were granted a free pardon, but William died within a few weeks from an unknown cause. ThQinother lived on into obscurity. Their behaviour certainly had been suspicious, but, as recorded, it arose only after George Keith had seen and possibly misinterpreted the condition of the body.

  There was no feasibly discernible motive for murder. Why kill a dying man when euthanasia is not an issue? Why kill and render your own position in life less comfortable? They knew that would be the result. There were no great expectations. If murder it was, could it have arisen out of a sudden access of hatred and revulsion? Helen Keith had complained about her husband’s temper. Romantic love had fled. Perhaps he enjoyed reminding her about her humble origins. She was tired. It was late. There were two young children. She was going to be ousted from her home. It was not fair. She was expected to nurse an invalid who was described as valetudinarian. It was all getting on her nerves. We are told that he had ‘purged’ in the room after spooning up his meal of slops, which he then imagined that he had instantly eliminated. He was in her power. Did he say something not piteous but taunting, and did she then fall upon him in front of young William’s horrified eyes, and did his already weak and failing heart then give out after even a modicum of violence?

  CHAPTER 30

  BLUE VITRIOL

  James Humphrey was a butcher, who also kept a public house in a poor part of Aberdeen. Catherine, his wife, was a scold, a virago, and the excess of matrimonial drinking made worse the war between them. Everyone knew that Kate hated her husband. She was a shrew, constantly threatening to kill him. Once she had rhetorically asked someone to fetch her some laudanum, to finish him off. There was a wretched, scuttling servant who saw her with a knife clutched in her bony hand, making play to cut Master’s throat. An innocent bystander was treated to the sight of a melodramatic tableau: Humphrey was exposing his neck and inviting his wife to use the long razor in her hand. ‘There,’ he said, ‘do it now, for you will do it some time.’ Both parties had a picturesque turn of phrase. He said that she would swing for him yet, with her face looking down Marischal Street after him.

  On the night of Friday, April 16th, 1830, there was an explo
sive quarrel and clash of wills in the house. Blows were exchanged. Catherine had allowed in a woman who was supposed to have tried to poison her husband, and James, disapproving, had forcibly evicted her. Kate was annoyed. She sent her servant to bed before her, which was unheard of. The girl heard her imprecation – ‘Lord God, if anybody would give him poison, and keep my hand clear of it!’ The servant slept. James slept in the kitchen with his mouth open, as always. Kate lay in the room opposite. The servant woke. Mistress was there ‘on her stocking soles’ telling her to get up because James was taken ill and making a noise. Mistress smiled as she imparted this information.

  The servant went down and found James Humphrey writhing in agony and roaring out, ‘I’m burned – I’m gone – I’m roasted!’ ‘You must have taken bad drink,’ Kate kept suggesting. ‘Oh! Woman, woman, whatever I have gotten, it was in my own house.’ There were burn marks on the bedclothes. Several people had come in to help. A child put its lips to a glass that was standing on the table, and cried out that it had been burnt. The servant noticed that there were three glasses where only two had been when Master retired for the night. The clues were strewn as thick as leaves: a phial of oil of vitriol (sulphuric acid), kept by the window, which, the day before, had contained three or four teaspoons of the stuff, kept in those days to use in solution as a ‘tonic’ and so on, was now nearly empty.

  A doctor was called, but he was tending a dying man. Kate remarked sotto voce to her servant, ‘Take care of my keys, come of the *** what like.’ A neighbour bent over the sufferer and asked him what ailed him. ‘Bad work, bad work,’ was the reply. ‘May God Almighty forgive them who have done this to me.’ Over and over again he insisted that he had got no drink but from his own Kate, and never mentioned his spluttering, burning awakening. Kate at his bedside was seen to be wringing her hands and kissing him. The Reverend Mr Hart was in attendance, and he earnestly enquired if Humphrey had any suspicion of his wife. ‘No, no,’ said James, steadfast to the end, and so he died, on Sunday morning.

  Catherine Humphrey was brought up at the Autumn Circuit, and her dignity and decent appearance were remarked upon, but the jury voted to a man for Guilty. A few days after capital sentence had been passed upon her, she made a full confession, admitting that she had poured the oil of vitriol down her husband’s throat as he slept. In such a way did the ghost of Hamlet’s father complain, ‘Sleeping within my orchard/ My custom always of the afternoon,/ Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,/ With juice of cursed hebona in a vial,/ And in the porches of my ears did pour/ The leperous distilment.’

  Jealousy and malice, Kate Humphrey said, had led her to commit the cruel crime. An immense crowd came to witness the hanging of the woman in black. She did not raise her eyes to glimpse the human race that she was leaving. But she dropped her handkerchief as a signal to the executioner that she was ready and was heard to say quietly ‘Oh! My God!’ She struggled a little on the rope, and twice raised her hands.

  The grounds for Mrs Humphrey’s expressed jealousy were not revealed, but vitriol is, of course, traditionally the remedy of choice for a woman scorned – topically, in the face, or internally, if she can find a way. Anne Inglis was another dangerous fury, and she, too, gave ample advance warning of her intent. These murders from sexual jealousy were premeditated but not kept secret, rather broadcast to the whole world. Patrick Pirie was the betrayer who died for his fault. Anne was his servant at Malheurust (an unhappy name) in the parish of Alva. He was a bachelor of 32 when he took her to bed, with sweet promises, but then he began to court another, and marriage was spoken of, whereupon Anne Inglis vowed revenge. There would be a burial before there was a bridal, was how she put it. The funeral bak’d meats would coldly furnish forth the marriage tables! In the spring of 1795, shortly before the proposed marriage, Patrick Pirie was laid low with vomiting and severe pains all over his body, but he was a strong man and within a fortnight was on his feet again. That was when he accepted a draught of ale from the hand of Anne Inglis. After nine days of agony – vomiting, pains, great heat in the stomach and swelling in the extremities – he died, blaming his servant, Anne. The body was opened and terrible inflammation of the stomach was observed: the inner coat was corroded and actually separated from the contiguous lining. The physicians did look for arsenic, but there was no trace.

  On the day after the autopsy, a search was made of a chest belonging to Anne Inglis and, lo and behold! blatantly within, when it could have been removed, was a paper parcel of blue vitriol. She bleated that it was for the toothache, although this was the first that anyone had heard of it. It was remembered that on the day before her master’s death she had been seen with some teacups whose rims were smeared with a bluish powder. One of the cups contained something that looked like quicksilver. Could this mean that she had added mercury to the vitriol? Again, we have overt signals of what she had been at, and by now we might be thinking that Anne Inglis was a little simple, but the unexpected resolution of this tale is that the jury acquitted her.

  The medical evidence had been that if blue vitriol had been administered, no trace of it would have been found in the stomach, due to the medicines prescribed, and the evacuations. It was thought that the jury might have been influenced by the doctors’ further comment that, unless they had been told of the suspicion, they would not have concluded that this was a death by poison, since there were no external appearances to support the proposition.

  Blue vitriol is copper sulphate, powerfully corrosive salts with a pronounced metallic taste. In 1886, a man named Reynolds tried to kill his wife with blue vitriol in spruce and peppermint water. (The green tops of spruce-tree were mixed with a solution of sugar or treacle.) In 1884, a servant-girl, Mary Baker, poisoned her mistress with copper sulphate in a jug of beer, but failed to kill, because the taste was soon noticed. One ounce is given as the fatal dose. Its main domestic use seems to have been as a greener of vegetables (a bad idea) but not as a cure for toothache. The vomited matters should have been blue in Patrick Pirie’s case, but no doubt there was no expert standing by to analyse them.

  CHAPTER 31

  THE BATTERED BRIDE

  John Adam stands out somewhat from our other sinners lapped in the flames of the everlasting bonfire. But for constitutional stirrings of lust, avarice and sloth, he could have taken the yellow brick road to fulfilment, instead of the primrose way to the high lonely gallows-tree beside the Moray Firth.

  Although not of a confessing disposition, his eyes dazzled, and he covered them, when he saw what he had done. The old Adam was locked into his soul, and began to emerge when he was only 14 years of age. He was a thinker, and, in small measure, a leader, but the contemplation of man’s place in the world and in society led him into dissatisfaction with his low station in life. His physical presence was strong, compelling, and he had power over women. Not to put too fine a point on it, he was a womaniser, a fleet-footed seducer. Maidens and widows, all fell beneath his flails. Prevarications – plain lies and damned lies – tripped from his tongue, but when he was a stripling he was valued for the wondrous tales he told.

  Born all fresh on New Year’s Day in 1804, from crofters’ stock, he was the son of an elder of the Kirk, whose righteousness proved to be an impossible model. The father died when John Adam was 14, and that was when the lurking faults in his character began to influence the pattern of his life. He was handsome and obliging, but popularity had done him no good. Now it was his turn to manage the old 20-acre farm of Craigieloch, Lintrathen, near Forfar, of which his ancestors had been tenants for 300 years. His widowed mother turned to him to step into his father’s shoes, but, in suggestive words, ‘he proved unequal to the duty’, a disappointment, and was sent away to work on another farmstead. There he grew up, and returned to his rightful place after five years of exile, with his tendency to idleness and disregard for the truth well noted.

  At the age of 20, he was admitted a member of the Kirk and sat in his father’s pew, a regular and devout commu
nicant. There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of his faith, but his private behaviour did not match up to his public face. His fields became neglected, weeds spouted, while he gadded about, sightseeing, or rather visiting the ladies in whom he had now developed a consuming interest. They had no resistance, and misunderstood his attentions. Within a bare two months of his formal reception into the Church of Scotland, there was a resounding scandal, when he was convicted before the Kirk Session of the seduction of two young women of the parish. In each case, the father was an elder, and great was the repulsion felt, because one girl, who was deaf and dumb, was his own cousin. His company was no longer sought, and he was forced to move away.

  John Adam had strayed from the path and was henceforth a restless wanderer, discontented, pursued for vengeance. Agricultural labouring was all that he had to offer, and he found employment at Carrisbank Farm, near Brechin, no more than 20 miles distant, where he was attracted to a young woman named Jane Brechin [sic]. Unusually, she saw through him, and, perceiving that he did not intend marriage, turned him down. Stung by this unwonted rejection, he walked out, taking a similar job near Aberdeen. Jane Brechin had made a mortal mistake.

  Aberdeen widened Adam’s horizons, and he got in with a group of freethinkers who were drawn to Deism – that movement which evinced a strong aversion from Christianity, and held the belief that the lights of nature and reason are sufficient guides. Adam himself purchased a copy of Tom Paine’s Age of Reason from a chapman at a fair in Aberdeen, and it became, as it were, the textbook of his set. Enraptured by Paine’s crude and homely logic, his fiery Republicanism, and criticisms of the Bible, Adam abandoned his strong grounding in the Kirk.

  This group of his was, in some ways, wild and loose, but he stood apart, not abandoned to the fleshpots, preferring to seduce the respectable class of women. Soon Aberdeen could hold him no more. His philandering had become notorious, and he had to flee to Lanarkshire. At last, for the first time in his life, he felt true love for a girl, and proposed marriage. The date was set and he intended to be at the altar. I hope that this part of his history is correct, but I suspect that it is his own voice that can be heard, inventing retrospectively.