As a timely reminder that the dissection of human corpses has not always proceeded smoothly since the days of Burke and Hare, we might care to contemplate the bad riot of 1831, when a crowd demolished the Anatomical School in Aberdeen, a building recently erected by Dr Andrew Moir in St Andrew’s Street, at the back of Gordon’s Hospital. The people called the brave new edifice the ‘Anatomical Theatre’ and they feared what went on inside its walls.
A dog it was that lit the tinder when it scented something interesting in the loose soil at the back of the school and began to dig. Some boys playing nearby raised the alarm and soon there was a sizeable crowd as recognisable fragments of a human body were excavated. There was a howl of execration and several medical students were seen making a hasty exit. Dr Moir stayed inside until the door was forced. He escaped, but was followed to his lodgings and even there had to jump out of a back window.
Meanwhile, at the Anatomical School, three dead bodies were revealed, stretched, stripped and striated on boards. All the equipment of the place was now destroyed or carried away. Officers were called and they directed the bodies to be taken out. When the mangled remnants were brought into the open air and laid on the ground, there were yells and cries for vengeance. A few rags of clothing were pulled on to the bodies and they were removed.
‘Burn the house!’ they cried. ‘Down with the Burking shop!’ A fierce fire was kindled within, stoked by shavings, fir, and tar barrel staves. Outside, a crowd was undermining the back wall of the building with two large planks, one used as a battering-ram, the other as a lever. The entire wall collapsed with a tremendous crash. The front wall came under attack. The heat from the blaze was intense. The Provost and magistrates came to the inferno, with a brigade of special constables, and a party of the 79th Regiment was marched out of barracks and held in reserve in Gordon’s Hospital. There were cheers as the gables collapsed, along with the roof. Thousands of people were said to be present, not all riff-raff, by any means, which indicates the strength of public opinion. Three rioters were put to their trial, during which the Advocate-Depute allowed that carelessness by the medical gentlemen had led to the disturbance.
CHAPTER 33
THE POISONOUS PUDDOCKS
The unexpected visitor with a smile on his face and a packet of arsenic in his pocket was stoutly-named George Thom, a guest who stayed to dinner and left as soon as he possibly could. His hosts, a family of four, symmetrically divided into two brothers and two sisters, were living in peace and harmony in deep countryside at Burnside, in Keig, Aberdeenshire. Although a rare caller, George was no stranger, being related by marriage. Once the Mitchells had been six, but two members had broken away from the constellation: Jean had gone to marry George Thom, and one brother had died, leaving a considerable legacy, which was apportioned among the five survivors.
There had been a former Mrs Thom, but she had died years previously, leaving issue. George had married Jean a decent time after she had come into her share of the inheritance, and borne her away to his farm at Harthill, Newmills. All rejoiced. If, at the age of 61, he were a little long in the tooth, and perhaps Jeanie was too, he was well respected, a good man who had worked his farm for donkey’s years.
However, something went wrong in his mind in 1821, when he began to ruminate about the four parts of the legacy which were held by the unmarried Mitchells. From the seed of the envy, the need grew to an acorn like a diseased pineal gland lodged deep in the brain, and then it swelled and branched and took over all parts of his mind until he was eaten away by a plan of outrageous simplicity. In one act of mass murder he would eliminate the entire Mitchell clan for ever and Jeanie would inherit the fruit of his cleverness. Poison would be the means, and after some initial difficulty he acquired a stock of arsenic sufficient to kill a bullock or two.
Thus equipped, he turned up at Burnside, on his own, one Saturday evening in August, and made himself amiable, although he had not visited since his marriage. The Mitchells were surprised, but pleased, and made him welcome. He gave no reason for his arrival: one would have expected some kind of excuse, but he was too preoccupied with sending them all to kingdom come. Their hospitality and attentions were a nuisance to him. It was arranged that he was to stay the night, after supper, as he had frequently done in the past (presumably when he was courting Jean) always sharing William’s bed. This time, he was very anxious to sleep in the kitchen, but William insisted on the old arrangement, which was not the way that Thom had planned it. He said that he would have to get up early, and would not, absolutely not, be persuaded to stay to breakfast, because he was expected for that meal at the farm, Mains of Cluny, on his way home.
James Mitchell, whose bed was in the recess in the kitchen, woke in the early hours when he heard footsteps near the press, but could not see who it was, because his bed-shutters were closed. The furtive figure was, of course, George Thom in the execution of his blunt device to wipe out the Mitchells, tipping the contents of his little packet into the saltcellar and stirring frantically.
Helen Mitchell found him alone in the kitchen later, about to take his departure, and he was shaking some crumbs of bread and cheese on the table with something white about them. She asked him what it was, but, not being gifted at improvisation, he made no reply. William gave him a piece of loaf-bread (wheaten loaf) which he wrapped up in his napkin, but did not put in his pocket. The import here is that the arsenic had leaked from its wrapping in his pocket and contaminated remnants of old ploughman’s lunches. As usual, he was looking after Number One. Perhaps the crumbs were swept up and thrown on the fire, since there were no reports of ailing wee beasties.
Then George Thom left Burnside and ate a hearty breakfast at the Cluny farm. On his way back to Harthill, mightily refreshed, he met an acquaintance and told him that he had been very unwell and must have eaten something that morning, or at supper the night before, which had upset him. If he had not used a crow’s feather to make himself vomit, he said, he would have surely died. This was a palpable falsehood which seemed like a good idea at the time, but was to return to haunt him. He was much more successful as a solid man of few words.
Their guest gone, Mary Mitchell, the other sister, made pottage (porridge) prepared with milk, not water, and the obligatory pinch of salt. The whole family had some. William, Helen and Mary noticed nothing unusual. William ate a lot; it was Sacrament Sunday and dinner would be rather late. James, however, was obviously sensitive to arsenic. He had intended to tuck in, but he did not enjoy the pottage that morning, objecting to its ‘sweetish, sickening taste’. Most people can detect no taste, as has been noted repeatedly in criminal cases. If noticed at all, it is likely to be sensed as acrid or bitter, although that old authority, Professor Christison, did say that it was insipid or sweetish.
James was already feeling sick. He dressed and felt worse, but forced himself to walk to church. On the way, he felt so ill that he wondered about going home. When he was in his pew, a strange blackness suddenly clouded around his field of vision and he seemed to be going blind. After he had sat at the Lord’s Table, he swayed out into the graveyard, where he came upon his brother, William, who said that he was very sick. William went back into church, but James crawled home, vomiting all the way. When he reached the house, wilKall his insides burning, he found that both his sisters had been sick, too. William came in with the worse symptoms, complaining of great pain, with a swelling in his chest, reaching up to his throat.
Somehow, they all survived the night. Next day, Helen had numb feet, a burning pain by her heart, great thirst, and anguish in her left eyelid. Mary had lost all sensation in her legs, from the knees downward. On the Tuesday, James lost the use of one arm and both feet. These three afflicted gradually recovered, but not William, who lingered for one week, until the following Lord’s Day. By then, he had lost all use of his arms and was nearly blind, his eyes blood-red. James, who shared his bed in that simple household, tearfully described his last moments: ‘He rose to look for a
drink, returned to his bed and lay down, stretched himself, and gave a terrible groan, then lay quiet. He was in a cold, deep sweat.’ James went to his sisters and told them that William was ‘gaen to wear awa’ out amo’ them’.
The Mitchells did, as it turned out, suspect that George had poisoned them, but they wanted to keep the scandal secret. They were quiet people and they did not want a fuss. Jeanie was married to the man. The day before William’s funeral, George and Jean arrived at Burnside without being asked, and were ill-received. James told them to go, as they had already done enough mischief in the house. Apparently, some neighbours, acutely suspicious, had said that they would not attend the funeral if Thom and Jean were allowed to stay.
As they were about to leave, unwillingly, Helen invited Jean to view the corpse. She did so, gladly, but George Thom refused, in the grip, no doubt, of the host of superstitions attendant on the encounter between dead victim and hypocritical murderer, and Jean chose that moment to tell him, ‘Nelly [Helen] says my brother was poisoned.’ That were possible, said George Thom, as poison might have got in the burn from the toads or the puddocks (frogs). Not so, was Helen’s trump-card: the pottage was made with milk, not water from the burn. Thom’s preposition was less fantastic than it now appears. Frogs are not poisonous, but there is some poison in toads, and in 1821 many beliefs from folk-lore still made the harmless creature an object of fear and rendered it liable to persecution, like the witch with which it was identified. In medieval times, bandits sometimes forced a toad into the mouth of a hapless traveller.
Let Frank Buckland, the great Victorian naturalist, describe the poison of toads: ‘Like the lizards, they have glands in their skin, which secrete a white highly-acid fluid, and just behind the head are seen two eminences like split beans: if these be pressed, this acid fluid will come out – only let the operator mind that it does not get into his eyes, for it generally comes out with a jet. There are also other glands dispersed throughout the skin. A dog will never take a toad in his mouth, and the reason is that this glandular secretion burns his tongue and lips...’
Anyway, was Thom’s parting-shot, he, too, had been taken very ill and had lain three days in bed, all swollen. Such a terrible crime was bound to come out, however, and on the night of August 31st, George and Jean Thom were both apprehended as they slept. Jean was discharged after she had made an exculpatory statement. In September, Thom was tried at the Circuit Court. Mr Barton, druggist in Aberdeen, notably stated that on about August 17th, a man who resembled the prisoner in the dock came to his shop to buy arsenic for rats, but as he did not know him, he actually refused to serve him – a refreshing change from all those other gung-ho suppliers of the past. The actual source of the poison was not traced. We may safely assume that Thom tipped the whole lot – perhaps one ounce – into the salt. It was not recorded that the salt was analysed, and the reason for that is that everyone, including the jury, believed that Thom had doctored the pottage, not the salt. It was not Gntil he confessed, after the verdict of Guilty by a majority, that it became known that the salt had been the true medium. After sentence of death had been passed upon him, he carelessly brushed his hat with a steady hand and remarked to members of the bar, ‘Gentlemen, I am as innocent as any of you sitting here.’
Once he learnt that there was to be no reprieve, his attitude changed, and he signed a document which entirely exonerated his wife. Gossip flowed around the district: a man named Thomas Gill had been found dead in the harbour at Aberdeen, in November, 1817, and an attempt was now made to link him to the murder. He denied it, and claimed that he had been ill in bed at the time. When his last Sunday on earth came round, they let his sons and a daughter visit him. As one of his sons was embracing him in an agony of grief, he slipped a note into his hand, begging him to sneak in some poison so that he could die before the hangman came. The son went home, shocked by the idea of suicide, and wrote him a letter of refusal. The authorities were told, and from then on the condemned man was always attended by two warders.
He was too weak to stand at the scaffold, a quavering, quivering figure in his shroud, before they hanged him on November 16th, 1821. A part of the 103rd Psalm was sung -’The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy ...’ The Aberdeenshire Militia escorted his body to the college for dissection by Drs Skene and Ewing. The corpse was subjected to a series of galvanic experiments which were written up in a scientific journal. Better the wry-necked body of a hanged man than a live animal. By 1821, research was moving on to the nervous system, but, by a curious irony, Luigi Galvani (1737-98) whose whole research was directed towards ascertaining the relation of animal muscle to electricity, had been experimenting on frogs.
CHAPTER 34
THE TRAM RIDE
The 11.45 tram from Buckhaven to East Wemyss swayed and rattled along the road near the coast. Two passengers on that cold, February morning were drawn together by fate, or fell design. The speculation matters, because the robbery and murder that were to come to pass, quite soon now, were either most cunningly premeditated, or were the acts of wild opportunism and impulse. The killer did not deny what he did, but would say only that, ‘I did not know what I was doing. My head was a blank.’
Was Alexander Edmonstone a stranger to his victim, Michael Brown, or, both living in the Fifeshire village of East Wemyss, were they acquainted? Evidence does not seem to have been led that they knew each other. Their backgrounds were different and there was a significant age gap. Michael Swinton Brown, 15 rising 16, was a very nice-looking boy with a future, the much prized son of a stonemason, improving himself as a fledgling in the world of commerce. He worked as an apprentice clerk for Messrs G&J Johnston, linen manufacturers, whose dark, satanic mills lay along the seashore at East Wemyss.
The firm banked inconveniently at the branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland which was situated a mile or so away at the neighbouring fishing village of Buckhaven. It was Michael Brown’s important duty every Friday to take the tram to the bank and return with the firm’s wages in cash, amounting this morning to £85, carried in a brown leather bag which, no doubt, proclaimed exactly what it was – a money bag. Alone, the unprotected pseudo-adult made the regular journey, with no variation. It must have been common knowledge, but East Wemyss was a quiet, respectable, tight-knit mining community, unacquainted with the worst type of crime.
Alexander Edmonstone’s family were incomers, having moved from Edinburgh to their home at the east end of the village in 1902. He was a young man of 23, a miner or carter, with a tendency to be unemployed. His real interest was motor cars, and he also liked nice clothes, but his problem in life was that he was chronically pecuniarily embarrassed. He had no criminal form whatsoever. Of late, he had not been feeling particularly well. The headaches were killing him.
The date of doom was Friday, February 19th, 1909. Edmonstone behaved unusually that morning. Rising early, he seemed excited, and announced that he was going to try to get a job on the steamers plying between Methil and Hamburg, and might not be back. He took with him a few belongings, which would seem to indicate that he had a bag of some kind with him, but none was ever mentioned, and left home at 10.30am. Methil Dock was about one mile up the coast from Buckhaven and theoretically he could have gone there first by tram and been quickly turned away by the shipping company, but by 11.30am he was undoubtedly in Buckhaven, standing at the corner opposite the Royal Bank of Scotland. Henry Kildair, a Buckhaven miner, knew Edmonstone, and, spotting him there, had a brief conversation with him. The theory was that he was loitering in order to catch Michael Brown as he left the bank, but since Buckhaven was a small place, he could have been doing what unemployed young men do naturally in the town centre.
Brown’s day, so far, had been uneventful. He had left his home in Parkhill Terrace, Station Road – where the trams ran past his door – and walked down School Wynd to the factory. Later, he caught the tram and was in Buckhaven at about 11.20am, leaving the bank with his heavy bag at 11.3
0am ... On the corner, Edmonstone suddenly stopped talking to Kildair, saying that he was going to catch the tram home. James Goldie recognized Brown and Edmonstone, walking along the tramlines together towards Muiredge stopping place. Peter Adamson saw Brown board the tramcar at 11.45am, ‘looking solemn’ and holding a brown leather bag tightly, followed by Edmonstone.
Alex Chalmers, the tram conductor, said that a boy sat next to a man in his early 20s. This is an ambiguous statement. Was there an element of choice? Who joined whom? Brown was a polite boy. The tram might not have been crowded, because when the aforesaid Adamson alighted at the Rosie pit in East Wemyss, only three passengers were left – Brown, Edmonstone, and a young girl. Sitting together, the presumption is that words were exchanged, and the subject of the brown leather bag might have been raised by either party.
The conductor said that the boy and the man got off the tram at Station Road at the top of School Wynd at exactly 11.54am. The boy left first, the man following close behind. Was Brown trying to shake him off? Was he becoming a nuisance, his conversation an embarrassment in some way? Or was Brown feeling suspicious, frightened, even? If he had been really apprehensive, he could have gone straight to his home in Station Road, instead of heading for the factory. Edmonstone was going in the right direction for his home, which would have been reassuring. Several others saw the pair going fast down the Wynd, one behind the other, Brown always in front. George Black actually exchanged greetings in the vernacular with Edmonstone. As they proceeded, it was afterwards postulated that the older man was hanging back in order not to be seen with the boy. It was a busy time of day and School Wynd was well used. The pair do not seem to have been talking to each other. The last sighting was by Mrs Alice Warrender, who watched them briefly from her kitchen window at her house in School Wynd at 12 o’clock. She knew Michael.
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