Great Unsolved Crimes

by Rodney Castleden

  Stop, mortal, as you pass by,

  And view the grave wherein doth lie

  A Father, Mother and a Son,

  Whose earthly course was shortly run.

  For lo, all in one fatal hour,

  O’er came were they with ruthless power;

  And murdered in a cruel state -

  Yea, far too horrid to relate!

  Not Proven: The Death of Emile L’Angelier

  Poison has always been the preferred weapon of the murderess; poison has been the death of choice. This may be because it does not require physical strength, but perhaps for a purely psychological reason, that it does not involve contact or physical confrontation. Poison is indirect. Poison was also a more intelligent way of killing people; in the days before forensic science, poison was often difficult to detect. Murder by poison was therefore also difficult to detect.

  The two greatest Victorian poison cases are those of Madeleine Smith and Florence Maybrick. Both cases are complex, both, in spite of a hundred years of scrutiny, remain unsolved. What may look like a straightforward murder on closer inspection turns out to be an accident or a suicide. At the time of their trials, Madeleine Smith and Florence Maybrick were both branded murderesses, and they were both demonized, but did they commit murder?

  Madeleine Smith was tried in Glasgow in July 1857. Her trial failed to establish whether she had committed murder or had been framed by her insane and suicidal lover. She was put on trial for the murder of her ex-lover Emile L’Angelier, who died as a result of arsenic poisoning.

  Madeleine was the elder daughter of one James Smith, a successful Glaswegian architect. He was able to afford to maintain a comfortable household with six servants, but like the head of many a Victorian paterfamilias he ruled it with a rod of iron. For much of the time there was nothing for Madeleine to do. Along with many other Victorian girls she was expected to occupy herself with lady-like pursuits such as painting and piano-playing.

  Madeleine was bored stiff and ready for a romantic adventure. The adventure came in the unlikely shape of a packing clerk called Emile L’Angelier. She first saw Emile in the street, when their eyes met by chance. He later found an opportunity to send her a flowery message of love. She rather foolishly replied that she had worn it next to her heart. It would have been better if she hadn’t.

  A correspondence started that would prove very damaging to her at her trial. Conversations written down can be read out in court, as she was to discover to her great embarrassment. After the initial flush of novelty, she knew it was silly and she tried to break off the relationship, but Emile was by then obsessed. He wrote her a letter that appears to be reasoned and reasonable, but contained an alarming threat. Madeleine destroyed this and the other letters Emile wrote to her, and probably thought this meant there was no trail of incriminating evidence. In fact the obsessive Emile kept drafts of each letter, so we know exactly what he wrote to her.

  Glasgow, 10 Bothwell Street. 18 July 1855

  In the first place, I did not deserve to be treated as you have done. How you astonish me by writing such a note without condescending to explain the reasons why your father refuses his consent. He must have reasons, and I am not allowed to clear myself of accusations.

  I should have written you before, but I preferred awaiting until I got over the surprise your last letter caused me, and also to be able to write you in a calm and a collected manner, free, from any animosity whatever.

  Never, dear Madeleine, could I have believed you were capable of such conduct. I thought and believed you unfit for such a step. I believed you true to your word and to your honour. I will put questions to you which answer to yourself. What would you think if even one of your servants had played with anyone’s affections as you have done, or what would you say to hear that any lady friends had done what you have – or what am I to (think) of you now? What is your opinion of your own self after those solemn vows you uttered and wrote to me. Show my letters to any one, Madeleine, I don't care who, and if any find that I mislead you I will free you from all blame. I warned you repeatedly not to be rash in your engagement and vows to me, but you persisted in that false and deceitful flirtation, playing with affections which you know to be pure and undivided, and knowing at the same time that at a word from your father you would break all your engagement.

  You have deceived your father as you have deceived me. You never told him how solemnly you bound yourself to me, or if you had, for the honour of his daughter he could not have asked to break of an engagement as ours. Madeleine, you have truly acted wrong. May this be a lesson to you never to trifle with any again. I wish you every happiness. I shall be truly happy to hear that you are happy with another. You desire and now you are at liberty to recognize me or cut me just as you wish – but I give you my word of honour I shall act always as a Gentleman, towards you. We may meet yet, as my intentions of going to Lima are now at an end. I would have gone for your sake. Yes, I would have sacrificed all to have you with me, and to leave Glasgow and your friends you detested so very much. Think what your father would say if I sent him your letters for a perusal. Do you think he could sanction your breaking your promises. No, Madeleine, I leave your conscience to speak for itself. I flatter myself he can only accuse me of a want of fortune. But he must remember he too had to begin the world with dark clouds round him.

  I cannot put it into my mind that yet you are at the bottom of all this.

  It is easy to imagine Madeleine’s emotional response to this, especially the thinly veiled threat near the end. ‘Think what your father would say if I sent him your letters for a perusal.’ Given the stern character of Mr Smith, this must have frightened Madeleine. She was already virtually imprisoned in the family home, and her father would certainly be shocked if he was given her letters to read. They were full of barely suppressed sexuality, and this at a time when women in her class were supposed to put up with sex, not enjoy it. When L’Angelier lay dead and his lodgings were searched, more than five hundred steamy letters from Madeleine were found.

  It was obvious from the letters that they had had sex. Emile explicitly addressed her as his wife. ‘If we did wrong last night, it must have been in the excitement of our love. I suppose we should have waited until we were married.’

  My dearest and beloved Wife Mimi,

  Since I saw you I have been wretchedly sad. Would to God we had not met that night – I would have been happier. I am sad at what we did, I regret it very much. Why, Mimi, did you give way after your promises? My pet, it is a pity. Think of the consequences if I were never to marry you. What reproaches I should have, Mimi. I never shall be happy again. If ever I meet you again, love, it must be as at first. I will never again repeat what I did until we are regularly married. Try your friends once more – tell your determination – say nothing will change you, that you have thought seriously of it – and on that I shall firmly fix speaking to Huggins for Sepr. Unless you do something of that sort, Heaven only knows when I shall marry you. Unless you do, dearest, I shall have to leave the country; truly, dearest, I am in such a state of mind I do not care if I were dead. We did wrong. God forgive us for it. Mimi, we have loved blindly. It is your parents’ fault if shame is the result; they are to blame for it all.

  I got home quite safe after leaving you, but I think it did my cold no good. I was fearfully excited the whole night. I was truly happy with you, my pet; too much so, for I am now too sad. I wish from the bottom of my heart we had never parted. Though we have sinned, ask earnestly God's forgiveness and blessings that all the obstacles in our way may be removed from us. I was disappointed, my love, at the little you had to say, but I can understand why. You are not stupid, Mimi, and if you disappoint me in information, and I have cause to reproach you of it, you will have no one to blame but yourself, as I have given you warning long enough to improve yourself. Sometimes I do think you take no notice of my wishes and my desires, but say yes for mere matter of form.

  Mimi, unless Huggins help
s me I cannot see how I shall be able to marry you for years. What misery to have such a future in one’s mind. Do speak to your brother, open your heart to him, and try and win his friendship. Tell him if he loves you to take your part. And besides, my dear, if once you can trust, how pleasant it would be for you and me to meet. I could come over to Helensburgh when you would be riding or driving, or of a Sunday: I could join you in a walk of a Sunday afternoon. Mimi, dearest, you must take a bold step to be my wife. I entreat you, pet, by the love you have for me, Mimi, do speak to your mother – tell her it is the last time you ever shall speak of me to her. You are right, Mimi, you cannot be the wife of any one else than me. I shall ever blame myself for what has taken place. I never never can be happy until you are my own, my dear fond wife. Oh! Mimi, be bold for once, do not fear them – tell them you are my wife before God. Do not let them leave you without being married, for I cannot answer what would happen. My conscience reproaches me of a sin that marriage can only efface.

  I can assure you it will be many days before I meet such nice people as the Seaverights, especially the daughter. I longed so much to have introduced you to her, to see the perfect Lady in her, and such an accomplished young person. My evenings, as you say, are very long and dreary. We must not be separated all next winter, for I know, Mimi, you will be as giddy as last. You will be going to public balls, and that I cannot endure. On my honour, dearest, sooner than see you or hear of you running about as you did last, I would leave Glasgow myself. Though I have truly forgiven you, I do not forget the misery I endured for your sake. You know yourself how ill it made me if not, Mary can tell you, my pet.

  When they moved out to their country house at Row in the summer of 1856, Madeleine asked for a ground floor room. Then she could just step out of the window to meet Emile. They met again and again at night without Madeleine’s parents knowing. But then a middle class suitor appeared on the scene, William Minnoch. He was a businessman in his thirties, and began ‘calling on’ Madeleine. She received these calls without finding Minnoch attractive, she told Emile. But Emile was not making things easy for Madeleine. They had sex repeatedly, which Emile wanted, but he also wanted her to feel guilty about it. He liked to chastise her afterwards, accuse her of being weak for giving in to him. It is not surprising that Madeleine tired of these games and decided to end them.

  My dear wife, I could not take you to Lima. No European women could live there. Besides, I would live three or four thousand miles from it, far from any white people, and no Drs. if you were ill or getting a baby. No if we marry I must stay in Glasgow until I get enough to live elsewhere. Besides, it would cost £300 alone for our bare passage money.

  I do not understand, my pet, your not bleeding, for every woman having her virginity must bleed. You must have done so some other time. Try to remember if you never hurt yourself in washing, &c. I am sorry you felt pain. I hope, pet, you are better. I trust, dearest, you will not be [pregnant?]. Be sure and tell me immediately you are ill next time, and if at your regular period. I was not angry at your allowing me, Mimi, but I am sad it happened. You had no resolution. We should indeed have waited till we were married, Mimi. It was very bad indeed. I shall look with regret on that night. No, nothing except our Marriage will efface it from my memory. Mimi, only fancy if it was known. My dear, my pet, you would be dishonoured, and that by me! Oh! why was I born, my pet? I dread lest some great obstacle prevents our marriage. If Mary did know it, what should you be in her eyes?

  My Sisters’ names are Anastasie and Elmire. I cannot help doubting your word about flirting. You promised me the same thing before you left for Edin., and you did nothing else during your stay there. You cared more for your friends than for me. I do trust you will give me no cause to find fault again with you on that score, but I doubt very much the sincerity of your promise. Mimi, the least thing I hear of you doing, that day shall be the last of our tie, that I swear. You are my wife, and I have the right to expect from you the behaviour of a married woman or else you have no honour in you; and more, you have no right to go any where but where a women could go with her husband. Oh! Mimi, let your conduct make me happy. Remember when you are good how truly happy it makes Emile – but remember this, and if you love me you will do nothing wrong. Dearest, your letter to Mary was very pretty and good. I thought a great deal of it, and I like its seriousness. Fancy how happy I was when Mary told me the other day how Mimi was improving fast; she could tell it by her letters.

  For Gods sake burn this, Mimi, for fear any thing happening to you, do dearest.

  ‘I am sad it happened. You had no resolution.’ Emile wanted to have sex with Madeleine but he also wanted her to be the model of Victorian purity. Madeleine must have sensed that there was no coherence, no future in her relationship with Emile. ‘Only fancy if it was known.’ There it was again: the veiled threat that Emile would tell people they had had sex.

  At the end of that summer the Smiths returned to India Street in Glasgow. Secret meetings were more difficult there because Madeleine’s bedroom was in the basement, with the window at pavement level covered by bars. There was no longer any possibility of slipping out to have sex with Emile. He came each night for a whispered conversation through the barred window, but it was scarcely enough. Emile went into a depression. Worse still, Madeleine’s letters began to talk of their love as if it was over. She was seen in public with Minnoch and her letters to Emile were getting shorter. On 28 January she seems to have decided to marry Minnoch. This was a decisive moment. She had to end the affair with Emile. She wrote him a letter that was cold in tone. ‘We had better for the future consider ourselves as strangers. I trust to your honour as a gentleman that you will not reveal anything that has passed between us.’ And she asked him to return the deadly letters.

  Emile became hysterical. He would not give her up. He would show her father the letters. If he couldn’t have her, no other man would either.

  My dear, sweet pet Mimi,

  I feel indeed very vexed that the answer I recd. yesterday to mine of Tuesday to you should prevent me from sending you the kind letter I had ready for you. You must not blame me, dear, for this, but really your cold, indifferent, and reserved notes, so short, without a particle of love in them (especially after pledging your word you were to write me kindly for those letters you asked me to destroy), and the manner you evaded answering the questions I put to you in my last, with the reports I hear, fully convince me, Mimi, that there is foundation in your marriage with another; besides, the way you put off our union till September without a just reason is very suspicious.

  Madeleine in her turn became frantic when she realized that Emile was not going to return the letters. ‘Hate me, despise me – but do not expose me.’ In fact, Emile’s hoard of letters is Madeleine’s best defence. All the while Emile was alive, there was the hope that she would be able to get the letters back. Those who believe that Madeleine was innocent, and that Emile committed suicide, argue that she would have known that his death would result in police investigators finding the letters; her affair with Emile would be exposed. It is a strong argument, but by this stage, Madeleine was probably much more frightened by Emile’s instability and his repeated threats to expose her – and saw his death as the best solution.

  She agreed on 28 January to marry William Minnoch. She wrote to Emile, but he just returned her letter. This gave Madeleine the excuse she needed to end the affair. She wrote to Emile on 2 February, ‘I felt truly astonished to have my last letter returned to me. But it will be the last you shall have the opportunity of returning. When you are not pleased with the letters I send you, then our correspondence shall be at an end, and, as there is a coolness on both sides, our engagement had better be broken . . . Bring my letters and likeness on Thursday eve., at seven.’ The note shows a chillingly brutal side to Madeleine. Emile received Madeleine’s letter on 3 February, but did not reply at once. Weeping, he told his friend Thomas Kennedy he would ‘never allow her to marry another man as lo
ng as he lived.’ Six more days passed, and Madeleine was getting irritated by Emile’s failure to respond. She wrote a curt and sarcastic note on 9 February; ‘I attribute it to your having a cold that I had no answer to my last note. On Thursday evening you were, I suppose afraid of the night air. I again appoint Thursday night first – same place – street gate, seven o’clock.’ There was a crossing of notes. After she posted hers, a letter arrived from Emile threatening to show her letters to her father. She wrote again, this time pleading with him not to carry out his threat and telling him that if he did she would be disowned by her family.

  Emile kept the appointment Madeleine had asked for, on 11 February 1857. Madeleine was playing a game with L’Angelier, playing for time, keeping his hopes alive so that he would not show her father the letters. She seems to have agreed to marry him in the autumn, which she cannot have intended to do.

  A dangerous cat and mouse game was played out during the next month, leading up to Emile L’Angelier’s death. But there is still uncertainty, a century and a half later, about who was the cat and who the mouse. Some commentators on the case believe that by this stage Emile had decided to commit suicide and use his suicide to frame Madeleine. There is a strong case for believing that Emile was fully aware of the symptoms of arsenic, knew he was being poisoned during those few weeks, and wanted to make sure that other people knew that he was being poisoned by Madeleine. He wanted to die, because he couldn’t have Madeleine, and he didn’t want William Minnoch to have her either. He would die of poison, and she would hang. In support of this scenario, there is Emile’s diary. Just for these last few weeks, Emile kept a diary in which he recorded his mysterious illness.