THE PIMLICO MYSTERY

Chloroform belongs to the class of neurotic poisons which act on the brain, and produce loss of sensation. It is a colourless, heavy, and volatile liquid, having a peculiar ethereal odour which cannot be easily mistaken, and a sweet pungent taste when diluted. For producing insensibility it requires very careful and experienced administration, and more lives have been lost by carelessness in using, than from the noxious character of the drug.

Many stories are related of the peculiar hallucinations and remarks made by patients while under, or partially under the influence of chloroform. The following has the merit of being true:—

"Doctor (who has just administered chloroform to a lady): 'Nurse, some 1 in 1,000, if you please.'

"Patient (under the anÆsthetic): 'Ah! that's my Jack. He's one in a thousand. Dear Jack!'"

The stories that crop up from time to time, of persons who have been rendered unconscious by simply waving a chloroformed handkerchief before the face, usually emanate from the fertile brain of some imaginative journalist. As an internal poison chloroform has rarely been used, although there are many cases on record where persons have accustomed themselves to drinking chloroform, until they have been able to swallow it in very large quantities. The one recorded instance in which it was alleged to have been used for the criminal destruction of life was in the remarkable case known as the "Pimlico Mystery."

The trial of Adelaide Bartlett for the wilful murder of her husband by administering chloroform to him, was held before Mr. Justice Wills at the Central Criminal Court on April 12, 1886, and lasted for six days. The case attracted considerable attention and interest throughout, which culminated in a dramatic scene at the close, and the acquittal of the accused woman. The strange relations which existed between Mrs. Bartlett and her husband, with whose murder she was charged, the yet more strange relations between her and the man who in the first instance was included in the accusation, together with the exceptional circumstances of his acquittal, and his immediate appearance in the witness box formed a case of peculiar dramatic interest. Thomas Edwin Bartlett was a grocer, having several shops in the suburbs of London, and at the time of his death was forty years of age. In 1875 he married a Frenchwoman, Adelaide Blanche de la Tremoille, who was a native of Orleans, and whom he met at the house of his brother, she being at that time about twenty years of age. After the marriage she went to a boarding-school at Stoke Newington, and lived with her husband only during the vacation. At a later period she went to a convent school in Belgium, where she remained for some eighteen months, after which she rejoined her husband, and settled down to live in London. During Christmas of 1881 she gave birth to a stillborn child, which so affected her that she came to the resolution that she would have no more children. Some four years later Bartlett and his wife made the acquaintance of George Dyson, a young Wesleyan minister, who soon became on terms of great social intimacy with them, visiting and dining with them frequently. The admiration for their friend seems to have been common to both husband and wife. In 1885 Edwin Bartlett made a will, leaving all he possessed to his wife, and making Mr. Dyson and his solicitors his executors. Shortly afterwards the couple removed to furnished apartments in Claverton Street, Pimlico, where they apparently lived on good terms, and were still frequently visited by their friend Mr. Dyson.

On December 10, in the same year, Mr. Bartlett became seriously ill. Peculiar symptoms developed, which excited the curiosity and surprise of the medical man called in to attend him. The state of his gums suggested to the doctor that the illness was due to mercury, which in some way was being taken or administered to him, and he complained of nervous depression and sleeplessness. He appeared to be gradually recovering from this, but on December 19, Mr. Bartlett himself suggested that a second doctor should be called in, lest, as he put it, "his friends should suspect, if anything happened to him, that his wife was poisoning him." The cause for this was put down to some ill-feeling which had formerly existed between Mrs. Bartlett and her husband's father. A second practitioner, therefore, was called in, and the patient, on December 26, was practically well and went out for a drive though still weak.

The next day Mrs. Bartlett asked Mr. Dyson, who was constantly calling at the house, to procure for her a considerable quantity of chloroform, which she told him she had used before with good effect on her husband for some internal ailment of long standing, and that this internal affliction had upon previous occasions given him paroxysms. She further expressed apparently some belief that he might die suddenly in one of these attacks. Dyson seems meekly to have yielded to her request, and obtained three different lots of chloroform, in all six ounces, from various chemists, giving the reason, that he required it for taking out grease spots, and placed it all together in one bottle. Two days after he met Mrs. Bartlett on the Embankment and handed her the chloroform. During his illness, Mr. Bartlett had slept on a camp bedstead in the front drawing-room, his wife occupying a sofa in the same room. On December 31 he was apparently quite well again, and about half-past ten o'clock in the evening, Mrs. Bartlett told the servant she required nothing else and retired with her husband for the night. At four o'clock in the morning the house was aroused by Mrs. Bartlett, and it was discovered her husband was dead in bed.

The statement made by the lady was, that when her husband had settled for the night she sat down at the foot of the bed; that her hand was resting upon his feet; that she dozed off in her chair; she awoke with a sensation of cramp, and was horrified to find her husband's feet were deathly cold. She tried to pour some brandy down his throat, and she found he was dead. She then aroused the household. The first person who entered the room was the landlord, who noticed a peculiar smell that reminded him of chloric ether. The doctor was promptly sent for, but from external examination could find nothing to account for death. The only bottle found was one that contained a drop or two of chlorodyne. A post-mortem examination was held, and the stomach showed evidence of having contained a considerable quantity of chloroform. There was no internal disease or growth, the organs being quite healthy, and nothing to account for death beyond the chloroform, which the medical men concluded must have been the cause of death.

The coroner's inquiry resulted in a verdict of wilful murder against Adelaide Bartlett and George Dyson, and they were both arrested. At the trial, the Crown decided to offer no evidence against Dyson, and, after being indicted and pleading "Not guilty," he was discharged by the judge to be called as a witness.

A brilliant array of counsel were engaged on the case, the late Lord Chief Justice, then Sir Charles Russell, having charge of the prosecution, while the defence of Mrs. Bartlett was entrusted to Sir Edward Clark, and that of Mr. Dyson to Mr. Lockwood.

Dyson's examination occupied nearly the whole of the second day, during which he detailed the form of the intimacy between Mrs. Bartlett and himself; how he procured the chloroform and disposed of the bottles after hearing the result of the post-mortem, by throwing them away on Wandsworth Common while on his way to preach at Tooting. He was in the habit of kissing Mrs. Bartlett, and usually called her Adelaide. He had had conversations with Mr. Bartlett on the subject of marriage, and had heard him express the opinion that a man should have two wives, one to look after the household duties, and another to be a companion and confidante. He had told Mr. Bartlett he was becoming attached to his wife, but the latter seemed to encourage it, and asked him to continue the intimacy. He did not mention the matter of having procured the chloroform for Mrs. Bartlett until he had heard the result of the post-mortem.

The medical man called in to attend Mr. Bartlett during his illness, described the condition in which he found him, and his recovery from the illness. He also gave an account of a very extraordinary statement, which was made to him by Mrs. Bartlett after the death of her husband. It was as follows. At the age of sixteen years she was selected by Mr. Bartlett as a wife for companionship only, and for whom no carnal feeling should be entertained. The marriage compact was, that they should live together simply as loving friends. This rule was faithfully observed for about six years of their married life, and then only broken at her earnest and repeated entreaty that she should be permitted to be really a wife and a mother. The child was still-born, and from that time the two lived together, but their relations were not those of matrimony. Her husband showed great affection for her of an ultra-platonic kind, and encouraged her to pursue studies of various kinds, which she did to please him. He affected to admire her, and liked to surround her with male acquaintances, and enjoy their attentions to her. Then they became acquainted with Dyson. Her husband conceived a great liking for him, and threw them together. He requested them to kiss in his presence and seemed to enjoy it, and gave her to understand that he had "given her" to Mr. Dyson. As her husband gradually recovered from his illness he expressed a wish that they should resume the ordinary relations of man and wife, but she resented it. She therefore sought for some means to prevent his desire, and for this purpose she asked Dyson to procure the chloroform.

On the night of the death, some conversation of this kind had taken place between them, and when he was in bed she brought the bottle of chloroform and gave it to him, informing him of her intention to sprinkle some upon a handkerchief and wave it in his face, thinking that thereby he would go peacefully to sleep. He looked at the bottle and placed it by the side of the low bed, then turning over on his side apparently went to sleep. She fell asleep also, sitting at the foot of the bed, with her arm round his foot; she heard him snoring, then woke again, and found he was dead.

Dr. Stevenson, who made the analysis, gave evidence as to finding eleven and a quarter grains of pure chloroform in the stomach of the deceased, but, judging from the time that had elapsed and the very volatile nature of the liquid, a large quantity must have been swallowed. No other poisons were found. The jury, after deliberating nearly two hours, returned a verdict of "Not guilty," thus making another addition to the list of unsolved poisoning mysteries.