There is about the Greek Kostolo so much gaudy impudence and barefaced
roguery that, in spite of the fact that the main concern of these pages
is with women, I am constrained to add his portrait to the sketches I
have made in illustration. He is of the gallery in which are Jingle and
Montague Tigg, with this difference--that he is rather more sordid than
either.
Brought before the Procureur du Roi, he impudently confessed that he had
been, and still was, Mme Boursier's lover. He told the judge that in
the lifetime of her husband Mme Boursier had visited him in his rooms
several times, and that she had given him money unknown to her husband.
Mme Boursier at first denied the adulterous intimacy with Kostolo, but
the evidence in the hands of the Procureur was too much for her. She had
partially to confess the truth of Kostolo's statement in this regard.
She emphatically denied, however, that she had ever even thought of, let
alone agreed to, marriage with the Greek. She swore that she had been
intimate with Kostolo only once, and that, as far as giving him money
was concerned, she had advanced him but one small sum on his IOU.
These confessions, together with the information which had come to
him from other investigations, served to increase the feeling of
the Procureur that Boursier's death called for probing. He issued an
exhumation order, and on the 31st of July an autopsy on the body of
Boursier was carried out by MM. Orfila and Gardy, doctors and professors
of the Paris faculty of medicine. Their finding was that no trace
existed of any disorders to which the death of Boursier might be
attributed--such, for example, as cerebral congestion, rupture of the
heart or of a larger vessel--but that, on the other hand, they had come
upon a sufficiency of arsenic in the intestines to have caused death.
On the 2nd of August the same two professors, aided by a third, M.
Barruel, carried out a further examination of the body. Their testimony
is highly technical. It is also rather revolting. I am conscious
that, dealing, as I have had to, with so much arsenical poisoning
(the favourite weapon of the woman murderer), a gastric odour has been
unavoidable in many of my pages--perhaps too many. For that reason
I shall refrain from quoting either in the original French or in
translation more than a small part of the professors' report. I shall,
however, make a lay shot on the evidence it supplies. Boursier's
interior generally was in foul condition, which is not to be explained
by any ingestion of arsenic, but which suggests chronic and morbid
pituitousness. The marvel is that the man's digestion functioned at all.
This insanitary condition, however, was taken by the professors, as
it were, in their stride. They concentrated on some slight traces of
intestinal inflammation.
"One observed," their report went on, about the end of the ileum some
grains of a whitish appearance and rather stubbornly attached. These
grains, being removed, showed all the characteristics of white arsenic
oxide. Put upon glowing charcoal they volatilized, giving off white
smoke and a garlic odour. Treated with water, they dissolved, and the
solution, when brought into contact with liquid hydrosulphuric acid,
precipitated yellow sulphur of arsenic, particularly when one heated it
and added a few drops of hydrochloric acid.
These facts (including, I suppose, the conditions I have hinted
at) allowed them to conclude (a) that the stomach showed traces of
inflammation, and (b) that the intestinal canal yielded a quantity of
arsenic oxide sufficient to have produced that inflammation and to have
caused death.
The question now was forward as to where the arsenic found in the body
had come from. Inquiry established the fact that on the 15th of May,
1823--that is to say, several weeks before his death--Boursier had
bought half a pound of arsenic for the purpose of destroying the rats in
his shop cellars. In addition, he had bought prepared rat-poison. Only a
part of those substances had been used. The remaining portions could not
be found about the shop, nor could Mme Boursier make any suggestions for
helping the search. She declared she had never seen any arsenic about
the house at all.
There was, however, sufficient gravity in the evidences on hand to
justify a definite indictment of Mme Boursier and Nicolas Kostolo, the
first of having poisoned her husband, and the second of being accessory
to the deed.
The pair were brought to trial on the 27th of November, 1823, before the
Seine Assize Court, M. Hardouin presiding. The prosecution was conducted
by the Avocat-General, M. de Broe. Maitre Couture defended Mme Boursier.
Maitre Theo. Perrin appeared for Kostolo.
The case created great excitement, not only in Paris, but throughout the
country. Another poisoning case had not long before this occupied the
minds of the public very greatly--that of the hypocritical Castaing for
the murder of Auguste Ballet. Indeed, there had been a lot of poisoning
going on in French society about this period. Political and religious
controversy, moreover, was rife. The populace were in a mood either to
praise extravagantly or just as extravagantly to condemn. It happened
that rumour convinced them of the guilt of the Veuve Boursier and
Kostolo, and the couple were condemned in advance. Such was the popular
spite against Mme Boursier and Kostolo that, it is said, Maitre Couture
at first refused the brief for the widow's defence. He had already made
a success of his defence of a Mme Lavaillaut, accused of poisoning, and
was much in demand in cases where women sought judicial separation from
their husbands. People were calling him "Providence for women." He did
not want to be nicknamed "Providence for poisoners." But Mme Boursier's
case being more clearly presented to him he took up the brief.
The accused were brought into court.
Kostolo was about thirty years of age. He was tall, distinctly
good-looking in an exotic sort of way, with his dark hair, complexion,
and flashing eyes. He carried himself grandly, and was elegantly clad
in a frac noir. Not quite, as Army men were supposed once to say, "the
clean potato," it was easy enough to see that women of a kind would
be his ready victims. It was plain, in the court, that Master Nicolas
thought himself the hero of the occasion.
There was none of this flamboyance about the Widow Boursier. She was
dressed in complete mourning, and covered her face with a handkerchief.
It was manifest that, in the phrase of the crime reporters, "she felt
her position keenly." The usual questions as to her name and condition
she answered almost inaudibly, her voice choked with sobs.
Kostolo, on the contrary, replied in organ tones. He said that he was
born in Constantinople, and that he had no estate.
The acte d'accusation was read. It set forth the facts of the adulterous
association of the two accused, of the money lent by Mme Boursier
to Kostolo, of their meetings, and all the suspicious circumstances
previous to the death of the epicier.
The cook-girl, Josephine Blin, had prepared the potage au riz in the
kitchen, using the small iron pan that it was her wont to employ. Having
made the soup, she conveyed it in its terrine to a small secretaire in
the dining-room. This secretaire stood within the stretch of an arm from
the door of the comptoir in which Mme Boursier usually worked. According
to custom, Josephine had divided the potage in two portions--one for
Boursier and the other for the youngest child. The youngster and she had
eaten the second portion between them, and neither had experienced any
ill-effects.
Josephine told her master that the soup was ready. He came at her call,
but did not eat the soup at once, being otherwise occupied. The soup
stood on the secretaire for about fifteen minutes before Boursier
started to eat it.
According to the accused, the accusation went on, after Boursier's death
the two doctors asked that they might be allowed to perform an autopsy,
since they were at a loss to explain the sudden illness. This Mme
Boursier refused, in spite of the insistence of the doctors. She
refused, she said, in the interest of her children. She insisted,
indeed, on a quick burial, maintaining that, as her husband had been
tres replet, the body would rapidly putrefy, owing to the prevailing
heat, and that thus harm would be done to the delicate contents of the
epicerie.
Led by rumours of the bluish stains--almost certain indications of
a violent death--the authorities, said the accusation, ordered an
exhumation and autopsy. Arsenic was found in the body. It was clear that
Boursier, ignorant, as he was, of his wife's bad conduct, had not killed
himself. This was a point that the widow had vainly attempted, during
the process of instruction, to maintain. She declared that one Clap,
a friend of her late husband, had come to her one day to say that a
certain Charles, a manservant, had remarked to him, "Boursier poisoned
himself because he was tired of living." Called before the Juge
d'instruction, Henri Clap and Charles had concurred in denying this.
The accusation maintained that the whole attitude of Mme Boursier proved
her a poisoner. As soon as her husband became sick she had taken the
dish containing the remains of the rice soup, emptied it into a dirty
vessel, and passed water through the dish. Then she had ordered Blin to
clean it, which the latter did, scrubbing it out with sand and ashes.
Questioned about arsenic in the house, Mme Boursier said, to begin with,
that Boursier had never spoken to her about arsenic, but later admitted
that her husband had mentioned both arsenic and mort aux rats to her.
Asked regarding the people who frequented the house she had mentioned
all the friends of Boursier, but neglected to speak of Kostolo. Later
she had said she never had been intimate with the Greek. But Kostolo,
"barefaced enough for anything," had openly declared the nature of his
relations with her. Then Mme Boursier, after maintaining that she
had been no more than interested in Kostolo, finding pleasure in his
company, had been constrained to confess that she had misconducted
herself with the Greek in the dead man's room. She had given Kostolo the
run of her purse, the accusation declared, though she denied the fact,
insisting that what she had given him had been against his note. There
was only one conclusion, however. Mme Boursier, knowing the poverty of
her paramour, had paid him as her cicisbeo, squandering upon him her
children's patrimony.
The accusation then dealt with the supposed project of marriage, and
declared that in it there was sufficient motive for the crime. Kostolo
was Mme Boursier's accomplice beyond any doubt. He had acted as nurse to
the invalid, administering drinks and medicines to him. He had had full
opportunity for poisoning the grocer. Penniless, out of work, it would
be a good thing for him if Boursier was eliminated. He had been blatant
in his visits to Mme Boursier after the death of the husband.
Then followed the first questioning of the accused.
Mme Boursier said she had kept tryst with Kostolo in the Champs-Elysees.
She admitted having been to his lodgings once. On the mention of the
name of Mlle Riene, a mistress of Kostolo's, she said that the woman
was partly in their confidence. She had gone with Mlle Riene twice to
Kostolo's rooms. Once, she admitted, she had paid a visit to Versailles
with Kostolo unknown to her husband.
Asked if her husband had had any enemies, Mme Boursier said she knew of
none.
The questioning of Kostolo drew from him the admission that he had had
a number of mistresses all at one time. He made no bones about his
relations with them, nor about his relations with Mme Boursier. He was
quite blatant about it, and seemed to enjoy the show he was putting up.
Having airily answered a question in a way that left him without any
reputation, he would sweep the court with his eyes, preening himself
like a peacock.
He was asked about a journey Boursier had proposed making. At what time
had Boursier intended making the trip?
"Before his death," Kostolo replied.
The answer was unintentionally funny, but the Greek took credit for the
amusement it created in court. He conceived himself a humorist, and the
fact coloured all his subsequent answers.
Kostolo said that he had called to see Boursier on the first day of his
illness at three in the afternoon. He himself had insisted on helping to
nurse the invalid. Mme Boursier had brought water, and he had given it
to the sick man.
After Boursier's death he had remarked on the blueness of the
fingernails. It was a condition he had seen before in his own country,
on the body of a prince who had died of poison, and the symptoms of
whose illness had been very like those in Boursier's. He had then
suspected that Boursier had died of poisoning.
The loud murmurs that arose in court upon his blunt confession of having
misconducted himself with Mme Boursier fifteen days after her husband's
death seemed to evoke nothing but surprise in Kostolo. He was then asked
if he had proposed marriage to Mme Boursier after Boursier's death.
"What!" he exclaimed, with a grin. "Ask a woman with five children to
marry me--a woman I don't love?"
Upon this answer Kostolo was taken to task by the President of the
court. M. Hardouin pointed out that Kostolo lived with a woman who kept
and fed him, giving him money, but that at the same time he was taking
money from Mme Boursier as her lover, protesting the while that he loved
her. What could the Greek say in justification of such conduct?
"Excuse me, please, everybody," Kostolo replied, unabashed. "I don't
know quite how to express myself, but surely what I have done is quite
the common thing? I had no means of living but from what Mme Boursier
gave me."
The murmurs evoked by the reply Kostolo treated with lofty disdain. He
seemed to find his audience somewhat prudish.
To further questioning he answered that he had never proposed marriage
to the Veuve Boursier. Possibly something might have been said in fun.
He knew, of course, that the late Boursier had made a lot of money.
The cook, Josephine Blin, was called. At one time she had been suspect.
Her version of the potage incidents, though generally in agreement with
that of the accused widow, differed from it in two essential points.
When she took Boursier's soup into the dining-room, she said, Mme
Boursier was in the comptoir, three or four paces away from the desk on
which she put the terrine. This Mme Boursier denied. She said she had
been in the same comptoir as her husband. Josephine declared that Mme
Boursier had ordered her to clean the soup-dish out with sand, but her
mistress maintained she had bade the girl do no more than clean it.
For the rest, Josephine thought about fifteen minutes elapsed before
Boursier came to take the soup. During that time she had seen Mme
Boursier writing and making up accounts.
Toupie, the medical student, said he had nursed Boursier during the
previous year. Boursier was then suffering much in the same way as
he had appeared to suffer during his fatal illness. He had heard Mme
Boursier consulting with friends about an autopsy, and her refusal had
been on their advice.
The doctors called were far from agreeing on the value of the
experiments they had made. Orfila, afterwards to intervene in the much
more universally notorious case of Mme Lafarge, stuck to his opinion of
death by arsenic. If his evidence in the Lafarge case is read it will
be seen that in the twenty years that had passed from the Boursier trial
his notions regarding the proper routine of analysis for arsenic in a
supposedly poisoned body had undergone quite a change. But by then the
Marsh technique had been evolved. Here, however, he based his opinion on
experiments properly described as "very equivocal;" and stuck to it. He
was supported by a colleague named Lesieur.
M. Gardy said he had observed that the greater part of the grains about
the ileum, noted on the 1st of August, had disappeared next day. The
analysis had been made with quantities too small. He now doubted greatly
if the substance taken to be arsenic oxide would account for death.
M. Barruel declared that from the glareous matter removed from the body
only a grain of the supposed arsenic had been extracted, and that with
difficulty. He had put the substance on glowing charcoal, but, in his
opinion, the experiment was VERY EQUIVOCAL. It was at first believed
that there was a big amount of arsenic, but he felt impelled to say that
the substance noted was nothing other than small clusters of fat. The
witness now refused to conclude, as he had concluded on the 1st of
August, that enough poison had been in the body to cause death.
It would almost seem that the medical evidence should have been enough
to destroy the case for the prosecution, but other witnesses were
called.
Bailli, at one time a clerk to Boursier, said he had helped his patron
to distribute arsenic and rat-poison in the shop cellars. He was well
aware that the whole of the poison had not been used, but in the course
of his interrogation he had failed to remember where the residue of
the poisons had been put. He now recollected. The unused portion of the
arsenic had been put in a niche of a bottle-rack.
In view of evidence given by a subsequent witness Bailli's rather sudden
recovery of memory might have been thought odd if a friend of his
had not been able to corroborate his statement. The friend was one
Rousselot, another grocer. He testified that he and Bailli had searched
together. Bailli had then cudgelled that dull ass, his brain, to some
effect, for they had ultimately come upon the residue of the arsenic
bought by Boursier lying with the remainder of the mort aux rats. Both
the poisons had been placed at the bottom of a bottle-rack, and a plank
had been nailed over them.
Rousselot, asked why he had not mentioned this fact before, answered
stupidly, "I thought you knew it!"
The subsequent witness above referred to was an employee in the
Ministere du Roi, a man named Donzelle. In a stammering and rather
confused fashion he attempted to explain that the vacillations of the
witness Bailli had aroused his suspicions. He said that Bailli, who at
first had been vociferous in his condemnation of the Widow Boursier, had
later been rather more vociferous in her defence. The witness (Donzelle)
had it from a third party that Mme Boursier's sister-in-law had
corrupted other witnesses with gifts of money. Bailli, for example,
could have been seen carrying bags of ecus under his arm, coming out of
the house of the advocate briefed to defend Mme Boursier.
Bailli, recalled, offered to prove that if he had been to Maitre
Couture's house he had come out of it in the same fashion as he had gone
in--that was, with a bag of bay salt under each arm.
Maitre Couture, highly indignant, rose to protest against the
insinuation of the witness Donzelle, but the President of the court
and the Avocat-General hastened to say that the eminent and honourable
advocate was at no need to justify himself. The President sternly
reprimanded Donzelle and sent him back to his seat.