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.