Murder of the Black Museum 1875-1975: The Dark Secrets Behind a Hundred Years of the Most Notorious Crimes in England

by Honeycombe, Gordon

  Bywaters’s two surviving letters to Edith, written just before the murder, could have been composed by her. The style is very much the same: rambling, effusive, loosely constructed and punctuated, with the occasional French or coded phrase. He signs himself ‘Freddy’. He calls her ‘Peidi Mia – Ma Chere – Darlint little girl – The darlingest little sweetheart girl in the whole world … and big pal.’

  Always signing herself ‘Peidi’, she invariably calls him ‘Darlingest boy’, and ubiquitously ‘darlint’. She describes their relationship as ‘the Palship of two halves’. ‘We’re not ordinary human beings,’ she wrote. ‘We’re apart – different – we’ve never known pleasure … until we knew each other.’

  No letters survive from his first voyage on the Morea. Later, she wrote of their reunion on 31 October 1921: ‘I’ll never forget it, I felt – oh I dont know how, just that I didnt really know what I was doing, it seemed so grand to see you again, so grand to just feel you hold my shoulders, while you kissed me, so grand to hear you say just 3 ordinary commonplace words “How are you?” Yes I did feel happy then.’

  They saw each other nearly every day. Then, soon after Freddy’s return, he visited Kensington Gardens on the afternoon of Saturday 5 November, specifically to see Percy Thompson – ‘We shook hands when we met’ – and asked the other man to agree to a separation from his wife. According to Freddy Bywaters, there was a reason for this confrontation. He said later:

  I had taken Mrs Thompson out previously. Apparently he [Mr Thompson] had been waiting at the station for her and he had seen the two of us together. He made a statement to Mrs Thompson – ‘He is not a man or else he would ask my permission to take you out’ – and she reported that statement to me the following day. In consequence of that I went and saw Mr Thompson … I said: ‘Why don’t you come to an amicable agreement? Either have a separation or you can get a divorce.’ And he hummed and hawed about it. He … said: ‘Yes – No – I don’t see it concerns you.’ I said: ‘You are making Edie’s life a hell. You know she isn’t happy with you.’ He replied: ‘Well, I’ve got her, and I will keep her.’

  On 11 November 1921, Freddy sailed for India on the Morea, bound for Bombay via Marseilles, Port Said and Aden. From dreary Ilford, about a week after Freddy left her, Edith Thompson wrote:

  At night in bed the subject – or the object the usual one came up and I resisted, because I didnt want him to touch me for a month from Nov. 3rd … He asked me why I wasnt happy now – what caused the unhappiness and I said I didnt feel unhappy – just indifferent, and he said I used to feel happy once. Well, I suppose I did … but that was before I knew what real happiness could be like, before I loved you darlint. Of course I did not tell him that but I did tell him I didnt love him and he seemed astounded. He wants me to forgive and forget anything he has said or done … I told him I didnt love him but that I would do my share to try and make him happy … I was feeling awful.

  In her next letter, undated but written on the 21st or 28th of November, she wrote:

  I gave way this week (to him I mean) its the first time since you have been gone. Why do I tell you this? … We had – was it a row – anyway a very heated argument again last night (Sunday). It started through the usual source, I resisted – and he wanted to know why since you went in August I was different – ‘Had I transferred my affections from him to you.’ Darlint its a great temptation to say ‘Yes’ but I did not. He said we were cunning, the pair of us … He said ‘Has he written to you since he has been away,’ and when I said ‘No’ he said ‘That’s another lie.’

  There was more of the same on 6 December.

  I am feeling very blue today darlint, you havn’t talked to me for a fortnight … I fear that we, you & I, will never reap our reward, in fact, I just feel today darlint, that our love will be in vain. He talked to me again last night a lot, darlint … He said he began to think that both of us would be happier if we had a baby, I said ‘No, a thousand times No’ & he began … to plead with me, oh darlint, its all so hard to bear … He hasn’t worried me any more, except that once I told you about … You know I always sleep to the wall, darlint, well I still do but he puts his arm round me & oh its horrid …What do you think, he is going to learn dancing – to take me out to some nice ones, wont it be fun … About myself darlint, its still the same & I’ve not done anything yet – I dont think I shall until next month …

  Her birthday was on Christmas Day – she was twenty-eight. On 3 January 1922 she wrote again to Freddy:

  Darlint, I’ve surrendered to him unconditionally now – do you understand me? I think it the best way to disarm any suspicion, in fact he has several times asked me if I am happy now and I’ve said ‘Yes, quite …’ Darlint, you are a bad bad correspondent really darlint I absolutely refuse to talk to you at all next trip, if you dont mend your ways. Darlint, are you frightened at this – just laugh at me.

  The Morea returned to England on 6 January 1923 and Edith saw Freddy the following day. His shore-leave was short, for the Morea sailed again on 20 January, bound again for Bombay.

  The prosecution was to imply later that the previous letter contained an expression of intent to remove Percy Thompson by poison or some other means. But what it was she had to do becomes clear in a letter written on 24 January, just after he went to sea again:

  About 10.30 or 11 am I felt awfully ill – I had terrible pains come all over me – the sort of pains that I usually have – but have not had just lately – do you understand

  She fainted in her office three times and at 3.30 pm was taken home in a car with a hot-water bottle in her lap. She went straight to bed.

  About 7 something awful happened, darlint I don’t know for certain what it was, but I can guess, can you, write & tell me.

  This letter was not one of the exhibits read out in court, as the revelation that she had had a miscarriage or abortion would in those days have damaged her defence and damned her in the eyes of the jury. The prosecution and the defence probably made some deal about which letters were to be put in evidence. But the suppression of the foregoing piece of information, which helped the defence, also assisted the prosecution, allowing them to add a murderous intent (as in the letter of 3 January) to anything ambiguous Mrs Thompson wrote. These ambiguities were undoubtedly also assisted by Edith Thompson herself.

  10 February 1922 – You must do something this time … opportunities come and go by – they have to – because I’m helpless and I think and think and think … It would be so easy darlint – if I had things – I do hope I shall … Have enclosed cuttings of Dr Wallis’s case. It might prove interesting.

  The cuttings, from the Daily Sketch of 9 February, referred to a story headlined ‘Mystery of curate’s death’. Dr Wallis had been poisoned by hyoscine – and his wife seemed to be involved. The same letter contained a cutting featuring the lines: Poisoned chocolates for university chief. Deadly powder posted to Oxford Chancellor. Ground glass in box. Clearly Edith wished Freddy to provide her with some poison and tell her what to do. On 22 February, she wrote:

  I do hate this life I lead – hate the lies hate everything and I tell so many that it hurts … if only I could make an absolutely clean – fresh start … Darlingest boy, this thing that I am going to do for both of us, will it ever make any difference between us, darlint; do you understand what I mean. Will you ever think any the less of me … because of this thing that I shall do. Darlint – if I thought you would I’d not do it …

  A letter dated 14 March 1922 continued this theme:

  Will you do all the thinking and planning for me darlint – for this thing – be ready with every little detail when I see you – because you know more about this thing than I, and I am relying on you for all plans and instructions – only just the act I’m not. What about Wallis’s case? You said it was interesting but you didn’t discuss it with me.

  In this letter, a very long one, she also said she had been looking for an unfurnished flat.

 
; Freddy Bywaters returned to England on 16 March. In court, he admitted to having given Edith some quinine – to humour her ideas of suicide, he said, knowing it wouldn’t kill her or anyone else. His interpretation of the letters in court (as well as hers) was that she was referring in the ambiguous sentences to suicide or to her freedom, which was to be gained by divorce, separation, or by running away – not by murder.

  She saw him just before he sailed away again on 31 March, when she gave him a watch as a present. The day before she had written:

  After tonight I am going to die … not really … but put on the mask again until the 26th May … This time really will be the last you will go away … like things are, won’t it? We said it before darlint I know and we failed … But there will be no failure this next time darlint, there mustn’t be … if things are the same again then I’m going with you.

  In her next lengthy letter, dated 1 April, she mentions hearing of an unfurnished three-room flat in Kensington for thirty-five shillings a week – ‘Darlint it is just the thing we wanted.’ She reverts to their farewell a few days earlier and then to more sinister matters:

  Darlint you’re not and never will be satisfied with half and I don’t ever want to give you half … You said to me ‘Say no Peidi, say No’ on Thursday didn’t you – but at that very moment you didn’t wish me to say ‘No’ did you? … I knew this – felt this – and wouldn’t say ‘No’ for that very reason. Don’t keep this piece. About the Marconigram – do you mean one saying Yes or No, because I shant send it darlint I’m not going to try any more until you come back … He puts great stress on the fact of the tea tasting bitter, ‘as if something had been put in it’ he says. Now I think whatever else I try it in again will still taste bitter – he will recognise it and be more suspicious still … I wish we had not got electric light – it would be easy. I’m going to try the glass again occasionally – when it is safe. Ive got an electric light globe this time.’

  Three days later she wrote:

  He knows or guesses something … As I was getting into bed a car drew up outside & he came in looking, well you know how with that injured air of mystery on his face attempted to kiss me and then moved away with the expression ‘Phew – drink.’… If he has any sense he could easily put 2 & 2 together. Your last night last time & your last night this time – I went to a theatre on both occasions … I’m afraid I let go & said several things in haste … I was told I was the vilest tempered girl living.

  After the Easter holiday, during which she amused herself by going to a tea dance at the Waldorf and by attending a Sunday League Concert at the Ilford Hippodrome, Edith wrote on 24 April: ‘I used the “light bulb” three times but the third time – he found a piece – so I’ve given up – until you come home. I had a doctor’s bill in yesterday … You want me to pay it, don’t you darlint – I shall do so.’

  She was writing more often now, posting letters to Aden and Bombay which were packed with her thoughts on all manner of things. But the theme of most of these letters was When? and How?

  On 1 May 1922 she wrote:

  About those fainting fits darlint … I’m beginning to think its the same as before … What shall I do about it darlint, if it is the same this month … I still have the herbs … We must learn to be patient … Such a love was not meant to be in vain. We’ll wait eh darlint, and you’ll try and get some money and then we can go away … You said it was enough for an elephant. Perhaps it was. But you don’t allow for the taste making only a small quantity to be taken … Darlint I tried hard.

  She was apparently referring to the quinine he had given her.

  The mail was in this morning and I read your letter darlint and I cried … it sounded so sad … I was buoyed up with the hope of the ‘light bulb’ and I used a lot – big pieces too – not powdered – and it has no effect – I quite expected to be able to send that cable … Oh darlint, I do feel so down and unhappy. Wouldnt the stuff make small pills coated together with soap and dipped in liquorice powder … You tell me not to leave finger marks on the box – do you know I did not think of the box but I did think of the glass or cup … Do experiment with the pills while you are away – please darlint.

  During the trial, Bywaters was asked if he ever believed she had attempted to poison her husband. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It never entered my mind at all. She had been reading books.’ Dr Bernard Spilsbury told the court that he had found no trace of any poison and no trace of any large piece of glass or any powdered glass in Percy Thompson’s remains, nor any trace of any of these things having ever been administered. Spilsbury’s post-mortem examination was carried out on 3 November, a month after the murder.

  Earlier that year, Bywaters’ fourth long voyage was coming to an end – he was due home on 25 May. Ten days before this, Edith Thompson wrote to him about the money she had lost betting on horse-racing, about the weather – ‘It has been a beautiful weekend’ – and about her boss, Miss Prior, who had asked Edith to go to the West End and buy some mourning clothes for her newly widowed sister.

  There were widows hats with some veils at the back and nobody had the pluck to try them on – they all say it is unlucky – so because of it being unlucky to them I thought it might be lucky to me and tried them all on. I think they all think terrible things are going to happen to me now – but darlint I am laughing I wonder who will be right, they or I?

  On 18 May she wrote lengthily about the weather, clothes, cooking, and family news and quoted a passage from a book about the deadly effects of digitalin if taken to excess – ‘Is it any use?’ She discussed at great length two other books, romantic novels, and then wrote: ‘Old Mr Lester died last night. All their side of the house the blinds are drawn. I havent drawn mine and Im not going to. I think they think Im a heathen.’

  Two days before his return, she wrote (on 23 May) about an adventure she had had with an admirer – ‘The usual type of man darlint … that expects some return for a lunch.’ He had bought her a pound box of marrons glacés. But she was depressed. ‘Your news about Bombay – and waiting till next trip, made me feel very sad and downhearted … You talk about the cage you are in … that’s how I feel … Mine is a real live cage with a keeper as well.’

  He saw her constantly in London during the fortnight he was ashore, before sailing on 9 June on his longest voyage, to Australia via Colombo. As well as lengthy lunches, they had indulged themselves by using her alleged theatre visits to spend a few hours together in hotels such as the Regent Palace. They became increasingly careless, and people began to talk.

  Four days after he sailed she wrote, on 13 June:

  On Thursday – he was on the ottoman at the foot of the bed and said he was dying and wanted to – he had another heart attack – thro me. Darlint I had to laugh at this because I knew it couldn’t be a heart attack. When he saw this had no effect on me – he got up and stormed – I said exactly what you told me to and he replied that he knew thats what I wanted and he wasnt going to give it to me – it would make things far too easy for both of you (meaning you and me) … We’re both liars he says and you are making me worse and he’s going to put a stop to all or any correspondence coming for me at 168.

  Anticipating this, on 9 June (the day Freddy had sailed) she had sent a telegram to the Morea at Tilbury Docks – ‘Send everything Fisher care GPO.’ Her letter continued:

  On Saturday he told me … I have always had too much of my own way and he was a model husband … He also told me he was going to be master and I was to be his mistress and not half a dozen mens (his words) … Avis … said that he said at 231 ‘I thought he was keen on you – Avis – but now I can see it was a blind to cover his infatuation for Edie.’ Darlint its not an infatuation is it? Tell me it isn’t.

  It was now a year since the Shanklin holiday, since their first kiss, since Freddy lodged with the Thompsons in Kensington Gardens, since the row and his departure, and since the declaration and consummation of their love. She now remembered and referred
to these highlights in her life with fondness and yearning, and looked forward to his birthday, when he would be twenty. She wrote to him on 14 June 1922:

  On our birthday [27 June] you will be left Aden on your way to Bombay – you’ll be thinking of a girl whose best pal you are in England wont you … Time hangs so dreadfully … We are not busy this week and are leaving at five … Darlint, how can you get ptomaine poisoning from a tin of salmon? One of our boys Mother has died with it … Darlint this month and next are full of remembrances – aren’t they …? I was taken faint in the train this morning … On Saturday I’m going to see a Doctor.

  Six days later she wrote:

  When you are not near darlint I wish we had taken the easiest way … The days pass – no they don’t pass, they just drag on and on and the end of all this misery and unhappiness is no nearer in sight … There are 2 halves in this world who want nothing on earth but to be joined together … I went to see a doctor on Saturday he asked me lots of questions – could he examine me etc – I said no … Eventually he came to the conclusion I have ‘chronic anaemia.’

  The doctor asked her if she had had an accident and lost a lot of blood. ‘I said “No” – because it wasn’t really an accident and I didnt want to tell him everything – he might have wanted to see my husband … I lost an awful lot of blood.’ Despite what appears to have been a second abortion and a general depression, she was soon (if briefly) enjoying herself. Her next letter was dated 23 June: