Classic Scottish Murder Stories

by Molly Whittington-Egan

  The trial of Eugène Marie Chantrelle at Edinburgh began on May 7th, 1878. The appearance in the witness-box of the eldest son, Eugène, aged nine, a brave manikin, traumatised for life, caused a sensation. He once saw Papa strike Mamma with his hand on the side of her head. Cross-examined, ‘My father has always been kind to me. He gave me everything I asked for. He gave me pennies to buy toys, and took me out for walks. On New Year’s Day, Papa was kind to Mamma, as far as I saw’.

  In general, however, Chantrelle was a great medical trial. John Trayner displayed all the brilliance in the defence of the crime which his client had lacked in its commission. Chantrelle was not grateful, and turned on him at one stage: ‘Is that all?’ he was heard to demand. Little was made of the possibility of suicide. Trayner’s brief was to attack the weakest part of the Crown case – the absence of opium in the body. He compared the eight or nine symptoms of opium poisoning as laid down in Taylor’s Medical Jurisprudence and estimated that five symptoms were ‘a’ wanting’ during the fatal illness: stertorous breathing, profuse perspiration, rattle in the throat at the end, drooping or relaxation of the jaw, and a stronger pulse than was found. He argued that it was impossible to prove that the stains on the night-gown and sheet were actually vomit. (Dr Carmichael, at the scene, had observed that vomited matter was oozing from the mouth.)

  Found guilty and sentenced to death, to his evident surprise, Chantrelle was allowed to address the court. He presented a lost and grotesque spectacle, ghastly pale, his whiskers fanned out more sparsely than of yore, gesticulating, losing the thread, his voice rising higher and higher. Still showing off his superior medical and chemical skills, he shot away at a tangent from his established defence by saying that he was satisfied that opium was found outside the body, but ‘It did not proceed from Madame Chantrelle’s stomach, but ‘was rubbed in by some person for a purpose which I do not know. I know my word goes for nothing. I don’t wish it to go for anything’.

  Afterwards, although it was a popular verdict, a public petition was prepared and submitted to the Home Secretary. It was alleged that two members of the jury had been fast asleep, during the judge’s summing-up, and that another had been suffering from a form of temporary blindness – amaurosis – which had rendered him incapable of appreciating the written evidence, which was a palpably absurd suggestion. Still scheming, Chantrelle was responsible for the claim that he was ‘very poor’ and therefore was not adequately defended. He now put forward the alternative theory that his wife had died of kidney disease, and that the kidneys had not been properly examined. Nausea, vomiting and lassitude had been her chronic symptoms. When he discovered his wife beyond medical aid, the new explanation continued, an evil thought occurred to him for the first time – he would cheat the insurance company by hurriedly breaking the gas pipe and striving to persuade the medical attendants that her death was not due to natural causes.

  All his ingenuity, emanating from a mind cleared of alcohol, was useless, and soon he realized that ‘If it is to be, it must be’. They could not get him to admit his crime. When his last night came, he slept well and had to be roused at 5.00am. He enjoyed a light breakfast of coffee and eggs, and was allowed to smoke. Invited to solicit some small extra treat, he caustically suggested, ‘Three bottles of champagne and ***.’ Knowing his vices, it is only too easy for us to supply the missing words. Fortified with a nip of spirits (brandy perhaps) he gave no trouble as Marwood the hangman pinioned him, and, dressed in his suit of mourning, stoically took part in a short religious service in the chief warder’s room. They heard him joining in the singing from the 51st Psalm: ‘Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow...Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God...a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise...’ For some reasons of tact, decency or expediency, the first six verses were omitted. Would he have sung ‘For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.’? His was the first execution in Scotland to be conducted in private and he was observed to inspect the gallows’ equipment with an interested and scientific eye.

  The author’s husband, Richard Whittington-Egan, treasures amongst his criminous memorabilia a poignant relic – a double linen cuff, Isabella-coloured now, which once belonged to Madame Chantrelle. Another rare item in the collection is a volume specially bound for Chantrelle in red leather, entitled Pleasures of Literature by Robert Aris Wilmott (Bell and Daldy, 186 Fleet Street, 1860). Across the outside front cover, COURS DE M. CHANTRELLE is tooled in gilt letters. Inside appears the hand-written inscription ‘IInd Prize 1st Class, Awarded to Miss ****** Session 1869-1870. E. Chantrelle’. The embarrassed donee had later obliterated her own name.

  Richard Whittington-Egan discovered documents which charge Chantrelle with full rape. In a letter (preserved in Edinburgh’s Central Library) Miss Ellen Lucy Holme wrote from Cromer on July 1st, 1867:

  Dear Mr Chantrelle,

  I am very much annoyed at being obliged to write to you, but as you are the only one who can help me out of my trouble, I am compelled to do so. You cannot have forgotten what happened in your house on the 1st of January, and how you quieted my fears by assuring me that nothing would result from what you had done, which I in my simplicity fully believed, but now I find that you must have been deceiving me all the time, if not yourself as well. You cannot be surprised when I tell you that I expect to be confined in three months’ time, and you, and you only, are the father of the child. I have left my situation (as governess) for my holidays, but in the state I find myself, I cannot possibly return...’

  The desperate letters from the betrayed governess somehow got into the hands of the prosecution during preparations for the trial of Chantrelle, and she was traced to a different address in Norfolk. A proof was taken from her, dated February 2nd, 1878, ten years after the outrage. She was now a spinster of 38, and she stated: ‘My father is a clergyman in the Church of England and resides at Dawlish in Devonshire. I was not happy at home. My stepmother was not kind. We then resided in Edinburgh. I resolved to look for a situation as a governess. One day my stepmother taunted me by saying that no-one would have me. I then determined I would take any situation rather than remain at home. After this I saw an advertisement in, I think, an Edinburgh paper for a housekeeper, not a governess, and to apply personally at 81 George Street...

  ‘I said to the servant who opened the door that I had come about the advertisement. I was shown into a large front room (the dining-room) where a gentleman was whom I afterwards knew as Mr Chantrelle. He seemed to avoid the subject of a housekeeper. He began to sympathize with me and I was at the time so very unhappy at home that anyone who spoke kindly to me at once drew my heart. I never dreamt of any danger. He drew me to him and before I could realize anything, he threw me down forcibly on the floor. I resisted as much as I could but he was very strong and evidently carried away by his passions. I screamed out, too, and he said, “Hush. Hush.” I was dreadfully frightened and have always been very nervous. He put his hand on my mouth. He then had forcible connection with me while he held me down. He said, “You will come again, won’t you?” I had of course then seen that he never wanted a housekeeper. Before he forced me, he had asked me to take some claret, but I would not, I have always felt since that I should never have gone. I had not the least idea that the advertisement was not in good faith.’

  Her son, born on September 22nd, 1867, (one year before the Chantrelle marriage) at Cromer was ‘very like his father’. She had supported herself partly by teaching and her father gave her an allowance. Which was worse, to be the legitimate child of Eugène Marie Chantrelle, or not even to bear his name?

  CHAPTER 13

  THE ICE-FIELD

  Time has etched out some of the layers of sadness in the strange, forgotten case of the boy stowaways on the cargo ship Arran. Looking back now, wincing at the tale of cruelty, the boys’ forced trek on the ice-fields off Newfoundland has in the mind’s eye the pictorial quality of some epic
Arctic film. Whether the cruelty, which reads like outright torture, amounted to pathological sadism is doubtful. The year was 1868. Ocean-going ships were not known for their humane discipline, and a fierce dominance kept down the ever-present threat of mutiny. On land, poor boys, waifs and strays – burnt chimney sweeps, maimed infant mill-workers, Dr Barnardo’s ragged destitutes found huddled in rows under the tarpaulins on roofs – were exploited and expendable. Whether the final harsh act which led to two deaths at sea should have been tried as murder, not reduced, as it was, to manslaughter, is a different matter. We should probably regard it as murder.

  Bound for Quebec, on April 7th 1868, the Arran set sail from the great port of Greenock, on the south bank of the Clyde. A wooden sailing ship of 1063 tons register, she was laden with coal and oakum, that being, since we have lost touch with these things, hempen fibre, made from old ropes, and used for caulking ships’ seams. A full crew of 22 were under Robert Watt, captain, aged 28, of Saltcoats, in Ayrshire, and his brother-in-law, James Kerr, mate, aged 31, of Lochranza, Isle of Arran. Both men were of fierce, commanding aspect, bearded like the pard, but not of identical disposition: the captain was supposed to be weak, dominated by the vicious mate.

  After the tug had gone back, and they were well out to sea, too late to return them to shore, seven unwelcome young figures came up blinking from various hiding-places in the bowels of the ship, just in time before the carpenter battened down the hatches for the voyage. It is not clear whether the great adventure was a joint enterprise or merely an ill-omened coincidence. At least two of the boys knew each other. Seven were too many. Seven extra mouths to feed, and seven useless appendages, too young and weak to work hard for their board. By marine custom and common law you tossed your stowaways a crust and a bone, regularly, and you kept them alive. Seven made up a crew of their own and the very sight of them was an irritant to the bearded ones.

  All the stowaways had emerged from the poorest parts of Greenock. Some of them had mothers. Bernard Reilly, aged 22, the eldest, had secreted himself with the express intention of emigrating to Canada in order to find employment. James Bryson, 16, seems to have had what we would now call ‘problems’, although he was to give evidence very clearly. He was dirty in his person and habits and averse to work. David Brand was also 16. Peter Currie, 12, was in a favoured position, because his father, back home, was friendly with the mate. There remain three really young boys, all aged 11: Hugh McGinnes, Hugh McEwan and John Paul who were already friends. Hugh McEwan was weakly, a consumptive, and spat blood. ‘Please, sir,’ said one of the 11-year-olds, interrogated by the frowning captain, upon discovery, ‘we want to be sailors.’

  The boys were thin, undernourished, to start with, and nearly all were dressed in one set of ragged cast-offs, quite unsuited to the hail, frost, snow and continuous rain of the north Atlantic crossing. Some of them were barefooted. No effort was made to provide or improvise other clothing or footwear: the boys slipped and stumbled on their raw, frozen feet. John Paul got hold of some canvas to make trousers, but he had no way of cutting and sewing them, and it was confiscated.

  The Arran, as confirmed by the ship’s cook, was amply provisioned for its calculated four month return voyage, and the captain at first authorised a fair measure of rations for the stowaways: 5lbs of beef per day, and 14oz of coffee, 7oz of tea and 5lbs of sugar per week. This robust diet shows that the captain began with good intentions. The first thing that went wrong was that the boys succumbed to seasickness, and the mate began to grumble as he saw them vomiting up the chunks of precious beef. He ordered the steward to stop all supply of the beef to them, saying that he was going to give them the ground of their stomachs before they got any more meat. From now on, only the notorious ship biscuits were to be issued to them. That meant one a day, each, if they were in luck. The cook secretly passed them scraps because they were nearing starvation level.

  Weakened, the boys, especially the little ones, could scarcely perform their allotted tasks and the mate came after them with a rope’s end to give them a walloping. James Bryson, the unfortunate one, further incensed the mate by his dirty habits. One day, when it was fine, the hatches were opened up, and the oakum and coils of rope where the boys slept were found to be ‘smeared with filth’. Presumably there was a makeshift latrine. The mate’s wrath was concentrated on Bryson and that is how he came to be ‘scrubbed and flogged’ – a remedial Victorian treatment reminiscent of the ‘mopping’ accorded to ‘lunatics’ after a weekend chained to their cribs.

  Bryson remembered that the flogging with the lead-line came first. David Brand, who was forced to do some of the scrubbing, remembered that the scrubbing came first. Bryson said, ‘The mate flogged me for about three minutes. When I was screaming, the master of the vessel came forward. I was then made to lie down on the deck. Several bucketsful of water were thrown on me. It was salt water. The captain then scrubbed me with a hair broom all over my body. The mate then took the broom up and scrubbed me harder than the captain. After the scrubbing was finished I was made to wash my clothes. I was naked at the time.’ David Brand said, ‘The weather was very cold, but I do not think that it was freezing. Bryson was very dirty and it was on that account that he was scrubbed. I stopped when I thought he was clean. He was crying out. There were about 30 blows given. The captain was present during the flogging, but said or did nothing. I saw blood on Bryson’s back.’

  On May 10th, after a stormy crossing, the Arran, which for some days had been nosing through packs of floating ice, became temporarily but firmly embedded in an ice-field off St George’s Bay, on the west coast of the Island of Newfoundland, after passing through Cabot Strait into the Gulf of St Lawrence. The captain and the mate went down on to the thick ice for a walk, to stretch their legs, and while they were away, the two 16-year-olds, Brand and Bryson, dared to go below and scavenge for food. As usual, it was James Bryson who got into trouble.

  ‘I took some currants out of a keg,’ he said, ‘because I could get nothing else. I was hungry at the time. I took about a fistful of currants and returned to my work of scraping the deck. The mate was coming up the vessel’s side when he saw me coming out of the cabin. He ordered my hands to be tied, and Brand and I were searched. Nothing was found on Brand. My pocket was cut on the outside and the currants “kepped” in a saucer. The captain ordered the currants to be given to the other boys. I was afterwards stripped naked by order of the mate. The captain was present all the time and saw what took place. The mate placed my head on the deck, seized my legs, and held them up to his breast while the captain flogged me. He gave me 15 to 20 lashes. I was ordered by the mate to help the boy Currie to scrub the deck when I was stark naked...my semmit was returned to me. I was then placed on the hatch and the mate told me to tell him all that I had done in my life.’

  The last sentence of Bryson’s complaint, although not altogether clear, does have an uncomfortable feeling to it, as if the mate were deriving some illicit satisfaction. From now on, the mate withdraws from his role as Chief Torturer, and the captain takes over with a new plan for getting rid of his stowaways. They were to be driven down on to the ice, given one biscuit apiece, and told to walk to the shore. No line of land was visible to the naked eye, but the captain assured the boys that through his spyglass he could see houses with people living in them. The distance between the Arran and landfall was variously estimated by the crew as from eight to 20 miles. The mate put it at five miles, but he would say that, wouldn’t he? In the alternative, the captain suggested, they could, if they preferred, make for another ship, the Myrtle, which was also lying fast in the ice one or two miles away from the Arran. There were not enough provisions left to feed the boys as well as the crew for the remaining part of the voyage to Quebec, he explained.

  Some of the boys had had pieces of biscuit for breakfast. Only two of them went willingly: Reilly, the young man, because he had not given up his dream of finding a job ashore, and Bryson, lately tortured, because he felt that no
thing could be worse than what he had already suffered on board. Peter Currie, the favoured one, was allowed to stay. That left four. David Brand, the 16-year-old, refused to go over the side, and the captain caught him by the collar and forced him. Three small boys aged 11 remained.

  Hugh McGinnes asked the captain how he could walk on the ice with his bare feet, and the captain said that it would be as well for him to die on the ice as in the ship, as he would get no more food there. John Paul hid himself in the forecastle. The captain went in and brought him out. He went crying to the mate, and the mate said that he would have nothing to do with putting them on the ice. The captain told him to go forward, and struck him with a belaying-pin because he would not leave the rails. John Paul had no shoes either. He had a blue coat. Hugh McEwan, the boy who had tuberculosis, was hiding in the galley. He began to cry and the captain found him. He had boots and was better clad than any of them. John Paul was crying that his fingers were hurting in the cold and all three little boys were crying as they were made to slide down a rope and stood on the bitter ice, looking up and pleading for food. Several biscuits were thrown down for them and there was a scramble. It was each boy for himself: they were all too weak for acts of conspicuous heroism.

  One young man, two youths, and three boys set out on their 12-hour journey. It was between 8.00 and 9.00am and clear daylight. At first they followed the line of the stern of the Arran, because the captain had told them that it would lead them to the Myrtle, but they could not see her, never saw her all day, and changed their course while still within sight of the Arran. They could see a black haze which looked like land. It would be unrealistic to imagine the ice-field as smooth like a rink: it was rutted and humped and progress was slow. They kept together in a small, tattered party. After about 10 or 11 miles, with the shore clearly in sight, conditions worsened and became very dangerous. Until then, the ice had held up well, but now it was beginning to soften and crack, with crevices and separate floes. Sometimes they fell into the icy water and their thin clothes froze on their backs. It is better not to think about their bare feet.