I do not have the courage to take my life. I pray each night I will find the strength to do so, but the courage alludes me. I pray constantly all will forgive. I deeply regret striking her, I have found it in my heart to forgive her for her lovers. I believe I will tell her all, ask her to forgive me as I have forgiven her. I pray to God she will understand what she has done to me.
On May 3rd Maybrick saw Dr Humphreys and complained that the medicine was doing him no good. Florie observed, tartly, that he said the same about any medicine after two or three days. After seeing the Doctor, Maybrick went to his office for the last time. That afternoon, with the Doctor’s approval, he went to the Turkish baths. This was also the day on which he made his final emotional entry in the diary.
The pain is unbearable. My dear Bunny knows all. I do not know if she has the strength to kill me. I pray to God she finds it. It would be simple, she knows of my medicine, and for an extra dose or two it would all be over. No one will know I have seen to that. George knows of my habit and I trust soon it will come to the attention of Michael. In truth I believe he is aware of the fact. Michael will know how to act he is the most sensible amongst us all I do not believe I will see this June, my favourite of all months. Have begged Bunny to act soon. I curse myself for the coward I am.
During the evening Maybrick became very ill with a ‘gnawing pain from the hips down to the knees’. At midnight Dr Humphreys once again made his way to Battlecrease House. He decided the pains were the result of hard towelling at the baths and, ignoring the fact that his patient had also vomited twice, he administered a morphine suppository.
The following morning Maybrick was worse. He was vomiting violently. Dr Humphreys made an early visit and gave instructions that the patient was to drink nothing at all: he could quench his thirst by washing out his mouth with water or sucking ice or a damp cloth. Some medicine was delivered by the chemist and taken straight up to Maybrick’s room by Mary Cadwallader.
‘Nothing must be taken to his bedroom without my seeing it first’, Florie ordered. Recovering the medicine she emptied it all down the sink and explained later to Cadwallader that the tiniest bit more would have killed her husband. In such circumstances the simplest actions with straightforward explanations can become tainted by innuendo and rumour. There was a deepening air of prurient excitement at Battlecrease House which was infecting the atmosphere like a fever. There is no doubt that the case against Florie was built on gossip and malicious misunderstanding.
Trevor Christie refers to ‘the deadly cabal’ of Nurse Yapp, and the three sisters — Mrs Briggs, Mrs Hughes and Gertrude Janion who stirred up a witches’ brew of hatred and suspicion. Alexander MacDougall, described the bizarre events at Battlecrease in the last few hours of James Maybrick’s life but included in that cabal Maybrick’s brothers Michael and Edwin. It was his belief that, for reasons we can only guess, they had conspired together in James Maybrick’s death. In other words it was a plot which went wrong. Michael, in particular, certainly had so much to lose. He was at the peak of his career, mixing in elevated circles; his life would have been shattered if a whisper of James’ secret life in London were to leak to the press. Edwin was in love with Florie.
On the morning of Saturday May 4th, Florie sent Mary Cadwallader to Wokes to collect some medicine on prescription. James Grant, the gardener, told Alice Yapp that Mr Wokes had refused to give it to her on the grounds that it contained a deadly poison. Alice then passed this juicy information on to Mrs Briggs and Mrs Hughes.
But on August 21st, three months after James’ death, Mary Cadwallader told the Liverpool Post: ‘I don’t know how she could have dared tell such a story.’ Mary said that Dr Humphreys started to write a prescription that he did not complete. He laid it to one side. In her agitation Florie had suddenly picked this up believing it to be a prescription for beef tea. So Mary went to the chemist with the wrong prescription — Mr Wokes explained that the doctor’s signature was needed and suggested that the doctor should call in himself. Mary denied that there was ever any mention of poison.
She went home, explained the mistake and returned to Mr Wokes, who then gave her the meat juice. Dr Humphreys later called to give Mr Wokes the necessary information for the original prescription.
Dr Humphreys’ account of the event makes no mention of the prescription containing poison. Nevertheless, that innocent visit, like so many other things, assumed sinister proportions in the servants’ quarters.
On Sunday May 5th, Elizabeth Humphreys went up to see her master, who begged for some lemonade with a little sugar, saying, ‘I want you to make it as you would for any poor man, dying of thirst.’
Florie was in the room and said, ‘You cannot have it except as a gargle’. She was following Dr Humphreys’ instructions.
That afternoon, Edwin turned up at the house and disobeying doctor’s orders, gave his brother a brandy and soda which Maybrick promptly vomited.
On Monday May 6th, the doctor called at about 8.30 a.m. He reminded Maybrick not to take his usual Valentine’s Meat Juice or prussic acid since they were making him vomit. He prescribed Fowler’s Solution, which contained arsenic.
While Florie went shopping, Nurse Yapp was left behind with Maybrick. He was moaning and hot; she rubbed his hands, which he again said were numb. When Florie came back Yapp suggested calling the Doctor but Florie rejected the idea on the grounds that her husband would not do what he said anyway.
Battlecrease House was by now crowded with family, staff and visitors, all bustling about, whispering and watching each other and, in particular, Florie. In the midst of all this, a letter from Brierley arrived in which he said he was afraid their secret was about to be exploded and that he was off abroad — out of harm’s way.
During the evening of May 6th Dr Humphreys paid yet another visit and applied a ‘blister’ — a dressing intended to ease Maybrick’s stomach pains.
As the illness wore on, the atmosphere of mistrust increased. So, when Alice Yapp spotted Florie pouring something from one bottle to another, she was decidedly suspicious. She remembered the fly papers that Bessie told her she had discovered soaking under a towel in the washbasin.
In the early afternoon of May 7th, Florie sent a telegram to Edwin’s office in Liverpool asking him to find someone who could offer a second medical opinion. So it was that Dr William Carter, a self-described ‘physician of considerable experience, including cases of overdosing medicinally with arsenic’, joined the medical team. He met Dr Humphreys at the house at 5.30 p.m. and together they examined the restless patient. By now Maybrick was also complaining of a ‘hair’ in his throat.
The Doctors decided he was suffering from dyspepsia and this time prescribed small doses of antipyrine to relieve his painful throat and tincture of jaborandi plus diluted chlorodyne to relieve the foul taste in his mouth. That night Maybrick vomited continuously and was still bothered by the ‘hair’.
On Wednesday May 8th, he was unable to get out of bed and told Dr Humphreys he thought he was going to die. Edwin saw his brother before leaving early for work. Maybrick suggested that a nurse be brought in to help Florie, who was exhausted. Florie telegraphed her mother in Paris with a terse message that bore a sharply different tone from her previous breezy letter: ‘Jim very ill again’.
Through the upstairs window, Nurse Yapp, who was agog with all she had seen or imagined, spotted the sisters Mrs Briggs and Mrs Hughes hurrying up the drive. She accosted them in the yard with the shocking declaration, ‘Thank God you have come, for the mistress is poisoning the master’. She led them immediately up to see James.
Florie was understandably put out when she discovered that the sisters were already in her husband’s room. She called them down to the sitting room where it was eventually agreed that a nurse should be hired. Mrs Briggs and Mrs Hughes left about noon but immediately telegraphed Michael in London. ‘Come at once,’ said the message. ‘Strange goings on here.’ This was one of two portentous telegrams sent to Michae
l that day. The second was from Edwin who also urged his brother to come to Battlecrease House.
A Nurse Gore, from the Nurses’ Institution in Liverpool, arrived at the house at about 2.15 p.m. With the Nurse there to relieve her, Florie made a critical mistake. She replied to Brierley. She followed this with a second mistake. She asked Alice Yapp to post the letter.
Alice took the letter and admitted later at Florie’s trial that that she gave it to little Gladys to carry as they walked to catch the 3.45 p.m. post. On the way Gladys ‘dropped it’. ‘I went into the post office and asked for a clean envelope to readdress it. I opened it as I was going into the post office,’ she testified.
What Alice Yapp read so shocked her that she put the letter in her pocket. It was never posted.
Dearest
…I cannot answer your letter fully today, my darling, but relieve your mind of all fear of discovery now and in the future. M has been delirious since Sunday, and I now know that he is perfectly ignorant of everything, even to the name of the street, and also that he has not been making any inquiries whatever! The tale he told me was pure fabrication, and only intended to frighten the truth out of me. In fact, he believes my statement, although he will not admit it. You need not therefore go abroad on that account, dearest; but, in any case, please don’t leave England until I have seen you once again! You must feel that those two letters of mine were written under circumstances which must even excuse their injustice in your eyes.
Do you suppose that I could act as I am doing if I really felt and meant what I inferred then? If you wish to write to me about anything do so now, as all the letters pass through my hands at present. Excuse this scrawl, my own darling, but I dare not leave the room for a moment, and I do not know when I shall be able to write to you again. In haste, yours ever, Florie.
When Edwin returned at about five o’clock, Nurse Yapp was at her customary look-out post, watching for him in the yard, and she intercepted him. As they sat on a seat in the garden she disclosed her startling find. But he took no action.
Michael arrived at Edge Hill Station just before nine and was met by his brother in a cab. When Edwin told him about the letter Michael took charge of the situation. Back at the house the two men read the Brierley letter and after Michael had seen their now half-conscious brother, he spoke sharply to Florie. He still did not tell her that they had read the letter but criticised her rather for not having brought in a professional nurse and a second Doctor earlier. Then he left to see Dr Humphreys at his house, arriving at 10.30 p.m. The doctor acknowledged that he was not satisfied with Maybrick’s condition and Michael informed him of Nurse Yapp’s suspicions. The doctor did nothing either. He merely said, ‘your brother has told me he is going to die.’
Everyone had a restless night. Nurse Gore had been instructed that she alone was to give Maybrick his food and medicine. A new bottle of Valentine’s Meat Juice was supplied by Edwin and given to a relief Nurse who, by that time, had taken over from the exhausted Nurse Gore.
Dr Carter was back at Battlecrease House the following afternoon and persisted in his diagnosis of ‘acute dyspepsia’. Michael, extremely agitated, objected. Since April, he claimed, his brother had been ill when at home and perfectly well when away. He added that the rift between Maybrick and his wife was serious and that Florie had been buying fly papers. What was Dr Humphreys going to do?
Now that suspicion of Florie had been discussed with the doctor, Michael decided to step up the safeguards surrounding the patient. Florie was by now virtually dispossessed in her own house. She wandered from room to room in a tearful state. She went up to the night nursery where Nurse Yapp was tending to the children and said, ‘Do you know I am blamed for this?’
Nurse Yapp answered disingenuously, ‘For what?’
Florie replied, ‘For Mr Maybrick’s illness.’
Everything was against her. She knew that Dr Humphreys had not been in favour of calling a second doctor and that Dr Carter had said there was no need for a nurse. She had ultimately defied them and asked for both but Michael was accusing her of delay. She was confused and upset.
Florie had only two loyal friends in the house. One was Mary Cadwallader, who found some old fly papers in the butler’s pantry and burnt them. The other was the cook, Elizabeth Humphreys, who watched in the servants’ hall as Florie collapsed and sobbed for fifteen minutes. Since Michael’s arrival, Florie told her, she had not been allowed in Maybrick’s room. ‘My position is not worth anything in this house.’ Michael hated her, she said, and if James got better she would not have Michael there again. But Florie’s vow would never be put to the test.
On Thursday May 9th, Maybrick was too ill to be examined. The doctors gave him double doses of bismuth with some brandy as a stomach sedative. For the first time they took samples of urine and faeces, which Dr Carter took back to his surgery for analysis. A small bottle of Neaves Food, with which Florie was suspected of tampering, was turned over by Michael with some zealousness to the doctor. A bottle of brandy of which Michael was also suspicious was tested. All proved negative, a fact that was never mentioned at Florie’s trial.
During the evening, Maybrick grew still worse. Against Doctors’ instructions, Nurse Gore took the unopened bottle of Valentine’s Meat Juice which Edwin had produced from a table on the landing and gave him two teaspoonsful in water. Florie was there and protested in vain that the Doctors had told Maybrick to discontinue the juice which always made him sick.
Just after midnight, Nurse Gore gave Maybrick some champagne, perhaps to calm his stomach and noticed that Florie took the remaining bottle of meat juice into the dressing room. According to the nurse, Florie returned after two minutes and ‘surreptitiously’ replaced the bottle on the bedside table. Nurse Callery, who was also attending Maybrick, said afterwards that Michael later removed the bottle without any of the meat juice having been given to the patient since Florie had returned it. Later on Friday Michael handed a bottle of meat juice to Dr Carter for analysis. It proved to contain half a grain of arsenic.
This bottle was produced in evidence at Florie’s trial.
On Friday Maybrick was even worse. Nurse Wilson, a relief nurse, said she overheard Maybrick calling repeatedly to Florie, ‘Oh Bunny, Bunny, how could you do it? I did not think it of you.’ Florie replied, ‘You silly old darling, don’t trouble your head about things.’
Later, when Thomas Lowry and George Smith delivered the papers to the house to be signed, they heard the shouted protestations from James to Michael and Edwin that he wanted to die in peace.
At 4 a.m. on Saturday May 11th, Florie sent Mary Cadwallader to collect Mrs Hughes and Mrs Briggs. The children were taken in to see their father for the last time. During the morning Florie herself was carried from the sickroom to the spare bedroom, where she lay in a mysterious ‘swoon’ for 24 hours, totally unaware what was happening. Dr Carter arrived and warned Michael that he had found some arsenic in the bottle of meat juice and that he and Humphreys could therefore not give the cause of death as ‘natural’.
At 8.40 p.m. — in the arms of his most intimate friend, George Davidson — James Maybrick died.
The next day Dr Hopper was called up to the house. In a supplemental statement at the trial he recalled that visit and his words point, for the first time, to the possibility that Florie could have been pregnant. ‘I found that she was suffering from a sanguinous discharge, which might have been a threatened miscarriage and she told me that she had not had her monthly period since March 7th. I was unable then to tell whether she was pregnant or not but I think it could be ascertained now by examination.’
If Florie was indeed pregnant it seems unlikely that the baby would have been James’.
* * *
Where, amid all this uproar, was the Diary? Did Maybrick leave it at the office or was it hidden somewhere in Battlecrease House? Was it found by Michael and Edwin, who would have had every reason to protect the family name, or was it in the trunk of Florie’s po
ssessions which was lost; or, more likely, was it discovered by the servants when they ransacked the house and smuggled secretly away as a memento? Wherever it was, the Diary is specific about Maybrick’s own hopes.
I place this now in a place where it shall be found. I pray whoever should read this will find it in their heart to forgive me. Remind all, whoever you may be, that I was once a gentle man…
dated this 3rd day of May 1889
12
I PLACE THIS NOW IN A PLACE WHERE IT SHALL BE FOUND.
Maybrick was dead. The last page of the Diary was closed. But the dark shadows of conspiracy surrounding Florie’s trial — the lying, the suspicions and the suppression of evidence — confirm my belief that much, much more was known than ever saw the light of day.
Two days after Maybrick’s death, on May 13th, Drs Humphreys, Carter and Barron carried out a post-mortem in the presence of Superintendent Bryning. The police had already begun to investigate the circumstances of the death, because Doctors Carter and Humphreys had refused to issue a death certificate and decided instead to refer the case to the coroner.
Michael took charge of everything after his brother’s death, including his ailing widow, who found herself being tended by a strange nurse. Florie recalled that Michael told the nurse, ‘Mrs Maybrick is no longer mistress of this house. As one of the executors I forbid you to allow her to leave this room.’
She was a prisoner even before she was formally charged. Although suspicions of arsenic poisoning had been rumbling around for some days, no search was made until after Maybrick had died. Then, with Florie locked out of the way, Michael, Edwin, Mrs Briggs, Mrs Hughes and all the servants ransacked Battlecrease House. They said at Florie’s trial that in a linen chest on the landing they found a bottle of morphia, a bottle of vanilla essence and a packet of harmless yellow powder, none of which Bessie, the housemaid who was in charge of the chest, said she had noticed before.
The Diary of Jack the Ripper - The Chilling Confessions of James Maybrick Page 19