Her social position, her beauty and the scandalous nature of the case – for it emerged that the seemingly prim Miss Smith had embarked on a wild sexual adventure with the worldly Pierre Emile L’Angelier – made the trial a cause célèbre in the city and beyond. There was nothing the upright and sanctimonious Victorians liked better than a bit of spice. The country was in the middle of an election campaign but the pursuit of political power took second place to the astonishing events unfolding in Glasgow’s High Court. The chattering classes could not get enough of the daring revelations while even the lower classes, many of whom had more on their mind than the love lives of the rich and infamous, found themselves discussing the case.
One of those fascinated by the Smith trial was an itinerant tailor then living in the village of Eaglesham, south west of Glasgow. But, for him, it was not the use of cyanide that proved stimulating – it was the mention of prussic acid during the hearing that set him on the road to murder. He had killed once, many years before, and got away with it. Now he would try again.
And again.
Now a conservation village threatened by the sprawl of East Kilbride, Eaglesham has changed little since 1857. It is bigger, certainly, with more modern houses having sprouted on its outer edges, but its two main streets, linked by a tree-filled grassland, is still very much as it was a century and a half ago. The village, as we know it, was created in the eighteenth century by the Earls of Eglinton, who also built a cotton-spinning mill that was powered by the small stream that runs through the central green. Later, in 1826, the mill grew in size as two dams above the village helped to provide more water power. The mill burned down in 1876 – but that was after the events that saw one of its workers die an agonising death.
Agnes Montgomery, a twenty-seven-year-old reeler, lived halfway up one of the two main streets, on the upper floor of a two-storey house. She was unmarried but she was never lonely for many of her family lived nearby. In fact, her sister Janet and her husband James Watson, a tailor, occupied one of the flats on the ground floor of Agnes’s building. In September 1857, the Watsons had a lodger, John Thomson, a twenty-six-year-old tailor who had come to work for James that June. He told his employer that he belonged to Dundee and had recently been working in Glasgow. He seemed a capable enough worker but there was something about him that they did not trust. What didn’t help was a letter from an Archibald Mason of John Street in Glasgow, with whom Thomson lodged whenever he was in Glasgow. Mr Mason said that the young tailor was suspected of stealing clothing from another of his guests.
Like John Adam before him, John Thomson was a man of many secrets. His name, for starters, was actually Peter Walker and he was from Tarbert, in Argyll, not Dundee. And he had not been working in Glasgow. He was a ticket-of-leave prisoner who had been released on licence, in June the previous year, from Woolwich Prison. There, he had been serving seven years’ transportation from Scotland, after being sentenced for theft at Inveraray Court, in April 1853. ‘Had we known he was such,’ said Janet Watson later, ‘he would not have had another hour in our home.’
Unfortunately, they had no idea he was a convicted felon until it was too late. It was especially unfortunate for Agnes Montgomery who, unknown to her family, became more than friendly with the sticky-fingered lodger downstairs. In addition to a lack of regard for other people’s property, women were Thomson’s downfall – just as Thomson would be Agnes’s. His conviction for theft followed a fling with his boss’s daughter during which, in order to impress her, he overspent. Finding himself in debt, he decided the only thing to do was to break into the premises of his employer James Bell, Tailors and Clothiers, in Lochgilphead, Argyll, and help himself to some £22 in cash and articles of clothing.
That was not the only amorous scrape he enjoyed while living at Lochgilphead. His landlord, Peter Fletcher, later said, ‘He was particularly artful, cunning and deceiving and aggravated me in a private matter that I don’t wish to mention.’ He went on, ‘He is very insidious and flattering and it is difficult to find him out. He can state a lie with the utmost confidence and is quite qualified to veil any intentions he may have.’ Clearly, Thomson, or Walker as he was known there, had upset his former landlord somehow.
Mr Fletcher’s wife Christina believed that Thomson had a habit of associating too much with girls who flirted after him and ‘on that account I thought him foolish and he had a habit of telling untruths,’ she said. She also said that her husband was ‘sometimes a little nervous and weak in mind’ and she added, ‘He has a prejudice against the prisoner and is affected with a delusion that I wish to take my husband’s life and take the prisoner as a husband instead.’ It seems then that young Mister Walker had been taking the idea of bed and breakfast a little too far where his landlady was concerned.
It is unclear just when he and Agnes Montgomery began their ill-fated affair. Her sister said there was nothing between them but fellow mill-worker Mary Donald saw them together at Dollar’s Pub in the village. Thomson had his arm on Agnes’s shoulder and the witness could see there was obvious affection between them. Mary told Agnes that she would not deny it the next day, meaning she planned to tell their co-workers at the mill, and Agnes merely laughed in reply.
Thomson was much taken with Agnes and asked her to come away with him to Glasgow. Agnes, though, was not as smitten so she refused. She had a life in Eaglesham, she had family and she had no intention of moving to the city with a penniless tailor. Despite being seen with him, she still refused to acknowledge to her sister that there was something between them. She did not treat him seriously at all – on one occasion she and her friend Janet Dollar, whose family owned the pub, threw water over him as a joke. Thomson did not take this treatment well. He went back to his room soaking wet, telling Janet Watson, ‘Those buggers upstairs did it and I’ll give it to them.’
Local weaver George King said that Thomson was easily offended over trifling matters. He recalled once being in the Cross Keys bar room with Thomson who said, ‘I’ll tell you what it is, King, there is a lot of them has me at ill will but I am determined to do for the buggers yet.’ A few days later, the weaver had cause to remember that statement.
At around 5.20 p.m. on Sunday 13 September, Janet Watson was standing in the close of her home talking with neighbour Mrs McDonald when they heard a strange moaning coming from upstairs. Janet said it was probably one of their other neighbours who had been complaining of stomach problems. The groans, though, were coming from Agnes’s flat and Janet knew this as soon as she went inside. She and Mrs McDonald dashed up the stairs and they found another concerned neighbour standing in front of Agnes’s door which had been locked from the outside.
They managed to spring the lock with a coal cellar key and went inside. Agnes was sitting on a chair, her head resting on the table beside it. Janet cradled her sister’s head and saw her eyes were wide and staring while a trickle of blood-flecked saliva drooled from her mouth. A tumbler sat on the table and Janet saw there was whitish sediment on the bottom. ‘Oh, Aggie, have you taken anything?’ Janet asked. She had seen her less than an hour before and she had been in perfect health. Now Agnes could neither speak nor move. All she could do was give ‘a strange moan’, said Janet, and retch a few times as if she was trying to vomit. When nothing came up Janet tried making her sick by pushing her fingers down her throat but a sudden paroxysm brought the dying woman’s teeth slicing into her flesh. Their Uncle Hugh also lived in the house and he cut open the lace of his niece’s stays to give her some air. Then spinner William Muir and baker James Fulton, who had been out in the street, came up to see what was going on. Hugh Montgomery noticed that the fingers of Agnes’s right hand were badly cramped and he suggested they bathe them. The stiff fingers responded to the warm water but never fully eased.
John Thomson, who had been with the two men in the street, fetched local GP, Dr Scott, who said they should move her into bed and Thomson readily agreed, throwing off his coat and preparing to help. A look from J
anet convinced Muir and Fulton that Thomson was not wanted here and they ushered him away. Dr Scott said they should give the woman a toddy but Janet could not say if any of it was swallowed. Agnes was sighing heavily by this time and was totally unconscious. She remained in that condition for another forty-five minutes before she died.
Both Janet and Dr Scott had thought at first that the dead woman had taken something that caused her death. Mrs McDonald had smelt something strange as soon as she had entered Agnes’s house. Another neighbour, slater and mole-catcher David Clarkson, had earlier heard a loud crash come from the house and, when he looked out, he had seen John Thomson leaving. He suspected nothing sinister but merely thought the man had thrown the woman down during some horseplay, suggesting that such devilment between the two of them was nothing unusual. However, Mr Clarkson did note that this was strange conduct for a Sunday. Thomson’s friends, Muir and Fulton, had heard the groans coming from upstairs but thought Agnes had a drunk man in there. When Thomson came out to meet them, they mentioned this to him but all he did was laugh.
Few questions were asked about Agnes Montgomery’s death and she was buried in Eaglesham Churchyard on September 17. Doubts, however, remained. It was known John Thomson had been the last person to see the woman alive and he had been acting very strangely since her death. Whenever it was mentioned, he hung his head and refused to respond. James Watson said he began to think Thomson had something to do with the sudden death but said his wife ‘would not credit it’.
Prior to burial, the body lay out in a room and Thomson was among those who came to pay their respects. Marion Young, another of Agnes’s sisters, noticed he did not get too close to the coffin but chose to keep his distance. However, he could not take his eyes off the dead woman’s face. ‘You would be the last that spoke to her in this world,’ Marion said to him and he agreed that he was. Then he finally turned away from the body.
Although he was at the gathering afterwards, Thomson was not among the mourners at the funeral. Marion Young handed him a glass of sherry and told him it was in remembrance of Aggie. He grudgingly took the drink and, with his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, drained the glass before leaving.
None of this was conclusive proof, of course, that John Thomson had anything to do with Aggie’s abrupt passing – but it was enough to make the already suspicious James Watson think things over. He recalled many conversations about the Madeleine Smith case between Thomson, himself and John, his brother. John was a wood carver to trade but he had recently turned to the new art of photography to make a living. Thomson believed the Glasgow woman deserved to hang for what she had done but John Watson thought she had been ‘sufficiently punished by the exposure of a person in her station [of life]’. But what really stuck in the mind was a conversation about poison. News reports of the trial stated that L’Angelier had been killed by arsenic poisoning and, at one point, Miss Smith had sent a boy for sixpence worth of the prussic acid. Thomson had wondered what sort of substance it was and James Watson later recalled, ‘I said it was the kind of stuff that, if she had got it and had given sixpence-worth of it to L’Angelier, she could not have got out of his company till he was dead.’ – meaning that just sixpence-worth of the poison would have been enough to kill a person almost instantaneously.
L’Angelier had managed to stagger from Miss Smith’s home to his own lodgings before he died. This prompted John Watson to opine that ‘prussic acid would never have done for the man would have died instantly’, adding that ‘even though the acid was diluted, the man would never have made it home’. Thomson wondered where it could be obtained and was told it was readily available at the apothecary. Photographers used it in their business, he was told, although John Watson preferred to use potassium cyanide. Poison was obviously in Thomson’s mind but, with the Smith case being on almost everyone’s lips, that was hardly damning.
In Agnes’s house, sediment had been seen in a tumbler on the table but that had been cleaned and put away. And a bottle of beer, also seen in the premises, was also long gone. By 25 September so was Thomson. He would have been aware of the dark suspicions that were haunting his life in Eaglesham and must have decided it was time to move on. If he had got away with murder, the prudent course would be to quit while he was ahead. And so, taking an envelope containing one pound from his employer’s house – for old habits die hard – he headed into Glasgow where he hoped to lose himself.
But murder, he found, can be habit forming.
At about 11 p.m. on 25 September, sixty-five-year-old Archibald Mason was awakened in his bed by Thomson. ‘Father,’ said the younger man in his accustomed way, ‘will you have a dram?’ He proffered a pint bottle of what he said was ‘good Paisley whisky’. Mr Mason politely agreed to take a drink but passed the glass back, saying it had a strange taste and brought a flush to his face. He hadn’t particularly wanted a drink anyway. Thomson then handed the glass to Mason’s wife who was in bed beside her husband. She downed about half of it before she complained that it had a curious taste and asked if it had bitters in it.
Thomson shook his head, saying, ‘No, it’s the best spirits.’ And offered her some more. However, Mrs Mason had had enough so the glass was laid on the chest of drawers while the bottle was corked and returned to Thomson’s pocket. Curiously, at no stage, had he attempted to take a drink. He sat in the chair talking to Mr Mason while Mrs Mason went downstairs to the kitchen. When she came back, she told them she had taken violently ill downstairs and had to crawl back up on her hands and knees. She said she’d felt ‘very dizzy and stupid’ and believed there was something wrong with the whisky. Thomson insisted again that it was the very best whisky.
He asked if he could stay the night and, although they had no bed to spare, the Masons agreed. He was suspected of not only stealing a previous tenant’s clothes but also a Bible and brush from them. They wanted to keep him there until they could alert the police, so he was allowed to sleep in the bed with Mr Mason while his wife slept in the kitchen. Mrs Mason was ill throughout the night and her husband was convinced that something was badly wrong with the whisky. The following morning, while Thomson was still asleep, he took the bottle from his pocket and poured the remainder of the whisky from the glass into a phial. Mason then went to the police and told them that Thomson was in the house. Next, he went to a doctor and asked for something he could give to his sick wife. He showed the bottle to the doctor who said it was filled with methylated spirits. The doctor then gave him a powder to be administered to Mrs Mason and a mustard poultice to be placed on her stomach.
By the time Mr Mason returned home, Thomson had been arrested for the theft of the clothes, the Bible and the brush. He was remanded in custody for a time but, as there was insufficient evidence to merit any further prosecution, he was released. He savoured his newfound freedom for only a few minutes before being arrested again – this time it was for the first murder and attempted murder by prussic acid recorded in Scottish criminal history.
James Watson had reported the theft of the pound note to Constable Robert McLaurin of the Renfrewshire County force. To the policeman’s surprise, he was also told that Thomson, the person Watson suspected of the theft, might also have poisoned Agnes Montgomery. The officer duly had Mr and Mrs Watson taken to the Paisley procurator fiscal who was then attending the circuit court in Glasgow. They repeated their allegations and it was decided that Thomson should be brought in for questioning. It was very quickly ascertained that Thomson had been in custody on the theft charge but had just recently been liberated.
He was still in the courthouse and, by chance, the Watsons spotted him standing at the witness gate. When Detective Officer Alexander Cushing told him he was being arrested for the murder of Agnes Montgomery, he replied, ‘Good God, don’t mention that here.’ He drew the officer aside and said, ‘You’ll surely not bring that against me.’ But bring that against him they did.
As soon as the investigation became official, further bricks were laid in the w
all of evidence against him. A carrier’s boy, John Ferguson, said Thomson had sent him to a Glasgow druggist to fetch sixpence worth of prussic acid, having been instructed to say it was for a portrait painter. On the day Agnes died, another villager recalled seeing Thomson walking across the village green, on his way to call the doctor, and watched as he stooped at a tree. A search around the tree later uncovered the missing key to Agnes’s door.
But most telling of all was Janet Watson’s daughter, also named Janet, who was the only eyewitness to the actual murder. But at only three years of age, her testimony had to be viewed with some suspicion.
She said she had been in her Auntie Aggie’s house when Jack, as she knew Thomson, came in and gave her aunt what she referred to as ‘some ginger’. Ginger is a Scottish word for lemonade or any other soft drink but it was actually beer that had contained the poison. The taste of the beer would easily have masked the presence of the prussic acid. The wee girl then said that her Auntie Aggie ‘spewed’ and fell on the floor after drinking from the tumbler. Jack helped Aggie up into the chair and then took the child out and, in the garden at the back of the house, she watched as he put a tiny glass bottle down on the ground and smashed it with his heel. Later, he bought the child’s silence with some sweets. But the child could not keep silent, especially after continual questioning from her parents. She had been loath to say anything, crying, ‘I’m no’ to tell for Jack is to give me a bawbee [a Scots coin of low value].’
For his part, Thomson admitted being in the house with the child but he said Agnes was perfectly healthy when they left and was breaking up sticks for the fire. He denied giving Agnes beer and further denied sending Ferguson to fetch prussic acid although he told police officers he did use the substance as a hair dye. He recalled that he had once sent the lad to fetch him some lavender water and balsam but never prussic acid.
Bloody Valentine Page 4