The Notting Hill Mystery

6. —Statement of Miles Thompson.

I am a police constable. In August, 1856, I used to be on night duty in Russell Place. I remember Baron R** speaking to me one night, and asking me to keep a look out as often as I could of a night to keep the street quiet. He gave me five shillings for my extra trouble. I was on the beat one night about twelve o'clock when I saw some one lying on the Baron's door-step. It was a young gentleman, and at first I thought he was dead, but found he was only insensible. I set him up against the railings, and was going to ring the bell, when I saw a latch-key in his hand. I tried it in the door and it opened it directly, and I took him into the hall. I then knocked and rang till somebody came. The bell rang quite well. The Baron came down in his dressing-gown, and two or three other people. I offered to go for a doctor, but the Baron said he was only drunk. I helped to carry him up-stairs, and get him into bed. The Baron gave me half-a-crown for my trouble. He seemed very much annoyed, as was natural, and said he wished I had taken the young man to the station. I think he was drunk myself. He smelt a little of beer, but not much. I helped put him to bed, and went away. That is all I know.

N.B. – By letters from Messrs. Simpson and Mr. Wells, Mr. Aldridge's assertion that he was sober is borne out up to the time of the latter's leaving him at the corner of Tottenham Court Road, certainly not more than half-an-hour before he was found as above stated by Police-constable Thompson. R. H.

7. —Statement of John Johnson.

to mister endusson sir obeadent to yore Comands i hev eksammd tha belwir in russle please wich in my humbel Hopinnium it hev ben Templd wit by sum Hunperfeshnl And wich tha Wir it hev ben tuk hof tha Kranke & putt bak hall nohowlik wich hany Purfeshnl And wud be a Shammd fur 2 du It i am sur yore hobeadnt survnt too Comand

jon jonsunPlommr hand belangertotunmcort rodelundon

8. —Statement of Susan Turner.

My name is Susan Turner. In August, 1856, I was general servant to Mrs. Brown in Russell Place. I remember the night that Madame R** came down-stairs. I had sat up to let Mr. Aldridge in because the latch was broken. Mistress broke it that afternoon. I don't suppose the Baron knew anything about it. Mr. Aldridge came in rather late. I cannot justly say the time. He was quite right. I mean quite sober. He went straight up to bed. I did not go up to bed. My young man was in the kitchen. He is a very respectable young man upon a railway. I don't know what railway. I know he goes to Scotland sometimes with his engine, that is all. He is what they call a fireman. He was going down with a luggage-train somewhere that night very late, and came to see me. Mistress didn't know he was there. He came in after she was gone to bed. He was to start at two, and we sat till about one. He was just going away, and we were standing at the kitchen door when we heard somebody in the hall. I said, "Oh, Lor! that's missis." He said, "She'll be coming to look for you," and wanted me to go and meet her while he cut out by the area. I said no, that wouldn't do, by reason of it being all glass and a gas lamp at top of the area steps.30 I pulled him along to the lumber-room. The lumber-room is behind the kitchen and the cellar. There are some old boxes and things there, but nobody ever goes into it. I thought my mistress would not think of looking there. Just as we got to the door we saw somebody come from the hall and down the stairs. I whispered to John, "Why that's not missis – that's Madame." My mistress was very tall and stout, and Madame R** was small and thin. I could see her as she came through the door, because there was some sort of light in the hall. She came right down-stairs and past where we were. She went right on into the little place at the end where the Baron kept all his bottles and stuff. She did not go into the kitchen. Not at all. I will swear to that. She went into the Baron's place. The laboratory, I dare say it is; I don't know. It was where the bottles are. John and me crept to the window and looked out. The window of the lumber-room looks right into the window of the back room where the bottles are. You could see in quite plain. It was a bright moonlight night, and there is a sort of tin looking-glass over the back room window to make more light like. We saw Madame go into the room and take a bottle from a shelf. She poured out a glassful and drank it. Then she put the bottle back in its place. It was the last in the second shelf. Then she went out again, and when we turned round we saw a light shining into the room from the kitchen stairs. It stayed there till Madame had gone past our door again, and then it went up again. Just as it got to the top of the stairs I peeped out and saw it was the Baron. Madame was close behind him. I said to John, "Why, John, there's the Baron." He said he supposed he had come to look after his wife. After they had gone John and me went into the bottle place. We found the glass on the table. There were a few drops of stuff in it. John and me smelt it, and it was just like wine. It tasted just like wine, too. Then we looked for the bottle. It was at the end of the second shelf. It was about half-full of stuff that looked like wine. There was something in gold letters on the bottle. I can't tell what it was. It was "vin" something. I know that because John and me settled it must mean wine. I think I should know the rest if I saw it – [being here shown several labels, witness picked out the following "Vin. Ant. Pot. Tart." designating antimonial wine, a mixture of sherry and tartar emetic] – I am pretty sure that was the one. I remember it because they were such funny words. I remember John and me joking about "pots" and "pies." The stuff in the bottle smelt just like wine. It was just like sherry wine. I did not taste that. John wouldn't let me. He said I might go and poison myself for aught I knew. We put the bottle back and then John went away. I said nothing about it to anybody. Not even when Madame was taken ill that night. I was afraid by reason of John. I have never said a word about it to any living soul till I was asked to-day. Certainly not to Mr. Aldridge, nor he to me. I will swear to the truth of all I have said. I am quite positive that Madame never went near the kitchen. I am quite positive that the Baron must have seen her come out of the bottle place. He was standing with the candle in his hand waiting for her. That I can swear.

N.B. – The statement of the "young man" referred to fully corroborates the above statement. The accompanying plan will make this witness' evidence more clear.

Plan of basement floor of Baron R**'s lodgings, Russell Place.

Windows of lumber-room and laboratory referred to in the evidence of John Sanders and Mary Allen. B B Glass Partitions.

9. —Copy of a letter from a leading Mesmerist to the compiler, with reference to the power claimed by mesmeric operators over those subjected to their influence.

"Dorset Square.

"My DEAR SIR, —

"… Many times after throwing Sarah Parsons into the mesmeric state, I have willed her to go into a dark room and pick up a pin or other article equally minute, and however powerless she might be at the time out of the state was quite immaterial. My will and power being employed was sufficient. Then, Mr. L – , a paralytic, under my influence, without losing consciousness or undergoing any recognisable change, has many times, with the lame leg, stepped up on to and down again from an ordinary dining-room chair. This of course was a masterpiece of mesmeric manipulation. I wish I could write more and better, but my eyes forbid * * *

"With kindest regards,"Yours most truly,"D. HANDS."

10. —Fragment of a Letter found in the Baron's room after the death of Madame R**.

COMPLETED.

…On (?)

te… pendrait n'e… st ce pas mon

p…auvre philippe? E…h bien par

ce…t enfant, ce pauvre … petit ange (?)

q… ui nous regarde du… haut du ciel,

n'…est ce pas philipp…e et que

no…us ne reverrons ja…mais, par

ce…t enfant je te le j…ure. Tu m'en

sa…is bien capable j…e crois.

En…core une fois, aujo…urd'hui c'est

le… 13, le 15, de grand…matin je

se…rai chez toi; il fa…ut que je

t…e trouve seul, tu … me comprends;

se…ul au monde! n'… en sais

tu … pas bien le moy…en?

O…h! philippe je t'ai…me (je t'aime?)

sa…is tu ce qu…e c'est qu'une

f…emme ja…louse?

Translation of above.

(They) would hang thee, would they not, my poor Philip? Well, by that child – that poor (little angel) who is now – is it not so, Philip? – looking down on us from heaven, and whom we shall never see again, by that child I swear it to you. Once more. To-day is the 13th. On the 15th very early in the morning I shall be at your house. I must find you alone – you understand me, alone in the world! Do you not well know the means? Oh, Philip, I love thee (I love thee). Knowest thou what a jealous woman is?

11. —Extracts from the "Zoist Magazine," No. XLVII., for October, 1854.

"MESMERIC CURE OF A LADY WHO HAD BEEN TWELVE YEARS IN THE HORIZONTAL POSITION, WITH EXTREME SUFFERING. By the Rev. R. A. F. Barrett, B.D., Senior Fellow of King's College, Cambridge.

* * * * *

"In January, 1852, I was calling upon – , when she happened to tell me that she had been in considerable pain for a fortnight past; that the only thing that relieved her was mesmerism; but the friend who used to mesmerise her was gone.

"… I continued to mesmerise her occasionally for some months…

"April 21 st.– I kept her asleep an hour and a quarter in the morning and the same in the evening. She said31 her throat looked parched and feverish; at her request I ate some black currant paste, which she said moistened it… She said, 'Before you ate, my stomach was contracted and had a queer-looking sort of moisture in it; now the stomach is its full size and does not look shrunk, and part of the moisture is gone.'

"I. 'But you could not get nourishment so?' "A. 'Yes: I could get all my system wants.'

* * * * *

"April 26th.– In the evening I kept her asleep one hour, and took tea for her.

"April 27th.– … I ate dinner and she felt much stronger.

* * * * *

"I kept her asleep two hours and a quarter in the morning and one hour in the evening, eating for her as usual."

SECTION VIII. CONCLUSION

There now only remains for me, in conclusion, to sum up as briefly and succinctly as possible the evidence contained in the preceding statements. In so doing, it will be necessary to adopt an arrangement somewhat different from that which has been hitherto followed. Each step of the narrative will therefore be accompanied with a marginal reference to the particular deposition from which it may be taken.

First then, for what may be called the preliminary portions of the evidence. With these we need here deal but very briefly. They consist almost entirely of letters furnished by the courtesy of a near relation of the late Mrs. Anderton I., and read as follows:

Some six or seven and twenty years ago, the mother of Mrs. Anderton – Lady Boleton – after giving birth to twin daughters, under circumstances of a peculiarly exciting and agitating nature, died in child-bed. Both Sir Edward Boleton and herself appear to have been of a nervous temperament, and the effects of these combined influences is shown in the highly nervous and susceptible organisation of the orphan girls, and in a morbid sympathy of constitution, by which each appeared to suffer from any ailment of the other. This remarkable sympathy is very clearly shown in more than one of the letters I have submitted for your consideration, and I have numerous others in my possession which, should they be considered insufficient, will place the matter, irregular as it certainly is, beyond the reach of doubt. I must request you to bear it particularly and constantly in mind throughout the case.

Almost from the time of the mother's death, the children were placed in the care of a poor, but respectable woman, at Hastings. Here the younger, whose constitution appears to have been originally much stronger than that of her sister, seems to have improved rapidly in health, and in so doing to have mastered, in some degree, that morbid sympathy of temperament of which I have spoken, and which in the weaker organisation of her elder sister, still maintained its former ascendency. They were about six years old when, whether through the carelessness of the nurse or not, is immaterial to us now, the younger was lost during a pleasure excursion in the neighbourhood. Every inquiry was made, and it appeared pretty clear that she had fallen into the hands of a gang of gipsies, who at that time infested the country round, but no further trace of her was ever after discovered.

The elder sister, now left alone, seems to have been watched with redoubled solicitude. There is nothing, however, in the years immediately following Miss C. Boleton's disappearance having any direct bearing upon our case, and I have, therefore, confined my extracts from the correspondence entrusted to me, to two or three letters from a lady in whose charge she was placed at Hampstead, and one from an old friend of her mother, from which we gather the fact of her marriage. The latter is chiefly notable as pointing out the nervous and highly sensitive temperament of the young lady's husband, the late Mr. Anderton, to which I shall have occasion at a later period of the case, more particularly to direct your attention. The former give evidence of a very important fact; namely, that of the liability of Miss Boleton to attacks of illness equally unaccountable and unmanageable, bearing a perfect resemblance to those in which she suffered in her younger days sympathetically with the ailments of her sister; and, therefore, to be not improbably attributed to a similar cause.

Thus far for the preliminary portion of the evidence. The second division places before us II. certain peculiarities in the married life of Mrs. Anderton; its more especial object, however, being to elucidate the connection between the parties whose history we have hitherto been tracing, and the Baron R**, with whose proceedings we are properly concerned.

It appears then, that in all respects but one, the married life of Mr. and Mrs. Anderton was particularly happy. Notwithstanding their retired and often somewhat nomad life, and the limits necessarily imposed thereby to the formation of friendships, the evidence of their devoted attachment to each other is perfectly overwhelming. I have no less than thirty-seven letters from various quarters, all speaking more or less strongly upon this point, but I have thought it better to select from the mass a small but sufficient number, than to overload the case with unnecessary repetition. In one respect alone their happiness was incomplete. It was, as had been justly observed by Mrs. Ward, most unfortunate that the choice of Miss Boleton should have fallen upon a gentleman, who however eligible in every other respect, was, from his extreme constitutional nervousness, so peculiarly ill-adapted for union with a lady of such very similar organisation. The connection seems to have borne its natural fruit in the increased delicacy of both parties, their married life being spent in an almost continual search after health. Among the numerous experiments tried with this object, they at length appear to have had recourse to mesmerism, becoming finally patients of Baron R**, a well known professor of that and other kindred impositions.

Mrs. Anderton had not been long under his care when the remonstrances of several friends led to the cessation of the Baron's immediate manipulations, the mesmeric fluid being now conveyed to the patient through the intervention of a third party. Mademoiselle Rosalie, "the medium" thus employed, was a young person regularly retained by Baron R** for that purpose, and of her it is necessary here to say a few words.

She appears to have been about the age of Mrs. Anderton, though looking perhaps a little older than her years; slight in figure, with dark hair and eyes, and in all respects but one answering precisely to the description of that lady's lost sister. The single difference alluded to, that of wide and clumsy feet, is amply accounted for by the nature of her former avocation. She had been for several years a tight-rope dancer, &c., in the employ of a travelling-circus proprietor; who, by his own account, had purchased her for a trifling sum, of a gang of gipsies at Lewes, just at the very time when the younger Miss Boleton was stolen at Hastings by a gang whose course was tracked through Lewes to the westward. Of him she was again purchased by the Baron, who appears, even at the outset, to have exercised a singular power over her, the fascination of his glance falling on her whilst engaged upon the stage, having compelled her to stop short in the performance of her part. There can, I think, be little doubt that this girl Rosalie was in fact the lost sister of Mrs. Anderton, and of this we shall find that the Baron R** very shortly became cognisant.

It does not appear that on the first meeting of the sisters he had any idea of the relationship between them. He was, indeed, perfectly ignorant of the early history of both. The extraordinary sympathy therefore which immediately manifested itself between them was not improbably set down by him as a mere result of the mesmeric rapport, and it was not till he had been for some weeks in attendance on Mrs. Anderton that accident led him to divine its true origin. Nor, on the other hand, does this singular sympathy – a sympathy manifested in a precisely similar manner to that known to have existed years ago between the sisters – appear to have raised any suspicion of the truth in the mind of either Mrs. Anderton or her husband. From the former, indeed, all mention of her early life had been carefully kept till she had probably almost, if not entirely, forgotten the event, while the latter merely remembered it as a tale which had long since ceased to possess any present interest.

The two sisters were thus for several weeks in the closest contact, the effects of which may or may not have been heightened by the so-called mesmeric connection between them, before any suspicion of their relationship crossed the mind of any one. One evening, however, – and from certain peculiar circumstances we are enabled to fix the date precisely to the 13th of October, 1854, – the Baron appears beyond all doubt to have become cognisant of the fact. I must request your particular attention to the circumstances by which his discovery of it was attended.

On that evening the conversation appears to have very naturally turned upon a certain extraordinary case professed to be reported in a number of the "Zoist Mesmeric Magazine," published a few days before. The pretended case was that of a lady suffering from some internal disorder which forbade her to swallow any food, and receiving sustenance through mesmeric sympathy with the operator, who "ate for her." From this extraordinary tale the conversation turned naturally to other manifestations of constitutional sympathy, as an instance of which Mr. Anderton related the story of Mrs. Anderton's lost sister, and the singular bond which had existed between them. The conversation appears to have continued for some time II., 2., and in the course of it a jesting remark was made by one of the party in allusion to the story of eating by deputy, to which I am inclined to look as the key-note of this horrible affair.

"I said," deposes Mr. Morton, "I said it was lucky for the young woman that the fellow didn't eat anything unwholesome."

From the moment these words were spoken the Baron appears to have dropped out of the conversation altogether. More than this, he was clearly in a condition of great mental pre-occupation and disturbance. Mr. Morton goes on to describe the singularity of his manner, the letting his cigar expire between his teeth, and the tremulousness of his hands, so excessive, that in attempting to re-light it he only succeeded in destroying that of his friend. There can, I think, be no doubt whatever that from that moment he believed thoroughly in the identity of Rosalie with the lost sister of Mrs. Anderton. What other ideas the conversation had suggested to him we must endeavour to ascertain from the evidence that follows.

On the morning of the day succeeding that on the evening of which he had become convinced of Rosalie's identity, we find Baron R** at Doctors' Commons inquiring into the particulars II., 5. of a will by which the sum of 25,000l. had been bequeathed, under certain conditions, to the children of Lady Boleton. Under the provisions of this will, the girl Rosalie was, after her sister and Mr. Anderton, the heir to this legacy. We need, I think, have no difficulty in connecting the acquisition of this intelligence with the steps by which it was immediately followed. Mr. Anderton at once received an intimation of the Baron's approaching departure for the continent, and at the end of the third week from that time leave was taken, and he apparently started upon his journey. In point of fact, however, his plans were of a very different character. During the three weeks which intervened between his visit to Doctors' Commons and his farewell to Mr. Anderton, there had been advertised in the parish church of Kensington the banns of marriage between himself and his "medium," Rosalie, – not, indeed, in the names by which they were ordinarily known, and which would very probably have excited attention, but in the family name – if so it be – of the Baron and in that by which Rosalie was originally known when with the travelling circus. By what means he prevailed upon his victim to consent to such a step is not important to the matter in hand. The general tenour of the subsequent evidence shows clearly that it must have been under some form of compulsion, and, indeed, the unfortunate girl seems to have been made by some means altogether subservient to his will.

The marriage thus secretly effected, the Baron and his wife leave town, not for the continent, as stated to Mr. Anderton, but for Bognor, an out-of-the-way little watering-place on the Sussex coast, deserted save for the week of the Goodwood races, where, at that time of the year, he was not likely to meet with any one to whom he was known. Before endeavouring to investigate the motive of all this mystery, it is necessary to bear in mind one important fact: —

Between the wife of Baron R** and Mr. Wilson's legacy of 25,000l., the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Anderton now alone intervened.

The first few days of the Baron's stay in Bognor seem to have been devoted to the search for a servant, he having insisted on the unusual arrangement of himself providing one in the house where he lodged. It is worthy of note that the one finally selected was in a position, with respect to character, that placed her entirely in her master's power. It is unfortunate that this same defect of character necessarily lessens the value of evidence from such a source. We must, however, take it for what it is worth, remembering at the same time, that there is a total absence of any apparent motive, save that of telling the truth, for the statement she has made.

It appears, then, from her account, that after trying by every means to tempt her into some repetition of her former error, the Baron at last seized upon the pretext of her taking from the breakfast table a single taste of jam upon her finger, to threaten her with immediate and utter ruin. One only loop-hole was left by which she could escape. The alternative was, indeed, most ingeniously and delicately veiled under the pretext of seeking a plausible reason for her dismissal; but, in point of fact, it amounted to this, that as a condition of her alleged offence not being recorded against her, she would own to the commission of another with which she had nothing whatever to do.