The poisoning of Widow Hart

JOHN KOBLER

Back in 1845, the Morse Code lent a hand, for the first time, in the newly-pitched bottle of Science against Crime

On a fog-heavy, March evening in 1845, Destiny, in the curious guise of electric telegraphy, caught up with John Tawell, British Quaker, would-be gentleman, and murderer.

It was a year of Queen Victoria's greatness, of the potato famine in Ireland, of Disraeli and Gladstone and English colonization, of the Industrial Revolution's lengthening shadow. It was a year of inventions: the pneumatic tire, Portland cement, the turret lathe.

Telegraphy, the giant brain-child of Samuel Morse, born five years previously, was still a source of marvel and doubt. Certainly, the unusual part it played in the sinister career of that dour, black-coated figure, Quaker Tawell—a part it plays today in more than fifty per cent of all criminal cases—left England gasping and wondering, "What next?"

It happened on Salt Hill one evening in the beginning of the year. Salt Hill was then a miniature slum in the shadow of proud Windsor, summer seat of English royalty. It was a spawning of mean, squalid cottages, abiding in grime, and peopled by servant-girls, day laborers, and pensioned senescents.

In one cottage dwelt Mrs. Ashley, a middle-aged housewife. She had just cleaned up the remains of supper and was ready for bed when a tortured scream shattered the still night. Recognizing it as the voice of her neighbor, the Widow Hart, she flung a shawl over her bony shoulders and sped to the spot.

As she stumbled up the garden path, a short, thick-set man was leaving the house. It was dark, and she could not make out his features, but the sombre frock-coat, the black muffler, and stove-pipe hat proclaimed him a Quaker. She called out, but he was silent. Fearfully silent, she thought. He brushed past her and she could feel him trembling. Then he was gone.

Mrs. Ashley hurried into the house. What she saw sent her hands fluttering to her head in terror. Sarah Hart lay on the hearth rug, moaning and writhing in some internal agony, her clothing half-ripped from her body.

In the following seconds of panic, what little she knew about her neighbor flashed through Mrs. Ashley's brain. Sarah Hart was a retired housekeeper. She was in her forties. Her husband had died, leaving her with two children and many debts. She was supposedly dependent on the bounty of her father-in-law, who gave her a small allowance. Sarah had dwelt in peace and friendship on Salt Hill. Still, there was an aura of mystery about her. And now. . . .

Before Mrs. Ashley could do more than lift Sarah's head from the floor, other neighbors, drawn by the screams, filled the little house. Among them was the community doctor. He was superfluous. Sarah was dead, her stiffened fingers clawing the air, her eyeballs turned into her skull.

Suddenly Mrs. Ashley took note of some startling facts. She recalled that a few hours previously the dead woman had announced she anticipated a visit from her father-in-law. He was to bring her her allowance. Mrs. Ashley knew that same father-in-law was a Quaker! Had she not seen a Quaker hurrying away but a few moments ago!

Mrs. Ashley was confused no longer. "Quick, the station at Slough!" she shouted to the constable who had just arrived.

Led by Mrs. Ashley, now stung to a frenzy of indignation and resolved to avenge her neighbor, the group ran down to the primitive station. But the mysterious Quaker was not there. Swift investigation revealed he had doubled back on his tracks and taken an omnibus to Eton. By this time police from the surrounding countryside had joined the chase. When they reached the famous preparatory school town the quarry had already returned to Slough and entrained for London.

The self-constituted posse got this information from the Slough station-master, who admitted he had noticed a suspiciouslooking individual but had seen no cause for detaining him. Mrs. Ashley raged. Let the Quaker reach London and he might hide forever in the sprawling maze of that city. Then it burst upon her—the inspiration that was nothing less than a master-stroke.

"That queer, new invention," she gasped, "the tele—tele—something! Can't somebody send a message to London before the train gets there?"

An unheard-of suggestion! But it was a desperate situation, and desperate measures were required. Without squandering another moment, the constable summoned the local telegraph clerk. There was but one, and he was the only man within miles who was not leery of the new-fangled invention So excited that he could scarcely still him trembling fingers, he banged out a sage to Paddington Station, describing the fugitive, and demanding his arrest on sight.

London was only twenty-one miles away but speed was just a word in those When the black-coated figure alight Paddington, a Bow Street Runner (detective) was there to receive him. The sleuth however, made no arrest, but, following orders from headquarters, simply "tail his quarry.

It is not hard to picture this primitive Hawkshaw's breathless excitement as shadowed his man through the streets London. The Quaker, unconscious of doom, was apparently in a mood for casual rambling. He led the sleuth a merry chase First to a bank, then to Wellington tarrying for a moment at the Jerus Coffee House where neither fear nor troubled conscience could detract from the delights of English tiffin.

It was now late at night, and the was ready for bed. He threaded his way over London Bridge, and stopped lodging-house in Scott's Yard. The prietor was a Quaker called Hughes, sleuth noted the address and returne headquarters to make his report.

He was instructed to arrest his man first thing in the morning, but when he sented himself at the lodging-house he was told the Quaker had gone abroad early The sleuth decided upon a long shotcoffee house. He was rewarded. There the suspect was munching a bun between of coffee. The sleuth approached, let fall ham-like hand upon the man's shoulder and barked:

"I believe you were in Slough yesterday evening, sir. Your name, please?"

The Quaker assumed an attitude of ering dignity. "I am John Tawell, of hamsted, Hertfordshire," he said, "a have never been in Slough in my life!"

Queen Victoria's officers of the law had a skeptical way about them. Protesting his innocence and heaping maledictions on his persecutor's head, Tawell was forcibly taken to the superintendent of police at Eton for questioning. Superficial inquiries had already established the fact that he was a man respected in his own community, generous donor to charity, and a pillar of the church. To this picture Tawell appended the following story:

"It is true I knew the deceased, and,

I was in Slough yesterday evening, but I did not kill her. She killed herself. Sarah Hart was a bad woman, a very bad woman. I know. She married my son, and after he died she became housekeeper to me and my wife. When she left us I had no more peace. She kept pestering me for money, and threatened me unless I gave her a regular monthly allowance. To this I agreed for my son's sake.

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"On the evening of her death I presented myself in her parlor. She sent me out for some porter, and when I returned with it she produced a phial, emptied it into the tankard, and cried, 'I will do it! I will!' She then drank it, and fell down onto the rug."

Acting upon Tawell's bland recital, a "scientific chemist" performed an autopsy upon Sarah Hart's body. By the action of Prussian blue a quantity of prussic acid was found in the intestines. No record of such a purchase by the dead woman could be found.

The trick which actually laid Tawell by the heels was an institution then comparatively novel—high-powered journalism. So widely had the tragedy been publicized that a Billingsgate Street chemist was moved to come forward with blasting evidence.

He was the John Perron of his day. He stated that Tawell had entered his shop the morning of the crime and purchased two drachms of Schule's Prussic Acid, explaining that he required it for varicose veins. The Dangerous Drugs Act had not yet been passed, and any man, woman, or child could buy enough poison to destroy a small army. Not only could, but sometimes did.

Tawell had pulled one of those incredible boners of which the most coolly logical criminals are capable. He had brought his own bottle with a glass stopper, and when the chemist gave him the proper bottle with a poison label Tawell left his own behind to be called for next day!

Wretched Sarah Hart perished in January. Two months later John Tawell's gaunt frame dangled from the gallows. With that swiftness and efficiency from which English justice has never deviated, the Norfolk Assizes deliberated but one hour to reach a verdict. At the end of that time the judge adjusted his black cap.

Before he swung, the murderer made a complete confession. It revealed one of the strangest motives which has ever impelled a twisted mind to contemplate murder. It was not money. It was not passion. It was a longing for that most characteristic of English virtues—respectability.

To understand the duality of John Tawell you must understand the religious sect to which he belonged and especially the Society of Friends, of which he was once a member.

The Friends comprise the highest stratum of Quakers. They are fanatical puritans, who affect the most sober dress, eschew alcohol, elaborate food, and shun all forms of sensual pleasure. At regular intervals they assemble, meditate in silence, and, fired by a sudden, internal explosion of purity, suggest some good work for one of their members to perform.

In earliest youth Tawell had been inoculated with these ideals. All his life he thirsted for that respectability which is an essential quality of the Friends. At the same time, there flamed in his blood secret and bestial desires. To sate them, he stole as a boy, and at twenty-six he "raised" the numbers on a Bank of England note. Because Quakers are opposed to capital punishment, they covered up his previous felonies, and narrowly saved their brother from hanging. He was, however, exiled to Australia.

In Sydney he set up a chemist's shop, married, procreated, and amassed a fortune. The knowledge of chemistry which he acquired served him later in a more sinister capacity, if certain rumors are to be credited. It was said that his wife and partner died in circumstances which suggested poisoning.

Nevertheless, he enjoyed the esteem and goodwill of his neighbors. He was one of those magnificent hypocrites who convince even themselves of their righteousness.

Fifteen years in Sydney made him rich. He had saved. He had speculated. Now he could yield to the yearnings which had animated him so long. He returned to England, and his first move was a tearful effort to get himself reinstated in the Society of Friends. He was refused.

He continued to wear the dress of that society, and, outwardly at least, observed their rigid habits of life. He married again. In Berkhamsted he appeared active for good, founded a savings bank, built a school, and contributed to many charities. In fact, he quite impoverished himself. Here was a man in whom the desire for respectability was almost a psychopathic ailment.

Basically, John Tawell had not altered the bestial side of his Jekylland-Hyde nature. In his confession, he admitted he had once tried unsuccessfully to poison Sarah Hart. The motive? She had been more than a housekeeper and daughter-in-law to him. She had been his mistress. Tired of her, and fearing her threats of exposure unless he supported her for life, he murdered her in preference to forfeiting his status as a respectable, English gentleman.

But for those few, excited taps on Samuel Morse's telegraph box, that day in Slough, Tawell might have lived to an old age, free to love and deceive and murder again. It was one of the first times that the criminal was made aware of a new enemy, an enemy as grim as death, as impersonal as prison walls—Science.