Ill Met by Gaslight: Five Edinburgh Murders (10 page)

Meanwhile, it being Sunday, news of Jean’s illness was spreading. At Chapel Mr Hay offered prayers for her recovery, and when Helen Glass arrived to sit with her sister, she found Agnes Turnbull, a member of the Wesleyan congregation, already there. Agnes considered that, `Jean’s inside was in an awful state’. She watched her throw up three tablespoonfuls of vinegar and water. She sat with her into the afternoon. At some time she and Helen moved jean from the kitchen to the bed in the other room. To Helen jean complained of `great pain in the stomach and bowels and of a great thirst’. Though the two powders from MacDonald had at last stopped the vomiting, it was clear that she was growing weaker.

Sometime in the afternoon Mrs Turnbull offered to fetch the doctor again, but Bennison shook his head. `She is going home’, he said. When Helen renewed the suggestion a little later, his reply was even less engaging. It would do no good, he said; so there was no need to incur this further expense. This petty callousness, this determination to save the candleends, is unattractive, even revolting; it reminds one of George Joseph Smith, the celebrated `Brides-in-the-Bath’ murderer, who refused to pay the instalment due on the bath in which he had drowned one of his wives, on the ground that he had no longer any use for it. Of course any notion that murder should go with an expansive temperament is romantic nonsense. A good many murders are mean, simply because their perpetrators are nasty little men. All the same Bennison’s rejoinder lacks the grim, even if unconscious, humour of Smith’s.

Bennison was acting in character when he refused to summon the doctor a second time. That is usually wise enough. Nothing attracts suspicion like the unusual gesture. Yet there are limits; it is equally unwise to arouse needless animosity. Husbands who appear indifferent to their dying wives are likely to displease the wife’s family; and such displeasure turns easily to suspicion. Bennison would probably have been wiser to have damned the expense, and paid the second fee, even at the risk, surely an outside chance, that the doctor might still have saved her.

That was not the only evidence on Sunday that he had concluded death to be inevitable. He asked Helen and Mrs Turnbull what sort of funeral letters they thought he should get, and the following morning he took his black trousers to Mrs Ramsay, a neighbour who did tailoring repairs. Everything must be done properly. He called on the Porteouses twice, and bade them prepare for the end. It was no more than a matter of hours, he said. He was quite correct; she expired around noon on the Monday. `I have seen many a deathbed’, he told Mrs Ramsay, `but never a pleasanter one than my wife’s.’ At the time he was even more ecstatic: `Thank God she has gone to Glory,’ he cried, `she has gone home.’

Even some of his fellow enthusiasts might have considered this was overdoing it. There should be a measure in all things, and it is better that bereaved husbands show themselves at least as sensible of their own loss as of their late partner’s translation to eternal bliss. Even the godly are expected to display merely human feelings on such occasions, which are rare enough to be remembered.

Of course some sort of pious sentiment was expected. Jean had already expressed herself in such terms. She was probably sincere, poor creature, as in his own peculiar way he was. Others were less easily convinced. It was not long before Helen was wondering whether the Lord had worked unaided in the affair. Almost everything Bennison did after the death might have been calculated to fan her suspicions.

He was first unduly anxious to press on with the funeral, fixing it for the Wednesday afternoon at two o’clock. Both Helen and Mr Hay were surprised by the speed. Bennison explained to the minister that, `it did not do for poor people to keep a corpse in the house too long’. That was probably true enough, what was generally felt. No doubt in a small dwelling a corpse was not the most convenient article. There were no spare bedrooms where it could be stored. Nevertheless Bennison gave the clear impression that he wanted the body out of the way, and the whole business over and forgotten, as soon as possible.

On the same day came the death of the dog, and few were ready to believe Bennison’s airy assurance that that meant nothing. At the very least it was a strange coincidence. Helen, Mrs Moffat, and Mrs Porteous all shook their heads over the matter.. Tongues wagged.

Even more damning was Bennison’s conduct towards Margaret Robertson. On the Monday afternoon, within a few hours of Jean’s death, Mrs Porteous found Margaret making tea in the Bennisons’ kitchen. She knew who she was, though she was to claim that she had never seen her in the house before. At the trial there was argument about this. Bennison stated in his declaration that Margaret had been to tea in the house before his wife’s death, and even Helen had to admit, under cross-examination, that she had seen her there while her sister was alive. `There was a bonnet sent to her to mend by her sister the week before her death, and the child went to the Robertsons’ house to get a straw bonnet for her doll.’ A dressmaking connection scarcely justified what was happening now. Not only was Margaret there making tea, an act of enormous symbolic importance (though none of the witnesses could have described it in such words) but she and Bennison were seen together outside, walking as they had been wont to do before his wife’s death. He entrusted her with the delivery of some of the invitations to the funeral, and they were seen together in the gloaming with letters in their hands - Mrs Wilkie (she of the coal-cellar fowls) stated that Miss Robertson had brought the letter inviting her son to the funeral. Worst of all, Bennison removed to the Robertsons’ on the Monday evening, and spent the night there.

His behaviour defies rational explanation. It is as if he was blind to the possibility that he might be suspected of murder. He was quite remarkably stupid; stupid to the extent of imbecility, showing to a quite unusual degree, that commonly remarked criminal incapacity to associate actions with consequences. The Robertsons were equally naive, and their complicity had never been suggested. When they realised how their reputation was compromised, their proclamations of innocence were to be loud, Margaret’s sister, Mary, asserting that when Bennison visited the house, `his conversation was always religious’. Such assurances, incapable of proof, could not of course allay scandalous rumour. The rumours were inevitable. When a man has been paying marked attention to a girl, and his wife dies, and then he moves into the girl’s lodging, one cannot expect tongues to be silent.

Helen in particular wanted to know the truth. She had no special animus against Bennison. She said at the trial that she would always be grateful to him for his kindness to her sister in early years - an observation that offers a revelation of the wretched condition in which Victorian wives could languish. Helen and Bennison do not seem to have been on bad terms though. Elizabeth Grindlay, who also visited jean on the Sunday, saw him rest his hand on Helen’s shoulder at one moment, the touch being neither evaded nor apparently resented. Still, Helen did not believe the death was natural, and she was certain her sister would not have killed herself. `She knew the value of her soul too well even to think of such an act’, she said. What then had happened? She made no accusation at this point. She just wanted to know. By the Tuesday night she had a strong impression that `something was wrong .

Early on the Wednesday she proposed that jean be opened for examination. Bennison was horrified. `He said his feelings could never stand it’. The subject was resumed after breakfast and he continued obstinate. (Helen’s evidence on this point was corroborated by Mrs Moffat.) At last Bennison said that he would bring Dr Gillespie. He disappeared for halfanhour, returning to say that the doctor was unavailable, being in the country. He had then gone in search of Dr MacDonald (as he termed him), but he was in Edinburgh attending a class. So it was all no good.

There was nothing that could be done immediately. Bennison set off for Edinburgh himself on unspecified business. Perhaps it was simply an excuse to be out of the house; he can hardly be blamed for not finding its atmosphere congenial that morning. In his absence Helen conferred with Agnes Turnbull and another friend, Margaret Law, as well as Mrs Moffat. They all agreed that action should be taken.

The funeral however went on as planned, there being scarcely time to prevent it. It took place in Pilrig cemetery at two o’clock. Bennison wore his repaired trousers, and the deepest black. Yet even he can hardly have failed to be aware by this time of the suspicion with which his neighbours and acquaintance were eyeing him. Events were running out of control. Still he had not yet lost hope of convincing Helen that her fears were groundless, and after the funeral he called on Dr Gillespie to tell him of the suspicions, and ask him to do what he could to lay them to rest. Dr Gillespie, prudent man, offered sympathy but no reassurance. The next morning Bennison was to approach Mr Hay and Mr Millar of the Ironworks to ask them to have a word with Helen. He called also on Mr Kilgour the grocer and from him was at least able to bring back the message that, `Mr Kilgour was much displeased’ with Helen `for entertaining such a notion’.

If this not very convincing admonition had ever had a chance of success, it arrived too late. Helen and her friends had not been idle since the funeral. With Mrs Moffat she had spent the Wednesday afternoon discussing the case with a succession of medical men in Edinburgh. By evening they had resolved to lay information before the Fiscal. They kept this news from Bennison when they encountered him that evening (again with Margaret Robertson). He passed the Wednesday night at the Robertsons’, and it was only on the Thursday morning that he learned of his sister-in-law’s activities. He protested again, repeating what he had said on the Wednesday morning that `his feelings could never stand it’ and finally snapped that the exhumation should be at her expense. It was the snap of a weak man whose time was running out.

He must have considered flight. At the trial his counsel put his rejection of the idea forward as an argument of innocence. Bennison, he said, could have escaped `seeing the great facilities that he had for doing so by railway’. It was not much of a defence, but not quite as feeble as it sounds. Liaison between police forces was still poor; crime was the concern of a locality, and, despite the circulation of descriptions and newspapers like Hue and Cry, it was difficult to trace a wanted man in another city. Labour, especially Irish labour, was highly mobile, and few questions were asked of a new employee. There was no national popular Press. There were no documents that would aid identification, no national insurance, tax records, no official record of existence indeed beyond that furnished by birth, marriage and death registrations; and these were often defective in cities. Consequently a quick escape by rail was possible, and a new identity in another city could be adopted without difficulty. It is easy to forget how bureaucracy and technology have restricted the freedom of the criminal.

Bennison however stayed put, but he was now agitated, alert to the danger of his position. His mind turned back to the purchase of the arsenic. If only that could somehow be wished away … he set off to see the MacDonalds. The conversation began obliquely. He asked Mr MacDonald if he could have a line for the medicine with which he had been supplied. The druggist assured him that was not necessary. Bennison made to leave. Then, as if the idea had just crossed his mind, he turned and asked about the arsenic. MacDonald, who knew nothing of the sale, was taken aback. Bennison explained the matter, how he had got the poison from Mrs MacDonald `for the rats’. Since MacDonald had not been involved in the sale Bennison suggested - surely he could truthfully deny all knowledge of the transaction? Not only Jesuits, but Wesleyans too, are capable of casuistry. Mr MacDonald however was adamant. It was as much as his position was worth; besides which it would be wrong; and what anyway had Bennison done with the stuff? Bennison replied that he had handed it over to his wife. She had mixed it in a plate, and he had never seen it since. MacDonald, though mindful of Bennison’s Christian piety, was not to be persuaded. Bennison said, `They may find it, but I declare to God that I am innocent’. It was not to be the last of his appeals to divine authority.

He returned to his house in a state of despondency. Even he could see that his position had become desperate. They would dig up his wife, find arsenic in her, and then what? All he could do was stand by the rats and proclaim innocence of anything else. It was possible that the assumption of suicide might be made … Mrs Moffat found him in this gloomy mood on the Thursday evening. Her own position in respect to him being, at best equivocal, she can have said little to cheer him. Towards ten o’clock she made ready to leave. Perhaps she feared to compromise her reputation by spending the night alone in the house with him, but it was late enough to seek another lodging. Probably she had expected that he would betake himself to the Robertsons’ again, but he was too low-spirited to act. So she decided to go elsewhere herself. She may even have been afraid. If she had, as seems probable, already concluded that Bennison was a murderer, it is natural enough that she should have felt disinclined to pass the night in his company.

Then he made an odd request. Would she please lock the door and take the key with her? He must indeed have been in a state of abject fear and confusion. He had already given Mrs Moffat evidence of this earlier in the afternoon. Then a message had been brought asking him to call on Mr Millar, the book-keeper at the Ironworks, who was also treasurer of the two Funeral Societies. `On coming back from the interview he fell down in a senseless state by the fireside.’ She had had to revive him with a little brandy. Mr Millar had told him that in view of the uncertain circumstances of Jean’s death he felt unable to pay out all the funeral money that was due. That had brought home to Bennison very starkly the nature of his position. Now he was an isolated man, and a very frightened one. He may have feared the neighbours, feared that some attack would be made on him; he may have feared that the authorities would come to arrest him, but even Bennison must have realised that they would hardly be deterred by a locked door, if they had reason to believe that he was within. Perhaps he merely wanted a night’s refuge, a chance to withdraw into himself. Perhaps he spent the hours of darkness on his knees, in prayer.