Sounds like a fictional murder mystery, doesn’t it?
Actually, it’s a real case, written as creative nonfiction. Instead of boring, dry statements of fact, books like this are written in more of a literary style, so they read a lot like novels while still being factually accurate. This book does a great job of it. One of the better examples I’ve seen in awhile.
The events take place at the beginning of the 20th century, and the case comes to trial in the midst of World War I. There is a lot of detail given about each of the people involved, written in such a way that you see them as characters in a story.
The background:
A man met a woman somewhere in England and quickly began paying his attentions to her. Their courting was extremely short, and the man soon asked the woman to marry him. He assured her that he had steady work and a decent income that would keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Although she saw little evidence of this and really knew nothing about him, she accepted his proposal. At the time, women had little to look forward to other than working for a pittance that would barely keep body and soul together and/or being a financial burden and embarrassment to their families should they end up as spinsters. A financially poor woman getting on or moving up in the world independently was rare. So marriage, even to an unappealing or unsuitable prospect was, unfortunately, the only way out for most women who were not wealthy.
Before, or very soon after, the marriage, the man asked for whatever money the woman had, which in those days was his right. She turned it over to him without question. Also before, or very soon after, the marriage, he took his wife to see a solicitor and they made their wills, leaving all they each have to the other. Finally, at her husband’s encouragement, the wife asked the solicitor for a life insurance policy, the beneficiary of course being her husband. All this done, the husband made promises of a stable and happy life together, and maybe even some travel to Canada to his new bride.
He took her on a honeymoon in a not-very-exotic British town, and they went looking for a respectable but cheap boardinghouse to room in. The man inquired of the landlords or ladies if there was a bathtub in the house, as he thought it more proper that his new wife have use of a private bath, rather than having to go to a public bath house, which was a common practice at the time. If there wasn't a bathtub in the house, they looked elsewhere for lodgings until they found one that did.
I promise it gets more interesting.
One night, the man found his new wife drowned in the boardinghouse bathtub. Shortly before this, he had gone out to buy something for supper. He and whoever had been called for help tried in vain to resuscitate her. The man mentioned that his wife had suffered from headaches in the preceding days and had seen a doctor. As there were no marks of violence on the wife’s body, nor any evidence of poisoning, the cause of death was determined to be drowning as a result of a sudden fit or faint. She was quickly buried in a cheap coffin in a common grave at the man's request. He left the boardinghouse soon after.
And the kicker:
This tragic scenario occurred in 1910, 1913, and 1914 to the wives of Henry Williams, George Smith, and John Lloyd. As it turns out, these three men were in fact one man going by different names. His real name was George Joseph Smith.
To mangle a speech from Lady Bracknell to Jack Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest: To lose one wife in such a manner may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose three looks mighty suspicious.
Enter Detective Inspector Arthur Neil, the first person to make the connection that something is amiss. The trouble is, with no marks of violence on, nor evidence of poisoning in, any of the three victims, how could Neil prove they were murdered? At most, he could charge Smith for false signatures on documents because of the aliases.
That’s where Bernard Spilsbury came in – a doctor specializing in the new science of forensics, which at the time, was not thought of as reliable evidence. He was almost creepily obsessed with his profession – dissecting dead bodies in the morgue, and conducting chemical experiments in his home lab late into the night, keeping careful, detailed notes on what he found. He was called in to perform post-post-mortems on the exhumed bodies of the wives, and his testimony at the trial was the making of him.
What I appreciate most about the book is that Robins doesn’t shy away from pointing out the flaws in the investigation and in the conduct of many people at the trial. In other words, she points out that forensic evidence, let alone the manner in which it was presented in court, was certainly not as reliable at the time as we think it is now. (And even now, it often comes under close scrutiny for possible contamination or tampering.) Therefore, from a 21st-century perspective, the case probably shouldn’t have turned out the way it did.
I’m also impressed with Robins’ characterizations of Bessie, Alice, and Margaret and their families, along with other women in George Smith’s past. You might think they were gullible and desperate women, which naturally is why Smith preyed on them, but they had far fewer options then than women have now, so in the end, I sympathize with them. Smith’s defense lawyer is a master of oratory who could easily sway a jury, and yet, his final opinion of his client isn’t what you expect. The letters Smith wrote, and the ones he made his wives write to their families about how gloriously happy they were with him, reveal an arrogant, bullying, and greedy man (although it's interesting to note that he wasn't getting millions of pounds as a result of their deaths, only a thousand pounds or so from each, but perhaps he thought that would make their deaths seem less remarkable than if he was inheriting gobs of riches, and if he could have gotten away with it on several more occasions, he could have had a very tidy sum eventually). Conversely, on reading Spilsbury’s case cards (which is where things get a bit graphic, just so you know), it’s easy to see why the public thought of him as a real-life Sherlock Holmes.
I admit I don't read much true-crime thriller reading. However, there are two reasons why this book appealed to me when I read a blurb about it in New Scientist.
The first is that, courtesy of my mom, I’ve been watching a series on DVD called Murdoch Mysteries, which takes place in Canada close to the turn of the century. The series is based on books by Maureen Jennings. The main character, Detective Murdoch, is considered an eccentric by his colleagues, not only because as a Catholic, he makes the sign of the cross to himself whenever he encounters a dead body, but also because of his use of the new science of forensics in solving crimes. Since his methods get such good results, the mouthy, temperamental, likes-a-wee-drop Chief Inspector Brackenridge lets Murdoch carry on with his weird experiments, helped along by the good lady doctor working in the morgue and who cracks corny death jokes a lot, and an up-and-coming Watson-like constable who provides a lot of the comic relief. The whole thing is a fascinating look at forensics in its infancy (and Yannick Bisson is some nice eye candy, but they really need to lighten his make-up – he looks overly fake-tanned). The Magnificent Spilsbury is a real-life example of these techniques in use.
The second reason is that the scenario described in the book reminded me of a novel by Gladys Mitchell called Speedy Death, in which one of the characters dies in a similar way with no signs of violence or poisoning. Mrs. Bradley (the detective character) notes the water that splashed on both sides of the bathtub, which helps her figure out how the victim was murdered. The novel was published in 1929, so it’s possible that Mitchell may have heard of the Brides in the Bath case or read about it while doing research. (I make weird connections like this all the time; you get used to it.)
This was absorbing reading – I often extended my lunch breaks at work so I could “read just one more page.”
I got a copy from Waterstone's when I was in London in May. For some reason, Amazon isn't carrying this book, although it was published in April. But bookdepository.com has it.
That reminds me, Mom wants to read it now, so I’m sending my copy to her.
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