POISONING CHARGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18707, 13 May 1924, Page 9

POISONING CHARGE.

REVELATIONS AT INQUEST. • Australian find N.Z. Cable Association. . <Becd. 5.5 p.m.) - LONDON. May 11. Counsel for the Crown told a remarkable story at the inquest in the Byfleet ; poisoning arse, concerning the . relations between Mrs. Jones, - wife of the dead man, and Vaquierj who is charged, with ■ •• murder. •' Mrs. Jon?s • visited Biarritz on January 7. and. met accused, who was a hotel wireless operator, and later accom- \ panied him .to another hotel, where they lived as man and wife. They afterwards ; stayed Hp.". Paris : and London hotels under \ the same conditions. ~. - ' When a housemaid in the Hotel Rus- " sell remonstrated, Mrs. Jones , asserted . she was Vaquier's wife. i r "Vaquiei; arrived on February 14 at the : r Blae Anchor Hotel in Byfleet afterwards accompanying Mrs. Jones everywhere, the ■-J' hotel staff commenting on their relationship. She refused to leave her husband, who was a heavy . drinker, and who on the mornings after Lis bouts was in the habit of taking bromo salts. ' A party was held in the hotel on the r night of March 28. Next morning Vaquier - ■ was seen to ' move ; a bottle on the shelf inhere Jones kept the salts. Later Jones took the salts and exclaimed: "My God, they are bitter." The wife examined the dregs ant! said the salts had been tampered with. .... : . : , While Jones was in his death agony, Vaquier, on the pretext that it was for the doctor, obtained possession of ; the salts bottle, which ' Mrs. . Jones found empty and recently washed out. ■< , 1 * Vaquier asked: " It he .ill?" and she replied, " No, dead. Yon did it." A week later v she alleged that Vaquier ad_:v' mitted: " I did it Mabs for you.V A chemist gave evidence that Vaquier n on March 1 bought sufficient strychnine to kill four persons. ' • The inquest was adjourned. Police officers dramatically entered the coffee room of an hotel at Woking at 10 p.m. on April 19, where Vaqilier, a black-bearded foreign inventor, was listen- • ing.to a woman visitor playing a piano. They arrested him on the charge of murdering Alfred Jones, the proprietor of the Blue Anchor Hotel, at Byfleet. Vaquier r. was one of .Jones' guests at Byfleet. After taking an early-morning " refresher " at . the bar, Jones collapsed; screaming, I em poisoned." His body was exhumed and strychnine was found in. his stomach. Sensational evidence was given at the opening of the inquest on May 1. A ' chemist identified Vaquier as a Frenchman iii .who bought a lot of drugs in his shop at Southampton for experimenting; in wireless telegraphy. Finally, he said, Vaquier bought perchloride of mercury and strychnine, though the chemist at first « refused to sell the strychnine, cs it seemed ■■}; .to him to'be useless for wireless. Vaquier K. signed the poison book with the name I*. "Vanker." A medical witness said that Mrs. Jones told him her husband had taken a dose of salts, as was his habit when he was feeling the effects of overjv Sight merrvmaking. When the doctor f; asked for the bottle of salts and the glass he found the latter had been : recently Hnsed. 1