POISONING MYSTERY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20917, 6 January 1930, Page 12

POISONING MYSTERY.

EDGAR WALLACE IN CROYDON AFFAIR. The Croydon mystery murders take their place at Scotland Yard as a famous casc % An analysis of the baffling crimes, by Edgar Wallace, famous British writer of detective stories, recently appeared iu tho New York Times. Scotland Yard never drops an inquiry, he says. Seventeen years ago an atrocious murder was committed, the perpetrator of which was not discovered, Scotland Yard is still working on that case: its- well-thumbed dossier is examined by every newcomer, to the records department.

What is known as the Croydon poisoning mystery is in reality no mytsery at all. except as to the identity of tho person who administered the poison. According to the verdicts of coroners’ juries two people have been deliberately done to death, and the third may have been done to death, by some persons unknown, all three victims having been destroyed by the administration of arsenic. The three were members of one family. There were living in Croydon eight months ago a widow. Mrs Violet Amelia Sidney; her unmarried daughter, Vera Sidney; her married daughter, Mrs Edmund Duff, who lived with her husband and family in South Park Hill road. Mrs Sidney, whose age was 69, was a wotpan of some means.

In February of last year Mr Duff, who was a retired commissioner from Nigeria, and_ whose age was 59, returned from a fishing excursion in Hampshire, and on the day of his arrival copipalined of feeling unwell. The doctor vac called to see him, hut could find nothing that was seriously wrong. Later the unfortunate man developed symptoms which were identified at the time as being consistent with an attack of ptomaine poisoning. He died within a few hours of his first attack, and at an inquest which followed no trace of any malignant poisoning could be detected by the analyst to whom certain organs were sent. In the following February Miss Vera Sidney was taken suddenly ill, and died. There seemed to be no suspicion that she had died from any other than natural causes, and she was buried. Her mother, who was devoted to her, felt her daughter’s loss deeply, and a month later she also complained of violent pains after drinking some medicine, and died in a very short space of time. The events preceding Vera’s death are important. Vera had a special kind of soup made. The cook of the household, a Mrs Noakes, prepared more than was she herself took half a cupful and a visitor also was served with the soup. It was made on Tuesday and added to on Wednesday, that is to say, some of the soup that was left over on the night before was the_ basis of Wednesday’s stewing. Mrs Noakes took half a .cupful on Tuesday and was very ill the same night. It was obviously poisoned not only on Tuesday but on Wednesday; when the poisoned broth was diluted by the addition of a newly-made soup it was still so strongly poisonous that a visitor who partook of a portion was ill for sis days. Therefore, the poison had not only been put in on the Tuesday, but the soup must have been re-doctored on the Wednesday. Who came to the house? First, there were the children of Thomas Sidney and Mrs Duff, who_ often visited the place. Mr Sidney’s children were babies. Mrs Duff’s childern were very young and could .not have had the knowledge which the unknown poisoner possessed, and which enabled the murderer to find one of those secret places which every kitchen possesses where food ia stored. Both Mrs Duff and Mr Sidney had access to the house.

In neither case is there any outstanding motive, as the coroner very properly pointed out, to suspect either of this awful crime.

The poison in Mrs- Sidney’s case was obviously conveyed through her medicine, which “had a nasty taste,” She suspected poisoning without naming any suspected culprit. Mrs Duff saw her immediately after lunch and administered an emetic of salt and water and telephoned for the doctor. The unfortunate woman died that night. To bo exact, this was three weeks after Vera’s death.

There is no evidence whatever to show that there was ill-feeling between any members of the family.

The poison from which Mr Duff died was apparently introduced in beer or in spirits.

Under the will of the two women the son, Thomas Sidney, and the widowed daughter. Grace Duff, benefited to the extent of several thousand pounds. By the death of Edmund Duff nobody seems to have benefited financially. Subsequently, on a Home Office order, the bodies of the two women were exhumed, and later tho body of Mr Duff was examined. Analyses followed, and arsenic was discovered iu each body. After an .almost interminable series of adjourned inquiries, certain facts .were clicHed, the most important of which was that in both houses—that of Mr Duff and that i of Mrs Sidcy—admission could he obtained to tho house through a side door which was'always open. This, may hayc been mere coincidence. There are hundreds of thousands of households where one door into the house is never closed in the daytime and where there is accessibility. But the fact that the doors were open makes it possible that the victims—and what is more important—the victims’ food wore accessible to tho unknown poisoner.

There is another coincidence, namely, that in all three cases they were unwell _ before poison was administered; that is to say, they were under some sort of treatment or on a special diet: Vera was “poorly,” Mra Sidney was still prostrated by the tragic death of her daughter, Mr Duff had returned from the country with what was probably digestive trouble. In no case were they completely healthy people struck down by the poisoner’s hand.

In every case, _ therefore, there was need for the special attention which an invalid, or a semi-invalid, or an ailing person receives at the hands of friends and servants. That is very important, be cause a well man or woman does not receive food, at any other than the hands of their servants, A friend or a member of the family does not prepare food for the healthy members of the household. It is important, too, because this increase of accessibility and extraordinary attention practically makes it impossible that anv c.vidence can be secured of administration.

If I hand a glass of poisoned wine to a friend of mine and he dies, it is easy to trace the administration lo ma; but if my friend is sick and ail sorts of potions are being prepared ior him both by his servants and his misguided friends not only is the possibility of detection reduced to a minimum, but the suspicion that he owed his death to foul means is minimised by the fact that he was already ill when the poison was taken. You may rule out tiie servants of both houses.

The coroner's jury has definitely dismissed the possibility of aciidcrtal adluinistration. Here again the very coincidence of the circumstances makes it Ji most impossible that the deaths couid have been due to an accident. Weedkiller i s to be found in thousands of homes, so is carbolic acid, so .u ■

other poisons. It is common knowledge that weed-killer is poisonous, and people who possess this commodity handle and store it with such care that the possibilities of an accident are reduced to a negligible quantity. On the balance of probability it is a million to one against similar accidents occurring within a year in two families living in separate houses. What strikes mo as being extremely probable in this particular case is that the murderer had an accomplice. Whether that accomplice wag innocent or guilty will perhaps one day be known. I am satisfied in my inind that there is a third person who. if he did not actively assist in the murders and was not actually privy, to their committal, must, in the case of Mr Duff, be well aware of the unknown motive—unknown, if suspected by the police, but for the moment entirely unknown to the public. That mysterious third person is in as dreadful a position as the murderer, for any moment he may find his secret surprised and, because of his very silence, go to the scaffold for the person who actually administered the poison. Ife may have been entirely innocent, he may have, been horrified to discover the tragic turn that events had taken and the terrible solution which the murderer had found for some immediate problem. Experience teaches us that men and women who occupy what is known as respectable positions in society will often risk the most ignominious of deaths to avoid any scandal being attached to their names, and I have an idea that something of the sort is happening here. It is a big price to pay for the illusion of respectability. Wore the three people killed by weedkiller at all? Were they destroyed by

a purer form of arsenic? And if so, how was that arsenic procured? This may be the point on which the case will eventually turn. Was the third and unknown accessory, innocent or guilty, the agent from whom the poison was obtained on some pretext or another? My own view is that the murderer will never be discovered if weed-killer was the poison employed, unless the mania persists and the coroner’s court exposures •have not terrified the murdered to sanity. Otherwise there will be other deaths from poisons, for a poison 'maniac’s appetite is as insatiable as the drug fiend's. I am not in. the confidence of the police, but I imagine that they are concentrating at the moment upon only one of these deaths—that of .Edmund Duff —for here may be discovered, and will be discovered sooner or -later, a significant motive. In this case two people are directly and indirectly concerned, and when the crime is brought home to its perpetrator, it will be on the evidence concerning the Duff murder. Mr Duff died from poison .which was" administered to him after his return from the fishing excursion. The action of arsenic administred in quantities, which evidently was employed, is very swift and violnt. It was therefore impossible that the arsenic could have been taken while lie was in the country and the effects felt when he returned to town. Hero his wife was practically never out of his sight, and she appears to have done everything that was humanly possible for him during the' course of his fatal illness. There is no suggestion that any servant owed him a grudge, even supposing that servants who owe "their masters a grudge are likely to take so awful a revenge. What was the motive here? To put out of the way a troublesome man? He troubled nobody apparently. Mrs Duff testified to his being the best of husbands and- the kindest of fathers and indignantly denied that he was a man of bad temper or that he was jealous. Iso suggestion was made in court as to the cause of his jealousy. s Not since the Borden case—-which, in certain respects, except the method employed by the destroyer, it resembles—has a great body, of public' opinion been unanimous in proclaiming the murderer’s name. In England, where the law of libel operates with disastrous results to the indiscreet, no one has yet printed'