Science and the Criminal

by C. Ainsworth Mitchell

On the way to the police station, after his arrest, Brinkley made the significant statement: “If anyone says I put poison in stout, he’s got to prove it.” Up to that moment there had been no mention of poisoned stout.

At the police court proceedings it was proved that the Becks had died from the effects of prussic acid, that Brinkley had bought that poison, that he had bought a bottle of stout in West Croydon, and that he had been seen on the platform at Wandsworth waiting for the West Croydon train.

The motive of the crime was an important link in the chain of evidence, but Brinkley held stoutly to his story that the will was signed by both witnesses in the presence of Mrs. Blume.

Parker’s version of his signature, the authenticity of which he did not dispute, was that while he was out with Brinkley one evening the latter asked him to sign his name upon a paper petitioning for an outing, and that they had thereupon turned into a public-house, where he, Parker, had written his name upon a sheet of paper, the upper part of which was folded over.

In order to test the truth of Parker’s statement the bottle of ink was obtained from that public-house, and he was told to write his name upon a sheet of paper in that ink, and this paper and the original will were submitted to the present writer for examination.

By the aid of the methods described in the preceding pages it was found that the ink of Parker’s signature upon the will and that of the writing upon the piece of paper were of the same kind—an ink readily recognisable from its particularly brilliant blue pigment. In addition to this, three distinct kinds of ink were present upon the will, the body of the document and the signature of one witness being in one kind of ink, the signature of the testatrix in another, and the signature of the other witness in a third.

When the case came on at the Assizes at Guildford Mr. R. D. Muir appeared for the prosecution, while the prisoner was very ably defended by Mr. Frampton. Every day the judge, counsel on both sides, the prisoner, and many of the witnesses went down to Guildford by a train in the morning and returned to London again in the evening.

Each morning the prisoner when he entered the court appeared quite unconcerned, and chatted with the warders. As is so often the case, he did not seem to realise the gravity of his position.

It was shown in the evidence that he had some knowledge of poisons, and that he had selected one that would disappear more or less rapidly from the body after death. The chemical evidence as to the presence of prussic acid in the bodies was given by Dr. Stevenson and Mr. Bodmer, and was not called in question by the defence.

Evidence was also given by the writer with regard to the inks upon the will, and this, too, was not disputed. In fact, Brinkley, who went into the witness-box, when asked how he explained the fact of three kinds of ink being on the will replied that Mrs. Blume had three different sorts in the house.