Poison administered through wound in neck by means of dagger, knife, or lancet. No evidence to show who had inflicted wound.
Jury would please return verdict in accordance with evidence.
The jury consulted for a few minutes and returned verdict. That deceased had come to her death by violence by the hand of some person or persons unknown.
This is the whole statement of the case which we have entitled The Piccadilly Puzzle, and we will now make our comments thereon.
In the first place from all appearances the deceased was evidently a lady and not a street walker. We know that many street walkers are ladies who have fallen into that state of degradation, but this unknown woman was not one of them in our opinion, for as far as we can learn she bore no marks of dissipation, which such a life would inevitably cause. Again, if she had been an habitué of the streets she would have been known to the police, but none of them were able to identify her. True, her face had been swollen and disfigured by the action of the poison so that in any case it would have been difficult to recognize the features, still her dress and figure might lead to identification, but no result had been arrived at. The deceased, therefore, to all appearances was a lady. Jermyn Street is not a particularly busy thoroughfare at any time, and after eleven o'clock it is comparatively deserted, therefore the assassin must have decoyed his victim there to accomplish his crime in safety. He might have had an appointment to meet her, and while talking to her in the doorway, had he embraced her, might doubtless have wounded her with the poisonous weapon. She would only feel a pin-prick, and then he could watch the poison do its work. She would become confused and then giddy, entertaining no idea that she carried death in her veins. Then passing into a comatose state she would sink to the ground in a dying condition. Her companion had then probably left her, satisfied that she could not call out. There seems to have been a great deal of devilish ingenuity about the committal of the crime, and this brings us to the consideration as to the position in life held by the assassin.
We hold that he is a gentleman, or at least an educated man, possibly a medical man, a medical student, or a dilettante in toxicology. A common assassin would have decoyed his victim into a house and murdered her in a more brutal manner, by cutting her throat or battering her head with a poker, but this strange assassin, secure in the possession of a weapon more deadly, engages his unhappy victim in confidential talk, and whilst embracing her causes her death in a sure manner. It is a Judas-like crime, the kiss of friendship and the heart of treachery, therefore we say the criminal who possesses these refined and fiendish instincts must be an educated man, and also one who must have no little knowledge of poisons to employ the subtle drug he did. The nature of the poison cannot be discovered, as the simple scratch corrupted the blood and there are no local signs to tell what kind was employed. As to the motive of the crime, it may have been love, it may have been jealousy, perhaps robbery; as no money or jewellery were found on the body, and there was a mark on the neck as though a chain had been roughly wrenched off. What we have set forth is mere conjecture, for the assassin may be a woman, but we think this improbable. No woman would have the nerve to commit such a crime in the open street--true the assassin, was favoured by the fog which hid his or her crime behind an impenetrable veil, but still the risk was enormous.
But be the assassin man or woman there is no doubt we have in our midst a human fiend who, possessed of a deadly weapon, namely, a poisoned dagger, can commit crimes with impunity? A slight scratch given in a certain portion of the body and the victim is doomed. Who is to point out the assassin, unless he or she is actually seen committing the crime. We have not yet heard the end of the Piccadilly Puzzle, but it will take all the acumen and ingenuity of the London detective to trace this secret assassin, and our only dread is lest some other victim may fall before his or her terrible weapon.
But though the assassin of this unknown woman may escape the consequences of this crime, sooner or later he will thirst again for blood, and the second time he may not be so fortunate. Let him remember
Tho' the mills of God grind slowly, They grind exceeding small.