‘Soon after, I went out to keep an appointment at my dressmaker’s in Sandycombe Road, confident of finding Mr Perceval dead when I returned. The action of cyanide, my husband had often impressed on me, was practically instantaneous and quite fatal. I had convinced myself there was no chance of the body being discovered prematurely, as the servants were under strict orders not to enter the studio rooms in business hours. I intended on my return to arrange things to give the appearance of suicide, placing the bottle of cyanide beside the wine glass from which he had drunk, and emptying the decanter of its poisoned contents, re-filling it with fresh madeira. After searching the pockets of his suit for photographs or documents that might incriminate me, I would call the servants and raise the alarm.
‘I duly returned a few minutes before four o’clock to learn that my plan had gone irretrievably wrong. The body had been discovered and Dr Eagle had already examined it. My understanding of the effects of potassium cyanide had been in error. Mr Perceval had not died instantaneously. His convulsions had been so frantic and so prolonged that two of the servants had seen fit to disregard their orders and rush to the studio to investigate. They had found him dying, unable to speak. The housemaid, I was told, had gone to fetch the doctor, who had recognised the symptoms of cyanide poisoning.
‘There was nothing I could do to alter the eventual conclusion that Mr Perceval had been murdered, although Dr Eagle made no statement on the matter to me, simply asking where the poison was kept. I unlocked the cabinet and showed him the bottle of potassium cyanide. He sent one of the servants for the police and another for Mr Allingham, the family solicitor. Soon after this I was seized with the gravity of my situation, and fainted. When I had recovered sufficiently for the police inspector to question me, I pretended to have no knowledge of the events leading to Mr Perceval’s death.
‘I swear that this is a true statement superseding all other statements ascribed to me and signed by my hand this first day of June, 1888.
Mr Justice Colbeck cautioned the Grand Jury that the law does not regard a confession in itself as establishing incontrovertible evidence of guilt, but that independent evidence taken in association with the statement warranted him to advise them that it was their duty to find a True Bill against Mrs Cromer.
The True Bill was returned.
FRIDAY, 8th JUNE
The trial itself opened on a morning of overcast sky and heavy rain. The chandeliers were turned up in Number One Court at 10 a.m. The ushers opened the doors of the public gallery and it filled in little more than a minute, the jewellery in the gaslight confirming that it was still a fashionable occasion, even if the confession had removed the uncertainty over the outcome.
The call to rise came at 10.35 a.m. Mr Justice Colbeck was wearing the ermine-trimmed scarlet robe of the Queen’s Bench Division. He carried a pair of white gloves in his left hand and a piece of black material in his right. Without looking up, he deposited them on the bench beside the small posy of flowers to his right. Then he drew his robe forward and took his seat under the sword of justice. The court settled again.
The prisoner was called to the bar.
All week the illustrated newspapers had supplied their readers with artists’ ‘impressions’ of Miriam Cromer. They were strikingly at one with each other. And with the faces of the young women advertising Pear’s, Cadbury’s and Eno’s.
People craned for a view of the woman as she was. Flanked by two wardresses, she mounted the steps from the passage under the dock a few minutes before the judge’s procession entered. Those seated nearest had heard the click of the dock-handle, but the prisoner had been kept well back, obscured in a group that included the keeper of Newgate Prison, the chaplain and a doctor. Now the wardresses steered her to the front.
She faced the judge without gripping the rail, a slight figure in that vast dock.
She was wearing black, as was customary. Her clothes were fashionable, even so: a zouave jacket in velvet over an Ottoman silk gown with jockey sleeves and jet fastenings. The line of the skirt was augmented dramatically by a crinolette, a bustle worn low in the latest style. She was not veiled. The crownless velvet toque high on her head accented the honey colour of her hair in the artificial light. It was styled of necessity in a simple fashion, drawn back severely to a chignon.
Her features, profiled against the dark panelling, betrayed no anguish. Rather she seemed to repudiate sympathy in the way she held her head so that her throat and jaw formed an angle as sharp as the outline of the dock. Her lips curved naturally in a shape that could have been taken for the start of a smile if it were not corrected by the slight contraction of muscles in her cheek, dignifying the expression. Her skin was smooth and very pale. She had a fine nose, delicate, arched eyebrows and a high, intelligent brow. What ambushed the expectations of the packed court were the eyes of the accused woman-eyes, the least susceptible of all the features to the pens of newspaper illustrators. Hers held no shame. Almost violet in their blueness and dark-edged from weeks in prison cells, those eyes were unforgettable. Dignified, resolute and steady.
So steady.
There was an air of suspended animation about her, giving her the look of a figure in wax.
The indictment was read: ‘Miriam Jane Cromer, you stand charged with having at Kew in the County of Surrey on the twelfth of March, 1888, wilfully and with malice aforethought, killed and murdered one Josiah Perceval. How say you: are you Guilty or Not Guilty?’
She answered clearly and without hesitation, ‘Guilty.’
At the request of the judge, the Attorney-General, representing the Crown, made a statement summarising the facts of the case, showing how the evidence substantiated the confession of the accused.
Counsel for the Defence, Mr Michael Gaskell, Q.C., then rose to say, ‘My lord, the prisoner wishes to inform the court that she alone is guilty of this crime. In affirming her readiness to atone for her guilt, she asks that consideration be given in judgment to the painful and insupportable circumstances that induced her to perpetrate the crime.’
Mr Justice Colbeck tersely answered, ‘The prerogative of mercy does not rest with me. The plea must be recorded.’
The Clerk of the Court faced the dock. ‘Miriam Jane Cromer, you have confessed yourself guilty of the wilful murder of Josiah Perceval. Have you anything to say why the court should not pronounce sentence upon you?’
Her left hand moved towards the rail. The rings on the third finger glittered in the light.
‘You must answer,’ said the judge.
‘I have nothing to say, my lord.’
The oblong of cloth known as the black cap was placed on the judge’s head.
‘Prisoner at the bar, you have been convicted on your own admission of the dreadful crime laid to your charge. I have studied the evidence and examined the deposition you made concerning your actions and I can entertain no doubt as to your guilt. That the deceased by your account behaved shamefully and criminally towards you I concede, but whether that may be weighed in mitigation is not for me to say. There were other remedies open to you than murder, which is the most heinous of all crimes. I am bound to say that yours was an odious form of murder. The use of poison necessarily involves an element of calculation. This was not an impulsive act; it was a crime deliberately planned. You carried it out in cold blood.
‘As I have already made clear to you, the law leaves me no discretion, and I must pass on to you the sentence of the law; and it is that this court doth ordain you to be taken hence to the place from whence you came, and from thence to the place of execution, and that you be there hanged by the neck until you are dead; and that your body be afterwards buried within the precincts of the prison in which you shall have been confined after your conviction, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.’
The eyes of everyone were on the small figure in the dock. The sentence had not disturbed her waxlike stillness. A wardress touched her arm to indicate that she must turn and go down the steps. She inclined her head, turning to her right, away from the judge. For a moment her eyes appeared to linger on someone in the well of the court. Then she allowed the wardresses to lead her down and out of sight.
That ritual over, another began. On the steps down from the dock the wardresses gripped the prisoner firmly
