As you will all know, earlier this week it was Valentine’s Day. The ‘celebration’ always reminds me of seeing the skull of St Valentine in the Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome (scroll down for a pic), as well as a shocking case of fraud and attempted murder investigated by the Victorian detective, Jerome Caminada, which involved romance, a fictitious lover and a ruthless con artist.
At 8.15 pm on 18 August 1892, the police were called to an address in Marylebone, London. When the landlord let them in they discovered a middle-aged woman lying in an unconscious state. There was an unlabelled bottle of chloroform on a chair by the bed. The doctor in attendance poured a large glass of brandy down her throat, before the police took her to the ‘insane ward’ of the nearest infirmary, where she was revived. When she came to, the woman gave her name as Lucilla Roberts and stated that her husband was currently staying on the Isle of Man. The following day Mrs Roberts was well enough for a formal interview and she made a full statement to the local police.
A mysterious relationship
Aged 64, Lucilla had married her legal adviser six months earlier, but she had not seen him since the wedding. A distant relative called James Eckersley Thompson had kept her informed of her husband’s whereabouts, acting as messenger between the newly-weds until they could be reunited. When she last met Thompson at Cadishead, on the outskirts of Manchester, on 17 August, he had given her some medicine for a skin rash from Mr Roberts and instructed her to travel to London, where her husband would join her later. Mrs Roberts took lodgings in Marylebone. Then the following morning after breakfast, she poured out the contents of the bottle into a glass and drank it. She remembered nothing more until waking up in the hospital. At the end of her statement Lucilla avowed that she did not believe that neither Thompson nor her husband had wished her any harm in directing her to take the draught.
After questioning Mrs Roberts further, the police became suspicious: she did not know where her husband was and after having recently sold two houses (James Thompson had ‘taken care’ of the profits), she was now penniless. As her former properties were in Manchester, the assistant commissioner of the Met contacted Detective Inspector Jerome Caminada, of the Manchester City Police, to investigate.
Caminada’s first port of call was Mrs Roberts’ solicitor in Manchester, who confirmed that he had acted on her behalf in the sale of her house in Whalley Range. The property had sold for £450 (about £350,000 in today’s value) and Thompson, to whom she referred as her nephew, had been present as her companion throughout the proceedings. After the transaction Thompson had taken the money for Mrs Roberts, in case she mislaid it, promising to pass it onto her husband, as he had done with previous sales. He had also apparently purchased at least one of her houses for himself.
As the investigation progressed Caminada realised that he had already made the acquaintance of the woman, who was also known as Miss Prescott; she regularly made complaints at the town hall about disturbances in her neighbourhood. The detective knew James Thompson too, a baker’s son, and had recently seen him pawning some spoons, so he knew that he did not have the means to buy houses.
The ‘husband’ revealed
The detective's next step was to track down the enigmatic Thomas Roberts, alleged husband of Lucilla Prescott. He paid a visit to a firm of solicitors mentioned in the police report and this revealed the first in a series of startling twists in the tale. Mr Roberts was indeed a solicitor, but he had been married for more than 20 years and had a family. Indignant, he denied all suggestions that he was linked romantically with Miss Prescott, stating that she was a former client who had made a complaint against one of the firm’s clerks; a tenant of hers who had refused to pay the rent. Roberts had concluded that the accusation was an absolute lie from beginning to end and that ‘they had always considered her [Lucilla Prescott] to be more or less out of her mind, particularly on the question of marriage’. He knew nothing of any attempt to poison her and had not seen her since 1888.
It was obvious that James Thompson was the key to solving the mystery, and so, through his solicitor, Caminada arranged to meet him at his house in Cadishead, Salford. In reply to the detective’s questions, Thompson admitted that he had bought Miss Prescott’s house and some furniture for £500. At the mention of the pawned spoons, he confessed that he had stolen the money from his father’s till. He denied knowing anyone with the name of Roberts.
On 16 September, Caminada and his officers arrested Thompson on suspicion of theft, fraud and attempting to poison Miss Lucilla Prescott with the intent to murder her. The detective accompanied Miss Prescott to Thompson’s house where she identified her furniture. A letter, found at the property, addressed to Thompson from his wife, from whom he was estranged, (they had married at the beginning of 1892), revealed that he had indeed assumed the role of Roberts. Despite this sophisticated and convincing plot, Caminada was perplexed as to how Miss Prescott had fallen for Thompson’s charms to such an extent that she had lost all her properties and worldly goods. He was shocked to discover the reason behind her downfall:
There was unravelled the most remarkable evidence, which read more like fiction than fact
Apparently, in spite of being an intelligent and able businesswoman, apparently Lucilla Prescott was under the delusion that every man she met would fall in love with her, wishing to marry her without delay. (It’s interesting that on the censuses, she consistently reduced her age by ten years). The son of a close friend of hers, James Thompson had cleverly exploited her weakness.
The sad truth
When Thompson’s mother had died in 1886, she had asked Lucilla to take care of James. As he grew up, he visited Miss Prescott’s house frequently and they became friends, with Lucilla confiding her secrets in this pleasant young man. When Thompson’s father supposedly withdrew his income, 21-year-old James turned to his older friend for support and, in the winter of 1891, he moved into Miss Prescott’s house and his ‘nefarious designs’ began. In his attempt to steal her money, Thompson created imaginary scenarios to gain her trust. He pretended that a gentleman, who admired her greatly, had asked him to represent him in his quest to marry her. This fictitious suitor was the mysterious Mr Roberts. Thompson convinced Miss Prescott to say that she was already married to Roberts so that he could rid himself of a jealous ex-lover; an Italian dancer at the Palace of Varieties with a fierce Mediterranean temper. She even bought herself a wedding ring on her husband’s behalf to complete the fiction. During the next few months Lucilla received instructions from ‘Thomas Roberts’ to travel all over the British Isles in the hope of meeting him at last. Her final destination was London where she was urged to drink the potentially fatal bottle of chloroform that would put an end to this diabolical charade.
The trial of James Thompson took place on 27 September 1892. In a full courtroom he was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment with hard labour. There had been no proof of his attempt to poison Lucilla Prescott, so for that crime he went unpunished. In 1899, he was admitted to Prestwich Asylum, where he stayed until his death in 1906. Lucilla Prescott remained single and lived from independent means in Whalley Range. She died in 1903, aged 75.
As Detective Caminada once said: ‘Beware false lovers and wily seducers’ – good advice for Valentine’s Day!
You can read more about Detective Caminada’s sleuthing adventures in my book, The Real Sherlock Holmes.
In next week’s newsletter for paid subscribers, I’m starting my history of forensic science posts, beginning with the art of tracing footprints.