The Mysterious Death of Charles Bravo by Tim Vicary. Part 9.
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Chapter 10. What the doctors saw
During Charles Bravo’s illness, he was seen by no fewer than five different doctors. And of course, the Coroner’s enquiry took a great interest in what the doctors saw, and said, and thought …
Dr Moore was the first doctor to arrive at The Priory on the night of Tuesday 18th April. He went upstairs to Charles Bravo’s bedroom. A few minutes later, Dr Harrison arrived. Jane Cox met him at the front door.
‘Mr Bravo has been sick several times,’ she said. ‘I think he has poisoned himself with chloroform.’
Dr Harrison went upstairs to the bedroom. Dr Moore was already there. ‘This man is very ill,’ he said. ‘It’s some kind of poison, but I don’t know what it is.’
The two doctors looked around the room. There were two medicine bottles on a table: one said Chloroform, and the other Laudanum. Chloroform and laudanum were ordinary medicines. Many people in those days had them in their houses – they took them for headache or toothache. They weren’t very dangerous; it would take an enormous amount of these medicines to kill somebody.
‘He’s not dying because of these medicines, is he?’ said Dr Moore.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Dr Harrison agreed. ‘He’s far too ill for that.’
Florence Bravo was sitting on the bed beside her husband. She was washing his face with cool water.
‘What’s wrong with my husband, doctor?’ she asked. ‘He’s not going to die, is he?’
Dr Moore put his hand on her arm. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Bravo,’ he said. ‘But your husband is really very ill. He has taken some terrible poison. He may not live long.’
Florence cried when he said that. She put her arms around her husband and kissed him. ‘Oh, Charlie, please don’t die!’ she said. ‘Come on, Charlie, you must get better. Speak to me – please don’t leave me!’
But Charles was too ill to speak. The doctors gave him some medicine but it didn’t help much. Florence watched, her face wet with tears. ‘Charles’s cousin is a doctor,’ she said. ‘Dr Royes Bell. He knows Charles very well – do you mind if I send for him?’
‘No, that’s all right,’ Dr Harrison said. ‘I’ll write a letter for you.’
Dr Royes Bell knew Charles Bravo very well. He had met him in London that morning, and Charles had seemed happy and healthy as usual. He certainly said nothing about killing himself. So Dr Bell was very surprised when a letter from Dr Harrison arrived late that night.
‘Your cousin is very ill, the letter said. Please come quickly; I think he is dying.
Dr Royes Bell arrived at The Priory at about two o’clock in the morning. He brought with him another doctor, Dr George Johnson, who was both a friend and a well-known London doctor.
Charles was lying on his bed, asleep. His face was greyish white and he was breathing heavily. Dr Bell touched his face and his eyes opened.
‘Charlie,’ he said. ‘Do you know who I am?’
For a moment Charles seemed not to understand, or recognize anybody around him. Then, after a minute, he said, ‘Yes. You’re Royes.’
‘This is Dr Johnson,’ Dr Bell said. ‘We’ve come to help you, Charlie. How do you feel?’
‘Terrible,’ Charles answered. ‘My stomach hurts. Let me out!’ He suddenly jumped up and tried to get to the door, but the doctors held him and after a minute he fell back onto the bed. Dr Johnson gave him some medicine to take away the pain, and after a few minutes he began to look more comfortable.
Outside the room, the doctors spoke to Mrs Cox. ‘You saw Mr Bravo first, before Dr Moore came,’ Dr Johnson said. ‘Did he say anything to you then?’
‘Yes,’ Mrs Cox answered. ‘He said: “I’ve taken some of that poison; don’t tell Florence.”‘
‘Did he tell you what poison he took?’
‘No,’ Mrs Cox answered. ‘Nothing more than that.’
When Dr Harrison heard this, he was angry. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’ he asked. ‘You said he had taken chloroform, not poison.’
The doctors went back into Charles’s bedroom. ‘Charlie, have you taken poison?’ Dr Johnson asked.
‘I rubbed my teeth with laudanum; perhaps I drank a little by mistake,’ Charles replied.
‘Laudanum wouldn’t make you ill like this.’
‘Well, if it isn’t laudanum, I don’t know what it is,’ Charles said.
Then Florence came back in. There were tears on her face and she looked very tired. Charles held out his arms to her. ‘Kiss me, my wife,’ he said. Florence went to the bed and kissed him. Then she lay down beside him and touched his face gently with her fingers. The two doctors watched.
‘What a lot of trouble I’m giving you, Florrie,’ Charles said. ‘Kiss me again. You’ve been the best of wives.’
‘Oh, Charlie!’ Florence said. ‘What is the matter with you? What have you taken to make you so ill?’
Charles didn’t answer. ‘Oh, God help me!’ he screamed in pain. Then he turned to his cousin and said: ‘Royes, will I get better?’
‘I hope so, Charlie, but you are very ill indeed.’
When Dr Bell said that, Charles looked frightened. ‘Royes,’ he said. ‘Before I die, I want you to write something for me. Will you do that?’
Dr Bell wrote down Charles Bravo’s words. I leave everything I have to my wife, Florence Bravo.
Charles sat up to write his name, and he and Dr Bell prayed to God together. Then he said: ‘When I’m dead, Royes, look after Florence for me, will you? She’s been the best of wives to me.’
At the Coroner’s enquiry in July, some of the lawyers said that Florence killed her husband. But Charles’s cousin, Dr Royes Bell, didn’t believe that. Charles loved his wife, he told the lawyers. He left her everything. And Florence was very, very unhappy that night, when she saw her husband so ill. She called four doctors – Dr Moore, Dr Harrison, Dr Bell, and Dr Johnson. And on Thursday 20th April she sent for a fifth doctor, Dr William Gull.
Dr Gull was very famous and important, and was the doctor to Queen Victoria herself. He arrived at The Priory at six o’clock on Thursday evening. Charles Bravo was still alive, but he was very seriously ill.
‘Mr Bravo, you have taken poison,’ Dr Gull told him. ‘Please tell me, who gave it to you?’
‘I took it myself,’ Charles Bravo said.
‘What did you take?’ Dr Gull asked.
‘Laudanum,’ Charles Bravo replied. ‘I took some laudanum because I had toothache.’
‘A little laudanum can’t kill you, Mr Bravo,’ Dr Gull said. ‘What else did you take?’
‘Nothing else. Only laudanum, doctor. That’s all.’
‘Mr Bravo, listen to me. You are very ill, you are going to die. It’s important that you tell me the truth. What is this poison? If someone gave it to you, they wanted to kill you. Do you understand that?’
Charles Bravo shook his head slowly. ‘It was only laudanum, doctor,’ he said. ‘No one gave it to me. I took it myself.’
That was the last thing he said to Dr Gull. A few hours later, Charles Bravo died. Five different doctors had seen him, and he told them all the same story. He had taken laudanum, he said, and then called for hot water to make himself sick.
‘Where was he sick?’ Dr Gull asked.
‘Out of the window,’ said Dr Johnson. ‘Look, there. ‘He picked up some of the vomit from the roof with a silver spoon and put it in a glass bottle. Dr Gull sent it to Professor Redwood, a famous scientist, in London. Professor Redwood looked at it carefully.
‘The poison was antimony,’ the Professor told the Coroner later. ‘I found ten grains of it in the vomit in the glass bottle. There were probably thirty grains in his body. That’s what killed him.’
The antimony destroyed Charles Bravo’s stomach. He died very slowly, in great pain. But how did the antimony get into his stomach? That is the question. Antimony is a white powder. You can put very small amounts of it in a glass of wine, but it makes the wine look strange and taste awful. But if you put a lot of antimony in water, no one will notice. You can’t see it or smell it or taste it. You can drink it like ordinary water. But a few minutes later, you will be very ill indeed.
Every evening, Charles Bravo drank from the bottle of water beside his bed. The antimony was probably in the bottle. But who put the antimony in the water? Charles Bravo, or someone else?
Dr Gull thought he knew. ‘No one else killed Charles Bravo,’ he told Florence’s father, Mr Campbell. ‘Your daughter didn’t kill him. He killed himself.’
But Charles’s stepfather, Joseph Bravo, didn’t agree. ‘Charles was a strong, brave young man,’ he said. ‘He didn’t kill himself. He was murdered.’
‘Nonsense,’ Florence’s father said. ‘Who wanted to kill him?’
‘Ask your daughter,’ Joseph Bravo said angrily. ‘And her friends, Jane Cox and James Gully. One of them knows the answer, I’m sure.’