Chapter XIX: The Dalkeith Coffee Poison Case

In the early part of February, 1911, a Mr. Charles Barrett Hutchison and his wife, in celebration of their silver wedding day, gave a whist and supper party to some friends at their house at Bridgend, Dalkeith, near Edinburgh.

There were four tables in the room, eighteen people being present, and at midnight supper was served. Coffee was taken to the ladies in the drawing-room, and on Mrs. Hutchison tasting it she called to her son John, who had been pouring it out in the dining-room, that there was something wrong. Mr. Hutchison and a Mr. Alexander Clapperton, a grocer and wine merchant of Musselburgh, were among those who were drinking the coffee and smoking in the dining-room. Shortly after drinking it, one of the party began to experience a peculiar sensation and to have a disagreeable dryness in the throat. Then it was discovered that most of the ladies in the drawing-room were also in great distress, and in a short time every one who had partaken of the coffee became ill, and the results threatened to become serious.

One of the guests hurried for assistance, and medical men soon arrived and did what they could to aid the sufferers. Mr. Hutchison’s eldest son, John, who had been a dispenser, mixed an emetic of mustard and water, which gave the sufferers a certain amount of relief and then he motored to Edinburgh for further assistance. Mr. Hutchison, who had been assisted to bed, passed away shortly after the doctor’s arrival, and his friend, Mr. Clapperton, died about three hours afterwards. Practically the whole of the party of eighteen were affected with greater or lesser severity, but only the host and his friend succumbed.

The coffee had come from the shop of Mr. Clapperton, one of the victims, and although samples of it were subjected to analysis, no trace of poison could be found. The sugar and milk were also examined without result, but clear traces of arsenic were discovered by the analyst in a portion of the prepared coffee that had not been consumed. It was evident that the quantity of arsenic introduced must have been very large to have affected so many people, but where had it come from? That was the mystery. The poison books of the chemists in Dalkeith and Musselburgh were examined by the police, but all arsenic sold during the previous twelve months was satisfactorily accounted for. All kinds of theories were adduced. One brought forward was, that the coffee had been prepared in an old urn which might have absorbed the poison from the metal, but the vessels in which the coffee was made were examined and not a trace of arsenic was found, and so the mystery remained unsolved for over a fortnight.

The police still continued their inquiries beyond the neighbourhood, and eventually at Musselburgh it was found, that a bottle of arsenic was missing from a chemist’s shop which had apparently been surreptitiously removed. It then appeared that John James Hutchison had been an assistant to the chemist from whose shop the bottle was missing. This, coupled with the fact, that it was he who had carried the poisoned coffee from the kitchen to the dining-room in his father’s house, led to the issue of a warrant for his arrest.

It was then found that John Hutchison had left Bridgend for Edinburgh, ten miles distant, very early in the morning. He was recognized at Waverley Station, Edinburgh, at nine o’clock entering a south-bound express for Newcastle and King’s Cross, and on Wednesday a letter dated from an hotel in the Strand reached one of his friends. It contained a passage saying, that the writer intended to throw himself into the Thames off Waterloo Bridge.

Inquiries meanwhile proved that he had been speculating on the Stock Exchange, and his speculations in oil and copper proving unfortunate, he was heavily in debt.

When the inspector, armed with a warrant, arrived at the hotel in London to which he had been traced, he found that he had left. All trace of him was lost for a time, but a description being issued, it was discovered that he had travelled to Southampton and taken a boat to the Channel Islands. Passing through Guernsey, he travelled to Jersey, where he stayed a night and returned to Guernsey again. To a boarding-house in the latter island he was traced by the local police and recognized from a photograph that had been sent to them. The police sergeant found him in a sitting-room alone, and after charging him made the arrest. When in the passage leading from the room, Hutchison suddenly darted upstairs, followed by the sergeant. He made for his bedroom, and as he opened the door he drew his hand out of his trousers’ pocket and put a phial to his lips before the sergeant could interfere.

A doctor was sent for, and although emetics were administered, he died a few minutes after his arrival, or about ten minutes after taking the fatal draught. He gave no information to the sergeant, except saying in the room below, that he would prove he was not Hutchison. He had taken his room in the hotel under the name of Henderson, but from papers and other documents found in his possession there was no doubt he was John James Hutchison, of Dalkeith.

The poison by means of which he had committed suicide turned out to be prussic acid, which he had probably had in his possession for some time. It is an extraordinary psychological problem how a young man of this type, apparently so much liked and popular among the people of the town where he lived, and said to be of a generous, kindly and gentle disposition could have perpetrated the deed. According to his friends, he was the last person in the world who would be thought likely to commit such a terrible crime.

After the death of his father he had been perfectly collected, was the chief mourner at the funeral, and became the object of general sympathy.

Extravagance and social ambition appear to have been his chief faults, but it is difficult to discover the motive which prompted him to the commission of a wholesale crime such as he attempted. The only conclusion that could be arrived at was, that it was the act of a man whose mind was unbalanced and distorted, as he had nothing to gain by his father’s death nor from any of the guests he attempted to poison.