Chapter 15

THE STRYCHNINE BOTTLE

Morning, November 4, 1884

When Angus McMorrin called the court to order on the second morning of Cook Teets’s trial, Judge Armour held up the proceedings. “I have been told,” he said, “that the jurors were forced to spend last night at Coulson’s Hotel without benefit of heat. I apologize for that, gentlemen, and I am assured the problem with their furnace has now been corrected. I hope you were not entirely too uncomfortable. Perhaps some of you found alternative warmth.” Leonard heard snickering from some of the benches. Judge Armour cast a stern glance toward the source of the noise. “Is the Crown ready to proceed?” he asked Alfred Frost.

“I am, my Lord,” the prosecutor answered. He called Rosannah’s sister Bridget Leppard as the first witness of the day. Leonard Babington watched her make her way from a back seat of the courtroom. She threw a troubled glance at her mother as she approached the witness box. Bridget was a timid girl, Leonard knew. He remembered her as a pupil when he’d taught school in Vandeleur. He’d learned she could be fearful and diffident, a behaviour very different from that of her rebellious younger sister. How he wished Rosannah had been half as reserved.

Alfred Frost rubbed his hands together, as if chilled by Judge Armour’s comments on the lack of heat in the jury’s hotel. He began his questioning by drawing from Bridget the fact that Rosannah had complained of being sick after arriving home from Michigan. There had been a rumour that Cook had tried to poison Rosannah more than once. “I thought she was in the family way,” Bridget said.

Bridget described how everyone had been awakened by Rosannah’s screams. “She threw off her bedclothes and trembled like she was in a fit. She leaned her weight on the back of her head. Her legs and arms were all in motion.”

When her mother realized Rosannah was dead, Bridget said, she asked her to go for Cook Teets.

“I went down the road to Scarth Tackaberry’s house and spoke to Mrs. Tackaberry. Mr. Tackaberry wasn’t there. I didn’t want to go to the Teets place alone so I got Jane to go with me.”

“Did Cook express any surprise when first you told him of Rosannah’s death?” Alfred Frost asked Bridget.

“No, he just wanted to know when she’d died, and what she’d said. I told him Rosannah was still warm when I left. I said perhaps she was just in a trance, and might be able to talk when we got back. We stopped at the house of his sister, Sarah Clark, to tell her. Jane went home and Sarah drove us back in her buggy.”

“And what did the prisoner do when he first saw Rosannah?” Alfred Frost asked.

Bridget sobbed at the question. She must have been thinking of how she had watched her sister die, Leonard thought. She repeated much of her mother’s testimony. What Cook had done when he arrived at the Leppard place, and how he never asked what might have killed Rosannah.

Alfred Frost asked Bridget what else had happened that morning. She repeated that Cook had not asked any questions about what it was that killed Rosannah. Perhaps he already knew, Leonard reflected. He thought the question made for an effective conclusion to the prosecutor’s examination.

James Masson began his cross-examination by asking Bridget if Cook had wanted to know whether anyone had sent for a doctor.

“Yes, he asked that question. No one had gone for a doctor.”

“And did Cook Teets at any time say to you that he had killed his wife? Did he confess?”

“No, but like my mother said …”

“Never mind what your mother said, Bridget, we’re interested in what you have to say.”

James Masson paced back and forth before asking his next question.

“Bridget, did your sister have many boy friends?”

“A few, but only one at a time. She didn’t really trust men.”

“What do you mean? Didn’t she like having men around her?”

From the corner of his eye, Leonard caught a look of exasperation on Molly’s face. She was motioning to Bridget, muttering, “No, no.” Molly shut up when people seated close by began to shush her.

Bridget hesitated before answering James Masson.

“She liked men, but she was always on her guard. Perhaps because of what happened with the priest, she was never the same after that.”

“Whatever do you mean, Bridget?”

Leonard saw a look of horror on Bridget’s face. She seemed to shrink into herself as the meaning of what she’d said came over her.

“The priest, he had his way with her. When she was about twelve. And it happened more than once. Rosannah told me every time. She said she hated men.”

Judge Armour slapped the dais in front of him. It was clear he had been angered by what Bridget had said.

“Miss Leppard, you’re under oath. You’ve sworn to tell the truth. We’ll have no slanderous fantasies against the Roman Catholic Church. The jury will disregard those remarks, obviously a tissue of lies. I could have you charged with perjury, or even criminal libel. Is counsel finished with this witness?”

“I am, your Lordship,” James Masson said. He retreated hastily to his seat. He had no wish to risk anything that might further inflame the judge.

Leonard struggled to absorb the startling facts he had just heard. Bridget wasn’t so timid after all, he thought. Her testimony explained so many things, no matter what the judge might believe. He remembered hearing rumours about Father Quinn and now he knew they’d been more than idle gossip. Leonard realized what a horrible mistake he’d made that time he’d forced himself on Rosannah. He never had a chance, after that. No wonder she wouldn’t admit he was the father of Lenora. It was a miracle she could love the baby, considering how it had been conceived.

The swearing in of Constable John Field distracted Leonard from these thoughts. Why were policemen always so thickset and brawny? Field sat heavily in the witness chair, his weight warping its slight wooden frame. He couldn’t have gotten that way on his constable’s pay. Probably picked up more than his salary from other, more devious pursuits.

“Please tell the jury,” Alfred Frost began, “how it came about that you arrested Cook Teets.”

Constable Field explained that when the inquest jury returned a true bill against Cook a year ago, he was sent to his house to arrest him for murder.

“All right now, John. In what condition did you find Cook Teets? Did he resist?”

“His mother answered the door. She said Cook was sick in bed. I went to his bedroom and told him he was under arrest. He didn’t resist. I told him I had to search the house.”

“What did you find?”

“I asked Cook if he had any strychnine. He said he did. He got out of bed and went to a chest that he kept in his bedroom. He took out a tin box and showed me a bottle he had inside it. It was marked strychnine.”

Alfred Frost reached for a small green bottle that sat on a table beside the witness stand.

“Is this the bottle you took from Cook Teets’s house?” He held up the bottle, no more than four inches tall and perhaps an inch across. It was about three-quarters full of a white crystal, the color of strychnine. The powder stood out clearly against the green glass.

“That is it.”

“What else did you retrieve?”

“I asked Cook for any paper connected with his marriage. He gave me a marriage license and a life insurance policy. He got the papers from his trunk. Said he paid eleven dollars for the life insurance. He handed everything to me and said he had nothing to hide.”

James Masson asked only a few questions in cross-examination.

“Constable Field, did Cook Teets attempt to conceal anything from you?” Field admitted he did not.

“Did the prisoner confess to you he had killed his wife?”

“He said nothing of that sort to me.”

When Masson was finished with Constable Field, Alfred Frost told Judge Armour his next witness would be Dr. Richard Ellis of the Toronto School of Medicine. He made a show of thumbing through the file in front of him as the doctor made his way to the witness box to be sworn in. Dr. Ellis was tall, bald, and wore thick glasses that were the result, one could assume, of long hours of study of medical texts by the feeble light of coal oil lamps.

“Dr. Ellis, do you remember the last witness bringing two jars to you?”

“Yes, he brought a large glass jar and a stone jar.”

“Can you tell the jury what those jars contained?”

Dr. Ellis said both jars bore Township seals that identified them as containing body parts from Rosannah Teets.

“One held the stomach and parts of the liver and kidney,” he said. “The other contained part of the intestines.”

“Did you make an analysis of those parts?”

“I made an analysis of them all. I found a very small quantity of strychnine. A fraction of a grain, but quite sufficient to confirm a presence in the viscera.”

“Did you find sufficient to have caused death?”

“You never find all the strychnine because four fifths is absorbed in about half an hour and is scattered throughout the whole body. From the symptoms that have been described, I would say it was strychnine that killed her.”

James Masson wanted to know how the analysis of Rosannah’s organs had been conducted. Dr. Ellis said he immersed them in a mix of sulphuric acid, alcohol, ether and ammonia. The process produced a yellow residue that turned out what he took to be strychnine when he tested it.

“What test did you apply?”

“I tested it on two frogs. It produced convulsions in both of them. Exactly the same convulsions known to be caused by strychnine.”

Leonard held his breath as he watched Alfred Frost rise to his feet and prepare to speak.

“Your Lordship, if I may be permitted, can the witness tell us what is in the bottle Constable Field removed from Cook Teets’s trunk?” He picked up the bottle from the table beside him and made to give it to Dr. Ellis.

Judge Armour held up his hand, as if to signal the transfer should not take place.

“Mr. Masson, do you have any objection to the witness answering this question?”

“No objection, your Lordship.”

“The witness may proceed.”

Dr. Ellis held the bottle up to the light. He withdrew its cork and sniffed the contents. Carefully, he tilted the bottle so the crystals slid toward its open end. Bringing it to his mouth, he hesitated and looked directly at Alfred Frost. After a moment, he closed his eyes and touched his tongue against the crystals. Leonard heard gasps throughout the courtroom. When Dr. Ellis opened his eyes he replaced the cork and stared again at the prosecutor. The courtroom had fallen silent.

“It has the taste and physical properties of strychnine. I have no doubt it is strychnine.”

A tremor of excitement spread through the courtroom. Dr. Ellis had given dramatic evidence that Cook Teets had been in possession of strychnine. Leonard knew this was something the jury would remember. When the court rose for its midday break, he hurried to the washroom.

Leonard relieved himself standing in front of the tin sheet that covered the wall above the urinal trough. The sound bounced off the tin, announcing his presence. As he buttoned up his pants and turned away, he saw Nelson Teets come into the room. He remembered seeing him the day before. He’d heard he was paying for Cook’s lawyer.

“You’re Leonard Babington,” Nelson said. “You’ve been printing funny stories about Cook. You don’t know the half of it.”

“Suppose you tell me,” Leonard replied.

“You have no idea what Cook has had to put up with,” Nelson said. “And that girl Rosannah! Everybody around here has had her in bed. That priest really started something. I can vouch for that, personally.”

What was Nelson saying? That he’d been a lover of Rosannah, too? Had he too resented her easy ways with men? A resentment that could have been a motivation for murder? If that were the case, why would Nelson Teets put himself under suspicion? Perhaps he meant to shift attention from his brother, even at the risk of implicating himself. Leonard knew only that Cook had both the means and the motivation to take Rosannah’s life.

“You seem to know an awful lot about Rosannah Leppard,” Leonard said. He couldn’t bring himself to call her by her married name. “Are you sure you’re not just making assumptions? Because the girl had a poor reputation, that doesn’t mean everything that people say about her is true.”

Leonard remembered a conversation he’d had with Rosannah a long time ago. It was something about men who called out to her and made rude remarks when they saw her in the village. He was sure she had mentioned Nelson Teets as one of the men who had badgered her. Perhaps there’d been more to her relationship with Nelson than she’d let on. If he felt so vindictive toward her now, it was likely he’d felt that way when Rosannah was alive.

Leonard left Nelson Teets in the washroom and went out the side exit of the Court Building. Doubts about Cook’s guilt nagged at him. Alone now, watching fresh snowflakes fall to the ground, Leonard reached into a jacket pocket and withdrew an envelope. It contained his notes on the trial and material about Rosannah’s death. He found the clipping he was seeking. It was the article he had written shortly after Cook had married Rosannah. Leonard had filled it with invective. He was sure now it would have convinced some that Cook was capable of murder.

Cook Teets’ Exploits! Shoots at Some Children and Draws His Revolver on a Fellow Imbiber

Cook Teets is a blind man who has figured rather conspicuously in columns of The Chronicle. He is not one of those people who go around led by the hand or is the subject of such sentiments as “pity, pity the blind.”

On Tuesday, Cook accompanied by his paramour, a lady who shall remain nameless, arrived home from an extended trip to Michigan. On the road leading to Vandeleur he involved himself in an incident that clearly showed the desperate character of the man. As he was passing a house some small boys offered up certain jocular remarks and tossed a few snowballs in his direction, there having been an early arrival of inclement weather in the district.

Only one other person noticed this confrontation with the boys. According to this witness, the language emanating from the mouths of the boys was so insulting to Cook Teets, to say nothing of what feeling it might have engendered in his companion, that he drew his revolver and fired two shots in succession in their direction. Fortunately his aim was not good; nobody got hurt. The witness, who just happened to be passing by demanded of Teets what on earth was he doing.

Cook Teets has had things too much “all to himself” for quite long enough. He must be made to understand that the people in this county will not tolerate such uncivilized and heathenish “cowboy” pranks.

Leonard had no need to read the entire clipping; he remembered exactly what he had written. Nelson had said he didn’t know the half of it. There was only one person who could tell Leonard the truth – Cook Teets. He had to see him – right away.

The entrance to the Owen Sound jail was at the north end of the County Court Building. Leonard asked to see the governor, John Miller, and was admitted to a small, dark office. A window looked out onto a courtyard covered with grass now white with frost. Beyond it, sheltered by twenty-five foot walls, was the two-storey limestone cellblock where Cook was being held. Miller was spooning soup from a bowl.

“Babington of the Vandeleur Chronicle,” Leonard told him. “I need to talk to Cook Teets. Appreciate if I can see him before the afternoon sitting.”

“I’ve read your paper. Always glad to oblige the press. If he’s willing, I’ve no objection. You’ve got an hour and a half. Maybe he’ll confess!” Miller shouted to the guard who had shown Leonard in. “Tell Teets he has a visitor.”