Thunderstruck

THE ST. MARY’S CAT

AT ST. MARY’S HOSPITAL, LONDON, Dr. Willcox conducted an initial series of experiments to rule out certain easy-to-detect poisons, such as arsenic, antimony, and prussic acid. He found trace amounts of arsenic and carbonic acid but attributed them to a disinfectant that a police officer enthusiastically if unwisely had applied to the sides of the excavation in the Hilldrop cellar before the remains were removed. Willcox found the traces only in some organs, not in all, which reassured him that the arsenic was a contaminant, not the cause of death. Now he turned to the more complex and time-consuming task of determining whether the remains contained any poisons of the alkaloid variety, such as strychnine, cocaine, and atropine, a derivative of deadly nightshade. He estimated this phase would take about two weeks.

“It is necessary,” Willcox said, “to weight the different parts of the remains where it is supposed that [an] alkaloid might possibly be. Those are mixed up quite fine, and then placed in rectified spirits of wine. The spirits of wine is drawn off after twenty-four hours, and then what is left of the mixed up flesh is placed in another lot of spirits, which again is drawn off after another twenty-four hours, and so on as long as the liquid which comes away is coloured—about five times. When the liquid ceases to get coloured we stop.”

He found that an alkaloid of some sort was indeed present, then applied a well-known process, the Stas extraction method, to pull the alkaloid from the spirit solution in pure form. He weighed each amount. This was precise work. He found, for example, that his sample of intestines contained one-seventh of a grain of the alkaloid, the stomach only one-thirtieth.

Now came an important, yet startlingly simple, test that would if successful rule out a whole class of alkaloid poisons and greatly simplify Willcox’s investigation. For this he needed a cat.

ABOARD THE LAURENTIC CHIEF Inspector Dew refined his plan. His ship was by now well ahead of the Montrose, as the world knew. Like all large ships, it would stop at Father Point in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, near the village of Rimouski, to pick up a pilot who would guide the ship along the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City, a route notorious for its sudden obliterating spells of fog.

He realized he would need clearance to disembark without first going through the quarantine station at Quebec, and now by wireless made the necessary arrangements.

Almost immediately each of the fifty reporters gathered at Father Point also knew the plan.

IN HIS LABORATORY at St. Mary’s Hospital, Dr. Willcox mixed a bit of his alkaloid extract into a solution and, with the help of an assistant, placed a couple of droplets into the cat’s eye. Moments later the cat’s pupil expanded to many times its ordinary size. This was an important clue, for it meant the substance he had isolated was “mydriatic,” that is, it had the power to dilate pupils. He knew of only four alkaloidal poisons with that power: cocaine, atropine, and two derivatives of henbane, hyoscyamine and hyoscine.

He shined a bright light directly into the cat’s eyes and found that the pupil held its new diameter. This allowed him to rule out cocaine, because its mydriatic powers were less pronounced. When exposed to a powerful light, a pupil dilated by cocaine will still contract.

Willcox prepared for the next and most exacting series of tests with which he would narrow the identity to one of the three remaining possible alkaloids.

He dismissed the cat. His laboratory associates immediately named it Crippen. Adopted by a medical student, it would live for several years and bear a litter of kittens, before meeting its end in the jaws of a dog.