A Mystery Writer Investigates – The Balham Mystery

A Mystery Writer Investigates – The Balham Mystery

I present the case. You bring the verdict.

A five-part serial

A new marriage, an old scandal, and a household full of quiet resentments — and then one of them ends up dead. After a hundred and fifty years, the crime is still unsolved. *

The Priory was a handsome home on the edge of Balham, a genteel, suburban area on the southern edge of Victorian London. And in the winter of 1875 it had a new master of the household. Thirty-year-old Charles Bravo, an ambitious barrister, had just married the woman who leased it. Her name was Florence, a beautiful, wealthy young widow with a scandalous past.

The shine of matrimonial bliss quickly wore off. Charles proved controlling, and Florence grew increasingly unhappy. The crux of their disagreement was money. Florence had a great deal of it, forty thousand pounds left to her by her first husband, who had drunk himself to death, and she meant to keep control of it. The Married Women’s Property Act of 1870 had begun to give married women limited control over their own earnings and property, and Florence intended to take advantage of that. Charles was furious. Before the wedding he threatened to call it off, declaring he could not “contemplate a marriage that does not make me master in my own house.” In the end they came to an agreement. He took the lease of the Priory and its furnishings, and she retained her fortune, but made provision for him in her will.

However, within weeks of the wedding, they were arguing. Charles had his own opinions on how the fortune should be spent, and with whom Florence kept company.

There was Mrs. Cox, Florence’s devoted companion, who ran the household. Charles felt her employment was a frivolous expense and wanted her gone. Then there was Dr. Gully, the celebrated physician, married and decades older than Florence, with whom she had had a scandalous affair and who was never quite out of the picture. And, shortly before the wedding, Charles had fired the coachman, George Griffiths, who left bitter and cursing his former master.

But the real trouble came in the middle of the night on April 18, 1876.

Charles had gone up to his own bedroom, as usual, and within minutes, he collapsed in excruciating pain. He called out to his wife, “Florence! Hot water! Hot water!” After lingering in agony for more than two days, he died. The attending physician said he’d succumbed to poison, antimony— at ten times the lethal dose. After the investigation, the first inquest returned an open verdict. Dissatisfied, the public demanded a second inquest, which found that Charles had been murdered by ‘a person or persons unknown’. No tartar emetic was found in the house, and no arrests were made.

Everyone in his immediate circle had a reason to want Charles Bravo gone. His wife, with the fortune he wanted to control; the companion he intended to dismiss; the discarded lover in the wings; and the coachman he had fired. So tell me, who do you think did it?

Reply in the comments.

Next week, we further investigate the motivations for the crime that took place in that household. We’ll investigate the marriage, the money, the old love affair, and the servants Charles Bravo wanted to let go.