Two Women and a Poisoning Read online

  Link’s doctors had wavered between influenza, malarial fever and methanol poisoning. The death certificate gave methanol poisoning as the cause of death. It was Link’s mother, ill-disposed towards Elli, who set the stone rolling. Elli told her nothing of Link’s illness until after his death when she said he’d died of alcohol poisoning. Old Mrs Link went to the police and denounced her daughter-in-law. Questionings followed. An autopsy was performed and parts of the corpse were sent to Dr Br., a chemist, to be analysed. The chemical analysis revealed no traces of methanol or any kind of medicine. It did reveal the presence of considerable quantities of arsenic, enough to kill several people. The court medical officers diagnosed chronic poisoning with unprecedentedly large amounts of arsenic.

  A search of Elli Link’s flat brought to light a pile of letters—Grete Bende’s and a number of Elli’s own that Grete had returned to her. Some of these were found in her mattress. Grete Bende was laid up when the storm broke. On 19 May, a month and a half after Link’s death, his widow was arrested. Grete Bende’s arrest followed on 26 May. There were also investigations against Mrs Schnürer.

  The brief reports in the press caused a furore. Investigations went on for almost a year. The trial was held at the District Court in Berlin from 12 to 16 March 1923.

  Elli Link pleaded guilty from the start. She was like a shy schoolgirl. But as the trial progressed, she was moved to defiance. Her hatred of her husband revived; she felt blameless, had only defended herself, done away with the villain.

  Her friend was shaken, horribly frightened—and liberated. Her old conscience had her in its grip. She felt guilty towards Elli, too. In her odd, inhibited way, she felt guilty, but remained evasive, hiding behind hollow indignation. Even at the trial itself, she denied everything—a thin, transparent tissue of lies.

  •

  In custody, Elli came to her senses. The fascination was quite gone. It wasn’t clear to her how things had come to this pass. ‘How can I describe it?’ she wrote while awaiting trial. ‘It is still hazy to me, nothing but a dream.’ She had no sense of danger. Her burning fury at Link had subsided, but a general numbness and bitterness lived on in her, even now that he was dead—a numb, bitter condemnation of him, a stubborn aversion which made her feel better. She clung fast to his brutality and wickedness, and felt spurred to action. Her parents in Braunschweig stirred themselves to help her. Elli’s lack of concern is evident in her exasperation at her mother-in-law: not only had the woman reported her; she was now meddling with Elli’s belongings and Link’s paltry estate. Elli alerted the lawyer who had handled her divorce proceedings. Must she put up with this? In a letter written in late 1922, she reproached her parents and brothers and sisters for not looking after her things. All her possessions were gone; she could tear out every hair on her head, one by one. ‘The old woman’s looking for ways to lay the blame at my door, but if she says anything, I shall speak out too because there is such a thing as going too far. Link had nothing but torn clothes. If the lawyers don’t pull their weight, I can reckon with years. Oh, that woman. Why must she raise such heartless children? Maybe I’ll go barefoot; the old bag might like that.’ Elli goes on to report on the continued fine weather, the glorious air. ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t go and get ill; I want you all hale and hearty when I next see you. Do please keep my things in order. I shall have to make arrangements; I’ve a lot of responsibilities. Fondest love, your daughter and sister Elli.’

  It seemed to her that she had got quite free of Link—that she had liberated herself from him. But she hadn’t recovered her equilibrium. Now that her passion and her fascinated hatred had passed—now that she was to be punished because of Link—she found herself doing battle with him again. She wasn’t through with him yet. Deep inside her, something still cleaved to him. She dreamt a great deal in custody and her dreams were heavy ones. Some of them she wrote down.

  ‘My husband and I were walking through a wood and came to a fenced-off pit. There were lions in the pit; the sight made our flesh creep. Link lost his temper and said: I’ll throw you down in a second! No sooner had he spoken than I was lying at the bottom. The lions pounced on me, but I stroked them and cuddled them and fed them my sandwiches. They did me no harm. While they were feeding, I climbed up the sides of the pit and jumped over the fence. Link was furious: You hussy, he said, you’re still alive. There was a door that was not quite closed. I gave Link a shove and he went flying down. The lions ripped him to pieces and he lay there with them in a big pool of blood.’

  ‘I was sitting in my room with a little girl, cuddling her and laughing and playing. I taught her some phrases to say when Link came home. When we saw him coming, we went to meet him and said: Good evening, Daddy, did you have a nice day? When the little girl managed a few words too, he said: The brat’s just like you—and tearing the child away from me, he grabbed her by the legs and slammed her head down on the corner of the table.’

  ‘Link bought a little dog. He wanted to train it to be a watchdog and took the stick and gave the creature a real thrashing. Just the sound of Link’s voice made it scream. I couldn’t look, and scolded him for beating it like that: “Goodness and kindness would get you a lot further.” When Link didn’t listen, I took the stick from him and hit him over the head with it so that he fell down dead.’

  ‘There was a large room filled with dead bodies, which I was to wash and dress. But I was careless and knocked over a bench and all the bodies fell to the floor. Picking them up made my flesh creep; I wanted to hurry away and cry out. But though I ran, I didn’t move from the spot and my cry stuck in my throat.’

  ‘The day of the trial. My sentence was very harsh. I was racking my brains for the easiest way to put an end to things, when a wardress came along and said: I’ll help you—and took a knife and cut my body in two.’

  ‘I heard Mum calling and went to the window. Then I heard someone come into my cell, and whoever it was pulled me away from the window.’

  ‘I had a person in my room who was quite cold—whether a she or a he I don’t know; nor do I know whether the figure was dead or alive. I was so awfully sorry that the person was so cold and took some glowing coals from the stove and put them by the bed to warm the person. But all at once, everything burst into flames and I was beside myself, like a madwoman. I wonder who else knows that feeling, when you wake up and none of it is true.’

  ‘A person stood in the room holding a bucket with a snake in it. This person showed the snake which way to crawl and it coiled itself round me and bit me in the throat.’

  ‘I was looking at a white flag with a black eagle, and smoking a cigarette. Without meaning to, I burnt a hole in it. For this I was court-martialled and sentenced to life in a penitentiary. I was in such despair that I hanged myself.’

  ‘We were practising catch with four balls that changed colour in the air. Then all of a sudden they turned into heads and gave me such looks that I was terrified. It made my flesh creep and I ran away. But try as I might, I couldn’t move from the spot. So I called to Mum: Oh, do help me. But the words stuck in my throat. When I woke up I was drenched in sweat.’

  ‘Out walking in the country. When we came to a mill, we went in and asked for a little flour, but the miller was so hard-hearted, he showed us the door. I flew into a rage at this, gave him a shove and he went flying into the mill wheel, where he was chopped into little pieces.’

  ‘My husband had always meant to go and live abroad. His wish was granted and he took me with him. On the ship I was surprised by all I saw, and curious too. I asked so many questions that Link turned nasty and threw me overboard. Somebody saw him and I was rescued. But Link didn’t like having me back; I was a nuisance to him. It upset me terribly that first he’d talked me into coming with him, and now he wanted rid of me. I gave him a shove and he toppled over into the water and didn’t reappear. But I kept seeing him coming up behind me.’

  ‘“Didn’t you always promise you’d buy me a pair of shoes? Well, no
w you can.”—“All right, I’ll buy you a pair of clogs. They’re good enough for you.” I said no, thank you, in that case, I’d rather do without. For that “thank you” he hit me so hard over the head that I was knocked senseless. When I came to, we were on the tram. Link said: Are you done sulking? It was only then that I realised what had happened. I flew into a temper. As we were getting off the tram, I pushed him in front of it. He was instantly run over and lay there in little pieces in his blood.’

  Sometimes in prison, as she dreamed or dozed, Elli saw objects and faces that swelled and grew to many times their size. It made her eyes hurt, she said; it gave her such feelings of anxiety and such palpitations that often she didn’t know what to do. She caught herself wandering around in a dream. She dreaded the night. Cold rubbings helped, but they couldn’t stop the nightmares.

  Grete Bende, too, often had vivid dreams of her husband. He’d threaten her with a knife or hatchet and she’d be gripped by a crushing fear. But she also had easier, pleasanter dreams of strolling across green meadows covered with flowers, or walking through crisp snow with her dog. She very often dreamt of her mother and cried in her sleep until the woman sharing her cell woke her. In some dreams, she saw her husband raging at her mother. At other times she dreamt that Mrs Link—her Elli—was standing before her in tears saying: ‘Link’s given me such a beating again.’

  Elli was violently affected by events, by imprisonment, by her interrogations. It wasn’t only that she came to her senses; there was also—this was evident in her dreams—a change in her. For the first time she saw clearly and fully what she had done; for the first time it came home to her that she had poisoned and killed Link. This change was brought about by the passing of her passionate fascination—and by the filial instincts and sense of family that court and prison had quickened in her and that now released a rush of social feelings. By day she went about things with apparent cheerfulness and calm, but at night and in her dreams she was the object of fierce, deep-seated bourgeois impulses. She was driven towards her parents, her mother; she heard her mum call and wanted to go to her, but someone pulled her away from the window of the cell. That someone was her crime, keeping her from her mother.

  In vain she went over and over the fact: ‘Link is dead; I killed him.’ She couldn’t reconcile herself to it. The murder was constantly re-enacted in her dreams; she kept on killing, driven by her filial instincts, and made attempt after attempt to justify herself. Elli’s dreams were a perpetual battle: her accusatory filial instincts fought for unrestricted dominion, while the remaining forces in her resisted—partly with the salutary intention of avoiding inundation by such formidable and crippling powers. To justify herself, Elli conjured up a metaphorical fall into a lions’ pit. In this metaphor she explained why she’d had Link torn to pieces by lions. She was walking with him through the forest (of their dreadful marriage), when they came to a fenced-off area, a forbidden place, a pit of unconcealed anger, hatred and perversion. Link tried to push her in, but failed. She got away; he died there. It was only right. She was defensive in the dream, speaking only of his perversion, not of hers.

  She offered herself proof of Link’s brutality, most poignantly in the dream where he grabbed the legs of the little girl who was to greet him and bashed her head against the corner of the table. But Elli’s dreams also addressed more hidden things. She herself had been just such a child; she had seen a similarity to her father in Link and looked for a resemblance between the two men. She wanted to call Link father, to go to meet him like the girl in her dream. But he disappointed her, dreadfully. She charged him with trying to kill her, with attempting to kill the child in her. This was her covert way of turning to her parents for protection, appealing to them as witnesses, asking them to be good to her. She dreamt that Link threw her from a ship, that he hit her over the head. Another dream told of her disappointment in her relations with Link: having promised her shoes, he said that clogs were good enough for her. His sexual attacks returned in veiled form in the image of the snake that crawled towards her out of the bucket and bit her in the throat.

  And she tried to make little of her own wrongdoing. All she’d done was smoke a cigarette and accidentally burn a hole in a white flag with a black eagle. That was her violation of the law.

  She didn’t want to have to bother herself with Link or the murder. She complained that she had to keep on murdering, keep on thinking about him, although he was dead and gone. Her room was filled with dead people; she was to wash and dress them. She wanted to push them away and run off, but found herself rooted to the spot.

  All this time, though, the sadism, the convulsive love-hate that Link had aroused in her, raged on in her dreams. Everything was strangely at odds in Elli: her desire to purge herself, to be a child again, to return to her parents, drove these fantasies into her head; but at the same time, the sadistic urge was suckling at them, gorging itself on them. Her flesh crawled and yet she couldn’t tear herself away. She couldn’t return to her parents over the barbed fence of her conscience, but she didn’t want to persist in her hatred. In her indecision, she contemplated death as a means of escape; in one dream a prison wardress helped her, cutting her body through with a knife. In another she hanged herself, as her husband had sometimes tried to do. Elli also identified with Link in the dream of the navy war flag. He had been a sailor in the war and she punished herself by suffering his fate.

  All these dreams were a form of self-punishment. Elli shuddered at them, but continued to inflict them on herself.

  In her looks and gestures, she remained her harmless, innocent, cheerful self. Inwardly she was in a crisis again, struggling fiercely, fighting to return to her parents.

  She hadn’t forgotten Grete Bende. Sexual matters were recalled in the strange images of the game played with four balls. Another dream told of a ‘person’ lying in Elli’s room, ‘who was quite cold’. Elli paid this person every attention, doing her best to get the cold body warmed and revived. It was, she dreamed—discreetly, but plainly—neither a he nor a she. Her sympathy for this person was striking, given her usual preoccupation with murder. It was not the dead Link. For once, it was not the dead Link. Elli was still attached to Grete and the dream made clear that not only was Grete physically separated from her; she also wished to sever her emotional ties to Grete. Elli was ashamed of this desire, but it was nonetheless alive in her. She cast it from her, just as she cast from her the dead man and the murder, revealing a close connection between the desire for severance and the deed committed against Link. There was some lingering sweetness: Elli wanted to bring Grete to life. But this was mere show, mere pretence. She went about it in quite the wrong way, trying to warm her with glowing coals. Of course the cold person ended up getting burnt. Elli wanted to have Grete Bende and, at the same time, she didn’t. When the coals burnt the bed, Elli was beside herself, ‘like a madwoman.’ In the same way she had previously fled another, greater quandary by inflicting death.

  In custody, Elli’s inner life deepened. As she struggled intently, fighting symptoms that resembled a mild psychosis, a change was wrought in her that brought her closer to a reunion with her family.

  Grete, however, was little affected by custody. She was much simpler, inwardly more elastic, emotionally more expansive. She remained close to her mother; that centre still held firm. Soft, jealous and sensitive, she had the odd thing to reproach Elli with. But she loved her, even in her dreams, and cherished that love. Elli was still her child who needed protecting from the bad man.

  The trial, held from 12 to 16 March, was the subject of detailed and lengthy reports in all the Berlin newspapers and a good number of others. Every day brought new sensational headlines: ‘Poisoners for Love’, ‘The Love Letters of the Lady Poisoners’, ‘A Curious Case’.

  Elli Link sat in the dock, plain and blond, answering timidly the questions put to her. Margarete Bende, tall, with a leather belt around her slim waist, had thick, neatly waved hair and energetic features
. Her mother, very upset, cried a great deal. Mrs Ella Link was charged, ‘on two separate counts: with the wilful and premeditated murder of a person, namely her husband; and secondly, with aiding and abetting Mrs Bende in her crime, namely the attempted murder of her husband Mr Bende.’

  Mrs Margarete Bende was charged, ‘on two separate counts: firstly, with aiding and abetting Mrs Link in her crime, namely the murder of her husband Mr Link. Secondly, with intending to kill a person, namely her husband Mr Bende, by wilful and premeditated acts which constituted the initial stages in the committal of this inchoate crime.’

  Her mother, Mrs Schnürer, was charged, ‘on two separate counts: with having knowledge—firstly of the intention to murder Mr Link and secondly of the intention to murder Mr Bende at such a time as those crimes were preventable—and yet neglecting to inform the authorities or alert in time the persons threatened by the crimes. Moreover, the murder of Link and a punishable attempt to murder Bende were indeed committed.’

  These crimes and offences were punishable in accordance with Sections 211, 43, 49, 139 and 74 of the Criminal Code.

  Twenty-one witnesses had been summoned, among them Grete’s husband, the mother of the deceased, Elli’s father, the Links’ landlady, the chemist who had sold Elli rat poison, and the clairvoyant. Expert witnesses included the doctors who had treated Link, the pathologists who had performed the autopsy, and the chemical analyst who had examined parts of the corpse. Then there were the psychiatric experts.