Kiss of Death
Undoubtedly, the most influential person in Jane Rumson's early life was her mother, the former Margaret Hartshorne, the only child of a wealthy Philadelphia doctor and his Bostonian wife, a socialite with claims of being a Mayflower descendant. To her impressionable young daughter, Margaret exhibited two distinctly different personalities: one that was reserved for her good days, the other for the bad ones. It was not until Jane neared adolescence that she realized her mother's moods were directly related to her husband's behavior on the previous evening. The nights that Harris Rumson came home drunk, ornery and likely to take a swing at his wife triggered the onset of a bad day. Likewise, on those rare evenings when he was sober, repentant and affectionate, Margaret experienced her good days.
Whether she was having a good day or bad one, mother and daughter shared a close relationship. On good days, Margaret often told her daughter stories of her own childhood in Philadelphia.
"During the summer, my parents and I would sometimes go to the Delaware Water Gap, and stay at the Kittatinny for a few days. We had so much fun boating on the Delaware River and hiking in the Pocono Mountains. Other times we would vacation in Atlantic City and stay at the United States Hotel, the most impressive hotel I have ever seen. In fact, it was the largest one in America at that time. Four stories high, it had more than six hundred rooms and could accommodate two thousand guests. Oh, those were the days! We lived like royalty! Nothing was too good for my father."
"I wish I could have known him," the little girl declared longingly, imagining how life might have been for her if her rich grandfather had not caught scarlet fever from a patient and died before she was born.
"You would have loved him and my mother, too. You were only a baby when she died. How she doted on you when she was still alive, though."
Margaret never tired of telling her daughter about her family's elegant townhouse on Rittenhouse Square and the even more elegant family mansion on the Main Line. She would describe in great detail the lavish parties her mother threw and the beautiful gowns she wore.
On Margaret's bad days, however, the memories she shared with Jane were not such pleasant ones. On such occasions the mother revealed to her daughter the truth about her increasingly unhappy marriage to a handsome young man from the southwestern side of Philadelphia—in the Hartshornes' vernacular, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
"He had no money, but he had great potential. Unfortunately, once we were married he developed a fondness for alcohol," the unhappy woman explained with unconcealed bitterness. "Not even being fired from his job made him change his ways. On the contrary, he drank even more once he was unemployed. Rather than get another job, he decided to try his hand at investing. It wasn't long before he went through all the money I had inherited from my parents. We had to sell both houses in order to pay our living expenses and your father's liquor bills. I doubt we have much more than a few hundred dollars left now. When that's gone ...."
Margaret did not want to tell her daughter that the three of them would likely be thrown out on the street before the girl's sixteenth birthday.
"Maybe I could get a job," Jane offered, hoping to put a smile on her mother's forlorn face.
"There are so few opportunities for women, and those that are available don't pay well. I would hate to see my little girl sewing in a factory for a few pennies a day."
"Maybe I could go to college and become a doctor like Grandfather."
"Women doctors? What nonsense! No, my dear, you have only one path open to you, I'm afraid: marriage."
"Then I shall marry a doctor, and you can come and live with us. We'll have a fine townhome on Rittenhouse Square and a huge mansion on the Main Line. And in the summers we'll vacation in Delaware Water Gap and Atlantic City."
This was the type of conversation the two had had many times during Jane's childhood. Some of the words may have changed with each new occurrence, but the gist was always the same as was the final sentiment expressed by the mother.
"Promise me one thing," Margaret begged her daughter. "Make sure the man you marry will love you and give you a life of security and comfort. Don't be taken in by a handsome face or sweet-sounding words. And, above all, Princess, don't marry a man who drinks!"
"I won't, Mama," the little girl earnestly vowed. "I swear it."
* * *
Three days short of his daughter's fifteenth birthday, Harris Rumson came home from the local tavern late at night, drunk to the gills, as usual. The inevitable argument with his wife ensued. Jane was awakened by the commotion and clutched her pillow over her ears in an attempt to drown out the sounds of his shouting. Although Margaret had done nothing to arouse her husband's anger, Harris was a weak, cowardly man who needed to blame someone for the failures in his life, and his wife proved to be a handy scapegoat.
Once he sobered up, Harris could not remember what had caused him to slap his wife. (He often did so with little provocation.) And, as usually happened, one slap led to another. The open hand would then close to a fist. On that particular night, however, the punch to Margaret's face was dealt with more force than usual. The poor woman was knocked off her feet, and she struck her head on the cold radiator. The blow proved fatal.
The following day, Harris was arrested. After being convicted of manslaughter, he was incarcerated in Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary. His daughter, still a minor, was sent to an orphanage for girls.
Wise men often debate if a criminal mind is the result of nature or nurture. Are people born bad, they wonder, or do certain events in their lives cause them to become so? If the latter is the case, then this is the time period in Jane Rumson's life that led her down a path of crime. Her beloved mother was dead, and her father was in jail—no great loss there. She was taken from the only home she had ever known and placed in an institution with dozens of other orphans, most of whom, like Jane, would never fulfill the innocent dreams of their childhood.
With a father in the penitentiary, Jane had it worse than the other girls, many of whom had been in the orphanage since infancy. The consensus being that an apple never falls far from the tree, no one liked the little girl or trusted her. If something went missing, everyone assumed the prisoner's daughter had stolen it. After a year and a half of such unfair treatment, Jane ran away, never to return.
Faced with a hard life on the street, Margaret Rumson's "Princess" was saved from having to seek employment as a prostitute by a kindly Quaker couple who had lost their daughter to consumption ten years earlier. With no questions asked about her past, the elderly husband and wife gave Jane a job as a salesgirl in their candy shop. The pay was minimal, but the position came with room and board, which was a godsend to the homeless teenager. Although the couple treated her more like family than an employee, Jane wanted more out of life than standing at a counter, selling taffy, licorice and chocolates. She wanted all the things her mother once had: the townhouse, the mansion and the summer vacations. To obtain them, she needed to marry well.
Although not yet a doctor, Warren Dahlgren was a college freshman with an eye on attending medical school when he was introduced by his cousin to the pretty blond-haired, blue-eyed girl from the candy shop. The two of them dated for slightly more than six months before the University of Pennsylvania student proposed.
"How can we afford a place to live if you're still attending school?" Jane asked.
"You can come live with me and my mother," the love-struck young man replied. "It won't be forever, only until I get my medical license. Then we can get a place of our own."
"On the Main Line?"
"Not at first," he laughed. "We'll have to start out with something a little less expensive, but eventually we can move to Bryn Mawr or Haverford."
"Or Villanova? That's where my grandfather once owned a house."
"If that's what you want."
Thus, the pretty girl from the candy shop who harbored dreams of reclaiming the life her mother led as a child wed a romantic young man with goals as lofty as her own.
* * *
According to an old proverb, all good things come to those who wait. When Jane Rumson married Warren Dahlgren, she was quite prepared to patiently wait until he finished college, medical school, residency and internship. She was even willing to live in modest circumstances until his practice was profitable. What she had not anticipated was the animosity that would develop between her and her shrew of a mother-in-law.
While Bernice Dahlgren never had to endure the beatings of an alcoholic husband as Jane's mother had, she nevertheless became disenchanted with her own loveless marriage. Even before her husband died, the only person the overbearing woman cared about was her son, and she did not want to share him with anyone. Bernice made life so unpleasant for Jane, that the young woman wanted to return to her job at the candy shop in order to get away from the house, at least for a few hours each day. Unfortunately, the Quaker couple had closed the business and gone to work in Milton Hershey's chocolate factory.
As she sat on a bench in Fairmount Park, watching recreational boats navigate the Schuylkill River, Jane wondered what she should do.
I'll go mad if I have to endure that harridan's nagging and criticism much longer!
From Jane's lips to God's ears! As though in answer to a prayer, a middle-aged man named Marvin Lowder was walking through the park and spotted Jane sitting on the bench.
"Excuse me," he said. "Aren't you the girl who works at the candy shop over on Spring Garden?"
"I am, or rather I was. The store isn't there anymore."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Where are you working now, if I might ask?"
"Nowhere. I haven't got a job. I left the candy shop when I got married."
"Oh, I see. As a married woman, you have no need to work."
"Actually," she said, "I was hoping to find suitable employment."
"Is that so?" Marvin was immediately interested. "Would you be interested in coming to work for me?"
"Do you have a candy store, Mr. ... ? I'm sorry I don't know your name."
"Lowder. Marvin Lowder. No, I don't sell candy. I'm an upholsterer. I not only reupholster furniture, but I also make customized fabrics to match other pieces my customers own, which keeps me quite busy. I've been looking for someone to wait on my customers, but the women who've applied for the job are all hopelessly unqualified."
Jane did not bother to ask about salary, the working hours or even the location of Marvin's shop. At the prospect of not only getting away from her mother-in-law but also earning money in the process, she immediately accepted the upholsterer's offer.
As was typical for men in 1916, Warren did not approve of his wife working outside the home.
"But there's nothing for me to do here," Jane complained. "Your mother refuses my offers to help around the house."
"Since my father's death, the house and I are all she has," her husband said, quickly coming to his mother's defense.
"I understand that. I'm not faulting her in any way. I just want to do something productive with my time. Once we have our own home, I promise you I'll quit. I'll spend my days cleaning, doing laundry, cooking and hopefully taking care of our children."
The prospect of having his own family made Warren smile. He then took his adorable young wife in his arms and kissed her gently on the lips.
"All right, darling," he whispered. "You have my permission to get a job, but only until we move into our own place."
Jane did not point out that she had never asked for his permission, nor did she tell him that she had already made up her mind to take the job whether he approved or not.
* * *
The following April the United States entered the war in Europe. Always the idealist, Warren left school and enlisted in the Army.
"Why would you do such a foolish thing?" Jane demanded to know. "You need to stay here and get your degree."
For once she and her mother-in-law were on the same side.
"You cannot go over there and risk your life," Bernice argued. "Think of me and your wife. What will happen to us if you get killed?"
"There's much more at stake here than my life or even your lives, dear as they both are to me. H.G. Wells calls this the war that will end war."
"Then let Mr. Wells fight it!" Bernice cried. "You're my only son, the only family I have left. I can't lose you."
"I'm sorry, Mother, but I've already enlisted. I can't back out now, and, in all honesty, I wouldn't even if I could. I believe this is a cause worth fighting for, worth dying for."
Bernice hugged her son and cried, but Jane turned away to hide her tears, for they fell not for the safety of her husband who was going off to war but for the death of her dream of being married to a wealthy doctor.
With Warren fighting in France, Jane more than ever wanted to keep her job at Lowder's shop. However, to a country at war, reupholstering furniture was not a high priority. Still, there were a few wealthy families in Philadelphia who redecorated their homes and had their antiques restored, so Marvin was able to keep his business going—but just barely.
"I'll understand if you have to let me go," Jane told Marvin after she spent an entire day at the shop without waiting on a single customer.
"Why would I do that?" he asked. "You are an excellent employee. You are always on time, you never call in sick and my customers adore you."
"With the war on, your business is slow. My compensation must surely cut into your profits."
"Ah, don't worry your pretty little head about that! I have more than one iron in the fire. If I didn't, I would have gone broke years ago!"
"Then I can stay on?" she asked, her joy evident in her voice and in her twinkling blue eyes.
"Of course!"
Jane, delighted at the prospect of keeping her job, did not bother to ask her boss about the other irons in his fire. Neither did she ever question him about his cousin Leon who visited the shop on average once a month, always arriving empty-handed yet leaving with a brown paper bag that he tucked inside his jacket or coat.
It has nothing to do with me, she thought.
* * *
On June 28, 1919 Germany and the Allied Nations signed the Treaty of Versailles, bringing the First World War to an end. When Sgt. Warren Dahlgren finally returned to Philadelphia, his mother and wife soon discovered he was not the same man who had bid farewell to them amidst tears and kisses.
"What do you want to do with your life now that you're out of the Army?" Bernice asked her son.
"I don't know. I haven't given it much thought," he said, seemingly having no interest in his future.
"Maybe you can go back to college and pick up where you left off," Jane suggested.
"The last thing I want to do is become a doctor," her husband declared. "I've seen enough death to last me the rest of my life."
"Well, I'm sure you'll find a suitable job," his mother said optimistically. "You've got a good head on your shoulders, and you're a hard worker."
"I'll think about it," Warren said as he headed to the hall closet to get his coat.
"Where are you going?" Bernice inquired.
"To take a walk. I could use some fresh air."
"Do you want us to come with you?"
"No. You two stay here. I'll be back in a little while."
When Warren returned nearly four hours later, he brought with him a familiar scent. It was an odor Jane had frequently smelled on her father: alcohol.
During the following months, the returned warrior showed no sign of picking up the pieces of his life. On the contrary, he seemed to spiral further down into an abyss of despondency, fueled by lack of purpose and whisky. Not even the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment dissuaded him from drinking. Ironically, despite nationwide Prohibition, alcohol was easy to come by.
Unlike her father, Warren did not become abusive when he drank. Nevertheless, the habit was like a ball and chain around his ankle that prevented him from living a normal life.
Jane tried to hide her unhappiness behind a false smile whenever she left the house, but one day at work, when she thought no one else was in the shop, she began to cry.
"What is it that makes you so unhappy?" asked Marvin who suddenly emerged from the cellar.
"Oh, it's nothing," Jane lied, quickly wiping the tears away with the back of her hand. "You know how foolish women are. We cry over nothing."
"Not you. You are the most level-headed person I've ever known. Now tell me. What is wrong? Perhaps I can make things better."
"I'm afraid no one can help."
Marvin flipped over the OPEN sign on the front door to read CLOSED. Then he pulled up two chairs, sat in one and nodded at the other.
"You sit down and tell me what's wrong."
Once the first few words left her mouth, it was as though a dam had burst. Emotions she had kept buried since childhood came to the surface. She told her employer about her drunken father, her beautiful but tragic mother, her cruel mother-in-law and her useless husband.
"If you are so unhappy with your marriage, then leave him. I will pay you more money so that you can rent your own apartment."
"I can't do that. For one thing, I won't allow you to pay for my mistakes. And for another, moving out won't change anything. I'd still be married to Warren. What if I were to meet someone else?"
"For instance, a man with economic prospects?" Marvin asked, fully grasping the situation.
"Yes," Jane admitted honestly. "I hope someday to marry a doctor."
"I don't suppose you'd consider divorce?"
"Never. Not only would it cost too much money and take a long time to finalize, but my reputation would be ruined afterward."
"Then you must find another way to rid yourself of this unwanted husband. Come with me to the workshop."
Jane followed her employer to the backroom where he reupholstered the furniture. Marvin took a key out of his pocket and unlocked a cabinet above one of his workbenches. Inside were the dyes he used when making customized fabrics.
"This," he said, reaching up for a bottle of green dye, "contains a pigment known as Scheele's green, which, chemically, is copper arsenate."
Jane, who had no knowledge of chemistry, had a blank look on her face.
"Being an arsenic compound, it's deadly if taken in a large dose or in small doses over a period of time."
"You mean it's poisonous?"
"Yes. Now, I'm not suggesting you take this home and mix it in your husband's food. I'm just giving you one alternative to divorce."
"I'm not my father's daughter!" Jane cried. "I'm not a murderer!"
Within a few days, though, the unhappy woman's indignation passed. After spending an unbearable Sunday afternoon and evening with her drunken husband and mean-spirited mother-in-law, she was more receptive to her employer's ideas.
* * *
After the death of Warren Dahlgren—soon followed by the passing of his mother—Marvin Lowder put another iron in his fire. Always on the lookout for an easy way to make a buck, he agreed to Jane's scheme to become unofficial partners in a venture that would provide, for a price, the means by which other miserable women might rid themselves of undesirable husbands.
By the time her year of mourning passed and she cast off her black clothing, Jane was making a comfortable living. She had inherited the Dahlgren family house and had a fair-sized bank account.
"You've certainly got a head for business," Marvin said as he handed her an envelope containing five hundred dollars. "Now you have no need to marry a doctor."
"I may own my own house," she argued, "but it's not on Rittenhouse Square or on the Main Line."
"You're never satisfied, are you?" Marvin laughed. "If you want to make that dream a reality, we will need to diversify or, as I like to say, put more irons in the fire."
"What do you have in mind?"
"My cousin Leon sells insurance. We can offer our special customers life insurance policies on their husbands in addition to a supply of Scheele's green. Since these women will come into money afterward, we can charge more for our dye. Also, we can ask for a percentage of the insurance payout."
"Mr. Lowder, you are a genius!"
The life insurance scam benefited all parties concerned—except the insurance companies, that is. Over the next few years, Jane married four more times, only to take out large insurance policies on her husbands and then dispatch them with a diet laced with Scheele's green. In memory of her beloved mother, the five-time widow even sent a tainted cake to her father in prison. In her opinion, he, more than anyone else, deserved to die.
Soon the number of partners in the lethal enterprise grew. In addition to Marvin, Jane and Leon, an unscrupulous doctor was paid to sign death certificates attesting that the murdered men died of natural causes. A number of women, all satisfied customers themselves, were employed to seek out new business, which, given the number of abused women in the city, seemed limitless.
Throughout the 1920s, a decade marked by excess and sometimes downright decadence, the poison ring, whose business was still conducted out of the unassuming upholsterer's shop, continued to prosper. No one would have guessed that the pretty but innocuous shop girl was just a few thousand dollars short of fulfilling her dream of buying a home on the Main Line.
Ironically, it was while she was examining real estate listings for Villanova that, across town, one of Leon Lowder's business associates was arrested on charges of printing counterfeit money. Since it was his second such offense, he could not expect the district attorney to go easy on him. It being an election year, however, he might be willing to reduce the charges in exchange for a tip that could lead to the exposure of a more serious crime.
"I have information that the D.A. might want," he told the detective who was questioning him.
"About one of your counterfeiting buddies?"
"No. I'm talking about a murder-for-hire operation that is responsible for the deaths of more than fifty people, possibly as many as a hundred."
"A hundred people, you say?" the detective asked sarcastically, clearly not believing a word the known criminal said.
"Yes, and I can give you the names of the people involved if the D.A. will drop the counterfeiting charges against me."
In the months that followed the informer's conversation with the district attorney, dozens of arrests were made, including the key members of the poison ring. Suddenly women, who had believed they had gotten away with murder, were being questioned in connection with their husbands' deaths.
At the conclusion of the sensational trials, both Marvin Lowder and the doctor were sentenced to die in the electric chair. Because he had only been convicted of insurance fraud and conspiracy, Leon Lowder was sentenced to life in prison. Additionally, many of the women who worked for the ring were given long sentences as were a number of the customers. Only Jane—dubbed "the Kiss of Death" by one clever Philadelphia reporter—who had spent her considerable savings on a well-known lawyer with a winning record, was able to escape punishment. Thanks to a skillful defense, she was cleared of all charges.
* * *
With the economic crisis that followed the crash of the stock market, Philadelphians forgot about the infamous poison ring. Marvin Lowder and the doctor had been executed, and the other guilty parties were all serving out their sentences behind bars. Jane changed her name to Maggie Hartshorne and moved to New Jersey where she lived under drastically reduced circumstances after spending most of her ill-gotten gains to save herself from the electric chair.
One hot and humid summer day, anxious to escape the heat of her stuffy little apartment, she took a train to Atlantic City. Like so many things in her life, it proved to be a disappointment. There were few people walking along the famed boardwalk and even fewer sunbathing on the beach. In all fairness, she realized the Great Depression had taken a heavy toll on the resort community. Jane imagined the city had been very different not only in her mother's day but also during the Twenties.
Now, it's like a terminally ill patient, clinging to life but slowing losing the battle, she thought.
Jane sat down on a bench and stared at the horizon where the calm, gray waters of the Atlantic Ocean met the cloudless, blue sky. Overhead, the gulls screeched and periodically landed on the sandy beach to scavenge for food. After enjoying the serenity of the seaside for nearly an hour, she got up and continued her leisurely stroll along the boardwalk.
"Jaaaannnne."
It was as though her name were being carried on the wind. About a dozen people were walking in her direction. Had someone recognized her? She quickly scanned the faces. One stood out from the others. It was Warren Dahlgren, her first husband. He did not appear as he had the last time she saw him, on the verge of an agonizing death. Instead, he looked like he had when she first met him: young, handsome and full of idealistic dreams for the future.
Frightened, Jane stopped walking and put her hand to her mouth to suppress a scream.
"Jaaaannnne."
It was another disembodied voice. This one sounded more feminine in tone. Another sweep of the faces in the crowd revealed the unpleasant scowl of Bernice Dahlgren.
This is impossible! They're both dead!
"Jaaaannnne."
Another voice. Another familiar face. Soon all five of Jane's husbands were slowly walking toward her, along with her mother-in-law and her father.
"Jaaaannnne."
Two more voices called to her, one belonging to Marvin Lowder and the other to the executed doctor. Did they bear her ill will because she had escaped retribution? Soon there was a crowd of dead bodies heading in her direction, no doubt belonging to the men, young and old alike, who had been poisoned with Scheele's green from the upholsterer's shop.
On the verge of panic, the terrified woman turned and began to run. Then a final voice called to her.
"Jaaaannnne."
This was a welcome one, a voice that had so often comforted her when she was a child.
"Mama!" she cried. "Where are you?"
"I'm here, Princess."
Jane ran into her mother's arms, expecting them to protect her as they once had. But no sooner had she embraced Margaret's body than it was transformed. In the place of her loving parent was a skeletal figure wearing a black, hooded cloak. Jane tried to break free, but the Grim Reaper held on firmly. It leaned its skull head forward and placed its fleshless mouth onto hers.
When the Reaper released her from its embrace, Jane fell down dead on the boardwalk. She was later found there with no identification on her body. After only a cursory investigation into her identity, she was buried in a pauper's grave bearing no name. Jane Rumson, who had always wanted so much out of life, took nothing with her when she passed away except the lingering kiss of death on her lips.
This story was inspired by the true account of the Philadelphia Poison Ring that was responsible for the deaths of between 50 and 100 persons in three states.
As annoying as he is, I would never poison Salem. However, I once cast a spell and turned him into an actual ring. I enjoyed having him wrapped around my finger!
