One hypothesis is that Charles Bravo was slowly poisoning his wife with small cumulative doses of antimony in the form of tartar emetic, which explains the chronic illness that she suffered from since shortly after their marriage. While treating himself with laudanum for toothache before going to bed he mistakenly swallowed some; then took the tartar emetic, mistakenly believing it was a true emetic that would induce vomiting. Their housekeeper Mrs Cox reportedly told police that when they were alone together, Charles had admitted using the tartar emetic on himself; but she later changed her statement, perhaps to deflect suspicion from herself to Florence.