Chapter XXII: The Armstrong Case

In 1921 the little town of Hay in Breconshire became the centre of one of the strangest poison dramas of modern times. There were practising in the town two firms of solicitors, the head of one being Mr. Robert Rowse Armstrong, M.A., who had held a temporary commission as major during the war, and was Clerk to the Bench. The principal of the other was a Mr. Oswald Norman Martin, who, after demobilization had entered into partnership with Mr. Robert T. Griffith, who died in November, 1920, leaving Mr. Martin to carry on the practice.

Mr. Martin was married on June 14, 1921, to Miss Davies, the daughter of a local chemist, and Major Armstrong was invited to the wedding reception and sent a present. Towards the end of September a parcel arrived at Mr. Martin’s house addressed to him in block letters, apparently to disguise the handwriting. It contained a box of Fuller’s chocolates that had come apparently direct from the makers. It was noticed, however, that the ribbon securing the box had been untied and retied in a different way, and anything that could lead to the identification of the shop where it had been bought had been taken away. The box was put on one side until October 8, when after a dinner party given by Mr. and Mrs. Martin, it was handed round the table, but only one person, Mrs. Gilbert Martin, a sister-in-law of the Martins, took anything from it. Later that evening she was taken ill with vomiting, and suffered from palpitation of the heart. After dinner, the box of chocolates was again put away and nothing more thought about it, until they were suspected of being the cause of the lady’s sudden seizure. The chocolates were then handed over to Dr. Hincks, of Hay, who sent them to London to be analysed. According to the report returned to him it was found that in two of the chocolates in the upper row some holes had been drilled about half an inch long, into each of which several grains of white arsenic had been placed and an attempt had then been made to fill up the ends of the holes with pieces of chocolate.

About this time, it appears, Major Armstrong began to press Mr. Martin very frequently to come and have tea with him, and at length Mr. Martin agreed and went to Armstrong’s house about five o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, October 26. When he entered the drawing-room he noticed a three-tier cake-stand on which were apparently some buttered scones. Major Armstrong called for a cup of tea for him and handed to his visitor one of the buttered scones from the plate himself. He also had a piece of currant bread and butter which was on a plate and left the house at half-past six, but shortly after arriving home began to feel unwell. Towards evening he got worse and about nine o’clock violent vomiting set in which continued at frequent intervals throughout the night. He also had attacks of palpitation and diarrhœa. On Thursday morning the doctor was called in and he did not recover sufficiently to return to business until November 1. The following day he met Armstrong, who asked him if he was feeling better, and remarked, “It may seem a curious thing to say, but you will have another attack,” to which Mr. Martin replied, “I hope not.”

During the following three or four weeks, Armstrong again repeatedly asked Mr. Martin to come to his house to tea and extended the invitation also to his office, and seemed particularly anxious that he should accept. About this time there was some business between the two solicitors about a sale of land, Mr. Martin acting for the purchaser and Mr. Armstrong for the vendor. There had been very considerable delay in completing the purchase and Mr. Martin had written, that unless the completion took place, his clients would have to rescind their contracts and demand the return of their deposits in each case.

The completion had not taken place on October 20, and Mr. Martin wrote formally giving notice to rescind the contracts and demanding the return of the money paid on deposit and expenses, which amounted to about £456. Armstrong asked as a personal favour if this could not be postponed. Mr. Martin’s clients decided not to consider the suggestion, and thus the matter stood at the time.

On December 5 Mr. Martin wrote on behalf of his clients to Armstrong’s firm, threatening that, unless he received a cheque for his clients’ deposit by December 12, he would have to take proceedings.

During Mr. Martin’s illness the doctor attending him took certain samples for analysis which were sent up to Dr. Willcox, who found in the specimens one-thirty-third of a grain of arsenic. Mrs. Martin, having mentioned to her mother about her sister-in-law’s illness after eating one of the chocolates, gave the remainder of the box to her, and she showed it to her husband, Mr. Davies, the chemist. In examining them he noticed that one had a little white powder scattered over one end, and that two of them certainly had been tampered with. He thought that they looked very suspicious and so he took them to Dr. Hincks, who sent the box with the remainder of the chocolates to London to be analysed, the result of which has been already stated.

The police were then informed and commenced to make inquiries, with the result that detectives were called in from Scotland Yard and Armstrong was arrested.

It was then found that Mr. Davies, the chemist in Hay, had sold Armstrong arsenic in considerable quantities in 1913 and 1921, which he said he required for making weed-killer, and following on what the police discovered they were led to investigate the cause of the death of Armstrong’s wife, which had occurred about twelve months previously.

An order for exhumation of the body was given by the Home Office and the internal organs were sent to London for analysis. They were found to contain arsenic to the extent of three and one-fifth grains.

While the charge of attempting to poison Mr. Martin was in process of being heard before the magistrates, Armstrong was charged with the murder of his wife.

Mrs. Armstrong was forty-seven years of age when she died and had been married for about fifteen years. In 1919 she had first consulted Dr. Hincks, being troubled with neuritis in her left arm. After treating her for this complaint the doctor did not see her again for nearly twelve months, when he received a message from Armstrong to the effect that his wife was suffering from pneumonia. A day or two later he found she was suffering from delusions and that her mental condition was apparently bad. He called in a colleague and it became apparent to them that there was something additional to the mental trouble, as Mrs. Armstrong had been taken ill with vomiting and complained of severe pains and heart trouble. The doctors concluded she had better be removed to an asylum and she was taken to Barnwood, near Gloucester. She was there confined to bed and developed a sort of paralysis; she was treated with tonics, and one of these contained a small amount of solution of arsenic. Her condition improved and the doctor told Armstrong that she would be able to go home on January 11, and Armstrong went to the asylum and brought his wife back to Hay. On that day it was found that Armstrong had purchased a quarter of a pound of arsenic, and at one time in conversation with the doctor had asked him how much arsenic constituted a fatal dose. He also asked Dr. Hincks to visit his wife occasionally and a nurse was engaged to look after her.

For about a month she seemed to be getting better, then in February the sickness and vomiting commenced again. The doctor thought it was a case of severe biliousness, but towards the end of February she got worse and died on the 22nd of that month. The doctor certified that she died from gastritis and heart disease and at that time had not the slightest suspicion of foul play.

In 1919 Mrs. Armstrong made a will leaving some £2,419, which was drawn up by her husband and witnessed by two servants in the house.

In a previous will made in 1917, Armstrong was to receive an annuity of fifty pounds a year, while the property was to be divided equally between his children, but two years later in the fresh will drawn up by her husband, she left all her property to him. It transpired afterwards that the second will was drawn up in Armstrong’s own writing and purported to be signed by two witnesses. Mrs. Armstrong was not present and the two servants who signed it at the request of Armstrong stated, that they did not know it was a will they were witnessing.

To all appearances and in the opinion of her medical adviser Mrs. Armstrong had died a natural death, but on exhumation some ten months afterwards a sufficient amount of arsenic was found in the remains to poison her. Almost directly after his wife was buried and he had got the property in his possession, Armstrong went to the Continent, and immediately on his return at the end of April was talking about marriage to another lady. It was noteworthy that a packet containing white arsenic, not coloured, which chemists are bound by law to do before selling it, was carried by Armstrong in his pocket on the day on which he was arrested. Also that Mr. Martin was nearly fatally poisoned after taking tea with Armstrong, and that the amount of arsenic, one thirty-third of a grain, which was found in the specimen submitted for analysis pointed to the fact, that the amount he had taken a few days before was a little over three grains. It was also remarkable that after Armstrong had asked Dr. Hincks “What is sufficient arsenic to cause death?” and was told three grains, that was the exact amount that was found in a packet in his pocket.

Chief Inspector Crutchett, of Scotland Yard, saw Mr. Armstrong at his office on December 31, and told him that he was investigating the sudden illness of Mr. Martin after taking tea with him on October 26. He also told him about the chocolates which were found to contain arsenic, and it was known that he had purchased arsenic on January 11, 1921. He asked him if he could account for his movements on October 26, and what became of the arsenic that was in his possession. Armstrong then made a statement that was taken down in writing, and which he signed. In it he stated, that he also partook of the buttered currant loaf and scones which he handed to Mr. Martin, who he knew had not been well before he paid the visit to his house. He acknowledged that he purchased arsenic in 1914, which he used for making a weed-killer consisting of caustic soda and arsenic which he found to be cheaper than what he could purchase. He was unable to throw any light on the finding of arsenic in Mr. Martin’s tests or on the cause of his illness after visiting his house. After signing the statement, Armstrong was arrested and was asked to empty the contents of his pockets on to a desk. Among the articles found in his possession was a small packet containing a white powder and two or three little pellets, rather heavy, which were in a small envelope, which also had the remains of some white powder. The small packet was found to contain 3¾ grains of white arsenic.

At the magisterial inquiry, Mrs. Armstrong’s sister said that her sister was a believer in homœopathic medicines, and among them were arsenicum, nux vomica and liquorice, which she not only used for herself, but the household generally. The doctors who saw Mrs. Armstrong at the asylum and prescribed for her, had ordered her a mixture containing solution of arsenic, iron and ammonia citrate and nux vomica, the solution of arsenic being in five-minim doses. She had taken that medicine as a tonic up to October 4, but after that date had taken nothing which contained arsenic.

Dr. Hincks, who had attended Mrs. Armstrong from 1919, described her complaint and condition; it was owing to her mental trouble that he advised her removal to the asylum, and at Armstrong’s request he consented to her return home. He saw her several times afterwards, but her physical condition grew worse and she became weaker every day. On February 16 he told her husband that her case was quite hopeless and later he heard she was dead. He gave a certificate that death was due to gastritis and heart disease. His opinion now was that all these conditions were due to the presence of chronic arsenical poisoning, and he thought the cause of death was due to the administration of arsenic.

Dr. B. H. Spilsbury, who made the post-mortem on the body of Mrs. Armstrong after exhumation, said he found it in an unusually good state of preservation, allowing for the time which had elapsed since her death. It was a condition which was found in certain cases of arsenical poisoning, to which in his opinion her death was due. With reference to the mixture which was prescribed for her at the asylum and taken as a tonic for a period of some months, he stated that in that small quantity he would not expect to find any traces of arsenic in the body, with the possible exception of traces in the nails and hair.

The official analyst to the Home Office, who had analysed the chocolates sent to Mr. Martin, said that he found the box contained thirty-two chocolates, two of which had the appearance of having been tampered with. A cylindrical hole nearly half an inch long had apparently been bored and filled with a white powder, and attempts had been made to seal it up with a covering of chocolate. The white powder was found on analysis to be arsenious oxide. He estimated that the amount in one chocolate was slightly more than two grains. The rest of the chocolates showed no trace of having been tampered with. He found arsenic in all the organs of Mrs. Armstrong’s body, the total being equivalent to 3·2 grains, which led him to believe that she must have had a considerable amount of arsenic during the last few days of her life, and that her death was due to acute arsenical poisoning. A quantity amounting to a fatal dose must have been taken within twenty-four hours of her death.

The analyst also made an examination of a number of bottles and packets found in Armstrong’s house, most of which contained arsenic either in solution or powder.

Sir William H. Willcox, medical adviser to the Home Office, said the mixture that contained arsenic prescribed for Mrs. Armstrong at the asylum, could not have accounted for the arsenic found in her body. Arsenic taken thus for a month would be entirely eliminated, usually in ten days. The symptoms described in the illness of Mrs. Gilbert Martin after eating one of the chocolates, and those of Mr. Oswald Martin, were all consistent with acute arsenical poisoning. He was of the opinion that Mrs. Armstrong was suffering from the effects of an irritant poison when she was taken to the asylum in August, 1920, and on her return home the reappearance of these symptoms showed she was again suffering from arsenical poisoning. With respect to the distribution of the arsenic in the organs taken from the exhumed body, he had no doubt that a possibly fatal dose of two grains or more must have been taken within twenty-four hours of death. He had known of cases of suicide where a large dose or possibly two had been taken, but in this case there were obviously successive doses, giving rise to very painful symptoms, which were not in the least indicative of suicide. He did not believe it possible that she could have taken the doses herself within twenty-four hours of death, and he was confident that she was suffering from acute arsenical poisoning when she died.

On this evidence Armstrong was committed to the Assizes on the charge of murdering his wife and of the attempt to murder Mr. Oswald Martin.

Armstrong’s trial took place at the Hereford Assizes before Mr. Justice Darling, on April 31. The case for the Crown was conducted by Sir Ernest Pollock, K.C., and others, and Armstrong was defended by Sir Henry Curtis Bennett, K.C.

The nurse attending Mrs. Armstrong said, that her husband frequently came into the bedroom the last few days of her illness when she was confined to bed. He was alone with her on several occasions and sat in the room when she went to her meals. She noticed that sickness occurred about twenty minutes after her patient had taken food. Mrs. Armstrong kept a chest of homœopathic medicines in the bedroom, but up to the Sunday before she died she was unable to get out of bed. She said she did not think it was possible that Mrs. Armstrong on February 13 could have got out of bed and got a packet or bottle out of the cupboard in the room; she had been told by the nurse who was previously in attendance on Mrs. Armstrong, that she was afraid that she might some time commit suicide, as she was certainly suffering from delusions.

Chief Inspector Crutchett, who was present at the arrest of Armstrong, said he had no opportunity after December 31 of going back to the house, but the house had been searched and he was aware of a little drawer in the cupboard in the study. Sir Henry Curtis Bennett then told him that a small paper packet of white arsenic was found in that drawer by Mr. Matthews, Armstrong’s solicitor, his managing clerk and Dr. Chivers. The inspector declared there was no packet of white arsenic there when he searched the drawer. Counsel remarked that there were actual traces of arsenic in the drawer itself. In reply to the judge the inspector said, that had the packet been in the drawer when he searched he would have seen it.

A feature of the scientific evidence given by Mr. Webster was the statement that he had never, in his experience of making analyses of organs taken from three to four hundred bodies, discovered such a quantity of arsenic as he did in the case of Mrs. Armstrong.

Superintendent Weaver, who searched Armstrong’s study at his house, said that he had examined the little drawer of the bureau in which it was stated a packet of white arsenic was found after the police search. He distinctly remembered pulling out the drawer and placing it on the desk, and was positive there was no packet of white powder there.

The counsel for the prisoner in addressing the jury, asserted that the suggestion that Mrs. Armstrong took arsenic herself, was infinitely stronger than the case made out against the prisoner, and called Armstrong as a witness to give evidence in his own defence.

Armstrong gave a detailed account of his career and war service. He took his degree as Master of Arts at Cambridge University, and had held important and responsible positions, including that of Justices’ Clerk of Hay. He was a partner in the firm of Cheese & Armstrong until 1914, when Mr. Cheese died. He married in June 1907 and had three children. He held a commission in the Volunteer Forces of the R.E. until 1914 and was then gazetted captain. In June, 1918, he went to France, where he remained until October of that year and was demobilized in the spring of 1919.

Questioned about the second will in his own handwriting, he said the reason for his wife’s deciding to make a second will was, that she had come into some further property since the first will, owing to the death of her mother, and she wished to make a shorter and simpler one. He drew up the document at her request and with her full knowledge. He stated that he first became aware that there was something wrong with his wife on August 9, but he left her apparently in normal health when he went out in the morning; on coming back for lunch she surprised him by saying before the children she expected that he would have been arrested; she had done something to cause his arrest and had told the children they might never expect to see him again. This was the first time he had ever noticed any active delusions, and as the delusions did not diminish he saw Dr. Hincks and told him what had occurred. Discussing the matter with a friend, he had made the suggestion that it would not be safe to leave razors about near his wife, and as a matter of fact, he had removed them from the room and also his service revolver. He denied emphatically that there was any truth in the suggestion, that he had ever administered arsenic to his wife prior to her removal to Barnwood Asylum.

Sir Henry Curtis Bennett, K.C., in his speech for the defence said: “This case is a most extraordinary one, because the prosecution set out to prove that in August, 1920, Armstrong started to administer arsenic to his wife; that in January, 1921, he continued, on her return from Barnwood Asylum, to administer poison to her; and that finally she died as the result of poison administered by him. They set out to prove that and in doing so, they had not been able to make any suggestion as to how Major Armstrong administered the poison, the time he administered it, or in what it was administered.”

Dealing with the purchase of arsenic, counsel said Major Armstrong bought half a pound of arsenic coloured with charcoal in June, 1919. Six out of these eight ounces he had used for weed-killer, and the remainder was discovered in the cupboard in the library. He bought some in 1921, having forgotten that he still had a little left from 1919. He returned from abroad in May and went to the cupboard and found the packet with no string upon it, looking as though it had been opened. He divided it into two parts. One he used by dividing it into a number of tiny packets like the one found upon him. These little packets he used in a way advised by a chemical company, and he carried them in his garden coat. It so happened that on December 31, he had on that same garden coat and in one of the pockets he had, together with his business and private letters, that little packet of arsenic.

What happened to the other half of that arsenic? Having separated those packets for safety, he put that other little packet, with the blue paper round it, in a little bottom drawer in his bureau which was not a key-drawer at all. On December 31 he was arrested. The next day he remembered this little packet and told Mr. Matthews his solicitor about it. Mr. Matthews went to the house and in the presence of the housekeeper, Miss Penn, opened the drawer, but there was no packet to be seen. They believed the police had found and taken it. Mr. Matthews then pressed the police for a list of things found in the house, and when he had got it, he found that the packet of arsenic was not mentioned. On February 9, therefore, he again went to the house, and going to the bureau pulled the drawer out bodily, and in putting his hand in to see if there might be a secret drawer, he found the packet of arsenic, which had been caught up at the back. “Thus,” said counsel, “the last quarter of a pound of arsenic bought by Armstrong was accounted for.”

Armstrong, questioned as to what he did with the small packets of arsenic he was said to have made up, declared that he made these little packets simply by portioning out a small quantity with his penknife. He had used them all for killing weeds with the exception of the one that was found in his pocket with his letters when he was arrested. It was his custom to drive an old file into the ground over the root and then drop in the contents of the small packet of arsenic, so that it fell to the bottom or stuck to the side, and he did this to any dandelion root he wished to kill. He could not think how he used nineteen packets instead of twenty, as he was under the impression that he had used them all. When he was arrested and placed the contents of his pockets on the table, he did not know the remaining small packet of arsenic was there until he saw it and recognized it. When he saw it, he then remembered about the two ounces that he had left in the drawer of the bureau. He did not tell the police that they would find white arsenic in the bureau, but he realized that the finding of the packet had placed him in a awkward situation.

Mr. Justice Darling questioned Armstrong very closely about the purchase, use and discovery of the white arsenic. He replied that previous to buying this quantity which he used for killing dandelions, he had never had white arsenic in his possession. He had used nineteen of the little packets on nineteen dandelion roots.

“Did you notice what became of the dandelions, did they die?” asked the judge.

“They did,” replied Armstrong.

“That was very interesting, was it not?” remarked Mr. Justice Darling. “It was an interesting experiment to you who wanted to get rid of the weeds?”

“When you saw the little packet and realized you had arsenic in your pocket, did you realize it was a fatal dose of arsenic not for a dandelion but for a human being?”

“No,” replied Armstrong, “I did not realize that at all.”

“But you had been making rather a study of arsenic?”

“No.”

“It appears now,” said the Judge, “that if every one of these little packets was the same as that found in your pocket it contained a fatal dose of arsenic.”

Armstrong replied that he realized that now but did not do so at the time. He had not disclosed to the police that he knew the arsenic was in the drawer, as he thought it was certain they would find it.

Dr. F. S. Toogood, who was called for the defence, said he was of the opinion that Mrs. Armstrong was suffering from chronic indigestion. He thought that up to the time of her removal to the asylum, she was not suffering from arsenical poisoning, and up to February 16 there was no evidence of anything consistent with it. In his opinion death was caused by arsenic taken about February 16, and if a dose was taken on that date it would account for the amount found in the body.

Dr. Ainslie, of Hereford, who was present at the post-mortem, said that judging from the evidence of her last illness and that of the post-mortem, he was perfectly satisfied that Mrs. Armstrong had died after a large dose of arsenic which was taken about February 16 or 17. He expressed dissatisfaction over the preliminaries in the case of the test for Mr. Martin, and said that there might have been arsenic in the glass of which the bottle was made, as well as in the medicines with which Mr. Martin had been treated by Dr. Hincks. He was questioned on the subject of arsenic being found in bismuth, and agreed that two parts in one million was the amount allowed. He referred to the possibility of impurity in the supplies of bismuth from America available during the war.

Dr. J. Steed, the last witness for the defence, said he believed that up to the time she was taken to the asylum, Mrs. Armstrong’s condition was undoubtedly due to some internal trouble, such as indigestion or a form of neuritis. He believed the cause of her death was the taking of one large dose of arsenic on February 16.

Sir Henry Curtis Bennett, in his final address, alluded to the important point that had been made of the finding of the white arsenic in the bureau after Armstrong’s arrest. The evidence for the prosecution had been that Armstrong had always purchased coloured arsenic, and this discovery of white arsenic was of the highest importance. Supposing that packet of white arsenic, which undoubtedly was bought from Mr. Davies, the chemist in Hay, had not been found, the case would to a very large extent have been made to turn upon how Armstrong came to be in possession of white arsenic. He would have said: “I purchased it from Mr. Davies.” And the Attorney-General would have said: “That cannot be true, produce some of it. Davies has sworn that all the arsenic you purchased was coloured, and all we have found was coloured.” It would have been said: “It is all very well for you, Armstrong, to say that you were buying your arsenic openly in your own town. You must have gone outside to make a secret purchase of arsenic.” “And this is the important part of the discovery of the white arsenic,” concluded Sir Henry.

The Attorney-General, replying on behalf of the Crown, admitted that the case for the prosecution had changed. This, he affirmed, was a poisoning case, and he doubted if in the history of the world the poisoned cup had been seen to be poisoned, and when administered had been known to have been poisoned. In the case of poisoners they would always find subtlety and an endeavour to cover up things that were sinister. He claimed that this case depended upon circumstantial evidence; the prosecution had endeavoured to be fair to the prisoner. The changes in the case were due to the fact that they now knew, as they did not know at the start, the defence would admit that Mrs. Armstrong died of arsenical poisoning; and they knew now, as they did not know before, that the defence was placing no reliance upon her having taken homœopathic medicines. He did not know before, as he now knew, that in August, 1920, Armstrong was possessed of two ounces of white arsenic, the balance of what he had bought in 1919. He was also unaware before, that in addition to the small packet that was found, he had some arsenic, approximately two ounces, which he had bought in 1920.

The central feature of the case was the defence of suicide raised by Armstrong himself. One person, and one person alone, was constantly about Mrs. Armstrong in August, 1920, and again in January and February, 1921. “Let me,” said the Attorney-General, “note a remarkable piece of evidence. When Armstrong was asked if he was alone with his wife, he replied, ‘Yes, I was alone with her. There was milk and soda in the room,’ and when asked ‘Did you ever put a cup to her lips, did you ever minister to her, you the devoted, loyal, faithful, loving husband?’ his reply was ‘No.’ Can this be believed?”

With regard to the Martin case, the Attorney-General scouted the suggestion that the arsenic taken from Martin came from a dirty bottle or cork or from impure chemicals in his medicine. He believed the story of the twenty little packets made up to kill dandelions on the lawn was a falsehood.

The judge, in summing up, carefully sifted the whole of the evidence that had been given. He stated that the question to be decided was, had the prosecution proved that Armstrong gave his wife the poison. “The case was a deeply interesting one, and he doubted if anyone had any recollection of so remarkable a case in its incidents. It had been said that this case depended upon circumstantial evidence, but circumstantial evidence was as good as any other, provided it was relevant and true. Circumstantial evidence going to prove the guilt of a person was this: ‘One witness proves one thing and another witness proves another thing, and all these things prove to conviction beyond all reasonable doubt, but neither of them separately proves the guilt of the person.’ It should be remembered that Armstrong was arrested not on the charge of murdering his wife, but of attempting to murder Mr. Martin. Having been arrested for an attempt to murder Mr. Martin on December 31, only then was some one or other led to think ‘What about Mrs. Armstrong, what did she die of?’ The symptoms were very similar, so an order was obtained and the body was exhumed on January 2, and it was then found that there was still in that body a large dose of arsenic, more arsenic than those who were accustomed to dealing with these things had known in any exhumed body before. There was no proof that there was any arsenic in the cupboard in the bedroom, and there was evidence there was arsenic in the cupboard in the room downstairs. It was incredible, therefore, that a woman who was anxious to get better committed suicide, and had taken a large dose of arsenic two days previously. It was incredible that a woman in the condition in which she was, could get up with the intention of taking a dose of arsenic. Where had she got it from? She could not have taken the arsenic herself within twenty-four hours of death. If Dr. Spilsbury’s evidence was true that was practically impossible.”

The jury after retiring for forty-eight minutes found Armstrong guilty on the charge of wilfully murdering his wife, and sentence of death was passed.

The trial lasted ten days, and the dramatic production by Armstrong’s counsel of the packet of two ounces of white arsenic found by Armstrong’s solicitor, wedged at the back of the drawer of the bureau in Armstrong’s study six weeks after the police had searched and found nothing in that drawer, was very unexpected. This packet of arsenic became one of the outstanding features of the trial, and by the judge’s order the bureau was brought to a room adjoining the Court, where a test was made. Armstrong was instructed to place the packet of arsenic in the drawer where he stated it had been, and afterwards Mr. Matthews, the solicitor, demonstrated where he declared he had found it.

An appeal was made to the Court of Criminal Appeal, when Sir Henry Curtis Bennett said that both Mr. Justice Darling and the Attorney-General had ridiculed the statement that Armstrong had made of his method of destroying dandelions. He would produce five witnesses to prove that, far from being incredible, it was not an uncommon custom to give dandelions arsenic in small doses in the same manner as Armstrong had described, when asked to account for the packet containing three and three-quarter grains that was found in his pocket. The court, however, ruled out any further evidence.

The Lord Chief Justice remarked that a packet containing 3¾ grains of white arsenic was a very unusual thing to find in a solicitor’s pocket. Counsel observed that arsenic sufficient to kill three thousand persons could be bought for 2_s._ 6_d._

Sir Henry Curtis Bennett’s speech in support of the appeal lasted twelve hours, and in the course of his argument he said: “Mrs. Armstrong went downstairs to get the arsenic; she knew where it was kept, and on February 16 she had gone downstairs and was teaching her little boy.” Both packets were in the cupboard in the room in which the boy was being taught. Armstrong stated that in May he went to the cupboard and found the packet in such a condition that it appeared to have been tampered with. He suggested that on the day and in the room where she was with the little boy, she took a fatal dose of arsenic from the cupboard. From the point of view of the defence, he argued, the finding of the arsenic in the bureau was extraordinarily lucky, for there was till then no evidence that Armstrong had any white arsenic at all. The purchase on January 11 was believed to be coloured arsenic, and if this had not been found with the chemist’s label, there would have been a stronger case, that in addition to the quarter-pound of coloured arsenic in January, Armstrong, from an unknown source and for an unknown purpose, had got white arsenic as well.

The Lord Chief Justice consulted with his colleagues and said they were unanimously of the opinion that the appeal must be dismissed. Armstrong suffered the extreme penalty of the law and was hanged at Hereford.