THE proceedings began at ten o’clock. The prisoner was placed at
the Bar, before the High Court of Justiciary, at Edinburgh. He bowed
respectfully to the Bench, and pleaded Not Guilty, in a low voice.
It was observed by every one present that the prisoner’s face betrayed
traces of acute mental suffering. He was deadly pale. His eyes never
once wandered to the crowd in the Court. When certain witnesses appeared
against him, he looked at them with a momentary attention. At other
times he kept his eyes on the ground. When the evidence touched on his
wife’s illness and death, he was deeply affected, and covered his face
with his hands. It was a subject of general remark and general surprise
that the prisoner, in this case (although a man), showed far less
self-possession than the last prisoner tried in that Court for murder--a
woman, who had been convicted on overwhelming evidence. There were
persons present (a small minority only) who considered this want
of composure on the part of the prisoner to be a sign in his favor.
Self-possession, in his dreadful position, signified, to their minds,
the stark insensibility of a heartless and shameless criminal, and
afforded in itself a presumption, not of innocence, but of guilt.
The first witness called was John Daviot, Esquire, Sheriff-Substitute
of Mid-Lothian. He was examined by the Lord Advocate (as counsel for the
prosecution); and said:
“The prisoner was brought before me on the present charge. He made
and subscribed a Declaration on the 29th of October. It was freely
and voluntarily made, the prisoner having been first duly warned and
admonished.”
Having identified the Declaration, the Sheriff-Substitute--being
cross-examined by the Dean of Faculty (as counsel for the
defense)--continued his evidence in these words:
“The charge against the prisoner was Murder. This was communicated
to him before he made the Declaration. The questions addressed to
the prisoner were put partly by me, partly by another officer, the
procurator-fiscal. The answers were given distinctly, and, so far as
I could judge, without reserve. The statements put forward in
the Declaration were all made in answer to questions asked by the
procurator-fiscal or by myself.”
A clerk in the Sheriff-Clerk’s office then officially produced the
Declaration, and corroborated the evidence of the witness who had
preceded him.
The appearance of the next witness created a marked sensation in the
Court. This was no less a person than the nurse who had attended Mrs.
Macallan in her last illness--by name Christina Ormsay.
After the first formal answers, the nurse (examined by the Lord
Advocate) proceeded to say:
“I was first sent for to attend the deceased lady on the 7th of October.
She was then suffering from a severe cold, accompanied by a rheumatic
affection of the left knee-joint. Previous to this I understood that
her health had been fairly good. She was not a very difficult person to
nurse when you got used to her, and understood how to manage her. The
main difficulty was caused by her temper. She was not a sullen person;
she was headstrong and violent--easily excited to fly into a passion,
and quite reckless in her fits of anger as to what she said or did. At
such times I really hardly think she knew what she was about. My own
idea is that her temper was made still more irritable by unhappiness in
her married life. She was far from being a reserved person. Indeed,
she was disposed (as I thought) to be a little too communicative about
herself and her troubles with persons like me who were beneath her in
station. She did not scruple, for instance, to tell me (when we had
been long enough together to get used to each other) that she was very
unhappy, and fretted a good deal about her husband. One night, when she
was wakeful and restless, she said to me--”
The Dean of Faculty here interposed, speaking on the prisoner’s behalf.
He appealed to the Judges to say whether such loose and unreliable
evidence as this was evidence which could be received by the Court.
The Lord Advocate (speaking on behalf of the Crown) claimed it as his
right to produce the evidence. It was of the utmost importance in this
case to show (on the testimony of an unprejudiced witness) on what terms
the husband and wife were living. The witness was a most respectable
woman. She had won, and deserved, the confidence of the unhappy lady
whom she attended on her death-bed.
After briefly consulting together, the Judges unanimously decided that
the evidence could not be admitted. What the witness had herself seen
and observed of the relations between the husband and wife was the only
evidence that they could receive.
The Lord Advocate thereupon continued his examination of the witness.
Christina Ormsay resumed her evidence as follows:
“My position as nurse led necessarily to my seeing more of Mrs. Macallan
than any other person in the house. I am able to speak from experience
of many things not known to others who were only in her room at
intervals.
“For instance, I had more than one opportunity of personally observing
that Mr. and Mrs. Macallan did not live together very happily. I can
give you an example of this, not drawn from what others told me, but
from what I noticed for myself.
“Toward the latter part of my attendance on Mrs. Macallan, a young widow
lady named Mrs. Beauly--a cousin of Mr. Macallan’s--came to stay at
Gleninch. Mrs. Macallan was jealous of this lady; and she showed it in
my presence only the day before her death, when Mr. Macallan came into
her room to inquire how she had passed the night. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘never
mind how _I_ have slept! What do you care whether I sleep well or ill?
How has Mrs. Beauly passed the night? Is she more beautiful than ever
this morning? Go back to her--pray go back to her! Don’t waste your time
with me!’ Beginning in that manner, she worked herself into one of her
furious rages. I was brushing her hair at the time; and feeling that
my presence was an impropriety under the circumstances, I attempted to
leave the room. She forbade me to go. Mr. Macallan felt, as I did, that
my duty was to withdraw, and he said so in plain words. Mrs. Macallan
insisted on my staying in language so insolent to her husband that he
said, ‘If you cannot control yourself, either the nurse leaves the room
or I do.’ She refused to yield even then. ‘A good excuse,’ she said,
‘for getting back to Mrs. Beauly. Go!’ He took her at her word, and
walked out of the room. He had barely closed the door before she began
reviling him to me in the most shocking manner. She declared, among
other things she said of him, that the news of all others which he would
be most glad to hear would be the news of her death. I ventured, quite
respectfully, on remonstrating with her. She took up the hair-brush and
threw it at me, and then and there dismissed me from my attendance on
her. I left her, and waited below until her fit of passion had worn
itself out. Then I returned to my place at the bedside, and for a while
things went on again as usual.
“It may not be amiss to add a word which may help to explain Mrs.
Macallan’s jealousy of her husband’s cousin. Mrs. Macallan was a very
plain woman. She had a cast in one of her eyes, and (if I may use the
expression) one of the most muddy, blotchy complexions it was ever my
misfortune to see in a person’s face. Mrs. Beauly, on the other hand,
was a most attractive lady. Her eyes were universally admired, and she
had a most beautifully clear and delicate color. Poor Mrs. Macallan said
of her, most untruly, that she painted.
“No; the defects in the complexion of the deceased lady were not in
any way attributable to her illness. I should call them born and bred
defects in herself.
“Her illness, if I am asked to describe it, I should say was
troublesome--nothing more. Until the last day there were no symptoms
in the least degree serious about the malady that had taken her.
Her rheumatic knee was painful, of course--acutely painful, if you
like--when she moved it; and the confinement to bed was irksome enough,
no doubt. But otherwise there was nothing in the lady’s condition,
before the fatal attack came, to alarm her or anybody about her. She had
her books and her writing materials on an invalid table, which worked on
a pivot, and could be arranged in any position most agreeable to her.
At times she read and wrote a good deal. At other times she lay quiet,
thinking her own thoughts, or talking with me, and with one or two lady
friends in the neighborhood who came regularly to see her.
“Her writing, so far as I knew, was almost entirely of the poetical
sort. She was a great hand at composing poetry. On one occasion only she
showed me some of her poems. I am no judge of such things. Her poetry
was of the dismal kind, despairing about herself, and wondering why she
had ever been born, and nonsense like that. Her husband came in more
than once for some hard hits at his cruel heart and his ignorance of his
wife’s merits. In short, she vented her discontent with her pen as well
as with her tongue. There were times--and pretty often too--when an
angel from heaven would have failed to have satisfied Mrs. Macallan.
“Throughout the period of her illness the deceased lady occupied the
same room--a large bedroom situated (like all the best bedrooms) on the
first floor of the house.
“Yes: the plan of the room now shown to me is quite accurately taken,
according to my remembrance of it. One door led into the great passage,
or corridor, on which all the doors opened. A second door, at one side
(marked B on the plan), led to Mr. Macallan’s sleeping-room. A third
door, on the opposite side (marked C on the plan), communicated with
a little study, or book-room, used, as I was told, by Mr. Macallan’s
mother when she was staying at Gleninch, but seldom or never entered
by any one else. Mr. Macallan’s mother was not at Gleninch while I was
there. The door between the bedroom and this study was locked, and the
key was taken out. I don’t know who had the key, or whether there
were more keys than one in existence. The door was never opened to
my knowledge. I only got into the study, to look at it along with the
housekeeper, by entering through a second door that opened on to the
corridor.
“I beg to say that I can speak from my own knowledge positively about
Mrs. Macallan’s illness, and about the sudden change which ended in
her death. By the doctor’s advice I made notes at the time of dates and
hours, and such like. I looked at my notes before coming here.
“From the 7th of October, when I was first called in to nurse her, to
the 20th of the same month, she slowly but steadily improved in health.
Her knee was still painful, no doubt; but the inflammatory look of it
was disappearing. As to the other symptoms, except weakness from lying
in bed, and irritability of temper, there was really nothing the matter
with her. She slept badly, I ought perhaps to add. But we remedied
this by means of composing draughts prescribed for that purpose by the
doctor.
“On the morning of the 21st, at a few minutes past six, I got my first
alarm that something was going wrong with Mrs. Macallan.
“I was awoke at the time I have mentioned by the ringing of the
hand-bell which she kept on her bed-table. Let me say for myself that
I had only fallen asleep on the sofa in the bedroom at past two in the
morning from sheer fatigue. Mrs. Macallan was then awake. She was in
one of her bad humors with me. I had tried to prevail on her to let me
remove her dressing-case from her bed-table, after she had used it in
making her toilet for the night. It took up a great deal of room; and
she could not possibly want it again before the morning. But no; she
insisted on my letting it be. There was a glass inside the case; and,
plain as she was, she never wearied of looking at herself in that glass.
I saw that she was in a bad state of temper, so I gave her her way, and
let the dressing-case be. Finding that she was too sullen to speak to me
after that, and too obstinate to take her composing draught from me
when I offered it, I laid me down on the sofa at her bed foot, and fell
asleep, as I have said.
“The moment her bell rang I was up and at the bedside, ready to make
myself useful.
“I asked what was the matter with her. She complained of faintness and
depression, and said she felt sick. I inquired if she had taken anything
in the way of physic or food while I had been asleep. She answered that
her husband had come in about an hour since, and, finding her still
sleepless, had himself administered the composing draught. Mr. Macallan
(sleeping in the next room) joined us while she was speaking. He too had
been aroused by the bell. He heard what Mrs. Macallan said to me about
the composing draught, and made no remark upon it. It seemed to me that
he was alarmed at his wife’s faintness. I suggested that she should take
a little wine, or brandy and water. She answered that she could swallow
nothing so strong as wine or brandy, having a burning pain in her
stomach already. I put my hand on her stomach--quite lightly. She
screamed when I touched her.
“This symptom alarmed us. We went to the village for the medical man who
had attended Mrs. Macallan during her illness: one Mr. Gale.
“The doctor seemed no better able to account for the change for the
worse in his patient than we were. Hearing her complain of thirst, he
gave her some milk. Not long after taking it she was sick. The sickness
appeared to relieve her. She soon grew drowsy and slumbered. Mr. Gale
left us, with strict injunctions to send for him instantly if she was
taken ill again.
“Nothing of the sort happened; no change took place for the next three
hours or more. She roused up toward half-past nine and inquired about
her husband. I informed her that he had returned to his own room, and
asked if I should send for him. She said ‘No.’ I asked next if she would
like anything to eat or drink. She said ‘No’ again, in rather a vacant,
stupefied way, and then told me to go downstairs and get my breakfast.
On my way down I met the housekeeper. She invited me to breakfast with
her in her room, instead of in the servants’ hall as usual. I remained
with the housekeeper but a short time--certainly not more than half an
hour.
“Coming upstairs again, I met the under-housemaid sweeping on one of the
landings.
“The girl informed me that Mrs. Macallan had taken a cup of tea during
my absence in the housekeeper’s room. Mr. Macallan’s valet had ordered
the tea for his mistress by his master’s directions. The under-housemaid
made it, and took it upstairs herself to Mrs. Macallan’s room. Her
master, she said, opened the door when she knocked, and took the tea-cup
from her with his own hand. He opened the door widely enough for her to
see into the bedroom, and to notice that nobody was with Mrs. Macallan
but himself.
“After a little talk with the under-housemaid, I returned to the
bedroom. No one was there. Mrs. Macallan was lying perfectly quiet, with
her face turned away from me on the pillow. Approaching the bedside, I
kicked against something on the floor. It was a broken tea-cup. I said
to Mrs. Macallan, ‘How comes the tea-cup to be broken, ma’am?’ She
answered, without turning toward me, in an odd, muffled kind of voice,
‘I dropped it.’ ‘Before you drank your tea, ma’am?’ I asked. ‘No,’ she
said; ‘in handing the cup back to Mr. Macallan, after I had done.’ I had
put my question, wishing to know, in case she had spilled the tea when
she dropped the cup, whether it would be necessary to get her any more.
I am quite sure I remember correctly my question and her answer. I
inquired next if she had been long alone. She said, shortly, ‘Yes; I
have been trying to sleep.’ I said, ‘Do you feel pretty comfortable?’
She answered, ‘Yes,’ again. All this time she still kept her face
sulkily turned from me toward the wall. Stooping over her to arrange the
bedclothes, I looked toward her table. The writing materials which were
always kept on it were disturbed, and there was wet ink on one of the
pens. I said, ‘Surely you haven’t been writing, ma’am?’ ‘Why not?’
she said; ‘I couldn’t sleep.’ ‘Another poem?’ I asked. She laughed to
herself--a bitter, short laugh. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘another poem.’ ‘That’s
good,’ I said; ‘it looks as if you were getting quite like yourself
again. We shan’t want the doctor any more to-day.’ She made no answer
to this, except an impatient sign with her hand. I didn’t understand the
sign. Upon that she spoke again, and crossly enough, too--‘I want to be
alone; leave me.’
“I had no choice but to do as I was told. To the best of my observation,
there was nothing the matter with her, and nothing for the nurse to
do. I put the bell-rope within reach of her hand, and I went downstairs
again.
“Half an hour more, as well as I can guess it, passed. I kept
within hearing of the bell; but it never rang. I was not quite at my
ease--without exactly knowing why. That odd, muffled voice in which she
had spoken to me hung on my mind, as it were. I was not quite satisfied
about leaving her alone for too long a time together--and then, again,
I was unwilling to risk throwing her into one of her fits of passion
by going back before she rang for me. It ended in my venturing into
the room on the ground-floor called the Morning-Room, to consult Mr.
Macallan. He was usually to be found there in the forenoon of the day.
“On this occasion, however, when I looked into the Morning-Room it was
empty.
“At the same moment I heard the master’s voice on the terrace outside.
I went out, and found him speaking to one Mr. Dexter, an old friend of
his, and (like Mrs. Beauly) a guest staying in the house. Mr. Dexter was
sitting at the window of his room upstairs (he was a cripple, and could
only move himself about in a chair on wheels), and Mr. Macallan was
speaking to him from the terrace below.
“‘Dexter!’ I heard Mr. Macallan say. ‘Where is Mrs. Beauly? Have you
seen anything of her?’
“Mr. Dexter answered, in his quick, off-hand way of speaking, ‘Not I. I
know nothing about her.’
“Then I advanced, and, begging pardon for intruding, I mentioned to Mr.
Macallan the difficulty I was in about going back or not to his wife’s
room without waiting until she rang for me. Before he could advise me
in the matter, the footman made his appearance and informed me that Mrs.
Macallan’s bell was then ringing--and ringing violently.
“It was then close on eleven o’clock. As fast as I could mount the
stairs I hastened back to the bedroom.
“Before I opened the door I heard Mrs. Macallan groaning. She was in
dreadful pain; feeling a burning heat in the stomach and in the throat,
together with the same sickness which had troubled her in the early
morning. Though no doctor, I could see in her face that this second
attack was of a far more serious nature than the first. After ringing
the bell for a messenger to send to Mr. Macallan, I ran to the door to
see if any of the servants happened to be within call.
“The only person I saw in the corridor was Mrs. Beauly. She was on
her way from her own room, she said, to inquire after Mrs. Macallan’s
health. I said to her, ‘Mrs. Macallan is seriously ill again, ma’am.
Would you please tell Mr. Macallan, and send for the doctor?’ She ran
downstairs at once to do as I told her.
“I had not been long back at the bedside when Mr. Macallan and Mrs.
Beauly both came in together. Mrs. Macallan cast a strange look on them
(a look I cannot at all describe), and bade them leave her. Mrs.
Beauly, looking very much frightened, withdrew immediately. Mr. Macallan
advanced a step or two nearer to the bed. His wife looked at him again
in the same strange way, and cried out--half as if she was threatening
him, half as if she was entreating him--‘Leave me with the nurse. Go!’
He only waited to say to me in a whisper, ‘The doctor is sent for,’ and
then he left the room.
“Before Mr. Gale arrived Mrs. Macallan was violently sick. What came
from her was muddy and frothy, and faintly streaked with blood. When Mr.
Gale saw it he looked very serious. I heard him say to himself, ‘What
does this mean?’ He did his best to relieve Mrs. Macallan, but with no
good result that I could see. After a time she seemed to suffer less.
Then more sickness came on. Then there was another intermission. Whether
she was suffering or not, I observed that her hands and feet (whenever
I touched them) remained equally cold. Also, the doctor’s report of her
pulse was always the same--‘very small and feeble.’ I said to Mr. Gale,
‘What is to be done, sir?’ And Mr. Gale said to me, ‘I won’t take
the responsibility on myself any longer; I must have a physician from
Edinburgh.’
“The fastest horse in the stables at Gleninch was put into a dog-cart,
and the coachman drove away full speed to Edinburgh to fetch the famous
Doctor Jerome.
“While we were waiting for the physician, Mr. Macallan came into his
wife’s room with Mr. Gale. Exhausted as she was, she instantly lifted
her hand and signed to him to leave her. He tried by soothing words to
persuade her to let him stay. No! She still insisted on sending him out
of her room. He seemed to feel it--at such a time, and in the presence
of the doctor. Before she was aware of him, he suddenly stepped up to
the bedside and kissed her on the forehead. She shrank from him with a
scream. Mr. Gale interfered, and led him out of the room.
“In the afternoon Doctor Jerome arrived.
“The great physician came just in time to see her seized with another
attack of sickness. He watched her attentively, without speaking a word.
In the interval when the sickness stopped, he still studied her, as it
were, in perfect silence. I thought he would never have done examining
her. When he was at last satisfied, he told me to leave him alone with
Mr. Gale. ‘We will ring,’ he said, ‘when we want you here again.’
“It was a long time before they rang for me. The coachman was sent
for before I was summoned back to the bedroom. He was dispatched to
Edinburgh for the second time, with a written message from Dr. Jerome
to his head servant, saying that there was no chance of his returning to
the city and to his patients for some hours to come. Some of us thought
this looked badly for Mrs. Macallan. Others said it might mean that the
doctor had hopes of saving her, but expected to be a long time in doing
it.
“At last I was sent for. On my presenting myself in the bedroom, Doctor
Jerome went out to speak to Mr. Macallan, leaving Mr. Gale along with
me. From that time as long as the poor lady lived I was never left alone
with her. One of the two doctors was always in her room. Refreshments
were prepared for them; but still they took it in turns to eat their
meal, one relieving the other at the bedside. If they had administered
remedies to their patient, I should not have been surprised by this
proceeding. But they were at the end of their remedies; their only
business the seemed to be to keep watch. I was puzzled to account for
this. Keeping watch was the nurse’s business. I thought the conduct of
the doctors very strange.
“By the time that the lamp was lighted in the sick-room I could see
that the end was near. Excepting an occasional feeling of cramp in her
legs, she seemed to suffer less. But her eyes looked sunk in her head;
her skin was cold and clammy; her lips had turned to a bluish paleness.
Nothing roused her now--excepting the last attempt made by her
husband to see her. He came in with Doctor Jerome, looking like a man
terror-struck. She was past speaking; but the moment she saw him she
feebly made signs and sounds which showed that she was just as resolved
as ever not to let him come near her. He was so overwhelmed that Mr.
Gale was obliged to help him out of the room. No other person was
allowed to see the patient. Mr. Dexter and Mrs. Beauly made their
inquiries outside the door, and were not invited in. As the evening drew
on the doctors sat on either side of the bed, silently watching her,
silently waiting for her death.
“Toward eight o’clock she seemed to have lost the use of her hands and
arms: they lay helpless outside the bed-clothes. A little later she
sank into a sort of dull sleep. Little by little the sound of her heavy
breathing grew fainter. At twenty minutes past nine Doctor Jerome told
me to bring the lamp to the bedside. He looked at her, and put his hand
on her heart. Then he said to me, ‘You can go downstairs, nurse: it is
all over.’ He turned to Mr. Gale. ‘Will you inquire if Mr. Macallan can
see us?’ he said. I opened the door for Mr. Gale, and followed him out.
Doctor Jerome called me back for a moment, and told me to give him
the key of the door. I did so, of course; but I thought this also very
strange. When I got down to the servants’ hall I found there was a
general feeling that something was wrong. We were all uneasy--without
knowing why.
“A little later the two doctors left the house. Mr. Macallan had been
quite incapable of receiving them and hearing what they had to say.
In this difficulty they had spoken privately with Mr. Dexter, as Mr.
Macallan’s old friend, and the only gentleman then staying at Gleninch.
“Before bed-time I went upstairs to prepare the remains of the deceased
lady for the coffin. The room in which she lay was locked, the door
leading into Mr. Macallan’s room being secured, as well as the door
leading into the corridor. The keys had been taken away by Mr. Gale. Two
of the men-servants were posted outside the bedroom to keep watch. They
were to be relieved at four in the morning--that was all they could tell
me.
“In the absence of any explanations or directions, I took the liberty of
knocking at the door of Mr. Dexter’s room. From his lips I first heard
the startling news. Both the doctors had refused to give the usual
certificate of death! There was to be a medical examination of the body
the next morning.”
There the examination of the nurse, Christina Ormsay, came to an end.
Ignorant as I was of the law, I could see what impression the evidence
(so far) was intended to produce on the minds of the jury. After first
showing that my husband had had two opportunities of administering the
poison--once in the medicine and once in the tea--the counsel for
the Crown led the jury to infer that the prisoner had taken those
opportunities to rid himself of an ugly and jealous wife, whose
detestable temper he could no longer endure.
Having directed his examination to the attainment of this object, the
Lord Advocate had done with the witness. The Dean of Faculty--acting in
the prisoner’s interests--then rose to bring out the favorable side of
the wife’s character by cross-examining the nurse. If he succeeded in
this attempt, the jury might reconsider their conclusion that the wife
was a person who had exasperated her husband beyond endurance. In that
case, where (so far) was the husband’s motive for poisoning her? and
where was the presumption of the prisoner’s guilt?
Pressed by this skillful lawyer, the nurse was obliged to exhibit my
husband’s first wife under an entirely new aspect. Here is the substance
of what the Dean of Faculty extracted from Christina Ormsay:
“I persist in declaring that Mrs. Macallan had a most violent temper.
But she was certainly in the habit of making amends for the offense that
she gave by her violence. When she was quiet again she always made her
excuses to me, and she made them with a good grace. Her manners were
engaging at such times as these. She spoke and acted like a well-bred
lady. Then, again, as to her personal appearance. Plain as she was in
face, she had a good figure; her hands and feet, I was told, had been
modeled by a sculptor. She had a very pleasant voice, and she was
reported when in health to sing beautifully. She was also (if her maid’s
account was to be trusted) a pattern in the matter of dressing for the
other ladies in the neighborhood. Then, as to Mrs. Beauly, though she
was certainly jealous of the beautiful young widow, she had shown at
the same time that she was capable of controlling that feeling. It was
through Mrs. Macallan that Mrs. Beauly was in the house. Mrs. Beauly had
wished to postpone her visit on account of the state of Mrs. Macallan’s
health. It was Mrs. Macallan herself--not her husband--who decided that
Mrs. Beauly should not be disappointed, and should pay her visit to
Gleninch then and there. Further, Mrs. Macallan (in spite of her temper)
was popular with her friends and popular with her servants. There was
hardly a dry eye in the house when it was known she was dying. And,
further still, in those little domestic disagreements at which the nurse
had been present, Mr. Macallan had never lost his temper, and had never
used harsh language: he seemed to be more sorry than angry when the
quarrels took place.”--Moral for the jury: Was this the sort of woman
who would exasperate a man into poisoning her? And was this the sort of
man who would be capable of poisoning his wife?
Having produced this salutary counter-impression, the Dean of Faculty
sat down; and the medical witnesses were called next.
Here the evidence was simply irresistible.
Dr. Jerome and Mr. Gale positively swore that the symptoms of the
illness were the symptoms of poisoning by arsenic. The surgeon who had
performed the post-mortem examination followed. He positively swore that
the appearance of the internal organs proved Doctor Jerome and Mr. Gale
to be right in declaring that their patient had died poisoned. Lastly,
to complete this overwhelming testimony, two analytical chemists
actually produced in Court the arsenic which they had found in the body,
in a quantity admittedly sufficient to have killed two persons instead
of one. In the face of such evidence as this, cross-examination was a
mere form. The first Question raised by the Trial--Did the Woman Die
Poisoned?--was answered in the affirmative, and answered beyond the
possibility of doubt.
The next witnesses called were witnesses concerned with the question
that now followed--the obscure and terrible question, Who Poisoned Her?