Besides the one in which the arsenic was detected, there was another half-used bottle produced at the trial, which was found by Mrs. Briggs after death in one of James Maybrick’s hatboxes in the dressing-room, together with the black solutions and white solutions of arsenic, and this bottle was found free of arsenic.
As to the bottle which Mrs. Maybrick had in her hands on the night of the 9th-10th of May, and which she took into the dressing-room, and as to which she volunteered the statement that she had put a powder in, as to which evidence was given by Nurse Gore, was thus voluntarily corroborated by Mrs. Maybrick in her statement to the jury. From this it appears that Nurse Gore, on her arrival for duty on Thursday night, opened a fresh bottle of meat juice, which had been given to her the night before by Edwin Maybrick, and gave the patient one or two spoonfuls, and then placed it on the table, from which she shortly afterward saw Mrs. Maybrick remove it and take it into the dressing-room, the door of which was not shut, and then return with it into the bedroom and replace it on the table. Nurse Gore thought she did this in a stealthy way. It must be remembered that Nurse Gore was naturally suspicious, as is shown by the fact that on two previous occasions she suggested suspicions with regard to changes in medicines by Mrs. Maybrick, which on analysis were proved to be free from arsenic. When the patient, a short time afterward, awoke, Mrs. Maybrick came into the bedroom again and removed the bottle from the table and placed it on the washstand, where there were only the ordinary jugs and basins, and there left it. Nurse Gore’s usual suspicions were aroused and she gave the patient none of it, nor did Mrs. Maybrick ask her to give him any. When Nurse Gore was relieved by Nurse Callery the next morning (Friday, the 10th), at 11 o’clock, she called her attention to it and asked her to take a sample of it, which Callery did, and put it into an ordinary medicine bottle, which Nurse Gore gave her for the purpose. Nurse Gore left the bottle on the washstand where Mrs. Maybrick had placed it. Nurse Gore did not mention the circumstance to Dr. Humphreys when he came to see the patient at 8:30 A.M., nor to Michael Maybrick, whose attention she directed to a bottle of brandy instead, which on analysis was found harmless; and she then went into Liverpool and saw the matron, and on her return to the house at 2 o’clock told Callery to throw away the sample in accordance with the matron’s orders, which Callery did. The bottle in which that sample was taken was not specially identified, though it must have remained on the premises. It ought to have been produced, because, if arsenic was detected in the sample, the bottle of Valentine’s meat juice would have been identified by that means, and it would have been shown that the arsenic was in the meat juice which Mrs. Maybrick had taken into the dressing-room. On the other hand, as all the bottles which were in the house were analyzed and found free of arsenic, there is negative evidence that there was no arsenic in the sample taken.
Misdirection in Excluding Corroboration of Prisoner’s Statement
Now the serious, most serious, consideration of counsel is asked for in comparing the evidence of these three witnesses—Gore, Callery, and Michael Maybrick—as given at the coroner’s inquest, as it appears in the coroner’s depositions, at the magisterial inquiry, as it appears in the magistrates’ depositions, and as given at the trial. It will be seen that there are great discrepancies as to the place in the room from which Michael Maybrick took the half-used bottle in which Mr. Davies, the analyst, subsequently detected one-tenth of a grain of arsenic in solution. It is suggested that Mr. Michael’s evidence at the inquest is the true account of where he got the bottle, and that his evidence at the trial is cooked, to suit the evidence of Gore, and that the identity of the bottle is not established. The statement, which in her statement to the jury Mrs. Maybrick said she was prevented by the policeman from making to Mrs. Briggs, the moment that person told her about arsenic being found in the meat juice, was communicated by Mrs. Maybrick at once to her solicitors, Mr. Arnold and Richard Cleaver; and it is submitted that it was a misdirection of the judge to exclude their evidence in corroboration of such a material and important fact in her favor, and a misdirection in refusing to allow corroboration in that way of what was in evidence, and did corroborate it—thereby constituting a matter which the jury should have had before them, as having a bearing on her statement.
Misdirections to Jury to Draw Illegal Inferences
The judge referred to the Valentine’s meat-juice incident, the most vital point in the trial, in the following extraordinary manner at the end of his summing-up:
“I may say this, however: supposing you find a man dying of arsenic, and it is proved that a person put arsenic in his plate, and if he gives an explanation which you do not consider satisfactory—that is a very strong question to be considered—how far it goes, what its logical value is, I am not prepared to say—I could not say, and unless I had to write my verdict I should not say how I should deal with the verdict; but being no juryman, but only a judge, I can only say this, it is a matter for your serious consideration.”
It is submitted that this was a gross misdirection and a cruel taunt to drive the jury into finding a verdict against the prisoner upon that ground, and it is submitted that so monstrously unfair an utterance can not be found in the reports of any summing-up by any judge in any criminal case. See also another misdirection where the judge read the examination of Nurse Gore and omitted reference to the sample, but said of the bottle, “In point of fact, it remained where it was until taken away by Mr. Michael Maybrick,” when it is in evidence that Nurse Callery had taken a sample of it during the eighteen hours it remained on the washstand, and that others beside Mrs. Maybrick had access to it.
It is submitted that, apart from the question of the identity of the bottle, there was no evidence, except Mrs. Maybrick’s statement, that she had put anything into the bottle, which justified Mr. Justice Stephen in using the words, “He had a small taste of it before it was poisoned,” inasmuch as, except Mrs. Maybrick’s own voluntary statement that she had put a powder into a bottle of meat juice, there was nothing to show that the arsenic, detected by Mr. Davies in the bottle he analyzed, had not been in the bottle when Edwin Maybrick gave it to Nurse Gore and which she opened when she gave the patient “one or two spoonfuls.”