Witness: "A few minutes after the gentleman went out, a lady came in. I did not see her face. She had on a thick veil. She asked for a grain of strychnine. My master was out of the shop. Mr. Ball said to her, 'That's poison; I daren't give it you.' 'Oh,' says she, 'it's all right. It's for my husband to try on a dog. He's a doctor.' 'A doctor!' says Mr. Ball; 'where does he live?' [{90}] 'Just round the corner—Mr. Grainger, at the top of Vere street 'All right,' says, Mr. Ball; and goes to the drawer where the poisons are kept, and unlocks it, and I see him weigh it out and put it up.' 'How much?' say a she; 'A shilling,' says he; 'and I shall come round presently and see if it's all right.' 'Very well,' says she; 'come now if you like.' 'No, by-and-by,' says Mr. Ball, 'when the master's back.' On that she went out. I couldn't swear to her, nor to what she wore. I never notices ladies' togs. She had a veil on—that's all I know. I went home soon after nine that evening. Mr. Ball sleeps in the house. The next day we heard that old Mr. Thorneley of Wimpole street had been poisoned by strychnine; and then, that the poison had been bought at our shop. Everybody was talking of it who came in. I went up to Mr. Ball when we were alone in the shop at dinner-time, and says I, 'It's along of that strychnine that was bought last night here. I guess, as the murder's been done.' 'Hold your confounded tongue.' says he, 'or we shall get into a precious mess.' He jaws awful at me sometimes, and I'm afraid of him; so I said no more and kept aloof from him, for he looked terrible black all the afternoon. At five o'clock the postman brought in a letter for Mr. Ball. He was in the parlor having his tea. I called out there was a letter for him, and he came into the shop. I saw him open the letter and take out a banknote. 'My eyes!' says I, 'you're in luck to-day, Mr. Ball.' He was reading the letter. With that, he turned on me as fierce and red as a turkey-cock. 'You young viper,' says he, 'if you go blabbing about my affairs I'll get you discharged as sure as I am standing here!' I thought he'd have killed me. Why haven't I told this before? Because nobody's asked, and because I have been frightened of him. He's given me money several times lately, and mother's been ill, and—" (Here the witness broke down and began to cry.) It was no use the gentleman (the Solicitor-General, who was cross-questioning him) trying to bully him. He'd told the truth; it was true as gospel. He'd take his oath any day. He could and did swear to it all. Nobody had given him a farthing except Mr. Ball. He'd only told this to a gentleman a few days back who had spoken to him and then served a paper on him to appear to-day. The gentleman had told him afterwards he was a detective officer.
This was the pith of what Jacob Mullins deposed. In vain did the Solicitor-General try to badger and browbeat him; he stuck like a limpet to the same story. Confronted with James Ball, only the same results produced. Serjeant Donaldson, at Merrivale's whispered instigation, tried to bring out of them both a clearer identification of the person who had bought the strychnine, but in vain. Only Mullins, in reply to a query as to whether she spoke like a foreigner, said he couldn't just exactly tell, but she seem to talk rather funny. Confronted at the prisoner's request with Mrs. Haag, became confused, and said he didn't think it was the lady; it might be and it mightn't; was sure he never could point her out for certain. But although the person who did buy the strychnine had not been identified, the fact that Hugh Atherton did not buy it was satisfactorily proved, and that was matter for the deepest thankfulness.
The two detective officers Keene and Jones were next examined. To what is already known the following was added: Ten years ago a man of the name of Bradley had been convicted at the Old Bailey of burglary at Mr. Thorneley's house in the City, and sentenced to fourteen years' penal servitude. Inspector Keene had been employed in the case, and had been helped principally by anonymous letters, giving information which had led to the detection of the burglar. Bradley on being captured had hinted that he knew to whom he was indebted for [{91}] his apprehension. Thinking to ferret out some accomplice, Inspector Keene had shown him one of the anonymous communications received, and he had immediately identified the handwriting as his wife's. He then confided to Inspector Keene that she was a foreigner, a Belgian by birth; that he had married her at Plymouth, and separated from her two years after; that she was in domestic service—but where and in what capacity he would not divulge. Either fear of or affection for her seemed to be greatly influencing his mind. This same Bradley had made his escape from the penal settlement in Australia during the spring of the present year, and had been seen and recognized by Detective Jones in a small public-house in Blue-Anchor Lane, known as one of the worst haunts of bad characters in the metropolis. But unable with safety to take him into custody on the night in question, the police had lost sight of him since, up to the present time. Putting two and two together, Inspector Keene had last week travelled down to Plymouth, searched the parochial registers, found and obtained the certified copy of marriage between Robert Bradley and Maria Haag which Serjeant Donaldson had handed in to their lordships. Further, Detective Jones stated, as a corroboration of what I had already related in my evidence, that this Bradley, or O'Brian, as he now called himself, was in close communication with a man of the name of De Vos, alias Sullivan, who again was in communication with Mr. Lister Wilmot; this same De Vos, or Sullivan, having formerly been in prison for embezzlement, and was now under suspicion of uttering false coin. The full relation of the conversation between De Vos and O'Brian on the night of our visit to "Noah's Ark" was not without its effect upon judges and jury.
Both the Chief-Justice and Baron Watson put repeated questions to Jones; and the Solicitor-General quite surpassed himself in his endeavors to browbeat both him and Inspector Keene. All to no purpose. Nor could that learned gentleman in his final address, after the case for the defence was closed, at that supreme moment which English law gives to the prosecutor to the crushing of all hopes raised by the evidence and appeal of the prisoner—not then could he remove the impression made on all minds that a mystery hitherto unpenetrated lay beneath the last evidence adduced.
The Lord Chief-Justice summed up. He said that, to convict a man of murder by poison, evidence must be adduced to prove that the poison was administered by the person accused; that the points of the case before them were these: The murdered gentleman, Mr. Thorneley, had on the evening of the 23d of October last received a visit from his two nephews, Mr. Lister Wilmot, and Mr. Philip Hugh Atherton, the prisoner at the bar; that a dispute had occurred between the three, relative to advancing money by the deceased to Mr. Wilmot; that the brunt of Mr. Thorneley's anger had fallen, strange to say, and from some unknown cause, upon the prisoner; that the prisoner had retaliated, and used words of threatening import, implying that the deceased would repent on the morrow what he had said that night; that at nine o'clock the housekeeper brought in the usual refreshment of which Mr. Thorneley partook at that hour—bitter ale and hard biscuits. The prisoner at the bar went to the table, poured out the ale into a glass, and handed it to his uncle. Soon after the nephews, one after the other, took leave of him and went away. Mr. Thorneley retired to rest that night about ten o'clock, without having any further communication with his household. In the morning he was found dead in his bed. On medical evidence he is proved to have been poisoned by strychnine, and strychnine is found in the few drops of bitter ale left in the tumbler out of which the deceased had drunk on the [{92}] previous evening. In the ale remaining in the bottle no strychnine is found. Now here arises a question and a doubt. Was there, or was there not, any ale poured out in the glass before it was brought up into Mr. Thorneley's study? The prisoner in his statement before the magistrates, and before the coroner, distinctly says there was; the housekeeper swears there was not. Is the housekeeper's evidence to be relied on? Much had been adduced that day which tended to show that at least it was doubtful. The Chief-Justice commented at length upon the evidence of the two detectives, and then said:
"The suspicions, however, of the police were directed to Mr. Hugh Atherton; and the evidence had shown that he was met coming out of a chemist's shop in Vere street on the evening of the murder, and before visiting his uncle; that upon being taken into custody the next day, an empty paper, labelled Strychnine, and bearing the name of Davis, chemist, Vere street, was found in the pocket of the overcoat which he had worn on his visit to Wimpole street. On the other hand, both James Ball, the chemist's assistant, and Jacob Mullins, the errand-boy, had sworn that the grain of strychnine entered as sold on the 23d was purchased by a female on false pretenses. Both likewise swore that the prisoner did not purchase any strychnine, but only the bottle of camphorated spirits found on his table. Then, again, James Ball had owned to receiving a letter containing hush-money, and a caution not to identify the person who had bought the poison. How, then, did the paper labelled 'strychnine' get into the prisoner's pocket? He declares he knows nothing of it; and on that point there is no further evidence. There was another mystery also which in his, the judge's, mind bore very direct influence upon the case in question; and that was the assertion of Mr. John Kavanagh that he had made and executed a will for the deceased gentleman on the night of his death, leaving the bulk of his property to a hitherto unknown and unrecognized son, which son and heir had been found under peculiar and difficult circumstances—a living confirmation of the truth of Mr. Kavanagh's statement. The question of this will was not for the present jury to consider; but simply they were to bear in mind the circumstances under which it was made, the disclosures attendant, and, above all, the fact that whereas this last will, conferring a handsome income on the prisoner at the bar, remained a buried secret from everybody, the prisoner included, save the lawyer who made it under solemn promise of silence, the other will, bequeathing a mere nominal sum to the prisoner, and cutting off with a shilling the rightful heir, namely, Mr. Thorneley's son, was lodged with the deceased's family lawyers, produced, read, and acted upon by them and the sole residuary legatee, Mr. Wilmot. This was to be considered vis-à-vis with the motive by which the prisoner at the bar was implied to have been influenced to the commission of the crime charged against him." The Chief-Justice concluded, after many more comments, by saying that, although every one must have been touched by the appearance and words of the first witness heard in the defence, yet that, as far as evidence went, they must not be allowed to weigh with any value. The one great question, deduced from all that had gone before, which the jury had to consider was, whether the prisoner at the bar had or had not purchased the strychnine in question, had or had not introduced it into the glass of bitter ale handed by him to the deceased, Mr. Thorneley. And he prayed the God of light, and truth, and justice to enlighten their minds and guide them to a right conclusion.
I have but faintly portrayed the clear, lucid manner in which that able judge summed up the evidence, or the deep feeling expressed in every tone of his voice. Cautious and prudent [{93}] to a degree as he had been in his language, it yet gleamed out from time to time, like a ray of sunshine, that in his own mind he considered Atherton not guilty. The jury after five minutes' deliberation asked to retire.
Do you know what that suspense is,—that hanging on each minute which might bring the issues of life or death? Can you thank what it was to stand there for that hour and a quarter, seventy-five minutes, forty-five hundred seconds, when every minute seemed an hour, and every second a minute; with the dead silence reigning in the court, broken only by casual sounds now and then, that were hushed almost instantly, to so great a pitch had the interest and suspense of the whole crowd collected there risen; your eyes fixed upon that fatal door through which you knew the decision would be borne, with your heart throbbing in dull, heavy thumps against your breast, and your breath almost bushed and dying on your lips? So we stood that evening, the dense November fog stealing into the court, and the gas-lamps flaring garish and yellow in the thick atmosphere, waiting for the verdict. Twice over was a message sent in from the jury-room to the judges, demanding further explanation or elucidation on some point or other. And still we waited. At last the door opened, and they filed back one by one into their box, and took their seats in solemn silence, and were instantly harangued by the clerk of the court, and called upon to declare whether Philip Hugh Atherton was guilty or innocent of wilful murder. Amidst a dead hush, a stillness that was thrilling in its intensity, the foreman stood up and pronounced the verdict, "NOT GUILTY." I saw the prisoner raise his hands for one moment, and then his head drooped on his breast, and he leaned heavily against the railing in front of him. I saw Merrivale rise hastily, and, turning round, lay his hand upon Hugh's shoulder, and his counsel eagerly stretching out their bands towards him in fervent congratulation; and then was heard the Chief-Justice's voice addressing the foreman of the jury:
"The peculiarities and complexity of the case make it needful that we should ask upon what grounds you have given in your verdict."
Foreman: "We find the prisoner not guilty, my lord, on the ground that it is proved he did not buy the strychnine, and that the evidence of the housekeeper is unreliable evidence. But we think that until the mystery of the murder is cleared up, suspicion must still attach itself to Mr. Atherton."