Chapter XXI: A Cornish Poison Mystery

Towards the close of the year 1921 a man named Edward Black was living with his wife and stepdaughter, Marian, a girl of seventeen, at the village of Tregonissey, near St. Austell in Cornwall. Mr. and Mrs. Black were married in 1914, the latter being her husband’s senior by twenty years, and they had lived together fairly happily, though quarrels about money matters were frequent. Black carried on business as an insurance agent, and his affairs at this time were the reverse of prosperous.

Mrs. Black had for some time been suffering from gastritis, for which Black had often given her medicine and was very insistent on her taking it. She complained more than once to a neighbour, that the medicine given by her husband always upset her and burned her throat.

On October 31, 1921, Black, as was his custom, prepared the breakfast which consisted that morning of cake and bread-and-butter, and made the tea. Within an hour after partaking of the meal Mrs. Black was seized with vomiting and pain and was obliged to take to her bed. As her condition did not improve, a doctor was called in, but in spite of his efforts she died after an illness of eleven days.

Before this happened, Black’s money troubles had come to a crisis, and following on discoveries made by the company for which he acted as agent, a warrant was issued for his arrest on a charge of issuing non-existent insurance policies.

Three days before his wife died, Black disappeared, and after a search by the police he was finally traced to Liverpool. When arrested in that city he attempted to commit suicide by cutting his throat, and had to be taken to a hospital.

Meanwhile, the circumstances under which Mrs. Black had died appeared so suspicious that a post-mortem examination was ordered, followed by an analysis of the organs of the body. As a result of the investigation Black was charged at the inquest, which was deferred until he was sufficiently recovered to be brought from Liverpool, with the murder of his wife by the administration of arsenic.

The trial took place at Bodmin Assizes on February 2, 1922, before Mr. Justice Rowlatt, Mr. Holman Gregory appearing for the prosecution and Mr. Pratt for the defence.

Evidence was given by an assistant in a chemist’s shop in St. Austell, that on October 29, 1921, Black purchased two ounces of white arsenic, saying he wanted it to kill rats, and that although he was offered other preparations for this purpose, he insisted upon having the arsenic, and duly signed the poison register. Asked by the judge how much two ounces of arsenic would make, the witness replied, “About a heaped teaspoonful; it would be 960 grains,” upon which the judge observed that would amount to nearly five hundred fatal doses.

Counsel for the prosecution said that the fatal dose of arsenic, which was about two grains, would just cover a threepenny bit. The effect upon a person who had swallowed arsenic would depend upon whether it was taken in a dry or liquid state; in liquid form on a empty stomach its effect would be very rapid.

The doctor who attended Mrs. Black during her last illness stated that at the post-mortem examination, it was found that the heart was normal and that there was nothing to account for the rapid action he had noticed during her illness. Questioned as to the presence of arsenic in some empty medicine bottles which had been found in the house, he replied that it was a common thing to find arsenic in bismuth in spite of every precaution against impurity. The amount found in the bottle, however, was ¹⁄₂₀th of a milligram, a milligram being ¹⁄₆₅th of a grain.

Mr. Webster, analyst to the Home Office, said he examined the stomach, intestines, liver, and one kidney of the deceased woman, together with 6¾ fluid ounces of blood. He found arsenic in all the organs, the total amount being ¹⁄₁₇th of a grain, equivalent to ⅙th of a grain in the whole body. Slight traces of arsenic were found in the bottles and other articles found in the house and brought to him by the police, but that could not possibly account for the amount of arsenic found by him in the organs of the deceased woman. The traces of arsenic in these things were so small that they would not affect the system at all; to get a fatal dose from medicine containing that proportion it would require 1,300 bottles.

The amounts found were consistent with the taking of a poisonous dose, or a series of small doses which might produce poisonous symptoms. If such doses had been taken they had probably been well diluted. There was no direct evidence of an irritant poison to be seen in the walls of the stomach or the intestines. It was possible, however, for all the arsenic to have disappeared, even if a fatal dose had been taken. It would depend upon the time the patient lived, and a considerable quantity might have been vomited. He did not agree with the counsel for the defence, who urged that arsenic remained in the body indefinitely. In his opinion that was not the case; it was got rid of very quickly. Arsenic would remain in the hair and nails for a considerable period, but after a comparatively short time it could not be detected in the organs.

Sir William Willcox, Consulting Medical Expert to the Home Office, described the symptoms of arsenical poisoning. He said that when a big dose was taken, death usually occurred in three days, but in some cases the arsenic damaged the organs of the body, and death might occur several days after the taking of the last dose. He had known cases in which some months had ensued before death. In his opinion the cause of death in this case was arsenical poisoning. He based his opinion not only on symptoms but on the analysis. He believed that no arsenic had been administered to Mrs. Black within five days of her death. She had not died from the direct effects of arsenical poisoning, but the cause of death was exhaustion coupled with poisoning of the vital organs.

At the suggestion of the judge, Mr. Webster made three cups of tea, one with two grains of arsenic in it, one with one grain, and one with none, and these cups were handed to the judge and jury for their inspection.

Evidence was given by Mrs. Black’s daughter, Marian, and by the neighbours, showing that Black had on different occasions administered medicine to his wife, and that she had frequently complained of it being “peppery” and of her dislike to taking it.

Counsel for the defence urged the lack of motive for the crime, and suggested that death was due to gastritis, from which disease Mrs. Black was known to have suffered.

On the second and last day of the trial, Black himself went into the witness-box, and denied, as he had previously done at the inquest, that he had ever had arsenic in his possession, or that he had purchased it at St. Austell on October 29. He also added that on October 31 his wife was not present at breakfast, but that it was taken up to her by Marian, the girl.

The judge, in summing up the case, said that it was one of circumstantial evidence. As a rule in such cases one found motives included, but in this case there was none. There was no doubt that Black’s behaviour all through his wife’s illness was that of attention to her, and not either neglectful of her or hostile to her.

The jury, after an absence of forty minutes, returned with a verdict of “Guilty.” Black was sentenced to death, and was executed at Exeter Gaol on March 24, 1922.

In commenting on this case, in an address before the Harveian Society, Sir William Willcox stated:

“it is interesting from the fact that although arsenic was present in appreciable amount in all the organs, the total amount found in them was considerably less than a possible fatal dose. The explanation of the small amount of poison in the body was clearly shown by the clinical history. The case was one of delayed arsenical poisoning, a considerable proportion of the arsenic having been got rid of by excretion in the few days which elapsed between the administration of the poison and the time of death.”