Among them my attention was particularly attracted by a middle-aged woman who sat near me: at least I judged her to be middle-aged, though the rather dense black veil that she wore obscured her face to a great extent. Apparently she was a widow, and advertised the fact by the orthodox, old-fashioned “weeds.” But I could see that she had white hair and wore spectacles. She held a folded newspaper on her knee, apparently dividing her attention between the printed matter and the proceedings of the court. She gave me the impression of having come in to spend an idle hour, combining a somewhat perfunctory reading of the paper with a still more perfunctory attention to the rather gruesome entertainment that the inquest afforded.
The next witness called was the doctor who had made the official examination of the body; on whom my bereaved friend bestowed a listless, incurious glance and then returned to her newspaper. He was a youngish man, though his hair was turning gray, with a quiet but firm and confident manner and a very clear, pleasant voice. The preliminaries having been disposed of, the coroner led off with the question:
“You have made an examination of the body of the deceased?”
“Yes. It is that of a well-proportioned, fairly muscular man of about sixty, quite healthy with the exception of the heart, one of the valves of which—the mitral valve—was incompetent and allowed some leakage of blood to take place.”
“Was the heart affection sufficient to account for the death of deceased?”
“No. It was quite a serviceable heart. There was good compensation—that is to say, there was extra growth of muscle to make up for the leaky valve. So far as his heart was concerned, deceased might have lived for another twenty years.”
“Were you able to ascertain what actually was the cause of death?”
“Yes. The cause of death was aconitine poisoning.”
At this reply a murmur of astonishment arose from the jury, and I heard Miss D’Arblay suddenly draw in her breath. The spectators sat up on their benches, and even the veiled lady was so far interested as to look up from her paper.
“How had the poison been administered?” the coroner asked.
“It had been injected under the skin by means of a hypodermic syringe.”
“Can you give an opinion as to whether the poison was administered to deceased by himself or by some other person?”
“It could not have been injected by deceased himself,” the witness replied. “The needle-puncture was in the back, just below the left shoulder-blade. It is, in my opinion, physically impossible for anyone to inject into his own body with a hypodermic syringe in that spot. And, of course, a person who was administering an injection to himself would select the most convenient spot—such as the front of the thigh. But apart from the question of convenience, the place in which the needle-puncture was found was actually out of reach.” Here the witness produced a hypodermic syringe, the action of which he demonstrated with the aid of a glass of water; and having shown the impossibility of applying it to the spot that he had described, passed the syringe round for the jury’s inspection.
“Have you formed any opinion as to the purpose for which this drug was administered in this manner?”
“I have no doubt that it was administered for the purpose of causing the death of deceased.”
“Might it not have been administered for medicinal purposes?”
“That is quite inconceivable. Leaving out of consideration the circumstances—the time and place where the administration occurred—the dose excludes the possibility of medicinal purposes. It was a lethal dose. From the tissues round the needle-puncture we recovered the twelfth of a grain of aconitine. That alone was more than enough to cause death. But a quantity of the poison had been absorbed, as was shown by the fact that we recovered a recognizable trace from the liver.”
“What is the medicinal dose of aconitine?”
“The maximum medicinal dose is about the four-hundredth of a grain, and even that is not very safe. As a matter of fact, aconitine is very seldom used in medical practice. It is a dangerous drug, and of no particular value.”
“How much aconitine do you suppose was injected?”
“Not less than the tenth of a grain—that is about forty times the maximum medicinal dose. Probably more.”
“There can, I suppose, be no doubt as to the accuracy of the facts that you have stated—as to the nature and quantity of the poison?”
“There can be no doubt whatever. The analysis was made in my presence by Professor Woodford, of St. Margaret’s Hospital, after I had removed the tissues from the body in his presence. He has not been called because, in accordance with the procedure under Coroner’s Law, I am responsible for the analysis and the conclusions drawn from it.”
“Taking the medical facts as known to you, are you able to form an opinion as to what took place when the poison was administered?”
“That,” the witness replied, “is a matter of inference or conjecture. I infer that the person who administered the poison thrust the needle violently into the back of the deceased, intending to inject the poison into the chest. Actually, the needle struck a rib and bent up sharply, so that the contents of the syringe were delivered just under the skin. Then I take it that the assailant ran away—probably towards the pond—and deceased pursued him. Very soon the poison would take effect, and then deceased would have fallen. He may have fallen into the pond, or more probably, was thrown in. He was alive when he fell into the pond, as is proved by the presence of water in the lungs; but he must then have been insensible; and in a dying condition, for there was no water in the stomach, which
