Medical Detectives by Robin Odell Read Free Book Online

with Willcox. The two men shared the habit of working late at night and frequently met either at Willcox’s home or in Spilsbury’s laboratory at Marlborough Hill to discuss current cases.
    The decade began with two remarkable poisoning cases which shared a number of common features. Both occurred in Wales, both involved arsenical poisoning and in both cases the individual accused was a practising solicitor. The first resulted in the acquittal of Harold Greenwood at Carmarthen in 1920 when he was brilliantly defended by Sir Edward Marshall Hall; the second ended in the conviction of Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong at Hereford in 1922. Willcox was consulted in both cases, while Spilsbury was involved only in the investigation of Major Armstrong’s crime.
    Armstrong was arrested on 31 December 1921 at his office in Hay-on-Wye following a high-level meeting between Sir William Willcox, who had been knighted earlier in the year, and Sir Archibald Bodkin, the Director of Public Prosecutions. Their review of the evidence led to a coroner’s order to exhume the body of Mrs Katharine Armstrong from its grave in Cusop churchyard, where it had lain for ten months. Spilsbury was called in and travelled down to Hay by train via Hereford on 2 January 1922. He was met by the local police Superintendent, who escorted him to the graveside.
    It was early evening on a winter’s day and the scene was illuminated by hurricane lamps. The disinterred coffin was taken to an empty cottage nearby where it remained under police guard until the post-mortem examination the following day. Spilsbury was assisted by two local doctors in the grisly task of examining a long dead corpse. The body was removed from its oak coffin and placed on a trestle table from which drops of putrefied matter fell to the floor. Conditions such as these – poorly lit, badly ventilated and completely lacking in any washing facilities – were by no means unusual to pathologists of that era.
    As he went about his task, Spilsbury’s first observation was that the body was unusually well preserved and appeared to be undergoing mummification rather than putrefaction in the normal manner. He took various samples of fluid, tissue and organs from the body and put them into specimen jars for laboratory analysis. When the post-mortem examination had been completed, the body was left to be viewed by the coroner’s jury and Spilsbury made a speedy return to London with his sixteen sample jars. He took them straight to St Mary’s for the attention of John Webster, the senior Home Office analyst, and finished a long day by telephoning Willcox to discuss his initial findings.
    The two men met on 12 February to review the scientific evidence, which included Webster’s analyses. Large amounts of arsenic had been found in the liver and large intestine, the latter particularly indicating that poison had probably been administered within twenty-four hours of death. They appeared, together with John Webster, to give their evidence at the magistrates’ court at Hay-on-Wye. The evidence for poisoning was overwhelming and Major Armstrong was committed to trial for the murder of his wife.
    The trial at Hereford produced another powerful line-up of forensic talent. Mr Justice Darling presided and, as was traditional in poisoning cases, the prosecution was headed by the Attorney-General, Sir Ernest Pollock, with the defence in the hands of the redoubtable Sir Henry Curtis Bennett. Spilsbury and Willcox once again appeared together to present the medical evidence.
    Major Armstrong was a small man who liked to cut a dash as a military figure with his heavy, waxed moustache and army officer’s British warm overcoat. Weighing seven stone and standing five feet six inches tall, he was every bit the pocket soldier. He practised as a solicitor in Hay-on-Wye, which in the 1920s, was a small market town situated on the border of England and Wales. He was a well-known figure in the district, clerk to