The Japan Weekly Mail summary of news:
Telegrams of condolence upon the death of the Empress Dowager continue to be received by the Imperial Household Department from foreign countries.
Pope Leo XIII is suffering from an attack of influenza. His condition causes anxiety.
The mausoleum of the late Empress Dowager will be named Nochitsukiowa Ushitora-no-Misasagi.
Flying from the plague, 325,000 inhabitants of Bombay have left the city.
A hitch has occurred in the reduction of telegraph rates to Japan caused by the Japanese authorities refusing to sanction collection of payment by the Great Northern Telegram Company in effective francs. The Chinese have agreed to the collection. The difficulty the Japanese have raised is very unfortunate. Their decision is likely to raise grumbling in China.
His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince, indisposed through cold, will remain at Numadzu and will not attend the funeral services of the Empress Dowager.
Mr Easely’s speech for the defence was passionate and eloquent; the emaciation of his features, ravage of an honourable struggle, inflamed his cause auspiciously. The court was charged with sympathy for Mr Easely and his plight. The very anxiety of his expression seemed to ensure the truth. The room was crammed with well-known faces, others packed the walls. At his bench Mr Russell folded his lips, like an insect upon a fly. He observed the scene with relish.
Mr Easely recalled a number of witnesses, bringing up for view again a multitude of threads to place at particular angles against a bitter light. He built up a picture sealed in its frame through which nothing could obtrude.
‘Do you propose to re-examine any more witnesses?’ Judge Bowman sneezed, then questioned as he settled to the day. He was groggy with a cold. Soon it would be over, the atmosphere in the court room was jagged as a blade. There was that holding of collective breath inevitable as a verdict neared.
‘Then you are now summing up your case?’ he inquired.
‘Yes, my lord,’ said Mr Easely, turning to the jury and clearing his throat.
‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ he addressed them. ‘Just three months has elapsed since the opening of the inquest into the death of Mr Redmore, husband of the prisoner, with whose murder she is now charged. Perhaps the long delay is not to be regretted. Men’s minds have been greatly prejudiced by the sensational evidence given at the inquest. I rejoice to think there has been time for further consideration and that you are in a better position now than perhaps you would have been then to sit in judgement rather than condemnation.
‘Gentlemen, the prisoner has been subjected during the long period of her incarceration to terrible mental and physical strain. What she has gone through few will know, and fewer still, I hope, experience. Nothing but the conscience of innocence could possibly have enabled her to bear it. Nevertheless, gentlemen, I am not here to ask for your sympathy on her behalf. I am here to ask for justice and that alone.
‘Gentlemen, there are only two questions to be decided to my mind in this case. Firstly, did the deceased die of arsenical poisoning exhibited in the form of Fowler’s Solution of Arsenic? Secondly, was the arsenic administered by the prisoner knowingly and with intent to take her husband’s life? Directly there is doubt in your mind as to the answer of either of those questions, the prisoner is entitled to be acquitted and released.’ He hammered forth her innocence in point after murky point.
‘There are certain facts that have been established in this case. The finding of white arsenic at post-mortem is one. Its mere presence is proof that it was administered to the deceased and indication of the likelihood of its having caused death. The symptoms observed by the medical experts were all consistent with a dose of white arsenic being given to or taken by the deceased within four to five days of his death. Five hundred and seventy-two grains of lead, if taken by the deceased, would have more than sufficed to cause death; and lead was found at post-mortem. There is evidence that a portion of the poison was procured and taken by the deceased in the absence of his wife. There is no evidence whatsoever to connect the prisoner with the purchase or possession of white arsenic. That a considerable quantity of Fowler’s Solution of Arsenic came into the house is certain, but the medical evidence is that causes of death by Fowler’s Solution are of rare occurrence.
‘The case for the prosecution rests entirely upon circumstantial evidence, and where that is so it is necessary to find a motive for the crime charged. And if you find an entire absence of motive or an insufficient motive, and also that the deceased was sending for poison not through his wife, and that he was doctoring himself and had been accustomed to take arsenic for the last sixteen years of his life, and that he took or was given white arsenic which and which alone would have produced all the symptoms noticed by his medical attendant, and which cannot by any means be traced to the prisoner, how is the conclusion arrived at that the prisoner must have murdered her husband?
‘It is proved that the deceased spoke openly of taking arsenic and in large quantities. His wife had been accustomed all her married life to see him take it and to hear him talk of it. There is nothing surprising therefore in her obtaining it for him.’ He grew angry in his argument, facing the jury bitterly.
‘And I pass now, gentlemen, to the question of the Annie Luke letters.’ Jack Easely picked up his notes. ‘It is not of vital importance in this case to ascertain who wrote those letters, provided you are satisfied Mrs Redmore did not. I say they were probably written by Jessica Flack. You have heard the evidence, and if they are read with that theory in mind there is little or no mystery about them. And as to the correspondence between the prisoner and Mr Huckle, it is obvious these have been introduced also by Jessica Flack in evidence for the purpose of showing that a motive existed in the mind of the accused for murdering her husband.
‘And, gentlemen, why should she wish to murder her husband? No woman with such a propensity to gratify her vanity by captivating the senses of the opposite sex ever had such great opportunities allowed her, ever had such a complacent husband. Mr Huckle has already given evidence in that direction with reference to her other male friends. All were admitted a greater degree of intimacy with the wife than is generally considered allowable. Why should she wish to rid herself of a husband who gave her every facility for amusing herself with flirtations, which in the case of Mr Huckle, at all events, were carried far beyond a passionless liaison? The prisoner had and took the most freedom to do as she pleased. With regard to her moral standards – and if it comes to that, those of her husband also – perhaps the less said the better. I am not here to defend either on that score. But in spite of that, the attachment between the spouses seems to have remained unbroken and affectionate. There appears to have been great forbearance on both sides. Mr Huckle could not marry the prisoner, and she knew it. And why should she want to marry him? He was simply one of a series. She was about to purchase a house and about to purchase a position for her husband in a mercantile firm in Yokohama. Why kill him, then? She was obtaining Mr Huckle’s sympathy under false pretences for her own temporary amusement. As such, the letters between the prisoner and Mr Huckle show no motive for the crime.
‘It is not for me to account for the death. That is a secret which may never be known. What the prisoner did, she did openly. She showed more anxiety, more concern about the symptoms of her husband’s illness than the medical attendant did, and so far from attempting any concealment, it may be said that every day and all day during his illness, in all that it is proved she said or did, if she were murdering him she never ceased to call attention to the fact or to invite detection by the manner in which she set about it and by the evidence which she made and accumulated against herself.
‘It is a bold man who will fathom the depths of human depravity, but perfection, even in depravity, is not rapidly attained. There is a certain progress in guilt. There can be no sudden transition from tolerance or even the weakest affection for a particular object to removing one who offered no obstruction to the prisoner’s wishes or purposes.
‘Gentlemen, I have done, and I am cheered by this consideration, that however weak the defence set up may be, a prisoner in the position of my client is never really unprotected in a court presided over by a British judge assisted by a British jury. I confidently leave it to you to say that the prosecution have failed to satisfy you that the prisoner at the bar is the incarnate fiend they have tried to make her out to be.’
Mr Easely concluded his address to the jury at eight minutes past eleven o’clock.
Judge Bowman looked inquiringly at Mr Russell. ‘We are ready,’ he stated through a thick nose.
Mr Russell stood up. ‘Gentlemen of the jury. Before I begin the duty which now devolves upon me, I wish to express my grateful appreciation for the consideration which at so much sacrifice you have shown us. I have never known a case in which counsel have had to call for so much consideration at the hands of a jury, and I can conceive of none in which it could have been more generously given.’ Mr Russell inclined his head towards the jury box; the men nodded in return. Mr Ewart gave a smile and Mr Cooper-Hewitt cleared his throat. Mr Russell continued.
‘It is now my duty on behalf of the Crown to present to you the view taken by the prosecution of the evidence brought before you and the arguments by which it is considered that view is supported. Two questions will require your consideration as determining your verdict. The first, whether the deceased died from arsenic, and the second, whether the arsenic of which he died was administered by the prisoner. With regard to the sugar of lead, I do not think you will be required to trouble yourselves very much. There is no reason to believe that lead caused the death of the deceased. The medical witnesses are all agreed that the symptoms the deceased displayed and the results of the post-mortem are all consistent with arsenical poisoning.
‘If you find, gentlemen, that any of the poison administered by the accused, although not the sole cause of death, conduced to death, then you are bound to find a verdict of guilty. I tell you, subject to correction from his lordship, that although lead may have contributed to the death, and although you may come to the conclusion that the lead was not administered by the prisoner, still, if you come to the conclusion that the arsenic contributed to the death and was administered by the prisoner, then you are bound to find the prisoner guilty. What I have said of arsenic in general applies also to the distinction between white arsenic and Fowler’s Solution. If you come to the conclusion that white arsenic also contributed to the death, but that Fowler’s Solution contributing to the death was administered by the prisoner, no matter where the white arsenic came from or by whom it was administered you are bound to find the prisoner guilty.’
Judge Bowman suppressed a yawn. The court room was crowded and stuffy. He had partaken of no breakfast beyond a cup of tea. He proposed to speak to Dr Charles about some medicine for his cold.
When the court resumed after tiffin, Mr Russell continued his speech. ‘Gentlemen, it is for the prosecution to satisfy you that death was caused by the prisoner. The charge made against Jessica Flack might be considered as narrowing it to the question of whether Jessica Flack or Mrs Redmore were guilty. But you are not here to try Jessica Flack, you are here to try the prisoner. There is, however, a part of the case inextricably bound up with Jessica Flack, and that is the Annie Luke letters. These have an important bearing upon the case. One argument might be that whoever wrote the Annie Luke letters confessed herself guilty of murder. I do not ask you necessarily to take that view, although if you find the Annie Luke letters were written by the prisoner it has an important bearing upon the question you have to decide.
‘Gentlemen, you will recall that the inquest was opened on 24 October and was adjourned on that day until 2 November in order to get the post-mortem report. Mrs Redmore had put in the first letters of the Annie Luke series on that opening day.
‘Gentlemen, I put it to you that the letters fall into two categories. The one letter signed in full “Annie Luke”, written while the deceased was still alive and preceded supposedly by the visit of a mysterious woman to the Redmore house, and the letters signed simply with the initials “A.L.”, all received after the death of Mr Redmore. These were all anonymous letters to myself, Mr Easely and to the accused herself, threatening in tone. Gentlemen, I put it to you that there never was an “Annie Luke” or an “A.L.”. The woman, her visit and her letters were all conceived in the mind of Mrs Redmore. The “Annie” letter was written before the death of her husband in a different hand from the “A.L.” series, and detailed at the boathouse before witnesses – for what reason I cannot ascertain. The “A.L.” letters, in a separate hand, were written at a time when it was desirable to raise on behalf of Mrs Redmore a theory for Mr Redmore’s death. I put that forward as one of the reasons why she should write them. Mrs Redmore was under suspicion at that time, and if any working theory could be made showing there was some other person who could have done the deed, it was desirable in Mrs Redmore’s interests that the theory should be raised. The handwriting of these letters was fabricated to resemble Miss Flack’s in the hope of incriminating her. With these remarks, my lord, I shall leave it for the present.’
The court was adjourned until 10 a.m. on the following day.
Robert Russell spent the day upon arsenic in one way or another. His long legs protruded from his gown, as he stalked about the court, like a skinny beetle. He circumnavigated evidence in a disturbing, elastic way. He found cracks to prise up and overturn reality. With each day he appeared more invigorated, brighter-eyed and more tenacious. His reasoning was sinuous. He had that gift to falsify reserved for brilliant actors; he held the jury mesmerized. He danced upon his words.
‘I turn to the evidence affecting the prisoner herself on the charge of poisoning her husband. The first matter which calls attention is the writing of the letters to Mr Huckle which called forth those written by him in evidence before you. I have already told you that, if other evidence satisfies you that poison was administered by the prisoner, it is not necessary to explain the motive. The law does not require that any motive should be proved in a case where the evidence of the commission of the criminal act is circumstantial any more than where it is direct. It is going far to suggest that because a woman wrongs her husband she is prepared to murder him; but such liaisons have before now supplied the root of motive for crime. The accused has been shown to have systematically traduced her husband, falsely representing him as a brute and a villain and appealing for and calling forth the sympathy of another man in the distressing situation in which his violence had placed her. Whatever may be said, gentlemen, of the female nature, of its lightness and its frailty, that is not the form it takes and the circumstances in this case require an explanation. That explanation has not been forthcoming. But the position which the undoubted facts bring us to is this: that behind the action of the prisoner lay strong motives not revealed to us, and that she was capable of traducing and blackening the character of the husband to whom she professed affection.’ He was tireless and inspired, sweat glazed his face, mobile as never before.
‘I have now, gentlemen, laid before you the arguments that it was my duty to put before you on behalf of the Crown. Pay no regard to anything but the internal voice of your own conscience and to that sense of duty you owe to God and man on this occasion, seeking no reward except the comforting assurance that when you look back upon this day you will feel that you have discharged to the utmost of your ability the duty it was yours to perform.
‘If all the facts and evidence lead your minds to the conclusion of the prisoner’s guilt, then, but only then, I ask for a verdict of “Guilty” at your hands. For the protection of the good, for the repression of the wicked, I ask for that verdict by which alone the safety of society can be secured and the demands of public justice satisfied.’
The Japan Gazette report on the final day of the trial:
A driving rain with a biting northerly wind greeted the people of Yokohama who from business or an easily explicable curiosity directed their ways on Monday, 1 February to Her Britannic Majesty’s Court in Japan. For this was the last day in the most remarkable trial ever held in a foreign court and a trial which, in all probability, is without precedent in the annals of a British court. The strain on counsel, judge and jury has been immense. Counsel, especially for the defence, have had to act as their own solicitors and clerks and the amount of work thus executed by them has been almost incredible. This has to a certain extent hampered the progress of the case but we feel sure the jury, much as the strain must have told upon them, will in so grave an issue in a matter upon which the life and death of the prisoner depends, regard lightly their own protracted incarceration if thereby an honest and exhaustive trial has been secured. The public have no right to complain, for the delay has been calculated not to thwart justice but to ensure it.
By the time the judge took his seat the court room was full, but the solemnity of his address was somewhat marred by the thoughtlessness of people leaving and entering the court room and by the severe cold from which his lordship was suffering, which frequently compelled him to drop his voice to a whisper and render him inaudible even to reporters. Thus many portions of a really powerful and admirably reasoned address were lost to our readers, though we trust that the jury were fortunate in being able to catch sentences the reporters lost. It was a most impressive address, but almost from the very first sentence it was adverse to the prisoner. Based as it was upon evidence, and avoiding as much as possible the statement of opinions and only citing facts, it seemed to those who listened to it attentively to be a most damning indictment against the prisoner.
‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ it began. ‘The prisoner is charged with murder of her husband by the administration of arsenic and it is incumbent upon the prosecution to establish the charge beyond reasonable doubt.’ Without actually saying so in words, it was clear that in the judge’s opinion the prosecution had not only established their charge beyond reasonable doubt but beyond all doubt. Early in his speech he pointed out what the counsel for the prosecution had already laid stress upon, that it was not necessary to prove that arsenic alone had caused the death but that the symptoms during illness and post-mortem analysis were consistent with arsenical poisoning; secondly, that the prisoner had wilfully administered the arsenic to the deceased in the form of Fowler’s Solution with a felonious intention; thirdly, that the poison conduced to his death. For the first and third of these they must look to the medical evidence, for the second to the general evidence. The medical attendants had proved conclusively the first and third questions. As to the second, the administration of arsenic in the form of arsenious poisoning had been abandoned by the prosecution as no white arsenic could be traced to the prisoner. The prosecution had alleged the purchase of four ounces of Fowler’s Solution between 17 and 22 October and this was not denied by the defence. The purchase from Schedel’s and Maruya’s had been proved. On Tuesday Dr Charles, puzzled by the case, inquired about the cooking utensils. On that same evening an ounce of Fowler’s Solution was procured from Maruya’s and the deceased was worse after that. The prisoner had suggested calling Dr Baeltz, but he telegraphed back that he could not come until the following evening. On receipt of this message the improvement of the patient’s condition disappeared. He had been better in the afternoon, but in the evening he was worse. On the forenoon of that very day one and a half ounces of Fowler’s Solution had been purchased at different chemists and the patient was more or less prostrated until he died the next day before Dr Baeltz could come. That evening, when the prisoner heard a post-mortem would be held, she told Dr Charles she had procured arsenic for the deceased. Here the judge discussed the explanation for the concealment of this fact. It was because he was taking arsenic for stricture and the concealment was described as a wifely act on his insistence. The jury would have to consider whether such a slight explanation was sufficient, said the judge. Then why was sugar of lead not mentioned, seeing as it was for external application? The prisoner had been buying both these poisons and neither was mentioned. Then why was the medicine, if the prisoner’s purpose was innocent, not procured wholly from Schedel’s on the last day of purchase? The suggestion was that she might not be able to procure more than a half ounce from a foreign chemist, and thus got the smaller quantity from the foreign chemist and the larger one from the native. This point, so clearly expressed, appeared to make a great impression on the minds of the jury, and that impression was strengthened when the judge added that he would fail in his duty if he did not mention these points to the jury and they would fail in theirs if they did not face these questions.
Having thus placed the purchase of the poison in so strong a light his lordship proceeded to consider the reasons assigned for the purchases of arsenic at all. The only reasons given were those supplied by the prisoner, and much would turn upon the credence the jury gave to her various statements, all of which were inconsistent with one another, especially those concerning her husband’s arsenic-taking which modified as she appeared before the coroner at the inquest. The judge dealt with the witnesses as to the deceased taking arsenic, and pointed out that none of them demonstrated that he had been taking arsenic latterly, only that he had taken arsenic formerly.
At this point the judge adjourned the case until one-thirty.
The interest in the afternoon had grown keener. There was an air of expectation about all present and a feeling of tension seemed to pervade the atmosphere like electricity. The prisoner was a little paler but composed as ever. The judge, having asked Mr Easely if there were any points which he had overlooked, asked the jury to disregard the Huckle letters; little weight should be attached to them. The Annie Luke letters, however, could not be left out of consideration. He attached considerable weight to Mr Mason, the handwriting expert’s evidence and also asked the jury to note the style of the letters as well as the handwriting. Passing onto the subject of motive, the judge made it clear that in crimes it was not necessary to find a motive, but the prisoner must be judged by her acts and intentions.
‘I shall ask you to consider your verdict,’ the judge said in winding up. ‘It must be based not on suspicion, however strong, not upon conjecture, however probable, but upon conviction, founded on the evidence. If you have no real doubt of the prisoner’s guilt, if your minds are agreed, you must do your duty, honestly and fearlessly, and rightly return a verdict of guilty But if the verdict is left in doubt, then your verdict must be not guilty.’
The jury retired to consider the verdict at 2.35 p.m., a great silence falling over the court. For the first time during the case the prisoner leaned over the edge of the dock, burying her face in her hands. It was some minutes before she again lifted her head, when she wiped her eyes with a handkerchief. After an absence of twenty-three minutes, barely more than a mere minute of consideration for each of the long days this trial has lasted, the jury returned at two minutes to three o’clock.
The clerk of the court inquired, ‘Gentlemen, have you agreed upon your verdict?’
Mr Cooper-Hewitt replied, ‘We have.’
‘How say you? Do you find Amy Jane Redmore guilty or not guilty?’
‘Guilty.’
‘Is that the verdict of you all?’
‘It is.’
There was a silence that could be felt, an awful hush as the next question followed and the prisoner, with blanched cheeks and quivering mouth, stood once again at the bar.
‘Amy Jane Redmore, have you anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon you?’
A faint ‘No’ escaped the prisoner’s trembling lips.
His lordship then placed the black cap upon his head. A fit of coughing took him before in a hoarse voice he said, ‘The sentence is that you, Amy Jane Redmore, be forthwith taken from the place where you now stand and taken to the British Consular Goal, Yokohama, and therein interned and that on the day to be hereinafter appointed by the proper authority, you be taken to the place of execution and there be hanged by the neck until you are dead and that your body be afterwards taken down and interned in the precincts of the said prison, and may God have mercy upon your soul.’
The prisoner listened to this terrible sentence without sign of emotion save the twitching of the muscles of her face, but all the colour had left her cheeks and a bluish hue was noticeable on her lips and a ghastly pallor on her features.
After sentence had been pronounced the jury were discharged and the proceedings in this eventful trial terminated.