In Glasgow, in March 1857, at about half past two in the morning, Ann Duthie Jenkins was awakened by the ringing of the street bell. Pierre Émile L’Angelier had just returned, his arms folded tightly across his stomach. "I am very bad," he said, heralding another violent fit of vomiting. Only a few hours earlier, he had appeared in better health. Before going out, he had asked for his latchkey so as not to disturb the household upon returning late.
Jenkins saw him vomit before he had even finished undressing. L’Angelier was seized with cold, suffered severe pain in his stomach, and begged for hot water. The landlady placed hot bottles against his feet and his abdomen. Towards five o'clock, as his condition worsened, she hurried out in search of a physician. Dr. Steven initially advised a dose of laudanum and a mustard poultice; he arrived shortly thereafter, administered the treatment, and departed. L’Angelier asked that a lady friend, Miss Perry, be sent for. He told Jenkins that perhaps five minutes of sleep would restore him. When the doctor returned, the young man was dead.
In his waistcoat pocket, a tender note was found, signed with an assumed name. The woman who had penned it stated that she had waited and kept watch in vain, proposing to try again on the following evening. Jenkins related that upon discovering the paper, one of the gentlemen present—Thuot or Stevenson, she could not clearly recall—remarked that this explained everything. She was aware that her lodger carried on a private correspondence, though he had never disclosed the writer's name. L’Angelier was employed as a clerk at Huggins & Co. and had lodged with her since the previous summer.
The letters were not recovered all at once. William Stevenson, a fellow clerk of L’Angelier, first searched his effects and his desk; he subsequently conceded that the lock was defective, that other clerks had access to it, and that no comprehensive inventory had been drawn up when he handed over the papers to the investigators. He had affixed his initials only to certain letters. The presiding judge openly censured the manner in which this preliminary collection had been supervised. These irregularities did not invalidate the documents produced, yet they became a matter of contention during the trial: whence came each note, and who could vouch for its chain of custody?
The preceding weeks had not been without tribulation. Jenkins recalled at least two illnesses in February. During one of them, L’Angelier had been seized with severe pain and vomiting on his way home; he had slept, then risen to consult a doctor. Another attack had confined him to the house for several days. Dr. Thomson spoke of a bilious fever; L’Angelier subsequently went to Bridge of Allan to convalesce. From there, he wrote to his colleague that he felt improved, though his limbs remained painful. Witnesses differed regarding his return: a landlady at Bridge placed him there as late as Sunday afternoon, whereas Jenkins claimed to have seen him back in Glasgow on Saturday evening. Jenkins described him then as being of better appearance; he went out again a few hours later.
The inquiry assumed an entirely different character when medical men examined the body. Frederick Penny, Professor of Chemistry, received the stomach and its contents to test for poison. His analysis detected arsenic: approximately 82.7 grains in the examined matters, to which were added just over five grains in powder form. The total approached eighty-eight grains, vastly exceeding the doses usually regarded by experts as fatal. The subsequent exhumation furnished further confirmation: the tissues of the body likewise contained arsenic, absorbed prior to death.
Yet this discovery did not resolve the cardinal question: who had administered it, when, and by what means? Penny explained that a portion of the poison might have been vomited, rendering it impossible to determine the total quantity originally ingested. Another chemist, Robert Christison, considered the symptoms consistent with arsenical poisoning, but conceded that certain of them might equally be observed in cases of cholera. The chemical analyses established the presence of the poison, but not the hand that had proffered it nor the vehicle employed. Chocolate could hold a considerable quantity in suspension if prepared in a certain manner; however, no evidence demonstrated that any specific cup had been poisoned.
The name of Madeleine Smith entered the proceedings through the correspondence and the missed tryst. In her declaration of March 31, read before the court, the young woman stated she had known L’Angelier for about two years. She acknowledged their matrimonial intentions, but asserted she had not seen him for three weeks. Their last interview, she claimed, had taken place at her bedroom window in Main Street: he had tapped with his stick, and she had spoken with him without going outside or admitting him within. In a note dispatched on Friday, March 20, she had written that she expected to see him the following evening. He had not come, she maintained, nor had he tapped at her window on the Sunday.
L’Angelier, however, had spoken to his roommate of an interview with his beloved and of an illness that had overtaken him in her presence. The exact date and circumstances were hotly contested at the trial. The billet found upon him, the intended appointment, and the testimony concerning nocturnal visits afforded the Crown grounds to argue that the pair had met once more. Smith denied this final encounter. She explained that her desire to see L’Angelier was to inform him of her acceptance of a proposal of marriage from William Minnoch, a merchant who frequented her father’s house.
The arsenic itself was no isolated discovery in her narrative. Smith admitted having purchased it on three occasions, each time for sixpence, from two different apothecaries. She stated that she had used the substance as a cosmetic, dissolved in water for her face, neck, and arms. On March 18, she said, she had poured the entirety of the last parcel into a basin before washing. She claimed to have learned of this practice from a former schoolmate and to have read of it in the newspapers; she did not wish her family to discover her use of it.
Mary Jane Buchanan, who had accompanied Smith to the apothecary on March 6, confirmed one purchase. She recalled that the druggist had requested the young lady to sign the register, and that Smith had stated her intention to kill rats. The shopman had suggested a phosphorus paste, which Smith claimed had already been tried without success; the family was about to leave for Bridge of Allan, and she added that there would be no danger in leaving arsenic in the cellars. This testimony did not resolve the matter of its ultimate disposal: it merely juxtaposed the cosmetic explanation with the eradication of vermin avowed before the druggist.
A former schoolfellow, Augusta Giubilei, who had been a pupil-teacher at the academy, was subsequently examined. Smith had attributed to her the advice to apply arsenic to the skin. Giubilei denied ever having recommended such a practice or having discussed cosmetics with her. She did recall, however, a classroom reading concerning the peasant mountaineers of Styria, who were said to consume small quantities of arsenic to enhance their endurance and robustness. This recollection fell short of corroborating the alleged advice; it merely showed that the notion had been discussed within their school environment.
For nine days, the witnesses, medical experts, and advocates returned incessantly to the same exhibits: the letters, the note, the poison register, the chocolate, and the mineral powder found deposited in the stomach. The defence challenged the chronology of the supposed interviews and emphasized that not a single living witness had seen Smith administer the poison. The Crown urged the jury to connect the purchases of arsenic, the clandestine liaison, the pending marriage to Minnoch, and the sudden demise of L’Angelier. The prosecution rested entirely upon the convergence of circumstantial evidence, unbuttressed by any eyewitness account.
On July 9, 1857, following the Lord Justice-Clerk's summing up, the jury delivered a verdict by majority. On the first charge, they found Madeleine Smith "not guilty"; on the remaining two, "not proven." The panel was thereupon dismissed from the bar. The judicial outcome neither substantiated the capital charge nor presumed to elucidate the import of every letter, every February seizure, or the extraordinary dose detected in the remains. There remained an arsenic-induced death, a liaison whose nocturnal meetings were bitterly disputed, and a young gentlewoman whom the jury declined to condemn.