The first inquiry could not name that which had killed Elizabeth Harlett. When ten days had elapsed following her burial, rumours began to circulate; the coroner thereupon directed that the body be exhumed. The surgeons found the stomach and intestines inflamed, yet the initial verdict named no substance. Subsequent analyses brought arsenic to light. At the Huntingdon Assizes, James Inglett, aged ninety-four years, stood indicted for having caused the death of Elizabeth by administering this poison to her. The singular circumstances of the case, his great age, and his established reputation had excited lively interest throughout the shire, writes Pelham. For many long years, Inglett had laboured as a farmer and “cow-leech”; his experience in curing beasts had earned him the regard of the neighbourhood, where his conduct had ever appeared unblemished.
Elizabeth had fallen ill in 1840. The parish apothecary had endeavoured without success to restore her. At Christmas, her kinsfolk called in Inglett. He administered a liquid medicine that wrought great sickness upon her before any improvement showed. On the morning of Monday, 11 January, Inglett came to visit her. Pelham here transcribes the description given by a sister: “quite purely,” an expression whose precise import remains doubtful. Following his departure, a sister perceived a cup full of a liquid resembling the former remedy, resting upon the mantelpiece of the chamber where Elizabeth lay.
Three or four hours later, a sister returned. Elizabeth was in an evil case; the cup, now drained, stood upon the table. The vomiting and pains worsened as evening fell. The thirst grew near intolerable. She took opium pills and sank into a stupor on the morning of Wednesday, 13 January. Death ensued shortly thereafter. Nothing, in those early hours, aroused suspicion of foul play: she was committed to the earth as one who had died of natural causes. When ten days of interment had passed, murmurs spread touching the true cause of her demise; the coroner then ordered her exhumation.
Upon examination, the organs appeared sound, yet the stomach and bowels showed violent inflammation. The surgeons had not yet determined the nature of the substance. The coroner’s jury concluded that Elizabeth had died from the rash and improper administration by Inglett of “some noxious, inflammatory, and dangerous thing, to the jurors unknown.” He was accordingly committed to gaol for manslaughter. This first finding thus made no mention of arsenic, nor did it constitute the ultimate verdict rendered at the assizes.
The contents of the stomach had been preserved. The chemists applied salts of copper and silver, and thereafter hydrogen sulphide gas: green and yellow precipitates were formed. Arsenic itself was subsequently reproduced in a test that Pelham characterises as decisive. These trials established beyond doubt the presence of the poison in the stomach contents; to connect its administration with Inglett, the prosecution brought forward his purchase of the drug, his visit on the morning of her final seizure, and his converse with the family. A shopman from a chemist’s establishment testified that Inglett had purchased an ounce of arsenic some three or four months earlier. That purchase had then awakened no distrust: the old man employed the mineral in compounding ointments for cattle.
The proof of his act rested upon another piece of evidence, more equivocal than chemical analysis. On the morning of her death, Inglett had come to the house. When all was over, Elizabeth’s sister charged him with the deed: it was his “stuff” that had slain her. He answered that such could not be, for he had given her but half a grain; his own son and other persons, he added, had taken a grain or more without taking harm. The sister retorted that the medicine had perhaps proved too strong for Elizabeth’s stomach. Inglett made answer that such might well be the case, for that stomach was nearly destroyed. These words linked the man, the remedy, and the dose to the deceased woman’s malady, without of themselves establishing the manner in which the draught had been compounded.
On the day of the burial, according to the chronicle, he declared that he would not have done it for twenty pounds had he foreseen what would betide, for he had sought to do her good rather than harm. The family of Elizabeth bore willing witness to his kindness and to the tender care he had bestowed upon her throughout her illness. Yet such benevolence resolved not the question laid before the court: had he administered the arsenic, and, had he so done, with what measure of caution? The prosecution grounded its case upon the sister’s depositions, upon his morning visit, and upon his prior purchase of the poison.
At the Huntingdon Assizes, on 19 March 1841, Lord Chief Justice Tindal carefully distinguished the successive steps of reasoning required of the jury. It must first be proved that Elizabeth died from taking arsenic; next, that Inglett had administered it; the jurors were then to determine whether the care bestowed upon the remedy betrayed such gross negligence as to amount to manslaughter. His direction turned upon three sequential inquiries: the presence of the poison, its administration by Inglett, and the degree of precaution exercised in the employment of the medicine.
The jury retired, and returned after some deliberation. They found Inglett guilty. In passing sentence, Tindal observed that a man might administer a lethal poison without evil intent, nay, even with the purpose of easing a sufferer, yet was he bound to act with caution and to know the virtues and effects of his physic. Tindal explained that the medical administration of a deadly poison, if springing from gross ignorance or rash negligence and producing death, subjected the actor to a conviction for manslaughter; it was meet that the public should understand this responsibility. He remarked nevertheless that Inglett had already lain six weeks in prison, and that a severe penalty would, at his advanced age, be an act of wanton cruelty. He pronounced a sentence of fourteen days’ further imprisonment.
Pelham portrays an aged man attentive to the proceedings, whose mental and physical faculties seemed well-nigh unimpaired, and whose years, silver hair, and gentle name moved the court to deep compassion. The chronicler writes that Inglett’s sorrow arose from an act committed “unwittingly”; this reflection remains his own, whereas the verdict was founded solely upon negligence. Elizabeth Harlett remains the centre of the history: it was her cup, her exhumed frame, and her sister’s words that enabled the track of the poison to be followed. Published in 1891, the memoir summarises the trial of 1841 without reciting the official records.