The Evening Spider (11 page)

           
October 19, 1879

               
I've spent the day reading, when Martha has allowed.

               
First, the known and provable facts:

               
There is no question that Herbert Hayden purchased arsenic on the day that Mary Stannard was murdered. He purchased it at Tyler's drugstore in Middletown. He admits it himself, and there are witnesses and records from the drugstore.

               
What is suspicious about this arsenic, however, is how long it took for investigators to find it. Prosecutors' men went to look for it in his barn (where he said he'd hidden it out of his children's reach) as soon as he admitted to purchasing it. But it couldn't be found! It was not until after his first acquittal and second arrest—weeks later—that a friend of Rev. Hayden's found it in the barn. This friend had searched the barn at the request of Rev. Hayden's defense lawyers.

               
Whatever is the story with that batch of arsenic, there is no question that arsenic was found in Mary Stannard's body. I will summarize the evidence of that further along.

               
What the defense is of course calling into question is whether the arsenic that Rev. Hayden purchased is in fact the arsenic that ended up in Mary Stannard's body. A full
ounce was found in his barn—and that is the amount Rev. Hayden purchased.

               
Also, the defense is very much pressing the possibility that arsenic was deviously introduced into the body after Mary's death, by someone intent on pinning the murder on Rev. Herbert Hayden. (Who, exactly, would have done this, the defense never says. Nonetheless, it appears to me that their strategy is to show errors in the doctors' and scientists' procedures, to show the many places where it could have happened. Though they appear to be hinting that Mary's half-sister Susan may have had reason or opportunity to do it.) This appears to be the strategy that they have been relying on most heavily over the past couple of days of testimony.

               
For example, a Dr. White was the one who first cut organs out of Mary's body—as her body lay on a board in front of her father's house, eight days after her death. He cut out her liver and her stomach and put them in glass jars. The defense made much of asking if the jars were clean, and how Dr. White was certain they were. Also of great concern was who might have had access to the keys of the strongbox into which those jars were subsequently stored.

               
Similar questions were posed to the doctor who later took out Mary's kidney (only one, as the other appears to have decomposed by then) and several other organs.

               
Harry's mentor, Dr. Johnson, took the stand after all of these experts. It was to him that all of Mary's organs were delivered for experimentation. He found arsenic in her stomach, liver, and brain.

               
The newspaper accounts ended there.

               
I have begun my plans to stay with Mother in New Haven, and to attend the trial with Harry next week.

           
October 22, 1879

               
I write this from New Haven. Tomorrow, I shall accompany Harry to the courtroom, where he has been viewing the murder trial with his colleagues for several days. I regret that I missed the first day of Dr. Edward Salisbury Dana's testimony, but I could not come to New Haven earlier. Matthew and Clara think I am here only to visit Mother, and Clara knows how the ladies' church group keeps Mother busy early in the week.

               
Harry says that during Dr. Johnson's testimony, before Dr. Dana took the stand, there was a fair amount of arsenic lying about the courtroom, from various packages brought into evidence. Dr. Johnson was explaining about different samples he'd procured from different stores, and how they were packaged. The defense attorney, Mr. Watrous, joked that the jury should “respectfully” refrain from inhaling the arsenic, “at least until you are through with this case.”

               
According to Harry, this Watrous thinks he is very entertaining. I can tell that Harry is very frustrated with him, as he has tried to trip up Dr. Johnson at every opportunity.

               
Harry gave me the details of today's testimony, and this is my understanding of it.

               
Dr. Dana spent all of July and August of this year traveling
to England and back, to strengthen his testimony. The purpose of his trip was to study the manufacture of arsenic. There are two manufacturers of arsenic there, from which most of the arsenic in the U.S. comes. He wanted to see if, due to specific conditions of the grinding process, arsenic prepared at different factories—or even in different batches from the same factory, ground at different times—could have visible differences when examined under a microscope.

               
He spoke of a very small crystal called an octahedron—eight-sided and 1/1,000 to 1/2,000 of an inch, even and brilliant under the microscope. They generally are too small to be affected by the grinding process. Under some manufacturing conditions, however, the arsenic has lumps before it is ground—and those lumps are crushed, producing irregular, jagged fragments that look very distinct from the octahedron.

               
Dr. Dana said that he'd collected samples of arsenic ground at different times from both factories. His testimony ended there and will continue tomorrow.

               
I am feeling very nervous, but I hope we get a seat in the courtroom! Harry will be coming by quite early to fetch me. Clara believes he is taking me on a tour of his lab, and then for a meal together.

           
October 23, 1879

               
We managed to get into the courtroom, and the testimony was riveting!

               
I had worried I would be one of very few women, and
therefore quite conspicuous, but I was not. There were many ladies in the courtroom. I felt less like an imposter for that reason, even though it wasn't clear to me how many of them had significant connection to the victim or the accused.

               
Dr. Dana was on the stand all day. He is so young, but so confident and engaging.

               
Later I teased Harry that he ought to be so accomplished by the time he is twenty-nine. He replied that all of the students in his circle secretly envy Edward Dana. He is like the little prince of Yale, son of Professor Wallace Dwight Dana and grandson—on the other side—of the famous Professor Silliman, about whom Father once spoke quite admiringly. Harry tells me that Edward's success is, despite his family connections, very much deserved. He has already written a textbook on mineralogy.

               
The testimony began with Dr. Dana explaining that he'd gotten several arsenic samples from one factory—from various batches produced between 1870 and August of this year.

               
He made a study of all of the samples and discovered that he could distinguish very easily between the batches. Depending on where and how and when the arsenic is ground, there is a large variation in the proportion of polished octahedrons to jagged fragments. The proportional differences were what made them so easy to distinguish.

               
When asked to explain why the batches were so proportionally different in distribution of octahedrons to fragments, Dr. Dana admitted that he did not know—that he
would have to study the factory conditions for a year or so to propose a theory.

               
To that, Mr. Watrous objected, saying that Dr. Dana should not waste the court's time with “theories,” as a man's life hangs on the case. The judge overruled him. It seemed, in any case, simply a way to put stress on the word “theory,” to taint all of Dr. Dana's findings with it. Dr. Dana, however, did not seem rattled! I am starting to understand Harry's frustration with Watrous. He does seem something of a windbag.

               
But I am getting to the most exciting part now, as from there Dr. Dana's testimony soon moved to the arsenic samples more directly related to the murder.

               
Dr. Dana was given 110 portions of arsenic by Dr. Johnson, Dr. White, and a few others. Some were of Rev. Hayden's “barn arsenic,” some of a Mr. Colegrove's arsenic (Colegrove bought arsenic at Tyler's drugstore in Middletown the same day as Hayden did), some of the arsenic found in Mary's stomach, and some from a Mr. McKee—a druggist across the street from Tyler's, from whom Mr. Tyler had gotten the arsenic he sold on that day. There were other samples among these, as well as repeated portions of some of the important ones—numbered but not labeled for Dr. Dana, to provide “checks” to his work. He correctly catalogued all of the samples, grouping together those that had come from the same source.

               
He then said that he carefully examined the Colegrove samples against Rev. Hayden's barn arsenic and found them quite distinct.

               
“I have no hesitation,” he said, “in saying that it is impossible that they should have come from the same source, or been manufactured at the same time.”

               
Oh, my goodness! I believe most everyone in that room understood what his words meant. The arsenic found in Rev. Hayden's barn was not the arsenic he bought the day of Mary Stannard's murder! What happened to THAT arsenic?

               
The lawyers had a little tussle after that, but I was so stunned that I do not recall what it was about. Dr. Dana went on to explain that the barn arsenic had a much higher percentage of the octahedron crystals.

               
Soon after, Dr. Dana was asked about his comparison of the Colegrove arsenic with that in Mary Stannard's stomach. He found them to match, except for some markings on the crystals that he attributed to exposure to solvents in the decomposition process. He described an experiment he did with some of the McKee arsenic—exposing it to water over the course of three weeks—and found similar marks. He showed diagrams of his findings, and then the court was adjourned shortly thereafter.

               
As Harry walked me back to Mother's house, we talked about that moment of revelation about the barn arsenic's dissimilarity to the Colegrove arsenic. He said that he was not surprised. Why wouldn't Herbert Hayden attempt to cover his crime? What surprised Harry was that it seemed likely that his lawyers had planted the replacement arsenic, not him. Sometimes I think Harry a bit naïve for a man of his age and intellectual ability.

               
Clara was cross with both of us when we arrived, saying
she had expected us hours earlier. We had no choice but to confess our whereabouts, as I had designs on going the next day to see Dr. Dana's testimony through. She was still irritated with us, but I could tell she was riveted by our report. She reluctantly agreed to take charge of Martha's care tomorrow if I promised to stay with Martha and Mother all of Saturday, so she could have a day in the city to do some errands.

           
October 24, 1879

               
It was somewhat tiresome, sitting in that courtroom all day today. Mr. Watrous, of course, tried to take down Dr. Dana's science. I am not sure if he succeeded, but I did witness some foggy expressions on the faces of a couple of jurors. He succeeded, perhaps, in muddling the science. He asked very many questions about the furnaces and their proximity to the condensing chambers at the arsenic factories. I found myself nodding off during this portion, and wouldn't be surprised if I saw a juror doing the same. When I managed to wake myself up, Mr. Watrous was presenting Dr. Dana with a scenario in which a laborer at the factory put a shovelful of fine crystals into the mill, bottled the arsenic, and then put in a shovelful consisting of bigger crystals and bottled that. Wouldn't there be significant differences between those two samples? Wouldn't they appear to be from different mills, when in fact they were not? Dr. Dana said no—that the differences between the different factories' products were consistent.

               
Throughout these sorts of questions, Dr. Dana maintained
that when samples contained significant differences, he could say “with perfect confidence” that they came from different sources.

               
His cross-examination will continue on Tuesday, but Clara and I are set to return to Haverton on Monday. Clara is eager to return to Jonathan.