Mysterious case of the poisoned scone plot that inspired Christie
THE 5FT 6IN immaculately attired former Major looked a strangely benign addition to Madame Tussauds Chamber of Horrors when his waxwork was unveiled. In real life, Herbert Rowse Armstrong seemed – to his clients and friends in the Welsh border town of Hay-on-wye – to be the embodiment of Edwardian respectability. But, a century on from becoming the only solicitor to have ever been hanged in Britain, debate still rages as to whether the punctilious family man, a clerk to the local magistrates court and a leading member of the local Freemasons Lodge, was actually a ruthless poisoner who killed his wife and attempted to murder a fellow solicitor with arsenic.
“It happened a century ago but it’s still one of the greatest ‘whodunnits’ of all time,” says Stephen Bates, author of a new book examining the life of Major Armstrong and the oddities of a sensational criminal trial that seemed to pose more questions than it answered.
The case of “the poisoner solicitor” played a huge role in the development of crime and detective fiction in the 1920s. Agatha Christie closely followed the case and fascination in the back story, trial and ultimate execution of the mild-mannered provincial lawyer spread internationally. Even the US press devoted pages to the curious saga.
Herbert Armstrong, in his early 50s as the story begins, lived what appeared to be an enviably comfortable life. He, his children and his wife Katherine lived in a sizable home called Mayfield in a hamlet called Cusop.
His legal practice was steady but began to lose business in the early 1920s, partly due to the arrival of an ambitious solicitor called Oswald Martin, who was poaching some of his clients.
But the patina of Herbert’s prosperous, quiet, middle class life masked a dire domestic situation.
Katherine was suffering from suicidal thoughts and had been hospitalised in an asylum for the treatment of what was then called “melancholia”, but what is now known as clinical depression.
Fanatical about her health, Katherine paid for an immense variety of mail order homeopathic remedies in an attempt to escape her condition. In February 1921 she died aged 47 after a violent gastric episode that put her in agonising pain for days before her body gave up. The cause of death was given as “gastritis”.
“There was no reason to suspect Armstrong at this time,” says Bates. “He could have quite easily gone on with his life. But there were definitely people in Hay who didn’t like him. People began putting two and two together.”
Armstrong caused a stir around Hay-on-wye by taking an extended sojourn to Sicily after the funeral where he dined with a number of women. This was scandalous behaviour for the era, particularly to the gossips of Hay.
But far more sinister accusations were levelled eight months later, when his rival Mr Martin sensationally claimed the widower had tried to poison him during a meeting at Mayfield.
He said Armstrong placed a poisoned scone on to his plate while uttering the phrase, “scuse fingers”.
The scone, Oswald claimed, after recovering from his subsequent illness, was laced with arsenic.
Not only that, but he also said Armstrong had anonymously sent him a box of expensive chocolates in the post, some of which also contained the same poison, most commonly used in weed killer.
When police came for Armstrong on a charge of attempted murder, arresting him at his office on New Year’s Eve 1921, they found a tiny amount of arsenic wrapped in paper in his pockets.
Armstrong claimed he regularly concocted weed killer with caustic soda and arsenic to use in his garden. He had openly bought the poison from a chemist in Hay and claimed he followed instructions to make the concoction, using it to kill dandelions on his lawn.
“But Katherine’s body was exhumed and they found three grains of arsenic – about half a paracetamol,” says Bates.
“So it’s possible that Armstrong could have poisoned her. But it’s also possible she took it deliberately to end her own life or accidently took a fatal dose from the homeopathic medicine she had.
“It was a totally different era then. You could just go to a chemist and buy a pound of arsenic. That’s why poison cases are so rare these days – it’s incredibly hard to get hold of the substance.”
The fact Katherine had spoken openly of committing suicide and had a raft of dubious mail order potions in their Mayfield home, some of which contained arsenic, cut little slack with the people of Hay and the national media.
WITH accusations emerging, but not proven, that Herbert had also forged Katherine’s will, he stood trial on April Fool’s Day 1922 in Herefordshire Assizes in front of a packed courtroom.
In a matter of months he had gone from being a respected solicitor to a widower fighting for his life on a charge of murder.
“The Major’s demeanour in court did him no favours with the public, jury or judge,” reveals
Bates. “He was a solicitor so answered questions very formally and factually, in a calm way, showing no emotion. The jury didn’t like that. The foreman said afterwards that Herbert had impressed them, but they didn’t believe him.”
The jury took just 40 minutes to reach a guilty verdict.
Major Armstrong was hanged on May 31, still protesting his innocence. One report claims his last words were, “I’m coming, Kate”.
A century on and the grisly story continues to fascinate. But was Major Armstrong guilty?
Bates is adamant Herbert would not have been found guilty in a trial today. “I don’t even think he would have come under suspicion,” argues Bates.
“But there are other stories that make the whole thing even more confusing.” One is the case of Frank Talbot, a distinguished barrister who lived into the 1990s.
In the National Archives Bates found a statement Talbot gave to police after Armstrong was arrested: “Talbot claimed he played bridge with Armstrong and some friends one evening and was offered a cigarette of Armstrong’s before he left. He was violently ill later that night and his doctor told him the following day he could smell arsenic on his breath.
“When police searched Armstrong’s house they found the cigarette case. It had one other cigarette inside and it was tested and found to contain arsenic.”
So was Herbert using Talbot as a practise run before attempting to kill Oswald and his own wife?
Bates says: “If you put a gun to my head and asked me if he was guilty or not, then I’d still say not. It certainly counts as ‘not proven’ by today’s legal standards.
“But there are definitely some doubts. It’s impossible to be sure of what Herbert was really up to.” ● The Poisonous Solicitor by Stephen Bates is published by Icon Books (£18.99)