Speaker 1: This is Alton Wells speaking from London.
Speaker 2: Black Museum, Stopping Yard, Museum of Murder.
Speaker 1: Here in a grim stone structure on.
Speaker 2: The Thames which houses scoff and Yard, is a warehouse
Speaker 2: of homicide. Well everyday objects.
Speaker 1: Things like a packet of matches, a colossi parts, a
Speaker 1: very knife.
Speaker 2: Oh I touched fine murder, a hair is, a pint bottle,
Speaker 2: labels meatsjuice. That's you've seen one of these if grandmother
Speaker 2: said that so one fact when you were a child,
Speaker 2: you man and fair meat use for the islands strength.
Speaker 2: It contained from just such a small glass bottle. Yet
Speaker 2: there it is, in the midst of all the other
Speaker 2: relics of.
Speaker 3: This well insteator.
Speaker 1: What do you think, mister Heron, We did our best.
Speaker 1: A little bit of quite sediment at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the bottle. See if they're still you know what?
Speaker 3: That is?
Speaker 1: Yes, arsenic and to me.
Speaker 3: At least the means of murdering my brother.
Speaker 2: Of to day that bottle of meat juice can be
Speaker 2: seen in the Black Museum.
Speaker 1: From the annals of the Criminal Investigation Department of the
Speaker 1: London Police, we bring you the dramatic.
Speaker 2: Story of the crimes recorded by the objects in Scotland
Speaker 2: Yards Gallery of Death, the Black Museum.
Speaker 4: In just a moment you will hear the Black Museum
Speaker 4: starring awesome world.
Speaker 2: Here we are a Black Museum, Scotland Yards.
Speaker 1: You see him.
Speaker 2: Yes, here are all these castry labeled weapons labeled in boxes.
Speaker 2: And violence here is something unexpected violent deaths.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Resence is a small mule conch as you might find
Speaker 2: in any lady's hand bag that had printing ladies.
Speaker 1: This one once inspect to escape teen girls or brown hair,
Speaker 1: and what she.
Speaker 2: Saw reflected up nearly disordered beauty. She saw murders striking.
Speaker 1: As here and it's the bottle of label beat juice.
Speaker 2: Obsolete archaics type of writing on this label repeat with
Speaker 2: flourishes and shading, no prosaic typing, hand written by an
Speaker 2: ext ft ten.
Speaker 1: And this was only naturale in the eighteen nineties. And
Speaker 1: this bottle became a focus of the odds, even a
Speaker 1: very disturbing situation.
Speaker 5: Of course, on the surface, the Hammond family, Liverpool, England
Speaker 5: eighteen ninety two displayed no evil, always happiness on the scenes.
Speaker 1: That salary to the great events. Good, Oh, forgive me
Speaker 1: a bottle? What did they there?
Speaker 2: You have it, my dear, my own brother doesn't remember
Speaker 2: our wedding anniversary and your anniversary old name?
Speaker 3: Which one I at Arthur eight years of happiness, not
Speaker 3: to mention six years of our son and author you forgot,
Speaker 3: perhaps because I.
Speaker 1: Wasn't to the wedding.
Speaker 3: That's right, Robert met me and we were engaged in America,
Speaker 3: because we were married here with my aunt changed exactly
Speaker 3: while I was in America myself.
Speaker 1: Well, with all that straightened, ud, shall we post the occasion?
Speaker 3: After all?
Speaker 1: How many times it's a pleasant family gathering on a
Speaker 1: pleasant family occasion.
Speaker 2: Nothing evil on the surface. Of course, undercurrents do show themselves.
Speaker 2: Occasion almost three o'clock the time I took my medicine.
Speaker 1: Yes year, which one is it? This time?
Speaker 3: The liquid or that happens?
Speaker 1: I took the liquid tool that means the tablets now
Speaker 1: they are.
Speaker 3: Oh, you have no idea as for what it means
Speaker 3: at my age having to head my bustles.
Speaker 1: Uncle stands me.
Speaker 2: Aye, I really don't your rhypo condriac Robert hetch taste
Speaker 2: the truth, no laughing matter of these sedatives, well, I
Speaker 2: learned all about them when I was an America lost one.
Speaker 1: Contains art Nick the other has spected in it all.
Speaker 1: Now you are Joki. I'm not in very small quantities,
Speaker 1: but pison.
Speaker 6: Nevertheless, here are your tablet's loater, Dear, thank you, thank
Speaker 6: you for everything.
Speaker 1: It's not easy, I know, for God, be married to
Speaker 1: a man twice.
Speaker 3: For an age don't very ridiculous, Robert. I'm very happy,
Speaker 3: and so would you be if you let yourself honestly.
Speaker 1: Others, sometimes I.
Speaker 2: Think you detect the undercones, the constant harp being their
Speaker 2: fifty year old husband on the fact is white.
Speaker 1: It's not your thirty all. The evil is there deep
Speaker 1: down underground, but it's there. I would hardly say it
Speaker 1: came to the surface.
Speaker 3: An incidents such as this, I think someone.
Speaker 2: Might he just a note to the Plaza hotel in London.
Speaker 1: He Plaza, London. Yeah, I had word this morning. Aunt
Speaker 1: Rose is video and there's no one to stay with her.
Speaker 3: You've been out all day, so I've written to rest
Speaker 3: room to save time before I could.
Speaker 1: Yes, of course you want to go party can watch her.
Speaker 3: But David, I suppose Doty is a jeweler man servants Dear,
Speaker 3: of course she can excellent.
Speaker 2: I saw doctor Hubert's day my dear, he's not at
Speaker 2: all satisfied with my condition. However, we shall see he's
Speaker 2: given me an evil to him who evil thinks. Perhaps still,
Speaker 2: the bleeding between plants a niece at the Plaza Hotel
Speaker 2: in London was something to think about it, Dolly, Oh.
Speaker 1: So long, too long, my bloodd too long.
Speaker 4: But now, my sweet three whole days together, three glorious days, Oh, John.
Speaker 1: An interesting irons, would you say, particularly when the.
Speaker 7: Young white is half her husband's aid. Now, there were
Speaker 7: some things which Ruth Hammond had in common with her husband.
Speaker 7: One was a love of horses, horse racing.
Speaker 2: They followed them. Upon the time for the Grand National arrived,
Speaker 2: Robert pulled himself together and took his wife to the
Speaker 2: world famous race. And then an incident took place relevant
Speaker 2: to the story.
Speaker 3: Oh it's wonderful, Robert, just wonderful.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, my dear. To imagine running into.
Speaker 3: You here, John, John, the gentleman seems to know.
Speaker 1: You, my dear.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, mister John Browney, my husband, how do.
Speaker 1: You doing well? Thank you? You as well as can
Speaker 1: be expected.
Speaker 3: John's no friend of mine, Robert, aren't you?
Speaker 1: John? Yes, I think I can say, I am. Don't
Speaker 1: you join us?
Speaker 3: There's plenty of room in our box, and I'm.
Speaker 1: Sure we'll be happy to have a casual meeting. Is
Speaker 1: simple introduction of gesture of hospitality.
Speaker 2: But who would expect a circumspect young woman to cast
Speaker 2: cut from land.
Speaker 1: Good behavior to the winds? Bobby?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Where were you?
Speaker 3: The past day is with you?
Speaker 1: I left her at the racetrack?
Speaker 3: Won't she be along? Since I don't care what you
Speaker 3: mean or what she does? Robert, Robert can never forgive.
Speaker 2: Me if you must make an exhibition of your self, Ruth,
Speaker 2: must it.
Speaker 1: Be in public?
Speaker 3: Is thereveryone care about your public pride?
Speaker 1: I ought to by you from my dead and body that,
Speaker 1: even when for my son, I would.
Speaker 3: Please please forgive me. I'll never have to like that again.
Speaker 1: John Rowling is out of my life through me. Very well.
Speaker 1: We shall see got it? Yes, sir, forguess what you've
Speaker 1: seen here? Understand forget it all? And now does the
Speaker 1: husband's turn to visit London? Robert Hammond weather it's a
Speaker 1: specialist about his nerves, about the pains he believed came
Speaker 1: from a b From a specialist. He went directly to
Speaker 1: a chemist shop.
Speaker 3: I'd like this prescription field please here a good sair
Speaker 3: in Can you.
Speaker 1: Make it up quickly?
Speaker 2: He said, he is a candidate and you have to
Speaker 2: sign a receipt for this preparation that it contains stickening.
Speaker 1: My wife too, was visiting a chemist, a chemist in Liverpool.
Speaker 3: Anything else now, No, I think that completes the list.
Speaker 3: Oh nos, I'd almost forgotten tie papers. You do have
Speaker 3: thie papers, don't.
Speaker 1: Yes, ma'am, any particular brand.
Speaker 3: No, but I prefer the strongest you have. I hate
Speaker 3: to see anything linger longer than necessary.
Speaker 1: Ruth Hammond took her purchases with her at home. She
Speaker 1: ranked the maid.
Speaker 3: You love them? Yes? Isn't any hot water on the stove?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yes, we must cook as kIPS kettle boiling very well, Dottie.
Speaker 3: I want the kettle and the dish. Can I have
Speaker 3: the sup and tie paper. That's a juggist for a
Speaker 3: chemist you'd call him in America.
Speaker 1: Showed me how to obtain the.
Speaker 2: Arctic from fly David.
Speaker 3: It's part of a preparation to keep the complexion fresh.
Speaker 3: And my skin is none too good these days.
Speaker 1: Dotted fixed the kettle in the fish hand.
Speaker 3: Will you please thank you.
Speaker 1: Perhaps nothing more would have been thought about that, about
Speaker 1: the quarrel in the hall, if another event about the credos.
Speaker 2: Immediately Robert Hammond fell ill, not merely the imagine the
Speaker 2: illness of the hypochondract with an actual illness. Doctor Hubert
Speaker 2: was called manic examination.
Speaker 1: Then may I see you a moment, Missus Hammond in
Speaker 1: cost not the lt. I'm possibles by mister Hammond's symptoms.
Speaker 3: His heart seems from enough be de complained.
Speaker 1: The chest page and the conference fortin you.
Speaker 3: I'm boied, Missus Hammond. Have you no diagnosis?
Speaker 1: I preferred a consultations. Stop the consultation to learn it.
Speaker 1: Doctors probed and listens and probed again.
Speaker 2: By then wait after huberts to die there and waited
Speaker 2: outside the sacred not to Davis address himself of the problem.
Speaker 1: I don't like it, Hubert. All that chine is the plad.
Speaker 8: Symptom of our cynical poisoning, the man injting himself with
Speaker 8: our clinical medicine.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I know those compounds. You know. The
Speaker 1: arsenic is minute Hubert, who is nursing him by his wife,
Speaker 1: of course, and I, with some help from the maid,
Speaker 1: I want a registered nurse in there and no one else.
Speaker 1: You don't suspect anything day this. I want to convent
Speaker 1: suspicion if I can get a nurse in there as
Speaker 1: soon as possible. Mean why you will prescribe tonics? He
Speaker 1: chooses a mesttle thing.
Speaker 2: I want the bubbles watched night and day, the medicine,
Speaker 2: the patients to nurse, all that's in the signal, everything
Speaker 2: and everyone else outside, including the lovely wife, Yes, including
Speaker 2: the lovely wife that the day bttle of meat juice
Speaker 2: just seen Black mus In just a moment we will
Speaker 2: continue with the Black Museum.
Speaker 3: Starring Awesome Well.
Speaker 1: Eighteen ninety two.
Speaker 2: A man might die slowly for unexplained reasons without benefit
Speaker 2: of laboratory tests, gastric TESTI examinations, any of the aids
Speaker 2: to life and living which grace hard times sixty years later.
Speaker 2: The doctors in eighteen ninety two did their level best.
Speaker 2: They used their knowledge well as if.
Speaker 1: It came to placing a nurse in charge, denying.
Speaker 2: A wife access to the sick room, or nearly ordering
Speaker 2: concentrated meat juss atomic. They performed their functions according to
Speaker 2: the time in which they lived. Thus it came about
Speaker 2: that Robert Hammond suffered in his bed. Ruth Hammond was
Speaker 2: ordered from his room, and his brother Arthur came to
Speaker 2: stay in that tense for boarding household.
Speaker 3: Yes I did, ash, said mistress sir. She asked me
Speaker 3: please to mail this letter that let us open. Oh please,
Speaker 3: I can explain. Get on with it. I'll take it
Speaker 3: to the post box and I'll dropped distant beyond and
Speaker 3: Outpris thirty.
Speaker 1: You can see the Marster I see but one else.
Speaker 1: I wanted to change the nplson.
Speaker 3: Stad it opened.
Speaker 9: I couldn't help read the beginning stain you gardeners.
Speaker 3: Play for the bans.
Speaker 1: And dressed to mister.
Speaker 2: John Browneys, is it necessary to add more to report
Speaker 2: the contents of that poor, indiscreet love letter.
Speaker 1: I doubted the letter read, and then put away. Arthur
Speaker 1: Hammond strode to his brother's room. Called the nurse's side.
Speaker 1: I want you to keep special watch Getty, special watch nurse, And.
Speaker 6: Under no circumstances omit, Missus Hammond, anywhere near these medicines.
Speaker 1: But even a nurse's rest in two an hour off
Speaker 1: each day, this nurse is replaced by Dotty Hammond's maid.
Speaker 3: Oh, Missus Hammon of the topic. Sis, you're not becoming mere.
Speaker 1: Please don't be ridiculous, doti.
Speaker 3: Of course, my dear, have they been keeping you away
Speaker 3: from me? Oh? Please? Are these all your meds? Miss Robert? Yes?
Speaker 1: Most of them out filthy tasty, poor Robert.
Speaker 3: Oh, ma'am, you're not supposed to touch with me. You
Speaker 3: stn't be bad, Robert, m it certainly smells good, my
Speaker 3: good rare steak oom. I wouldn't mind taking it myself.
Speaker 3: You'll leave other pills.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't you mind taking it yourself? Missus Hammond? I wonder
Speaker 1: now then I'm.
Speaker 2: Not alone in that brother Arthur wanted to had he worried,
Speaker 2: particularly when he found you alone in the pantry washing
Speaker 2: medicine bottles, Hiru, washing bottles.
Speaker 1: Isn't that dot his work?
Speaker 3: This is at least I can do for my husband,
Speaker 3: even I'm not allowed to see.
Speaker 1: But you did see him yesterday.
Speaker 3: And if I did, who has a better right?
Speaker 8: I'm not speaking of rights, route, I'm speaking of wrongs.
Speaker 3: If you have something of which you wish to accuse me,
Speaker 3: why don't you?
Speaker 6: I may you see I had the leak too, shoe
Speaker 6: hander yesterday analyzed I see you did it contained arsenic,
Speaker 6: and you insinuate.
Speaker 1: I put it there.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 3: I did put something in that bottle. Robert ar Smitchel,
Speaker 3: some powdery head in a small box. He told me
Speaker 3: it all. It gave him relief, and the doctors had
Speaker 3: forbidden it.
Speaker 1: I see they forbade it. Well, my dear sister in law,
Speaker 1: we shall see what we shall see.
Speaker 2: They saw sooner as twenty four hours later, a weeping
Speaker 2: dartis old brother Arthur.
Speaker 3: The doctor's death. Just as I where to go, so
Speaker 3: cricket came. No, don't try to call anybody not keeping you.
Speaker 8: Mister, doctor Hubert stated, I personally will not certify his
Speaker 8: death until there has been a piste bottom by doctor Davis,
Speaker 8: and doctor Davis reported this was due.
Speaker 2: To aggravated inflammation of internal organs. The body contains something
Speaker 2: less than half a grain of arsenic. I recommend an
Speaker 2: immediate investigation by the police.
Speaker 1: Enter Inspector Adams the CID. What's your opinion of the
Speaker 1: Hubert as an expert on this case. It will be
Speaker 1: very difficult to have an opinion, Inspector.
Speaker 8: You see, mister Hammond was a too hypocondriac, always still
Speaker 8: seeing himself with patent's medicines, all kinds of prescriptions. But
Speaker 8: the man's dead, and added to the difficulties that there
Speaker 8: seems no really natural cause.
Speaker 3: For his passing.
Speaker 1: Thank you doctor, not at all, Inspector, anything I can
Speaker 1: do for him?
Speaker 2: From a doctor's office, the inspector made his way to
Speaker 2: the House of Mourning. There his first object to inquire
Speaker 2: was Arthur Hammond. So you are suspicious of the cause
Speaker 2: of death, wouldn't.
Speaker 1: You be, Inspector?
Speaker 3: I need more facts in my positionion.
Speaker 1: The os are things as libel or, sir, and charges
Speaker 1: of false arrest. Perhaps you'll be interested in this, Inspector.
Speaker 2: What is it? A letter written by the widow to
Speaker 2: High London Paramoa and discovered.
Speaker 1: Quite by accident. Thank you anything else, mister Allan, what
Speaker 1: you think might be? There were several things which brother Arthur.
Speaker 2: Brought to the attention to the inspector, and these in
Speaker 2: turn brought Garthy into the presence of the man from
Speaker 2: the yard list. There's Mammy bef I can get what's
Speaker 2: all this about your mistress? And a bottle of mistus if.
Speaker 3: Hit something in the bottle, cut the bottles here it is, sir, did.
Speaker 1: Anyone else touch this? Bottle beside Missus Helen.
Speaker 3: She got the medicine proper. She did watch better than
Speaker 3: her course.
Speaker 1: I see, then you are prepared to swear that no
Speaker 1: one touched the bottle before or after Missus Hammond except.
Speaker 3: The mess Yes, sir, oh swear sir? You mean in
Speaker 3: a child like inspector?
Speaker 1: Yes, Megir, hadn't you thought of it before the police
Speaker 1: gave it? The questioning completed to the moment Inspector Adams gave.
Speaker 2: It instructions, Sergeant, I don't heaven house sets from top
Speaker 2: to bottom.
Speaker 1: Here's a wallet. Get away.
Speaker 2: The sergeant took a crew and did go to work.
Speaker 2: Every milk and granny at the old house was seen.
Speaker 1: Two closet walls were founded in such a secret.
Speaker 2: Panel's heart stones were pride loose. Even the cold then
Speaker 2: was emptied. Sergeant Hall reported back to the inspector. Here
Speaker 2: it is, say, I'll stick all over the place. It
Speaker 2: followed it the next morning, I have a warrant for
Speaker 2: your arrest Missus Heaven. The charge is wilful letter. It
Speaker 2: was a celebrated trial. The court room in Liverpool was
Speaker 2: packed with the curious, the cruel, and the very very
Speaker 2: few who found some sympathy in their feelings. The newspapers
Speaker 2: enjoyed their traditional field day with the lourid scandalous details
Speaker 2: of the story really pregnant. Details of the case were few, however,
Speaker 2: simple and contradictory.
Speaker 1: Arsenic was found in the possession of the prisoner. She
Speaker 1: did not deny it with hers.
Speaker 2: Doctor Davis testified concerning the post morton. I found a
Speaker 2: little less than half a grain of arsenic in the
Speaker 2: body he has darted. But would you say that this
Speaker 2: poison was the cause of death? I would, And then
Speaker 2: the contradictions set him. I asked the same question. Doctor
Speaker 2: Hubert replied, no, I would.
Speaker 3: Not say so, and certainly not in the case of
Speaker 3: this patient.
Speaker 1: Ah, why not?
Speaker 3: Miss Diamond had.
Speaker 8: Accustomed himself over the years in taking arsenic in small hauntities.
Speaker 1: He was used to it.
Speaker 2: The prosecution countered this with the Liverpool chemist, whom missus
Speaker 2: Hammond had visited.
Speaker 1: While her husband was in London. She came in that
Speaker 1: morning with a list.
Speaker 2: The flypaper was not on the list. The chemist had
Speaker 2: no idea what Ruth Hamid had wanted with the flypaper.
Speaker 3: However, Doughty did, Yes, Sir. She bought the arsenic out
Speaker 3: of the fly pape, borrowed it out whatever for she said,
Speaker 3: to make something for a complexion. She told me she
Speaker 3: died about it in America.
Speaker 1: Sir, And did you darthy ever see her use such
Speaker 1: a preparation?
Speaker 3: Nonswir, I never did.
Speaker 1: Of the defense well. In eighteen ninety two, the accused
Speaker 1: did not testify himself defense. The accused was permitted, however,
Speaker 1: to make a statement and.
Speaker 3: Look, my Lord justice, with your permission, my lord, twa things.
Speaker 3: I did soak the flypapers for the arsenic they contained.
Speaker 9: I made a cosmetic preparation from it, which I learned
Speaker 9: about from doctor.
Speaker 3: Henry Maysfield in Brooklyn, New York, when I lived there.
Speaker 3: I did put clowder into my husband's medicine. He asked
Speaker 3: me too.
Speaker 9: This was a preparation he brought back from London, which
Speaker 9: had helped him times before.
Speaker 3: But which his doctors year refused to give him. Finally,
Speaker 3: my Lord, I wish to state that for the state
Speaker 3: of our son, for.
Speaker 9: David's sake, my husband and I had a complete reconciliation,
Speaker 9: and on the day before his death, I made a
Speaker 9: full confession of the terrible wrong I had done him.
Speaker 2: The jury retired the court waited, the President waited, the
Speaker 2: crowds waited. Hours passed, then a knock on the locked
Speaker 2: door of the jury room. Bailey opened the twelve good
Speaker 2: men and crew file back and the jury boxes. The
Speaker 2: judge's gabble rights the prodcast performan to rise and face
Speaker 2: the prison. He told the traditional question, gentlemen of the jury,
Speaker 2: have you reached a verdict? We have and what is
Speaker 2: your verdict? We find the prisoner guilty of pre meditative murder,
Speaker 2: and today the bottle of METU's, the decisive clue in
Speaker 2: this case, is still to be found in the Black Museum.
Speaker 4: Austin Wells will be back with you in just a moment.
Speaker 4: Well they didn't hang Ruth Hammond now, despite the fact
Speaker 4: that public sentiment was so much against her.
Speaker 2: At the start of the trial, he changed quite drastically
Speaker 2: once she had been sentenced to hanging. Letters telegrams poured
Speaker 2: into the Home Office and took a London Times, and
Speaker 2: her reprieve was granted, and after many long years in prison,
Speaker 2: Ruth Hammond was released. She returned to America to die,
Speaker 2: there forever silent about the crime for which she had
Speaker 2: been furnished. The judge himself, when asked concerning her guilt
Speaker 2: or innocence, replied only.
Speaker 1: I never did express an opinion.
Speaker 2: And how the next time we meet here in the
Speaker 2: Black Museum for another story.
Speaker 1: Her reign is always obediently illness