nd effect of
aconitine, and as to there being no test for its discovery. Lamson
therefore had made the poisoning of this boy a careful and particular
study. He was not such a clumsy operator as to administer it in the
way suggested. The openness of that proceeding was to blind the eyes
of detectives and lawyers alike; the aconitine was conveyed to the
lad's stomach _by means of a raisin in the piece of Dundee cake which
Lamson cut with his penknife and handed to him_. He knew, of course,
the part of the cake where it was.

My attention was directed to the artifice employed by Lamson, by the
shallowness of the stratagem, and by the one circumstance that almost
escaped notice--namely, the Dundee cake and the curious desire of the
man to offer the boy a piece in so unusual a manner. So eager was he
to give him a taste that he must needs cut it with his _penknife_.
I was sure, and am sure now, although there is no evidence but that
which common sense, acting on circumstances, suggested, that the
aconitine was conveyed to the deceased by means of the piece of cake
which Lamson gave him, and being carefully placed in the interior of
the raisin, would not operate until the skin had had time to digest,
and he the opportunity of getting on his journey to Paris, whither
he was bound that night, to await, no doubt, the news of the boy's
illness and death.

If the poison had been conveyed in the capsule, its operation would
have been almost immediate, and so would the detection of the
aconitine. As I have said, the contrivance would have been too clumsy
for so crafty a mind. A detective would not expect to find the secret
design so foolishly exposed any more than a spectator would expect to
see the actual trick of a conjurer in the manner of its performance.

I was not able to bring the artifice before the jury; the Crown
had not discovered it, and Lamson's deep-laid scheme was nearly
successful. His plan, of course, was to lead the prosecution to
maintain that he gave the poison in the capsule, and then to compel
them to show that there was no evidence of it. The jury were satisfied
that the boy was poisoned by Lamson, and little troubled themselves
about the way in which it was done.

A singular case of mistaken identity came under my notice during the
trial of a serious charge of wounding with intent to do grievous
bodily harm. _Five_ men were charged, and the evidence showed that a
most brutal mutilation of a gamekeeper's