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By Root 174 0

offences. Arsenic had been found in the last batch of parcels, and Edmunds was also known to have purchased arsenic as well as strychnine. Secondly, those who had received the recent poisoned gifts all appeared to know the Beards or have some knowledge of the poisoning case. Most significantly, the name of Maynard’s kept returning. It was Christiana who had drawn attention to herself and to Maynard’s at the time of the inquest into Sidney Barker’s death, when she had provided evidence of her own poisoning. Now, a handwriting expert concluded that the addresses appended to the parcels, the signatures of ‘Mrs Wood’ in Mr Garrett’s books, and even the notes handwritten to Sidney Barker’s father, were all by the same author as that August letter to Dr Beard. The handwriting was a direct match. That author had also been a regular customer at the sweet shop, placing herself at the centre of all that had gone on in Brighton that summer. The direction of the prosecution changed, probably to Dr Beard’s great relief. The case was no longer about his wife, and his relationship with Christiana. On 7th September, Edmunds was charged with the murder of Sidney Barker, and it was this new charge on which she would stand indicted.

The story now suggested by the prosecution was that after Christiana’s failed attempt to poison Emily Beard in September 1870, her subsequent poisoning spree had been occasioned by a wish to blame Maynard’s for the whole affair. The suggestion was that by casting guilt elsewhere, Christiana believed she could reassure Charles that he had no grounds to banish her. The truth was that no one was really sure what she had hoped to achieve. An alternative argument doing the rounds was that Christiana had taken to experimenting in preparation for a renewed attempt to kill the obstacle to her own, personal happiness. Throughout the spring and summer of 1871, these experiments had been meted out allegedly on animals and innocent passers-by, with different dosages of poison being trialled and the results noted. Whatever, it was all sensational stuff, and while some of these ideas were purely supposition, the notion of Edmunds’s unrequited love driving her to murder was one all too eagerly consumed by the press.

The case was scheduled to be heard at the Lewes Assizes, close to Brighton, until it was felt impossible to find a jury who would not be prejudiced by what they had read in the newspapers. Instead, Edmunds was taken by train to Newgate Prison in London, and her case was heard at the Old Bailey on the 15th and 16th January 1872. She was placed on trial for the murder of Sidney Barker.

The circumstances of the case had set tongues wagging all over the metropolis, and it was not surprising to find the court room full of journalists and other onlookers. Christiana did not disappoint them, appearing once more before the court resplendent in black, this time of velvet with a fur trim. She was bareheaded, and though her age was stated to be thirty-five, for the first time her audience could see that she might be older than those stated years. Her black hair was parted centrally and plaited, so that it was drawn back and down the back of her head. The Times reporter was rather uncomplimentary, suggesting that she had a ‘long and cruel’ chin, her lower jaw ‘massive, and animal in its development’. Despite that, he was prepared to concede that ‘the profile is irregular, but not unpleasing’, and that there was ‘considerable character in its upper features’. Her lips occasionally pressed together in a look of ‘comeliness’ that turned to ‘absolute grimness’. The portrait was painted: a woman who thought herself more than she was, an amatory, predatory woman. It is this caricature that has stayed with her.

She took copious notes of proceedings, her dark eyes flashing up and down as she dipped her pen into the inkwell. The evidence from the earlier hearings was repeated, of poisons purchased and of love gone bad. There were more witnesses by now, various people had come forward to say that Edmunds sent boys to buy sweets for