On the occasion in question, Neal sent James Archer, a lodger who lived at his house, to collect daff for Hardaker's humbugs from druggist Charles Hodgson. Hodgson's pharmacy was away at Baildon Bridge in Shipley. Hodgson was at his pharmacy, but did not serve Archer owing to illness and so his requests were seen to by his young assistant, William Goddard. Goddard asked Hodgson where the daff was, and was told that it was in a cask in a corner of the attic. However, rather than daff, Goddard sold Archer of arsenic trioxide.