They Hanged My Saintly Billy (17 page)

When I told Eliza: 'For your sake, I'll remain silent. You have been a good girl, I believe!', she fell on her knees and kissed my hands. She must have delivered Annie's message to the Doctor; as I judged from his behaviour at the funeral, where he stood in the pew, with tears coursing visibly down his face, and sobbing loudly throughout the service. When the sad moment came for the coffin to be lowered into the Palmer vault, he cried aloud: 'I want to die, O God! I want to go to Heaven, with my darling treasure!'

Afterwards he said to me: 'I shall never forget your love and loyalty to my poor wife! But oh, how des
olate my life will be henceforth
.' He laid a peculiar emphasis on the words 'love' and 'loyalty' which was, I suppose, his way of hinting that Eliza had reported our conversation, and that he thanked me for my promise to keep silent.

When the funeral had ended, he drove little Willie over to my brother's house, with all his clothes and toys, where my sister-in-law hugged him affectionately, saying: 'I'm your new mamma now, and hope you'll love me as I do you.' Dr Palmer promised to visit the child often and, what is more, kept his promise. He doted on Willie. But foul-minded people said that this was a sham, to conceal a guilty passion for my sister-in-law. How I detest this gossip-ridden town!

I puzzled for a long time about the other crime, besides suicide, to which Annie had confessed; but it is only lately that the truth has come out. Dr Palmer, I'm told, was in extreme difficulties for money, having borrowed from moneylenders at a ruinous rate of interest, and the sole security he could offer—except the racehorses, which he counted upon to restore his credit—was the fortune of his mother, old Mrs Palmer, reputedly worth seventy thousand pounds. She is a shrewd lady, however, and though doubtless he asked her help, must have been convinced that his one sure way out of trouble would be to declare himself bankrupt. Mrs Palmer loved him dearly and would afterwards, I feel certain, have relieved his distress—on condition that he promised to abandon
the
Turf and resume his medical career.

The Doctor is no hunting man; yet I can say, metaphorically, of his business career, that he has never been able to rein in his mount, nor does he baulk at any fence or five-barred gate. He rides straight ahead to his destruction. He decided to raise loans from the moneylenders on the security of old Mrs Palmer's estate, though without her knowledge; and this meant that he must forge her signature to every acceptance of indebtedness. But to imitate a female hand was beyond his power; so he persuaded Annie to commit the forgery. How he overcame her scruples I can only guess: perhaps he assured her that this was no more than a temporary expedient, to satisfy a pressing creditor, and that money would come from another source within a few days, enabling him to regain and destroy the forged acceptance. At all events, for love of him she became guilty of a crime which, if detected, would have earned her a long prison sentence.

I believe myself that Annie's dawning realization of his inability to redeem these forged acceptances prompted her suicide. She hoped that the insurance money would straighten out his affairs, and trusted that her self-sacrifice would be a harsh enough lesson to make him abandon his spendthrift ways for ever.

My brother tells me that Dr Palmer profited to the extent of thirteen thousand pounds. At Annie's insistence, he had applied for insurance to the value of well over thirty thousand pounds at various first-rate offices, including (I believe) The Gresham, The Prince of Wales, The Scottish Equitable, The Atlas, The Norwich Union, and The Sun—of which Jeremiah Smith was the agent. After much correspondence and qu
ibbling about terms, he had settl
ed with The Prince of Wales for thirteen thousand pounds; and The Prince of Wales had sub-contracted with The Scottish Equitable and The Sun for three thousand pounds apiece. He nearly succeeded in getting twelve thousand pounds more from The Solicitors' and General, but that insurance fell through because, as it happened, they also tried to sub-contract with The Sun; and The Sun replied that they were already engaged to assist The Prince of Wales in insuring the very same person for thirteen thousand pounds. The Solicitors' and General smelt a rat. They knew that to insure the life of a woman who had an annuity of two hundred pounds, and no expectations, for a sum of twenty-five thousand pounds would be absurd: the premium must enormously exceed the value of the annuity.

The first and only premium paid to The Prince of Wales was seven hundred and sixty pounds; but though, my brother tells me, the official at The Sun who had been in treaty with The Solicitors' and General urged The Prince of Wales to refuse payment until a rigid inquiry had been made into the circumstances of Annie's death, the policy could not be invalidated. Three doctors had signed the certificate, pronouncing English cholera to have been the cause, and The Sun's own agent, Mr Jeremiah Smith, signed a sworn statement that nothing was amiss. The Prince of Wales therefore sent Dr Palmer a thirteen-thousand-pound cheque. Yet even that immense sum proved insufficient to wipe out his indebtedness. He still owed two thousand pounds to Mr Padwick, the commission-agent: a loan covered by another forged acceptance in old Mrs Palmer's name.

The Doctor's rep
utation as a poisoner had recentl
y increased; and when news of the insurance payment spread—for he deposited the cheque in the Market Square Bank at Rugeley—he found himself looked upon as a sort of leper. Old friends would cross the street when they saw him approaching. The only female who comforted him—besides his sister Sarah and old Mrs Palmer, both of whom continued affectionate as ever—was Eliza Tharm. He hated to sleep alone, and now that Eliza's moral obligations to Annie were at an end, she became his mistress and cared for him pretty well, I must say; though the affair disgusted me, as taking place so soon after Annie's death.

Chapter X
I

A
GOOD LIFE

I
T would not be amiss at this point to give a short description of "Walter Palmer who, like his brother William, suffered from a fatal taste for racing and betting. Walter, a large, heavy, simple-hearted, drunken man, had been placed as a youth with Messrs Procter and Company, Corn Merchants, of Brunswick Street, Liverpool, to learn the business. He remained in their employment until, coming of age and inheriting the same sum as his four brothers, namely seven thousand pounds, he set up as a corn factor at Stafford. Familiarly known as 'Watty', he was a great favourite
among members of the trade, both
in Liverpool, where he continued to pay a weekly visit to the Corn Exchange, and in his new home. He courted a ladylike and elegant wife, by name Agnes Milcrest, who enjoyed an income of four hundred and fifty pounds a year, and was a sister-in-law of his elder brother Joseph. Joseph's wife, having by this time taken the measure of
the
family she had married into, and found that it fell considerably short of the ideal, warned Agnes against making the same mistake as herself; but to no avail. Walter already drank far more spirits than suited his health, and devoted considerably closer attention to his betting-book than his ledger; if Agnes hoped to redeem him, she came too late. His bankruptcy, in
1849,
had the unfortunate effect of limiting his interests. He took no pleasure in reading, or in music, and since the corn trade could no longer afford to support him, nor could he afford to visit the racecourse, there was little left for him to do but drink hard liquor, and he counted on it to stave off boredom. Agnes Palmer still possessed her annuity, of which she could not be deprived by Walter's creditors, and continued to love him. During the bankruptcy proceedings they went together to the Isle of Man, and rented a house in the picturesque old town of Douglas; but the qu
ietude excited rather than sooth
ed his nerves and, after an attack of
delirium tremens,

he unsuccessfully attempted suicide by cutting his throat with a kitchen knife.

A second attack, at Stafford, made Agn
es Palmer decide, most reluctantl
y, to separate from Walter. She retired to Liverpool and there lived with her sister, who needed company, having just got rid of Joseph in much the same circumstances. Walter, now thirty-two years of age, settled down in Earl Street, Stafford. Agnes paid him one hundred pounds of her annuity, to which old Mrs Palmer added a further fifty pounds a year. For want of other amusement, he spent his mornings and afternoons at the bowling green, where he would bet in halfpennies on the matches. He always sent his wife an affectionate weekly letter; and she had promised to rejoin him so soon as he was himself again, though not before. Like the generality of drunkards, he had become reserved in his habits, and would walk up and down for hours in silence; but coul
d not wean himself from the bottl
e, try as he might.

Dr Palmer's moral decline was, we believe, precipitated by his wife's death. Far from taking to heart the lesson which she tried to teach him by her fond self-sacrifice—that he must abandon his gambling ways and seriously resume the practice of medicine— he had learned from her an exceedingly simple method of making money: which was to insure the lives of those who stood only a few steps from the grave. We may acquit him of knowing or suspecting that Annie had died of anything but English cholera; and he could hardly have been expected, when Eliza Tharm told him the truth, to let the Police know about the poisonous powders which she had administered in all innocence. With his brother Walter, however, he certainly took one step farther in the direction of crime: not by poisoning him, as was afterwards charged, but by enco
uraging h
im to a speedier end than he might otherwise have met.

'Inspectors Field and Simpson of the Detective Force', as they are called—though 'Inspector' is their self-assumed rank, and the 'Detective Force' consists only of themselves—are frequently employed by the larger insurance companies to inquire into dubious or suspicious claims. Both men had belonged to the regular Police Force; and Inspector Field especially, a burly, jovial officer with a face like a sporting farmer's, fists like hams, and a red velveteen waistcoat much stained with snuff, must be worth a fortune to his employers. We wonder that he does not demand a thousand pounds a year retaining fee from them, instead of the miserable
three guineas a week and travelling expenses which is all they pay him. This account, as it happens, was given us by his colleague, Inspector Simpson, a lean, pale, clerkly man, who dresses in black as if in continuous mourning for the sins of the world. Inspector Field says of him:' Simpson's not got so keen a nose as yours truly, but he has a far better head for dates and figures. You can rely on him for those.'

INSPECTOR
SIMPSON

Inspector Field and I have been employed by the insurance companies to clear up a good many dirty businesses in our day, but this present affair proved to be among the dirtiest. Yes, Sir, we also undertake investigations for private persons, in our scant leisure time—always at your service!

Let me give you the sequence of events as we have reconstructed them by inquiry. Though the ship's log (so to speak) will doubtless be produced at the trial, we know, by and large, how she sailed. Dr Palmer kept a stable for broodmares at
Rugeley
, his home town, and had several racehorses in training at Hednesford and elsewhere. He hoped that these animals would earn vast sums of money for him but, as you know, Sir, racehorses are expensive to support and run; he achieved some successes, he met with even more failures.

The first horse he had in training was Goldfinder; she ran five times in
1852;
once unplaced, twice second, twice third. In
1853,
carrying nearly top weight
(7
stone
6
pounds), she won the Tradesmen's Plate at Chester May Meeting, Aldcroft up, which was worth
£2770.
Though Dr Palmer might have netted a deal of money on that occasion had he been able to lay heavily on the horse, at thirty to one, it seems he could only afford a five-pound note—hence the long odds. He backed her at the Shrewsbury May Meeting for the Queen's Plate, but again not heavily, because all the money she won at Chester had gone towards paying his creditors, and the odds were short; we estimate that he cleared three hundred pounds. He ran Goldfinder three more times in
1853,
backing her generously. On each occasion he forfeited his stakes, for she never won a place, and went out of training in November.

He also ran Morning Star that year—at considerable loss. It is true that Morning Star won the Cleveland Cup at Wolverhampton, with the celebrated jockey Charley Marlow in the saddle,
and then the Optional Selling Plate at Rugeley, but he was unplaced in eleven other races. In
1854
he came second three times, and twice third, and often nowhere.

Then there was Lurley, who ran several times unplaced in
1853
and
1854,
and obtained only three seconds. Doubt, who won the Wolverhampton August Handicap and the Marquess of Anglesey's Stakes at Rugeley, proved more trouble than he was worth, because of a weakness in his feet, and went out of training the same year.

Dr Palmer now decided to secure a couple of first-class animals, though it were altogether above his means, and bought The Chicken and Nettle, both much fancied, paying two thousand guineas apiece for them, I believe. The Chicken earned his oats in
1854,
by winning the Hopeful T.Y.O. Stakes and the New Stakes at Durham August Meeting, together wit
h £150 ant the
£345
Eglinton Stakes at York in the same month, Wells up. Also the Mostyn Plate at the Chester Autumn Meeting, and the Handicap Plate at the Newmarket Houghton Meeting—I did not inquire their value. But Dr Palmer could not afford to run Nettle himself that year; so he leased her to Mr Wilkinson, under whose colours she won the Tyro Stakes a
t Newmarket, and the famous Gim
crack Stakes at York. I believe he had bargained for a percentage of the stakes. However, he had raised the money at such a high rate of interest, on acceptances forged in the name of his wealthy mother, that even these substantial gains by no means justified his original investment in the horses; and it seemed he must soon be pulled up short by his creditors—whereupon the forgeries would be discovered and make him liable to imprisonment for life.