They Hanged My Saintly Billy (47 page)
I am, Sir,
Yours very truly,
Alfred S. Taylor
Dr Palmer gleefully told Cheshire: 'Of course, they found no poison! And of course, almost every man's stomach has some traces of antimony in it. I'm as innocent as a babe.'
The news afforded him great relie
f because, in addition to those
three grains of strychnine given him by Newton at about eleven o'clock on the Monday night, he had bought six more grains from Messrs Hawkins, another Rugeley chemist, between eleven and twelve on Tuesday morning—also two drachms of Batley's solution of opium, and two drachms of prussic acid. He knew that Mr Stevens had obtained evidence of his purchases from Hawkins' Poison Book. All these drugs, by the way, were found in
the
Doctor's surgery after his arrest—all, that is, except the strychnine.
While visiting London on December ist, Dr Palmer had taken the precaution of sending a gift-hamper to Mr William Webb Ward, the Stafford Coroner. This contained a
20
-lb. turkey, a brace of pheasants, a fine cod, and a barrel of oysrers, and was sent by railway to Mr Ward's private residence at Stoke-on-Trent, without a sender's name. It is understood that Dr Palmer wrote to Mr Ward by the post, but that Mr Ward destroyed the letter in disgust and very correctly sent the hamper to the Stafford Infirmary for the benefit of pauper patients. Whether the patients, rather than the medical staff, enjoyed them, is, however, highly doubtful.
Dr Palmer could never leave well alone. The news of Professor Taylor's findings so elated him
that
, the next morning, he sent two letters to Stafford by the hand of George Bate. The first was sealed, and addressed to Mr Webb Ward; the second, an open note, ordered Mr France, the poulterer,' to supply the bearer with some nice pheasants and a good hare'.
Bate found a boy who for threepence would take the hamper of game to Mr Ward's house, and delivered the letter to Mr Ward himself at The Dolphin Inn, as he played billiards in the smoking-room. This letter, which Mr Ward at once handed to Captain Hatton, the Chief Constable of Police, bore no date, but ran as follows:
My dear Sir,
I am sorry to tell you that I am still confined to bed. I do not think it was mentioned at the inquest yesterday that Cook was taken ill on Sunday and Monday night in the same way as he was on the Tuesday when he died. The chambermaid at The Crown—Master's hotel— can prove this. I also believe that a man by the name of Fisher is coming down to prove that he received some money from Cook at Shrewsbury. Now here Cook could only pay Jeremiah Smith
£10
out of the
£41
he owed him. Had you not better call Smith to prove this?
And again whatever Professor Taylor may say tomorrow, he wrote from London last Tuesday night to Gardiner, to say: 'We have this day finished our analysis and find no traces of either strychnine, prussic acid, or opium.'
What can beat this from a man like Professor Taylor, if he says tomorrow what he has already said—and Dr Harland's evidence? Mind you, I know and saw it in black and white, what Professor Taylor said to Gardiner, but this is strictly private and confidential; but it is true. As regards the betting-book, I know nothing of it and it is of no good to anyone.
I hope the verdict tomorrow will be that Cook died of natural causes, and thus end it.
Ever yours,
Wm Palmer
The inquest did not, in the event, take place on the next day, being postpon
ed for another week. Since neith
er of the hampers was returned to him, Dr Palmer concluded that he had the Coroner 'in his breeches' pocket', as the cant saying is, and therefore on Thursday, December
13
th, wrote him another letter. This should have gone in a sealed envelope with a present of money; but finding that he had only a
£50
note in his possession, he asked Bate to borrow a 'pony' from Ben Thirlby. Bate went off and presently returned with a
£5
note.
At this moment, what he had been dreading for so long, at last happened. A knock sounded at the door; Eliza Tharm opened it, and in came two Sheriff's officers to arrest the Doctor for forgery. Bate was ordered from
the
room while they performed their duty, but as soon as both had retired downstairs, Dr Palmer summoned him again, put the bank-note in the envelope, and said: 'George, take this to the Coroner at once. Let nobody see you!'
Bate protested: 'Nay, Mister, can't you send someone else? I don't like this hole-and-corner game, indeed I don't, not with the Police in
the
house.'
'Why, George,' Dr Palmer answered, 'as to this poor fellow Cook, they'll find no poison in him. He was the best pal I ever had in my life—why should I have poisoned him? I'm as innocent as you are, George.'
Bate therefore took the missive which, an hour later, catching Mr Ward on the road between Stafford railway station and The Junction Hotel, he handed to him with a knowing wink. Mr Ward angrily crumpled and
thrust
it into his pocket. The envelope, when opened, contained no letter, but only the £$ note, and a message scribbled on a piece of newspaper: 'I understand that France, the poulterer, was one pheasant short of my order. This I sincerely regret. W.P.'
The inquest was finally held on the next day, Friday, December
14th
.
Elizabeth Mills, Lavinia Barnes, Dr Jones, Dr Bamford, who were
the
principal witnesses, testified that Cook had suffered first from vomiting, and then from tetanic convulsions. Professor Taylor, however, argued that these convulsions were produced by strychnia, even though he and Dr Rees had been unable to find traces of such a drug in the organs sent them for analysis.
'With a nicely calculated dose,' Professor Taylor wrote, 'this was not to be expected, since strychnia is a poison rapidly absorbed into the blood.'
Roberts, assistant to Messrs Hawkins, the chemists, then testified that he had sold Dr Palmer six grains of strychnine on the Tuesday morning. Newton kept quiet about his gift to the Doctor of the earlier three grains; and the eye-witnesses' acco
unt of Cook's illness was strictl
y as we have recorded it in the foregoing chapter.
The Coroner invited Dr Palmer to give evidence, but he sent word
that
illness prevented him from attending. It has been said, by the way, that the Sheriff's officers prompted this plea, not wanting him to escape.
On
the
following day the jury retired. Some minutes later, disregarding a plain conflict of testimony; misdirected by the Coroner, who perhaps wished to assure the Police that the proffered bribes had not warped his judgement; and, finally, stirred up by their foreman, Mr Tunnicliffe, Newton's father-in-law, they returned a verdict of
'Wilful Murder' against Dr Palmer.
Captain Hatton, to whom
the Coroner had forwarded the in
criminating letters, made the arrest. Ben Thirlby was sitting by Dr Palmer's bedside at
the
time, and felt so convinced of his innocence that he leaped at the Captain and tried to seize him by the throat. 'The charge is wicked and diabolical!' he cried. But the Police officers gave Thirlby a rough handling for his pains. Dr Palmer then summoned Jeremiah Smith, who delayed half an hour before he dared comply, first fortifying himself at The Albion public bar. 'This news makes me feel sick,' said he.
Smith, it should be explained, had fallen in disgrace
with
old Mrs Palmer on the Monday night—the night on which Newton handed Dr Palmer the three grains of stiychnine. After bidding
Cook good-night,
he and Dr Palmer had gone togeth
er to The Yard, where the old lady gave them both a terrible brushing down. Having been informed by her son George, the s
oli
citor,
that
a moneylender wanted him to certify her signature on an acceptance of a bill for two thousand pounds, which he had refused to do, she now charged Smith with drafting this document for her Billy.
'I know well,' she cried, 'that Billy here would never have expected me to pay. This was just his way of tiding himself over a bad situation—but that you aided and abetted him and said never a word to me, I cannot forgive! Be off now, Mr Smith, I don't want to see your treacherous face ever again. It's not even as if you'd been faithful to my bed.'
When Smith at last entered
the
bedroom, he saw Dr Palmer surrounded by Police officers. Pointing to
them
, he gasped out: 'William, oh, William, how is dris?'
The Doctor could not answer, but tears trickled down his cheeks.
He was judged unfit to be moved until the next day, when the Police, after examining his house from attic to cellar, and taking close precautions against his attempted escape or suicide, conveyed him in a covered van to Stafford Gaol. He had bidden an affecting good-bye to Eliza Tharm, throwing his arms around her neck, and requited her love with the gift of his last
£50
note. Their illegitimate child, by the bye, had died at five weeks old, not long before this: it was sent out to a poor nursing mother near the Canal Bridge at Armitage, three miles from Rugeley, but she neglected her charge.
Samuel Cheshire was presentl
y arrested on a charge of tampering with the Royal Mails. Dr Palmer's letter to Mr Webb Ward provided the Postal Authorities with the necessary evidence and he earned a severe prison sentence.
Chapter XVIII
STAFFORD GAOL
W
HILE describing Stafford town, in an earlier chapter, we purposely reserved
our account of the ' County Gaol
and House of Correction' until
this
story should reach the point where Dr Palmer entered it as an inmate. It has very much the appearance of a solid, squat brick castle, because of the round towers placed at its four corners, and the steep outer walls which connect
them
. The pile gives off a glare like the embers of a coal furnace. The principal entrance, however, is built of stone, and we found it quite refreshing to approach its cool shade.
Facing the porter's lodge stands the Governor's house, with a little bit of garden stretched before it; but the grass seems to know that it is prison grass and therefore denied all such luxuries as manure or prepared soil. The beds grow no flowers worthy of notice, and are rich only in flints. A pathway leads thence to the debtors' airing court, a sizeable gravelled square surrounded by white-painted wooden railings; and next to this rises the prison bakehouse from which proceeds a hum of machinery and a grinding noise. The power that turns the millstones is that of a tread-wheel, worked by thirty-two felons, in prison-grey, trudging for an hour at a time up the endless stairs which turn away beneath their feet. Prison officers armed with cudgels discourage the rebellious or the laggardly from a neglect of their task. The result is both a sensation of health produced by wholesome exercise, which many of the felons are taking for the first time in then-disorderly lives, and a large quantity of flour—not perhaps of the highest quality, yet passed as fit for human consumption. Through the bakehouse windows may be seen great stacks of bread, baked into slabs three inches thick, which are then sawn into yard lengths and piled together in orderly fashion, like planks of rare timber at a cabinet-maker's shop. Square loaves, such as free men eat, are suspect as serving to conceal such forbidden objects as bottles of
spirits, rope-ladders, and weapons of destruction, smuggled in with the grain.
When Dr Palmer reached the Gaol, he still felt ill; and, immediately donning nightcap and nightshirt, went to bed again. Major Fulford, the Governor, took advantage of this removal of his clothes to re
move them even farth
er, fearing that poison might be concealed in them. He ordered another suit to be made for Dr Palmer, not of prison-grey, since he was not yet a convict, but of a sober broadcloth. However, he declined to wear these new clothes, insisting that the Governor had no right to force them on him, and that they were badly cut. His wilfulness convinced the prison officers
that
poison must surely lurk in the seams or corners of coat, waistcoat or trousers; two or three grains of prussic acid or strychnine would, of course, suffice to end his life. When, a fortnight later, his own clothes were at last returned, every garment had been searched with a fine comb and beaten hard to dislodge any powder. All the seams had also been opened; all the buttons examined lest one of
them
should serve as a miniature poison-box; the heels unfastened from his boots, lest these too should serve as receptacles for poison, and put back after careful scrutiny.
Much as Dr Palmer hated sleeping alone, almost more he hated being cut off from the racing news; but
the
Governor had strong views on the subject of horse-racing and gambling and let him read no newspaper which contained any talk of
'form' and 'odds'. In his despondency, Dr Palmer determined on self-destruction. No easy means offered, however, since he might use neither knife nor fork for his meals, ate off a tin plate and drank from a tin mug. He therefore resolved on starvation, simply sipping a little water from time to time, and lying motionless in bed, his face turned towards
the
wall. The Governor, during his usual morning visit, became alarmed by this behaviour, and tried to argue him into eating. Dr Palmer replied courteously that he was not hungry, and wanted nothing. Since, by the seventh day of this obstinate abstention from food, his prisoner had lost a stone of weight and seemed in danger of making good his resolve, the Governor had a savoury bowl of soup prepared, and sent for a spoon and a stomach-pump.
