They Hanged My Saintly Billy (49 page)

Tattersall's stables are the acme of neatness and cleanliness. Here to the right is the Subscription Room, into which we might not go; instead we visited a public house mainly frequented by little grooms and jockeys, and listened to their gossip. 'The Rugeley Poisonings' were all
the
talk, and feeling ran high, the sporting fraternity being about equally divided between pro's and con's. Some swore that Billy Palmer was a bold sportsman, a good loser, and a generous friend; others that he was Ananias, Cain and Judas Iscariot rolled into one.

'He's far lower than an animal, and worth a deal less,' cries a ferret-faced stableboy to Young Ashmole the jockey, 'and I'll undertake to prove it—at even money in half-sovereigns!'

'Done,' Young Ashmole answers, 'let the landlord hold the stakes and be umpire.'

'Well,' says Ferret Face, 'Palmer was denied entrance to Tattersall's, now wasn't he? And a horse is an animal, isn't it? Well, there's seventeen of his horses admitted today where he wasn't, and a couple of 'em will sell for well over five hundred guineas, and none for lower than fifty. Well, what's Palmer worth now? There's bills for fifteen thousand pounds out against him, and ten thousand of 'em won't be met. And as for his life, I wouldn't back his chances to live the year out, not at a hundred to one.'

Young Ashmole, defeated by this crude logic, which satisfied the landlord and raised loud cheers at the bar, paid up sulkily; but, having done so, he soused Ferret Face with a mug of beer full in his grinning phiz.

Bidding at the auction was spirited, and very high prices were realized. Prince Albert's name has already appeared in our account of the other auction, if only as a metaphor; here we heard it used in a direct and practical manner. For Major Grove, Her Majesty's Commissioner from the Royal Paddocks, bought Trickstress, an eight-year-old mare, for
230
guineas on Prince Albert's behalf. Strange to relate,
though
the Major appeared anxious to secure Nettle, a decidedly superior animal, in the end he let her go to Mr F. L. Popham for
430
guineas. (Nettle, it will be recalled, was favourite for
the
Oaks last year, and her tumble over the chains sealed Dr Palmer's financial doom.) The Chicken went for
800
guineas to Mr Harlock, who has since changed her name to 'Vengeance'. In
the
aggregate, the sale amounted to
£3,906
,
which included the high price of
590
guineas for a three-year-old filly, by Melbourne out of Seaweed, which fell to Mr Sargent.

While Dr Palmer was attempting suicide by starvation, the bodies of his wife and brother were exhumed, and Coroner's inquests held on them. In the first case, Annie Palmer's, the gaseous exudations of the corpse had, since the fifteen months of burial, escaped through the fibre of the oaken coffin and left the corpse comparatively dry. Dr Monckton made the
post-mortem
examination, and again the organs were sent to Professor Taylor, who reported antimony in the stomach, liver and kidneys and judged that death was due to this antimony administered in the form of tartar emetic, and to no other cause. The jury found Dr Palmer guilty of wilful murder.

Exceptionally distressing was the
post-mortem
done on Walter Palmer s body. He had been buried in a lead coffin and, the wooden shell being removed, a hole was bored through the lid. At once a most noxious effluvia permeated the entire Talbot Inn. Fifteen of the persons present, including seven of the jury, were seized with nausea, and some of them remained seriously indisposed for the next two or three days. The lid being opened, the corpse wore a terrible aspect, being a mass of corruption, dropsy and gangrene. Professor Taylor was inclin ed to think that death was caused by prussic acid, though he could find no trace of the poison
in the organs sent him for analysis; and though Dr Day, who had signed the death certificate, testified that he had not smelt the telltale fumes of prussic acid on the dying man's breath, but only those of brandy! Dr Day stood firmly by his original opinion that death was due to apoplexy, consequent on excessive drinking. Since Drs Monckton, Harland, Campbell, Hughes and Waddell supported Dr Day, Professor Taylor felt it wise not to press his view.

Nevertheless, when the case came before the Coroner, the jury, instigated by Mr Hawkins, the chemist, who had been chaffed a good deal for having supplied Dr Palmer with enough poison to destroy the whole parish, brought in yet another verdict of wilful murder. Walter's widow, Mrs Agnes Palmer, had attended the Court, but was so broken by grief that the Coroner led her to a private room where he took her evidence in the presence of the Foreman and the Clerk. Among others who appeared were George Palmer, the solicitor, who told the Court: 'Mr Hawkins feels rancour towards my brother, and will, I am sure, find him guilty of murder whatever the evidence. At my brother's sale, Mr Hawkins bought a medical book, to use against him when he comes to be tried on the equally false charge of poisoning his friend, the late Mr Cook.'

Pratt, the moneylender, was also called, because he held Walter Palmer's life insurance policy as collateral security for Dr Palmer's debts to him, and because he had approached the insurance companies on the Doctor's behalf; which led him to be suspected of complicity in
the
supposed murder. The Coroner and jury asked him searching questions; denounced his rate of interest—sixty per cent a year—as usu
rious; and treated him so roughl
y that at last he screamed in falsetto, tears of rage streaming down his plump face: 'How can you ask such questions of a family man with three young children and a dear wife, who will probably be ruined by this affair? I lost over four thousand pounds through Palmer!'

The Court burst into loud laughter.

This, however, was not yet the end of the matter, for at the next Stafford Assizes the Grand Jury threw out the bill against Dr Palmer for wilful murder of his brother Walter, finding the evidence insufficient.

Now, if it is asked why Professor Taylor had been so ready to name prussic acid as the cause of dcadi, the answer is clear. A
detective, employed by Mr Stevens to make inquiries at Wolverhampton, discovered that on the Monday before Walter's death, while the race-meeting was in progress there, the Doctor had visited a chemist's shop and bought a quantity of prussic acid and jalap from the assistant. Mr Stevens acquainted Professor Taylor with this news, and the evidence which the assistant gave at the inquest, supporting Professor Taylor's seemingly unaided diagnosis, prompted the verdict of wilful murder. But George Palmer prudently took the precaution of checking the Poison Book and found no entry, on the date concerned, referring to prussic acid. He then threatened to indict the assistant for perjury—a crime which carries the statutory punishment of transportati
on—if he would not publicly with
draw his statement. This the young man hastened to do, though transportation has, of course, been suspended since
1846,
when the authorities of Van Diemen's Land, overwhelmed by a horde of idle and depraved convicts, far outnumbering the free settlers, begged the Government to send no more. The probability is
that
the assistant had made Dr Palmer a present of the prussic acid, just as Newton did; and that the Doctor intended to use it on
other
owners' horses—for it can at least be said that he always ran his own to win.

While held in Stafford Gaol, Dr Palmer was only once allowed outside the building. On January
21st
,
policemen escorted him to Westminster where he appeared as a witness at a trial in which Padwick,
the
moneylender, was plaintiff, and old Mrs Palmer defendant. (This, it will be recalled, was the day artfully chosen by the managers of Tattersall's to put the 'all-yellow' horses under the hammer; the coincidence excited high bidding.) Padwick was trying to recover a
£
2,000
loan, in the form of a bill which apparently bore old Mrs Palmer's acceptance. She denied the handwriting, and was supported in this by three of her children: Mr George Palmer, the Rev. Thomas Palmer, and Miss Sarah Palmer. The dramatic appearance of Dr Palmer, who had presented the bill to Padwick, caused quite a stir. The door of the Judge's private room was thrown open and he entered, cool and collected, in the custody of a large and muscular police officer. From
the
witness box he leisurely surveyed the crowded audience, to some of whom he gave a familiar nod, before fixing his attention on a person located between him and the learned counsel who conducted Mrs Palmer's case. This was a young red-haired woman,
believed to have been the same Jane Widnall, or Smirke, lately-returned a widow from Australia, who had first seduced him from the narrow path of virtue. She afterwards applied for a seat at the murder trial, but the demand being too great, failed of her expectation.

Dr Palmer was then sworn and answered the following questions in a low, yet firm and distinct voice, without betraying the least hesitation or nervousness.

mr edwin james
(
handing him the bill of exchange).
Is the signature 'William Palmer' as the drawer of this bill in your handwriting?

dr palmer.
Yes.

mr james
. And you applied to Padwick to advance you money on it?

dr palmer.
I did.

mr james
. Who wrote Mrs Sarah Palmer's acceptance on it?

dr palmer
. Ann Palmer.

mr james
. Who is she?

dr palmer
. She is now dead.

mr james
. Do you mean your wife?

dr palmer
. Yes.

mr james
. Did you see her write it?

dr palmer.
Yes.

A shudder went through the audience. That a man should accuse his dead wife of a crime which he had himself forced upon her, seemed a heartless proceeding; yet, she being dead and past caring, his chief concern was to preserve his
mother
's esteem. She had assured Jeremiah Smith that 'my Billy would never seek to rob me', nor was she disappointed; his honest confession of fraud now saved her two thousand pounds, for Mr Padwick's Counsel saw no course open to him but retirement from the case. The jury found in favour of old Mrs Palmer, and the prisoner was hurried back to Euston Square station.

It is an ironical circumstance that Mr Padwick, half an hour earlier, had purchased two of the Doctor's horses: a bay yearling colt, by Touchstone out of the Duchess of Kent, at
230
guineas; and a brown yearling filly, by Touchstone out of Maid o' Lyme, at
250
guineas. He swore that had he known how the case would go, he'd never have 'bought hoof or hair of that twister's bloodstock'.

Chapter XIX

UNRELIABLE WITNESSES

D
R PALMER'S younger brothers, George the solicitor, and Thomas the Anglican clergyman, had cooled off considerably towards him of late years; yet kept the peace to please old Mrs Palmer. Since she never disguised her fondness for 'my roguish Billy', they did not vex her by evincing their repugnance for him; in part, no doubt, because she was worth some seventy thousand pounds, but principally because she was their mother. When the Police arrested the Doctor on a charge of murder, they at once rallied to his defence. Neither of them, from their long experience of him, could bring himself to believe in the charge; nor, being respectable citizens, would they consent to be known as the brother of a murderer, without doing everything that might he in their power to wipe out this stigma. Old Mrs Palmer, though repudiating
the
debts which Dr Palmer had incurred in her name, promised to engage the best lawyers available.

George secured Mr John Smith of Birmingham—the famous 'Honest John Smith of Brum'—as solicitor for the Defence, and consulted with him as to what leading Counsel should be retained. John Smith swore that the most suitable man in all England would be Mr Serjeant Wilkins, Q.C., who had enjoyed a medical education until taking to the Law, and could therefore confidently handle the abstruse evidence expected. Serjeant Wilkins agreed to act; and appeared for them in January when, in the suit brought by Padwick, Dr Palmer admitted having forged his mother's acceptances to the bills—but, three weeks before the trial, he threw up his brief, pleading ill health. In point of fact, we understand, the duns were after him; and it was with difficulty that he escaped by fishing-smack to Dieppe. This came as a great disappointment to John Smith. Having failed to secure the services of Sir Frederick Thesiger, who had been Attorney-General during the Peel administration, he fell back on an Irishman, Mr Serjeant Shee,

Q.C
., M.P. for Kilkenny. Serjeant Shee, though an able barrister is, however, a devout Roman Catholic.

More than a quarter of a century has elapsed since the disabilities from which Romanists suffered in Britain were removed by Act of Parliament, but a strong prejudice against them still undeniably pervades public life. Mr Smith dared not hope that the jury would remain ignorant of Serjeant Shee's faith (this anti-Catholic sentiment being particularly rife among London tradespeople of the Roundhead tradition), if only because he had been