by Roy Lewis
As for us, Cockburn took our witnesses through the case, showing that though a friend of Cook, Palmer had in fact been robbing him, owed him money and finally got rid of him by administering poison in the form of strychnia. The fact that the defence experts swore to natural causes led to such conflicting medical evidence that we were able to tie up the jury in mental knots: the conflict in detail was made the most of, leaving the jury stunned with incomprehension as witnesses contradicted each other, and themselves. We had schooled the maid who had taken some broth to Cook during his illness to insinuate it had been prepared by Palmer. We got her to say she had sipped it, and had been taken ill. We skated successfully over the fact that she had never given such evidence earlier at the inquest.
We managed to persuade another maid to speak of twitching and convulsions during the death throes as evidence of strychnine poisoning, even though, once again, she had omitted to give such evidence at the inquest. And after Charles Newton gave his crucial evidence I took him back to the previous November when he had gone to Palmer’s house in the evening.
‘What did he say to you?’ I asked.
‘He asked me what dose of strychnia would be required to kill a dog. I told him, a grain. He then asked me whether it would be found in the stomach after death.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I told him there would be no inflammation and that I did not think it would be found.’
‘What did he remark upon that?’
‘I think he said: “It’s all right!” as if speaking to himself. Then he did that.’
At this point the lying rogue snapped his fingers and the courtroom roared in indignant anger. Neither the spectators, nor the jury, seemed to consider it odd that a qualified medical man like Dr Palmer should be asking such questions of an apothecary’s unqualified assistant.
And Harry Cockayne wasn’t there to assert that Palmer might have wanted the drug for the purpose mentioned: to kill dogs harassing his mares at Hednesford. Saunders didn’t appear to assert that Palmer didn’t need Cook’s money; and the fly driver, Allspice, well, he was comfortably ensconced as an officer in the rural constabulary—and unavailable for the trial.
Cockburn made an eight hour speech on the last of the twelve days. I’d written most of it for him, of course. It was later described as masterly. But it was the Lord Chief Justice who really did for Palmer in the end, and the fraudulent doctor knew it. Jack Campbell summed up strongly for the prosecution and we got a verdict: Dr Palmer was found guilty of murdering his friend John Parsons Cook by administering strychnine pills to him—in spite of the medical fact that there was not a trace of the poison in his body.
Of course, there was a huge outcry in the newspapers over the next few weeks: the weaknesses of the prosecution case were pointed out; demands were made to discover why certain witnesses were missing; the College of Surgeons was in uproar and Professor Taylor excoriated by his colleagues; there were strictures upon Campbell’s handling of the case. I came under fire for asking questions that should have been overruled by the Lord Chief Justice as illegal and irrelevant, but Jack Campbell had let me carry on, which I did cheerfully, bringing in all the local Staffordshire prejudicial gossip—obtained from Ben Gully—that was available to me.
I mean, if you are given licence by the bench, you have to make the fullest use of it.
But these omissions and tergiversations, while pointed out by defence counsel, none of it did the doctor any good.
He was hanged at Stafford Gaol, still cool as you might wish. He gave no dying declaration from the scaffold. He never confessed. The crowd was disappointed. All he was later reported as saying to the hangman was, when standing over the trapdoor, he asked ‘Is it safe?’
Cool to the end.
And looking back, did I believe justice was done? Let me put it like this. Billy Palmer was a rogue and a cheat, a forger and a swindler, but I don’t believe for a moment that he was a murderer. Not of Cook, anyway. As for the rest of the claims, well, he was never tried for the other alleged murders, and a lot of it was just gossip anyway.
Still, it was another cause célèbre to add to my growing reputation. A week later I called in at the Reform Club. In the smoking room I came across Cockburn: he was drinking a glass of claret with Sir James Duke and Viscount Palmerston. Old Pam smiled when he saw me enter, called me over. Congratulated me on the support I’d given the Attorney General.
Then he wrinkled his nose, and shook his head. ‘You know, the Home Secretary, Sir George Grey has had to deal with a great deal of pressure from the Press. The defence counsel, they have made much of the discrepancy in the medical evidence, the missing witnesses, the character of that Newton fellow, and Lord Chief Justice Campbell’s summing up and direction to the jury. But we have to stand by the verdict—and the man was a rogue, wasn’t he?’
‘Undoubtedly,’ Cockburn and I chorused.
‘Anyway, the Home Secretary is standing by Campbell. Dammit, we can’t undermine the Lord Chief Justice!’ He scowled. ‘And there’s the matter of the assurance companies, in addition.’
‘The companies?’ I asked, surprised.
The Prime Minister smiled wryly. ‘They paid out a deal of money to support the prosecution case: if Palmer hadn’t hanged they’d have had to pay out on several policies that would have fallen due!’
‘And there’s the matter of a directorship in one of the companies, for Sir George Grey,’ Sir James Duke murmured, giving me a wink.
Palmerston harrumphed. ‘We’ll not talk about that possibility, gentlemen. Fact is, Grey refused as Home Secretary to exercise the prerogative of mercy. Still, we were wise bringing the case down to Westminster Hall. The London juries can be relied upon to bring in the right verdict.’ He ran a hand over his bald head and sighed. ‘Meanwhile, there’s been a lot of talk in Rugeley Town Hall, about the infamous reputation the place now has because of Palmer’s misdeeds. I’m expecting a delegation from the Mayor of Rugeley tomorrow. They want me to arrange an Act of Parliament: they want to change the name of the town and wipe out the Palmer connection from men’s minds.’
I glanced at Cockburn, then, in an offhand manner, I said, ‘You could satisfy their desire, I’m sure, Prime Minister.’
‘How?’ he asked irritably.
‘Tell them you’ll arrange a change of name by all means … provided they name the town after you.’
For a moment he seemed nonplussed, and then a delighted smile crossed his baby-like features. ‘Palmerstown!’ he cried.
And that’s what he did, apparently, when they called to see him. They were well out of the room, however, before they realized what a joke had been played on them. And they didn’t take up the suggestion he made to them, so the town is called Rugeley to this day, notorious as the home base of the infamous murderer, Dr William Palmer.
A few nights later, seeking recreation, I found myself at the gaming tables at Crockford’s. I was losing, as usual and was on the point of calling it a night when I became aware of someone standing at my elbow at the chicken hazard table.
I stared at him. ‘What the damnation are you doing here?’
Inspector Redwood was dressed appropriately for an evening out on the town: smart frock coat, yellow waistcoat, polished boots, a bunch of fresh violets in his buttonhole. He smiled, unabashed. ‘Like you, sir, I seek relaxation, a little entertainment. Which fortunately I am able to do, while still acting in a detective capacity.’ Seeing my lack of understanding, he glanced around and then leaned towards me confidentially. ‘I am here to keep an eye on a certain person of quality—I am unable to inform you of the reason. But you must be aware that we of the Detective Force are often employed privately to assist in investigations outside our normal occupations. Inspector Whicher, for instance, is much involved in the Kent family’s investigation of the mysterious affair at Road—he avers it is his conviction that the killing was done by Miss Constance Kent. And then you will have come across the work of my colleague
Inspector Field, seeking the perpetrators of the Great Bullion Robbery. He was for a while involved in the matter you have recently pursued—the murderous William Palmer.’
He paused, eyed me for several seconds and then continued in a somewhat lower tone. ‘For myself, I remain … fascinated by the death of Lord George Bentinck.’
The familiar cold hand touched my heart. ‘That matter has been long put to rest. He died of natural causes.’
Redwood smiled cynically. ‘That’s what the Palmer defence counsel asserted was how John Parsons Cook died.’
‘The cases are not comparable!’ I snapped.
‘Indeed not,’ Redwood agreed complaisantly. ‘But the matter still churns over in my mind. And for me, your work for the prosecution of Palmer stirred matters even further. You seem to know a great deal about poisons, Mr James. Particularly those which leave no traces in the body thereafter.’
I took a deep breath. ‘That’s nonsense!’
‘Perhaps so, but I wonder if that is how Lord George met his end?’ He paused, watching me carefully. ‘And you know, oddly enough, there has come to my ears recently a rumour that on the day his lordship died near Welbeck Abbey, you were seen in the vicinity.…’
A roar came up from a neighbouring table as the winner celebrated a success at rouge et noir, a position I rarely reached. Redwood glanced around, caught sight of his quarry for the night heading for the doors and excused himself quickly. ‘I fear I must leave. But perhaps we might speak again at some time, Mr James, about the fate of Lord George Bentinck. When I have more time—and perhaps more information—at my disposal.…’
He disappeared through the throng. I remained for a while, but was left with a sick feeling in my stomach, and no appetite for further adventures at the gaming table that night.
The spectre of Lord George still seemed to hover over me and I wondered whether that wisp of malice would ever be laid to rest.
PART FOUR
1
Success for Cockburn and for me in the Palmer trial soon produced their rewards. Cockburn was appointed Recorder of Bristol and my name was put forward for the position of Recorder of Brighton. The Jervis promises had been fulfilled, and I was in the limelight as, effectively, a junior judge, gaining experience before a full judgeship could be awarded me. But while Cockburn slid easily and without criticism into his seat at Bristol—it was his second such appointment—for me there were still echoes of Horsham resounding in Whitehall.
As soon as my appointment to Brighton was announced a stir was made in the House of Commons by a Tory nonentity called Craufurd. He was a member of my Inn, a follower of the deceased Lord George Bentinck, a committed mud-thrower and out to blacken my name in consequence. There was the additional motive, of course: he had hoped to obtain the post of Recorder of Brighton for himself.
It need hardly be said that his petition for my removal was notably unpopular with the Government, where my standing was high. Sir John Jervis had been involved at Horsham alongside me, as had Sir Alexander Cockburn; Craufurd attacked them in his speech and furthermore, Viscount Palmerston was by implication involved in that Craufurd claimed he had shown favouritism by recommending me, a fellow member of the Reform Club, to the Brighton position. The consequence was that the political ranks closed quickly behind me, in support.
Craufurd’s words were intemperate and ill-chosen: he referred to the Horsham campaign, and drew attention to my rejection by the benchers of the Inner Temple, before unwisely suggesting that a ‘connection with the Government was clearly the finest guarantee of judicial office’—an indirect and offensive allusion to Lord Palmerston. Pompously, Craufurd announced that the Recordership was an appointment of a judicial character ‘the holder of which should be above the slightest breath of suspicion’. Effectively, he was stating that my character was not of that kind.
Now I have to admit that in a certain light he was not far wrong, but his performance exposed him to Cockburn’s blistering reply. Cockburn, as sitting Member for Southampton, derided Craufurd for want of taste, attacks on a judge—Sir John Jervis—who could not defend himself in the House, prejudicial comments against me, which had been raised only when Craufurd had failed in his own candidature for Brighton, and the ‘stale’ story of Horsham. He summed up Craufurd’s insinuations as a personal, envious attack upon the man who had been appointed to the Brighton position: me. Craufurd’s lamentable reply was wild and so badly directed that he lost even the support of his own party. The motion to inquire into my conduct was lost and the House even decided to expunge the matter from the Journals of the House, to teach the lesson that proceedings were not to be used as the vehicle for imputations on private character.
So I had triumphed and when I took up my position The Brighton Herald announced itself to be impressed by ‘an able lawyer who showed an ability that bore comparison with any of the higher courts’.
But Craufurd taught me a lesson. The death of Bentinck did not mean I lacked enemies. My friends and supporters warned me to take more care, and proceed with more discretion, but an innate stubbornness on my part meant that I saw no reason to change my performances in court or the somewhat rackety progress—I freely admit this—of my personal life.
For I reasoned I was not alone: in a new fog of moral panic at the Bar I was being singled out for personal attacks, criticism of behaviour that was not uncommon in political, literary or even the highest social circles. You should appreciate, my boy, in spite of the prejudices which Prince Albert had instilled in the Queen since their marriage, which led to constitutional crises from time to time, scandals abounded: we were all at it. Apart from the Prime Minister, still a skirt-chaser in spite of his advancing age, there was the example set by Lord Wilton, taking the arrogant step of actually introducing his companion—a noted whore called Caroline Cook—to the Queen herself. Wilton had taken a house in Cleveland Gardens for Miss Cook, had introduced her to the officers’ mess at Woolwich and had had the temerity to introduce her, as ‘Miss Beales’, to the Queen at the Hanover Ball. Then there was my friend, Cockburn. I’ve already mentioned his reputation as a womanizer, and spoken of the children he fathered on a butcher’s wife, but he also spawned a daughter and two sons on a certain Louise Godfrey—whom he never married, and lived with quite openly. There was Charlie Dickens: he cast aside his wife of thirty years to take up with the young actress Ellen Ternan. There was Thackeray who had picked up an infectious disease in Belgium brothels before placing his wife in an asylum and spending the next twenty years impotently lusting after a friend’s wife, Jane Brookfield. There was Wilkie Collins, not only having two mistresses at the same time but actually co-habiting with them at establishments within walking distance of each other! And don’t forget the poets—Swinburne, of course, was notorious for his addiction to being caned by middle-aged women, preferably as he emerged naked from the sea, and even in the States there was Walt Whitman, who enjoyed young boys.… I often wonder, what is it about poets? And we won’t even get started on the Agapemone cult—which involved public fornication with the religious leader on an altar—or what else clergymen got up to in their spare time!
I have to admit there were rumours enough about me. Some of them were true. Shortly after I took up the Recordership of Brighton I had to beg off court appearances for a short period while recovering from a second bout of the clap, acquired after some drunken celebrations at The Nunnery with a certain actress I had earlier represented in court: it was discreetly reported in the newspapers that I was suffering from an abscess of the thigh. But let’s be clear: neither that, nor my activities of the Cock and Hen variety seemed to deter members of the fair sex—including the lady I told you about, whose bedroom I had failed to attain on that eventful occasion at the Earl of Yarborough’s house.
Incidentally, that lady—Marianne Hilliard—came to see me when I was still confined mainly to my bed at The Nunnery with my painful condition.
She explained she continued to live in Paris and Bo
ulogne but had returned to England briefly to attend the reading of her late husband’s will. For it seemed that the obnoxious Crosier Hilliard had suddenly passed away. His life of libidinous licentiousness, cockfighting, pugilism, rowdyism and whoring had finally concluded at Fareham after eight days confined to his bed.
‘Eight days of delirium tremens,’ Marianne calmly explained to me as she sat in my parlour, dressed in conventional widow weeds even though she clearly cared nothing for the man who had been her husband. ‘And his estate amounted to virtually nothing after his wild expenditures. A horse, a dog, a sword and two portraits of himself. Little more.’
‘But you,’ I asked. ‘You are comfortably placed?’
She inclined her head gracefully. ‘I was given nothing in his will, but I am well provided for, fortunately, and happy in my life in France. The social ostracism consequent upon familial separation does not extend to the salons there. The fortune left me by my father was always secure from my husband’s predations. My daughter is with me for company, so life is quiet, but acceptable.’
I had in fact heard some vague rumours about her behaviour in Boulogne, involving a military man from her husband’s own regiment, so I concluded her life was not all that quiet. And on this occasion, as she looked at me I caught a glimpse of coquetry: our glances seemed to merge, to become locked, to become inextricably entangled and I felt a return of the stirring emotion which had moved me on the night Viscount Palmerston had blundered between us in the darkened corridor at Lord Yarborough’s residence. But as I rearranged myself in my chair and felt a spasm of pain between my thighs I forced myself to look away: in view of the present condition of my masculine appurtenances I did not feel that I could make the appropriate advances to deepen our relationship. Pretty speeches are unwise when you’re suffering from the clap.
So the moment passed again, a week later she returned to Boulogne and we did not see each other for a number of years.