They Hanged My Saintly Billy

by Robert Graves

  ' "Hulloa, Sir," says I, "what are you doing there?" ' "I can't find it," he whimpers.

  ' "No," I answers. "Nor never will!" I lifted him up, though he was no light weight, and put him back to bed, where I charitably gave him a tot. He used to hide his gin bottle in all sorts of places—under his mattress, in his boots, anywhere. Well, after a hard week of it, we restored him to a condition where he'd eat again; and, once he got an-eating, the rest wasn't hard. Dr Palmer, he arranged for Watty's wife to meet him at Liverpool railway station; and we sat Watty in a train. The guard had orders that he mustn't alight at any station to buy drink.'

  Walter Palmer spent five days at Liverpool and, it seems, stayed perfectly sober all the time, to please his wife, who did not let him out of her sight. On August 9th, he returned, and spent the next day at Rugeley with his mother, his sister Sarah, and Dr Palmer. That night he wrote his wife a letter which has since been printed in a newspaper. I have the cutting here in my pocketbook.

  Castle Terrace, Stafford, August 10th, 1855

  My dearest Agnes,

  I left you last evening and did feel I possessed a light heart; but on my arrival at Warrington I found the South Express was three-quarters of an hour late, owing to the flood washing away arches, etc. I was lonely—only myself in the carriage. The rain on my arrival was incessant. Thanks to God, I had not far to go. I have been home today; I am truly sorry to say Mother has been very unwell, but is better. I told Sarah you was going to the concert on the 27th, and she wishes to go too. Please write to her, and she can come with me. If I should bring little Miss Barber, you won't be jealous, will you? But I don't know whether we shall meet or not. I should like you to know one steady and sensible creature upon earth, but not a teetotaller on principle. She says: 'I never drink one glass of wine in twelve months and have, therefore, no occasion to be a teetotaller.' I will write to you tomorrow and explain a few little secrets. Good night, God bless you, and ever believe in the affection of

  Walter Palmer

  P.S. Remaining sober with you was easy enough, because you are a dear good creature and keep no spirits in your house. Here drink is always at my elbow.

  On Sunday, August 12th, Dr Day called at Castle Terrace and found Walter and William Palmer together. Walter was so intoxicated that Dr Day deferred his visit until the afternoon, hoping that he would by then be in a quieter state. Dr Palmer undertook to do his best in the matter, but that afternoon, when Dr Day called, he opened the door himself and said: 'Pray, leave this to me. Walter's no better and so very noisy and unmanageable, it's no use your seeing him, I'm afraid.'

  On Monday, Dr Palmer attended the Wolverhampton Races; meanwhile Dr Day saw Walter and prescribed some pills. When he called on the Tuesday, Walter said, grinning: 'Doctor, those pills of yours were twisters! But I threw them up, and now I'm off to Wolverhampton. You needn't look in for another day or two. I'm well again.'

  He set out for Wolverhampton with Walkenden, stopping at The Fountain Inn on his arrival. Here he felt so weak that he had to lie down and never reached the racecourse. Walter drank all that day, and continued all night after his return to Castle Terrace. When Dr Day called on the Wednesday, August 14th, he was told by Walkenden: 'Your patient is at the Wolverhampton Races, Doctor.' Walkenden has since confessed that this was untrue; but swears Walter himself sent the message. At any rate, Walter lay upstairs drinking, and did not leave the house.

  Dr Palmer was to have attended the Ludlow Races that Thursday; but changed his mind and instead went to Stafford where he spent the day with "Walter, having asked Jeremiah Smith to keep in touch with him. At 1.32 p.m., Mr Smith dispatched a telegraphic message: 'Lurley has a good chance for the Ludlow Stakes.' It arrived just as Walter was dying, after an apoplectic stroke. Ten minutes later Dr Palmer summoned the Boots at the Grand Junction Hotel, and offered him sixpence if he would take a telegraphic message to Stafford railway station, for delivery in London. This was addressed to his friend, Mr Webb, and ran: 'Lay £50 on Lurley for the Ludlow Stakes, whatever the price. If Lurley won, Dr Palmer stood to make five hundred pounds. At a quarter past four, he sent another telegraphic message by the same Boots to the Clerk of the Course, at Ludlow: 'Pray, Mr Frail, inform me who won the Ludlow Stakes.'

  In the event, Lurley did not catch the Judge's eye, nor did Morning Star's winning of the Welter Cup by twenty lengths at that meeting compensate for the disappointment. Dr Palmer received word of Lurley's failure as stoically as usual. On the Thursday, he went by train to Liverpool and broke the news of Walter's death to Agnes Palmer. Overcome by grief, she asked why nobody had written or telegraphed to say that he was ill. Dr Palmer at once answered that, on asking Walter's leave to write, he had been told: 'No, Billy, I'm not so bad as all that. I'll write myself tomorrow from Wolverhampton; I don't want Agnes worried unnecessarily. You shan't say a word.'

  Agnes Palmer then proposed to return with Dr Palmer for a last look at her husband; but he said, very truly, that this was no longer advisable. The body had begun to decompose very rapidly in the hot August weather, and was now closed tightly in a leaden shell. She therefore nursed her grief until the Monday, when the funeral took place at Rugeley; there, with her brothers-in-law William, George and Thomas, and her sister-in-law Sarah, she followed Walter to his grave in St Augustine's churchyard.

  That evening Dr Waddell met Walkenden, very drunk, emerging from the refreshment room on Stafford railway station. 'Hulloa, old cock!' cried Walkenden. 'How's the hens?'

  Dr Waddell, noticing the mourning band around Walkenden's hat, answered civilly: 'Good evening, Tom! May I ask in return whom you have had the pleasure of putting underground?'

  'Poor Watty!' says Walkenden.

  'Poor whom?' asks Dr Waddell.

  'Poor Walter Palmer; died of an apoplexy. A fine funeral it was, too. His brother William didn't stint us of drink.'

  Dr Waddell, terribly shocked, exclaimed in the hearing of the stationmaster and porters: 'I'll let the Assurance Office know of this affair.'

  The Doctor must have suspected foul play. It was his letter to The Prince of Wales that first prompted them to contest the claim, although Dr Day had obligingly certified apoplexy as the cause of Walter's death.

  Chapter XII

  A GENTLEMAN OF PROPERTY

  INSPECTOR SIMPSON continued to unfold the story. He described how Dr Palmer sent Pratt, his London agent, the death certificate and other documents which would enable him to claim the fourteen thousand pounds insurance money; but also how Dr Waddell's letter, informing The Prince of Wales's managers that Walter was a brother of William Palmer—whom they had recently paid a similar sum upon the death of his wife— and that Walter's death might well have been brought about by wilful negligence, alarmed them into withholding payment. They referred Pratt to their solicitors.

  Dr Palmer, dreadfully pressed for money, did not know which way to turn. In May, he had entered Nettle, his Sweetmeat filly, for the Oaks and engaged Charley Marlow as her jockey. Marlow, as I mentioned just now, had won a victory for the all-yellow colours at Wolverhampton on Morning Star, coaxing a fine performance out of that lazy beast, which had never won a race before, nor was ever likely to win one again. Palmer laid so heavily on Nettle for the Oaks that she started as a raging favourite, at odds of two to one.

  It happened that on the previous night an old Yorkshire trainer had told Marlow: 'Hoi's noa going to win Oaks, and whoi? 'Cause hoi poison'd woife!'

  Charley Marlow, very angry, appealed to Will Saunders the trainer, who was present. 'This is a pretty serious slander, Mr Saunders,' he said. 'You come from that part of the country, and you train for Dr Palmer; what do you know of the matter?'

  'It's none of my business,' Saunders replied sourly, 'if the little boys of Rugeley say that Billy Palmer poisoned his wife. I don't.'

  Whether or not the suspicion thus implanted in Marlow's mind affected his horsemanship, who can tell? At all events, Nettle was lying second and Marlow had not yet called on h
er for the final effort, of which he believed her well capable, when suddenly she swerved, fell over the chains near the New Mile post, threw him heavily, and galloped away into the furze bushes. Marlow's thigh was broken and, while being carried off the course, he exclaimed between groans: 'It served me right! What business had I to ride a damned poisoner's horse?'

  Condoled with by George Myatt on his loss of the race, Dr Palmer said no more than: 'It is rather a bore, though, isn't it?' His losses must have been very serious, since he had stood to win no less than ten thousand pounds.

  The Prince of Wales's refusal to pay the insurance money came as a thunderbolt. He considered himself cheated by Walter, on whom he had spent a considerable sum—not only the seven hundred pound premium, but also sixty pounds in cash, and bills owing to the innkeeper for nineteen gallons of gin and a quantity of odicr liquor consumed at Castle Terrace. He therefore applied to Agnes Palmer, who was staying with friends at Great Malvern, for the payment of certain debts which her husband (he said) had left unsettled.

  The following exchange of letters between Dr Palmer and his sister-in-law has since been published:

  Rugeley, Sept. 27th, 1855

  Dear Agnes,

  I hope the change of air and scenery has, by this time, done you good, and that you are more quiet and reconciled than, when I communicated to you the painful, the sorrowful, news of dear Walter's death. Ah, poor fellow, I often think of him and only wish I could now do for him what I did while he was alive; and, I assure you, I did a very great deal for him—perhaps a great deal more than you are aware of.

  I know not whether Walter told you that I had advanced him £85 on the drawing-room furniture—of course, I was well aware that some of it belonged to you, but he, poor fellow, told me that you would repay me the money—which I feel sure you will do, now that I have told you. There was also another item that you must, if you please, assist me to: viz.: £40 for a bill, which you knew well of the circumstance, and I must be excused going into particulars. This amount I should not ask you for, but Walter said that if I would only take up the bill you would pay me, and I feel sure you will, after all the money I have paid on his account. I have also received bills amounting to £200 which, I suppose, must be paid by someone. What say you to this? You cannot, for one single moment, but think that I ought to have assistance from someone, and I crave yours, because I feel certain that Walter must have told you how very, very often, and on very many occasions, I had stood his friend; and I believe that I and his dear mother were, except yourself, the only friends he had on earth. I only wish his career on earth had been a different one. He might then have still been alive; but, poor fellow, he is dead and buried and I hope and trust he is gone to Heaven.

  With kind regards,

  Yours very truly,

  Wm Palmer

  It seems that in breaking the news to his sister-in-law, Dr Palmer had blamed her for not having come back with Walter to Stafford and there resumed conjugal relations. Walter, he said, had visited her in Liverpool, sober and hopeful, yet she disdained this sincere reformation; therefore his death, which was a sort of suicide due to despair, must be for ever after on her conscience. The argument profoundly affected Agnes for a while; but at the funeral she heard talk which persuaded her that Dr Palmer, not she, stood in need of reproach. She answered his demands with some asperity:

  Edith Lodge, Great Malvern, Sept. 28th, 1855

  Dear William,

  I have just received your note, and must say that I am much surprised at its contents. What right had you to lend your money, supposing that I would repay it, without consulting me on the subject? Poor Walter's explanation to me, over and over again, was that you had insured his life for, I think he said, £1000; and that you had promised to advance him £500 of this sum, but that you had put him off from time to time and were just giving him a few pounds now and then to go on with, until you could find means to pay him the whole. Now, if that is true, and I am much disposed to believe it, you are the proper person to pay all he owes; but if you make that out to be incorrect (and I have no way, I am very sorry to say, of proving it) I still do not consider that I am the person to be looked to for paying his debts, never having received a farthing from him, or been kept by him, in the whole course of our married life.

  I should not think your mother can be aware that you are applying to me for payment of her son's debts, and I will not have it for a moment supposed that I am the person responsible. In conclusion, I beg of you to remember, and beware how you belie the dead.

  I am, truly yours,

  A. Palmer

  This letter goes to prove that neither Agnes, nor Walter himself, knew of Dr Palmer's insuring the latter's life for fourteen thousand pounds, and proposing to insure it with other offices for a further sixty-eight thousand pounds. He must now practise extreme caution, because Pratt, when he went to visit The Prince of Wales's solicitors, had admitted that though the insurance supposedly covered money advanced by Walter to old Mrs Palmer, the actual beneficiary from the death would be Dr Palmer, to whom total payment had been assigned by Walter in consideration of a four-hundred-pound loan. This confirmed The Prince of Wales in their determination not to pay; whereupon Pratt laid the case before an eminent counsel, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, who gave his opinion that:

  Want of consideration is not the ground on which William Palmer has failed to recover; but it is my advice that some other member of the family should take out administration to the estate of the deceased.

  The first person legally entitled to do so was Agnes who had, however, already told Dr Palmer that she washed her hands of Walter's debts. Dr Palmer consequently foresaw no difficulty in making her sign a formal surrender of the right to administer the estate—so long as she did not guess how much insurance money was at stake. The next natural administratrix was old Mrs Palmer, whom Jeremiah Smith, her lover, could easily persuade to sign away her rights. Pratt therefore produced two copies of a' Renunciation' form from Doctors' Commons, and Dr Palmer instructed Jeremiah Smith to secure Agnes's signature on one, and the old lady's on the other. These two documents would be offered to The Prince of Wales as evidence that all was fair and above board.

  Smith first travelled to Great Malvern, where he asked Agnes Palmer to sign the 'Renunciation', as Walter's widow, and with it a surrender of her interest in the insurance policy. This she almost did, but on second thoughts, said: 'I should prefer my own solicitor to look over this document before I sign, Mr Smith. According to poor Walter, no less a sum than one thousand pounds is in question!'

  He pricked up his ears at this remark, not having hitherto heard of Dr Palmer's pretence to Walter that the insurance was for a mere thousand pounds; and smelt danger. Saying merely: 'Very well then, Ma'am, I shall acquaint your brother-in-law with your decision,' he took the papers away again. On the return journey to Rugeley he must have come to suspect that he was being used as an instrument of fraud, if not worse. Dr Palmer had privately told him that because the Prince of Wales, which had paid him thirteen thousand pounds for Annie's death, might not otherwise have accepted the risk, the policy was taken out in old Mrs Palmer's name, not his own, and by the agency of Pratt. He further, no doubt, explained that Walter's drunkenness was incurable; and that he would take long odds against his lasting more than another couple of years.

  Thinking the matter over carefully and piecing together scraps of conversation, Smith convinced himself that Palmer had hastened Walter's death; and that to raise the money for the premium he had probably forged old Mrs Palmer's signature. The situation appalled him; yet he shrank from confiding his suspicions to the old lady, who adored her scapegrace Billy, and from whose financial innocence—in return for certain favours—he made so substantial a profit himself. He therefore resolved on a roundabout way of freeing himself from embarrassment.

  At this point, Inspector Field took up the tale:

  INSPECTOR FIELD

  My colleague, Inspector Simpson, has marshalled the
facts very clearly, though he should perhaps have emphasized that Mr Smith's motives are presumed, rather than certainly known.

  At all events, Mr Smith wrote to The Midland—a company which had not been approached when Dr Palmer wished to insure first his wife's and then his brother's life—and told them that he could, he believed, find them good business in Rugeley. They accordingly appointed him their agent, and being asked to suggest the names of referees, he sent in those of Dr Palmer's close friends: Samuel Cheshire, the Postmaster, and John Parsons Cook, a solicitor. Yes, Sir, the very man for whose murder Dr Palmer is now standing trial! What is more, when asked to suggest medical referees, Mr Smith proposed the name of Dr Palmer himself, and of Thirlby, his assistant!