They Hanged My Saintly Billy

by Robert Graves

  I knew nothing of the case until The Midland officials called me to their office one day last September. 'Inspector Field,' the General Manager said, 'we wish to engage you on a somewhat delicate mission.'

  ‘At your service, gentlemen,' I answered, 'if your terms are commensurate with the delicacy you mention.'

  They smiled at my downrightness, and undertook to pay me an extra two guineas a week if I brought back information that proved useful. I stood out for the extra guineas, whatever the value of the information; and to this they agreed likewise.

  'Here's the case, Inspector,' said the General Manager. 'Mr Jeremiah Smith, a solicitor of Rugeley, has proposed the life-insurance of a neighbour, one George Bate, Esq., for ten thousand pounds, and has named Dr William Palmer, also of the same town, as one of two medical referees. Now, despite the hot rivalry between insurance companies—often, I regret to say, evinced by something close on sharp practice—a certain solidarity may none the less be discovered among them. We now assist one another to compile a confidential black-list of suspicious customers, which is issued monthly for our mutual protection. The latest list contains the name of Dr Palmer, in respect of two dubious life insurances: the first on his wife Annie, which was settled at her death, though grudgingly, by The Prince of Wales; the second on his brother Walter, with which The Prince of Wales are also concerned, but which has not been settled. Here fraud is suspected, and even foul play. We wish you to visit Rugeley and find out what you can about this "George Bate, Esq." At the same time, The Prince of Wales, who have joined us in this inquiry, empower you to investigate on their behalf the death of Walter Palmer. I should add that Mr Jeremiah Smith has recently approached The Indisputable for a further insurance on Mr Bate s life.'

  'Very good, Sir,' said I, 'but seeing that, if I understand you aright, there's suspicion of murder here, I'm not putting my head into any noose unless I have a colleague to stand by me, with a knife to cut the rope if it tightens.'

  'Yours is a very sensible attitude,' the General Manager answered. 'Take Inspector Simpson, by all means. We will pay him his usual fee.'

  He handed us five guineas on account, and we boarded the Rugeley train. Inspector Simpson went on to Stafford, to take statements from Dr Waddell and Tom Walkenden, and pick up what talk might be current in the inns near Castle Terrace.

  On reaching Rugeley, I called on Mr Samuel Cheshire, the Postmaster, one of the referees. It has since transpired that Dr Palmer had some hold over this former schoolfellow of his, though the exact nature of Cheshire's obligation remains doubtful. Some ascribe it merely to the pony-chaise which, after Annie Palmer's death, Mrs Cheshire constantly borrowed for Sunday outings; others hint at a disreputable disease for which Dr Palmer treated Cheshire. Whatever the truth may have been, this hold gave him the freedom of the Post Office: that is to say, Cheshire would detain incoming and outgoing letters addressed to whatever person Dr Palmer named and, after steaming open the envelopes in his presence, would allow him to read the contents. Most of the letters were then re-sealed and dispatched to the addressees, but some Dr Palmer had permission to pocket, upon his undertaking to deliver them in person. Among these, we now know, were demands made by Pratt on old Mrs Palmer, and by Padwick, another moneylender, to repay loans for which Dr Palmer had fraudulently made her responsible. I knew nothing of this arrangement when I presented my credentials to Cheshire that day. He is a frail, simple-looking man in his early thirties, With fair hair and a nervous habit of twiddling the seal-ring on his little finger. I asked him, first, where I might find Mr John Parsons Cook's office.

  He answered: 'Mr Cook has no offices in Rugeley. At present he's staying around the corner at Dr Palmer's.' 'Then where does he practise?' I asked. 'He used to practise at Watling,' Cheshire informed me, 'but since he took to the Turf, he has more or less abandoned the Law.'

  On learning that I came as agent for The Midland Insurance Company, he appeared puzzled. I said: 'Mr Cheshire, pray be plain with me. Mr Jeremiah Smith, the Company's Rugeley agent, has named you as one of our referees, has he not? Mr Cook is the other; Dr Palmer and Mr Benjamin Thirlby are the medical referees. I have come to discuss a proposed policy on the fife of George Bate, Esq.'

  Cheshire swallowed once or twice, and fairly spun the seal-ring around his finger. 'I had quite forgotten the circumstance,' he muttered at last. 'What do you require of me?'

  'This is a mere formality, Sir,' I replied. 'My employers wish to be satisfied that your Mr Bate is a man of property.'

  Cheshire answered, without looking directly at me: 'Why, of course, Mr Bate is well regarded in the neighbourhood. He is a fine judge of horses, and was a substantial farmer before he retired.'

  I asked: 'And what do you suppose his income to be?'

  'I shouldn't care to guess,' he said.

  'For a life insurance often thousand pounds, he must doubtless be possessed of at least three hundred to four hundred a year?' I suggested.

  "Thereabouts, perhaps,' he agreed.

  'Does he live in style? Does he entertain much?' I continued.

  ' Oh, he has a capital cellar,' says Cheshire with sudden inspiration, 'and you should see his thoroughbred brood mares! Dr Palmer envies him those stables, I can tell you.'

  'Any debts?' I asked.

  'No, no debts of any consequence,' he replied. Returning to the matter of the cellar, I asked: 'Has he good port?'

  'Why, his bins are celebrated in Rugeley,' Cheshire asserted.

  'That's good news,' I exclaimed. 'I have a slight weakness for port, and this is the hour when I usually take a glass. Perhaps, though, I had better hasten back to the railway station with my report and catch the London train.' Then I thanked him for his courtesy, telling him that in the circumstances I would not trouble Mr Cook; and when two customers came in, bade him good-day.

  Instead of returning to the railway station, however, I entered The Shoulder of Mutton inn, took a tankard of ale, and inquired for Mr George Bate. Clewley, the landlord, after directing me to a farmhouse across the fields, asked: 'Have you come to dun the poor fellow? I hope not. Though he pays only six shillings a week rent to the farmer's wife for a room, there's six months owing.'

  'No,' said I, 'you mustn't mistake me for a bailiff. I've come to give him some good news.'

  I proceeded to the farm, and the farmer's wife showed me a field, where 'George be a-hoeing turmuts.' Presently I heard the sound of singing:

  For the fly,

  For the fly

  For the fly be on the turmuts,

  And it's all my eye

  For me to try

  To keep the fly off the turmuts . . .

  and the singer was George Bate, Esq. He proved to be a red-snouted, bleary-eyed, youngish fellow, with ragged trousers, a filthy shirt and no more education, it seemed, than he had managed to snatch in his brief visits to Sunday School—whenever he was not herding geese, scaring crows, or doing something else of equal importance.

  I took off my hat, and said: 'Mr George Bate, I presume?'

  He leaned on his hoe and asked: 'Who may you be?'

  'I'm a representative of The Midland Assurance Company,' I answered, 'come to ask about this policy of yours.'

  When I saw that he did not understand the word 'policy' and, on further talk, found that he was totally ignorant of the nature of life assurances, and that 'premium', 'proposal', and 'assignment' meant nothing to him, I said: 'They tell me at the Post Office that you're a man of property, Mr Bate.'

  'Oh, no, you must have heard wrong, Sir,' he replied. 'I'm not a man of property yet, but they've promised me two thousand gold sovereigns, and a vote for the county.'

  'Who are these benefactors of yours, Mr Bate?' I inquired.

  'Well, it was like this,' he said. 'One day, along comes Dr Palmer in the company of Jerry Smith and that young swell Cook, who's always at the races with the Doctor. I took the opportunity to ask for my pay, because I was behind with my rent, and the Doctor hadn't paid me for a whi
le. The Doctor regrets that he's short of change, and asks Mr Cook to pay me my two guineas, which he obliges with. Dr Palmer then says, says he: "I'm sorry, George, to be so forgetful. I'd like to do something for you, that I would, and better your position." At this Jerry Smith grins and says: "Then why not insure his life for, say six thousand pounds, and give him an advance of a couple of thousand? That'll enable him to live in style, and drink himself to death if he pleases." Then he gives Dr Palmer a peculiar look and bursts into laughter. The Doctor seemed put out, but all the same he says: "Why, Jerry, what a capital idea! Let's set up George as a man of property. Your life is worth every penny of six thousand pounds, isn't it now, George?" I tells him: "No, Doctor, it's not worth sixty pence at the moment, apart from these two guineas you've just paid me, and much obliged for them I am, too." "Well, it's about time a hard-working fellow like you should go up in society," says Jerry, "don't you agree, gentlemen?" Mr Cook, he agreed with pleasure, and the Doctor nodded, but as if his mind were busy with other thoughts. Then Jerry says again: "Let's invite George to dinner some day next week—eh, Billy?—and talk it over?" "Very well," says the Doctor, but not too readily. "Bring him to my house." '

  I asked George Bate: 'Are you on good terms with Dr Palmer?'

  'Oh, yes, Sir!' he answered. 'He never did me no injury, and is always ready to do me a service; so if I'm behind-hand with the rent, it's not his fault. Nor he don't mind my doing a bit of work here, on the side, while the beasts are a-grazing. But I get dead-drunk every Saturday and Sunday night and Lord, how the money flics!'

  'So you dined at his house the next week?' I asked.

  'Indeed, Sir, that I did!' George answered. 'I'll never forget it. Mr Cook was there, and Cheshire the Postmaster, and Will Saunders, the trainer from Hednesford. When Jerry Smith brought me into the dining-room, Dr Palmer seemed surprised, but Jerry, he says: "You invited this gentleman here, Billy—surely you've not forgotten? He's been looking forward to a good dinner all week." Well, the Doctor makes me welcome, and that was the first time I ever sat down at a gentleman's table, with silver spoons and forks and fancy china, and port poured from a decanter. Jerry Smith told Saunders, who didn't recognize me: "This is George Bate, Esq., a gentleman of property. His cellar is the best in Rugeley. You'll excuse his rough appearance, but he's something of an eccentric: can't be bothered to dress for dinner, nor even change his shirt. He's worth a mint of money, however." Saunders shook hands with me, and I was grateful to Jerry for putting me at my ease; but, not to make a fool of myself, I watched carefully how the other gentlemen handled their knives and forks. I kept mum, as you can guess, except when a discussion came up about Lord George Bentinck's victory with Elis in the 1836 St Leger. It happened that nobody present could remember the name of her companion whom Lord George brought along with him travelling from Goodwood to Doncaster in a six-horse van—the bookmakers laid heavily against Elis, thinking him a non-runner, for it's a good two hundred and fifty miles from Goodwood to Doncaster. The horses got there in time, you know, after stopping

  over at Litchfield for a gallop to loosen them up, and Elis wasn't dead meat after all—not by half, he wasn't! So at last I opens my trap. "Drummer was the horse in Lord George's van," I says— just that! And everyone admitted I was right.'

  George Bate rambled on of the sporting talk heard at table on that occasion, but I brought him quietly back to the matter of his life insurance. 'Why, for sure,' he said, 'Jerry Smith reminded the Doctor about it after dinner; and the Doctor protested: "Can't we leave this in pickle for another day or two, lad?" "Oh, no," says Jerry, "you pledged your word that you'd do something for George. Now I've taken the trouble to get the papers from The Midland, and suggested Sam Cheshire and Mr Cook and you to vouch for him; so what do you say?" The Doctor answers: "Very well, Jerry, as you please. But I've promised Will Saunders a bit of sport, and we mustn't waste the afternoon." "True enough," says Jerry. "Then permit me to take Will out to the warren, while you and Cook show George how to sign the paper." At this, Jerry and Saunders take their guns and go out. The Doctor stays, and says to Mr Cook: "I'm not sure that the wording's in order. Let's leave it for a day or two." "I'm a qualified solicitor, Billy, you forget," says Mr Cook. "I think George had better sign that paper, here and now, and take his first step towards prosperity." They showed me where to sign, and when Dr Palmer had vouched for my being healthy and sober, Mr Cook witnessed the paper, and sanded it, and folded it away. I never asked what amount had been fixed for the value of my life, but Mr Cook, he looks steadily at Dr Palmer, and says: "We can fix the amount later, but let it be sufficient to pay George his advance of two thousand guineas." The Doctor answers in an offhand manner: "Yes, the amount's of no consequence for so long and valuable a life as George's. Any sum between five and twenty-five thousand pounds will do. Come, Johnny, stop fooling and let's be off! Where's your rabbiting piece?" Then he asked me: "Will you join us, George?" But I shook my head and went home.

  George Bate's account suggested to me that Mr Smith had been forcing this insurance on Dr Palmer for a joke, and that the Doctor was putting as good a face on it as possible, but not liking his situation by any means. Cook seemed to have played his part under Smith's direction; but I couldn't fathom what they were at. That night, however, when Inspector Simpson and I compared notes, he having meanwhile talked not only with Walkenden and Dr Waddell—the results of which he's already told you—but also with Mr Lloyd, the landlord of The Junction Hotel, I came to understand the case better.

  Jeremiah Smith had involved Dr Palmer's close friends— Cheshire, Cook and Saunders—in the practical joke on George Bate, by way of warning them against the Doctor as one who had procured his own brother's death for the sake of insurance money and might do the same again with any other simple drunkard. He was at the same time warning Dr Palmer not to press The Prince of Wales for payment, because if he did, the truth about his misdeeds must come tumbling out. It may be that Mr Smith suspected Dr Palmer of hastening Walter Palmer's death with prussic acid; for Inspector Simpson has uncovered some odd circumstances which may point that way.

  To be explicit: the Boots at The Junction Hotel, Stafford, was entrusted by the Doctor on Wednesday, August 14th, with two bottles wrapped in white paper. Boots guessed from the feel that they were medicine bottles. Dr Palmer asked him to keep them unexposed to the air until he passed by again; which he did an hour later, and fetched them away. He was absent for perhaps another hour, then left them in Boots' charge once more. The next morning, Thursday, he came for the bottles again, took a very small phial from his waistcoat pocket and, having poured a little of its contents drop by drop into one of the bottles, which Boots describes as having been four inches long, returned the phial to his waistcoat pocket. Mr Lloyd, the landlord, happened to visit the stables while the Doctor was engaged in this mixing operation, and reports that he did not look in the least surprised or flurried by the interruption. Mr Lloyd said: 'Good morning, Doctor, and how is your brother today?' Dr Palmer answered: 'He's very ill, very low; I'm going to take him something stimulating. Day, who's attending him, isn't so well acquainted with his habits as I am. Taking his gin away and giving him gruel instead won't help a man who's accustomed to drink heavily; but I hope this medicine will improve matters. He went, very foolishly, to Wolverhampton the day before yesterday. It might have been the death of him, from the state he was in. What a sad thing it is that honest folk like my brother deliberately drink themselves to perdition!'

  That was the Thursday of Walter's death. Mr Lloyd told Inspector Simpson that the little phial seemed to contain sal volatile; and that Dr Palmer had bought a bottle of the very best old brandy from him on the previous Saturday, saying:' If my brother wants any more of this, let him have it, and I'll foot the bill.'

  Inspector Simpson also visited Messrs Mander & Company, the wholesale chemists of Stafford, and there confirmed, by an interview with George Wyman the assistant, a story current at The Lamb and Flag: Dr Palmer, on th
e day before Walter's death, had purchased an ounce of prussic acid from Mander's, along with certain other drugs. Inspector Simpson gave this event more importance than I cared to concede. The Doctor, it appeared to me, must have seen clearly enough that Walter was dying of drink, as had been expected, and would hardly have hastened his end by use of a poison which two people had watched him mix. I refused, in fact, to connect the prussic acid with the case. He might well, however, have employed the poison to make rival racehorses 'safe'; and that, I decided, was the explanation. What sort of medicine Mr Lloyd saw him mixing, I cannot say; but why not sal volatile, a harmless stimulant which might persuade Dr Day of an improvement in Walter's health? My guess is that Jerry Smith had heard the gossip, which not only decided him to make a game of Dr Palmer by suggesting the insurance on George Bate's life; he also forwarded the signed proposal to The Midland Company—so that the jest became earnest. He counted, I mean, on The Midland to inquire into George Bate's health and financial stability. They would soon discover that the proposal was fraudulent, and all eyes would then be focused on Walter's death. Smith himself hoped to keep in the background, leaving the insurance companies to carry out their investigations with help from the Police.

  Well, I had no means of proving my conjectures, and because Dr Palmer, having long ceased to practise as a surgeon, could be called upon to account for this unusual purchase of prussic acid, I naturally reported the circumstance to The Prince of Wales managers. It also came into my mind that perhaps Cook's demand, during Smith's absence from the dinner table, that George Bate should sign the proposal paper, had decided the Doctor to be revenged on him later. For when Dr Palmer heard from Bate of my questioning him, he said: 'George, you should never have talked to the Inspector. It was cutting your own throat. Now we can't proceed with your insurance, and you'll never be rich. If he comes again, pray tell him that you've given up the idea, and are letting it drop.' But Bate, I now diink, had concluded, with the prompting of his neighbours, that the Doctor's intention was to poison him; and presently revenged himself by setting hounds on the broodmares in his charge, so that two of them slipped their colts. I believe, too, that Dr Palmer, whom the loss of these foals sent into a rage, suspected Cook of having blabbed to Bate; and that this suspicion rankled, because the scheme of insuring Bate's life had not been the Doctor's own, but was foisted on him by Smith. He could not afford to quarrel with Smith, who knew too much, and guessed more; yet he could still play a trick or two on Cook, as I believe he did.