They Hanged My Saintly Billy

by Robert Graves

  TOM THE BOOTS

  I says: 'I'll take a drop of brandy, if anything, Doctor. It's a chill evening.'

  'Then let's go to The Junction,' says he. 'I dpn't want to offend old Lloyd by standing you treat elsewhere.'

  So we came back to the bar and he mixed the brandy and water. 'Take it here?' asks the Doctor. To which I answered: "Well, I'd rather take it outside.'

  'No, here,' he says. 'What are you afraid of?' And I drank.

  The queer thing was it didn't taste queer, but oh, my dear Lord! what happened after? It was just like common brandy and water, as is made hot with sugar, my favourite drink, and I shouldn't have drunk it if it had tasted bad—because I'm very particular with my drinks, always have been, but oh, my dear Lord!

  I went out into the yard, and was I took bad? I was indeed! I felt drunk, like. I didn't know where I was, like. I certainly had some recollection of what was said, but my senses were gone, like. Directly I'd drunk it, I knew I'd been nobbled: the drink lay heavy on my stomach, like a crab. Then up it all came. I clapped my hand over my mouth, I ran out that way into the yard and there, just where you're standing, Sir, I threw it up, together with my supper—pig's liver, ale, soused herring, red cabbage and all. It was a fair mess, like. I never was took that way after drinking

  brandy, not in all my life before. I don't drink so much of it neither, now. Ten shillings a week is what Lloyd pays me; you can't drink brandy on that, but only ale. And I'd spewed out two good quarts there on the stable floor.

  I generally drinks brandy when I can get it. At one time, while I was working for old Mr Venables up by Castle Knoll, who kept a good cellar and didn't mind my sampling it, I used to drink all day, like. I'd begin in the morning and carry it on till night, and I kept this game up for nearly eight year, until Mr Venables died and the cellar ran dry, at much the same time. Then I had to come here to The Junction. Needs must when the Devil drives. Lloyd's ale is good ale for sure, but it ain't brandy; nor don't go well with brandy. The two liquors quarrel, like, in the belly. But they tell me Dr Palmer's a poisoner, so of course he must have gave me arsenic, or something wicked of the same nature, mixed in the water.

  I was never so sick in my life before, not after drinking. I went and laid me down in the kitchen; and the missus she comes in and sees me there, all of a tizzy. 'Good God,' says she, 'why, what's the matter, Tom? You look white as a sheet!'

  'I've been drinking, Ma'am,' says I.

  'What have you been drinking?' she asks me.

  'Some brandy and water along with Dr Palmer,' I says.

  'The more fool you,' she says. 'Never heard what happened to poor Abley, down at The Lamb and Flag, eleven years ago ? You're poisoned, Tom, that's what you are. Who's your doctor?'

  'Dr Palmer,' says I.

  'Don't talk foolish, Tom,' says she; so I go and lay me down in one of the stalls, for I couldn't mount the ladder to the loft, nohow I couldn't. My legs, they wouldn't support me, like. Well, I lived, as you see, Sir, and that's more than poor Abley did, nor poor Watty Palmer. But I felt mighty queer for three or four days after. I remember very little about when I woke up, or how long I lay there.

  I'm told the ostler came and covered me with a horse-rug. I was as black as soot in the face, he says, which it wasn't only the horse dung on which I'd laid—that I'll swear—and he couldn't hear me breathe, nohow, nor nothing. He thought I was dead, like, and left me there, saying nothing to Mr Lloyd, nor the missus, for fear he'd be blamed. A narrow shave it was, you may be bound, in all honesty!

  No, Sir, I never named it to Dr Palmer afterward. I couldn't positively swear that he nobbled me, you see? And he was always a generous gentleman when I ran him his errands.

  It is, however, not impossible that these two stories may, after all, have been substantially true—if Dr Palmer's motive was not, in either case, to kill but merely to prostrate his victims and cloud their judgement by the use of 'knocking-out drops': as these are termed in the taverns and brothels of seaport towns, where sailors are forcibly enlisted for long voyages. If Doubt had lost, the Doctor would have been able to tear a page or two from Swindell's betting-book, and empty his money-belt of whatever cash it contained. In Tom's case, he stood to gain nothing but a petty revenge; yet it will be noted that the drug supposedly used on Swindell was a laxative, whereas the one supposedly used on Boots was an emetic. The latter may have been tried experimentally, with more important victims in view.

  We can find no confirmation of a rumour, now widely current, that Dr Palmer also attempted to drug Lord George Bentinck, the racehorse owner. This is said to have taken place while he was still a student at Bart's, three years before Lord George's death in 1848; but the exact circumstances are never given.

  Chapter XIV

  FINANCIAL STRAITS

  THE Attorney-General's speech on the opening day of the trial has given a very fair account of Dr Palmer's financial troubles; save that, in our opinion, he misrepresented Jeremiah Smith's humorous proposals for an insurance on George Bate's life as serious ones prompted by the Doctor and designed to improve his own situation. This situation was, indeed, desperate. Yet, after careful thought, we accept his plea of 'Not Guilty' to the charge of taking Cook's life, by strychnine poisoning, with the object of pecuniary gain. The gain would have been utterly inadequate to re-establish his credit; and imprisonment is always a better fate than the gallows. Nor do we believe that strychnia was the cause of Cook's death.

  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Gentlemen, it seems that as early as the year 1853, Palmer had got into pecuniary difficulties—he began to raise money on bills. In the year 1854, his circumstances became worse, and he was at that time indebted to different persons in a large sum of money. He then had recourse to an expedient which I shall have to bring before you, because it has an important bearing on this case. Gentlemen, let me make a preliminary observation. I must detail to you transactions involving fraud and, what is graver, forgery— circumstances and transactions reflecting the greatest discredit on those connected with them. Yet while I feel it absolutely necessary to bring these circumstances to your notice for the elucidation of the truth, I am anxious that they should not have more than their fair and legitimate effect. You must not allow them to prejudice your minds against the prisoner as regards the real matter of inquiry here today. A man may be guilty of fraud, he may be guilty of forgery; it does not follow that he should be guilty of murder.

  Among the bills on which Palmer raised money, in the course of the year 1854, was one for two thousand pounds, which he discounted with Mr Padwick. That bill bore upon it the acceptance of Palmer's mother, Mrs Sarah Palmer. She is a woman of considerable wealth; and her acceptance, being believed to be genuine, was a security on which money would be readily advanced. Palmer forged that acceptance, and got money upon it; which was, if not the first, at least one of the earlier transactions of that nature—for there are a large series of them—in which money was obtained from bills discounted by Palmer, with his mother's acceptances forged upon them. I shall show you, presently, how this practice involved him in a state of such peril and emergency, that—as we suggest, but it is for you to form your own conclusions—he had recourse to a desperate expedient in order to avoid the imminent consequences.

  By the summer of 1854, he owed a very large sum of money. On the 29th of September his wife died; he had an insurance on her life to the amount of thirteen thousand pounds—and the proceeds of that insurance were realized. Palmer used the thirteen thousand pounds to pay off some of his most pressing liabilities. With regard to a part of these liabilities, he employed as his agent a gentleman named Pratt, a solicitor in London, who is in the habit of discounting bills, and whose name will be largely mixed up with the subsequent transactions I shall detail to you. Mr Pratt received from him a sum of eight thousand pounds, and disposed of it in the payment of various liabilities on bills which were in the hands of his own clients. Mr Wright, a solicitor of Birmingham, who had also advance
d money to the prisoner, received five thousand more, and thus thirteen thousand of debt was disposed of; but that still left Palmer with considerable liabilities. Among others, the bill for two thousand pounds, discounted by Mr Padwick, remained unpaid.

  This brings us to the close of 1854. Early in 1855, Palmer effected another insurance in his brother Walter's name, Mr Pratt acting as his agent; and that policy for thirteen thousand pounds was immediately assigned to Palmer. Mr Pratt paid the first premium for him, out of a bill which he discounted at the rate of sixty per cent, and afterwards proceeded to discount further bills, the insurance policy being held by him as a collateral security. The bills discounted in the course of 1855 reached a total of £12,500. I find that two, discounted as early as June, 1854, were kept alive by being held over from month to month. In March, 1855, two further bills of two thousand pounds each were discounted; and with the proceeds Palmer bought two racehorses, called Nettle and The Chicken. These bills were renewed in June; they became due on the 28th of September and 2nd of October, were then renewed and became due again on the ist and 5di of January, 1856. On the 18th of April, 1855, a bill was discounted for two thousand pounds at three months, which became due on the 22nd of July, and was renewed so as to become due on the 27th of October. On the 23 rd of July, a bill for two thousand pounds, at three mondis, was discounted, which became due on the 25th of October. On the 9th of July, a bill for two thousand pounds, at three months, was drawn; renewed on the 12th of October, it became due on the 12th of January, 1856. On the 27th of September, a bill for one thousand pounds was discounted, at three months, the proceeds of which went to pay the renewal on the two March bills of two thousand pounds, due at the close of September, and the bill of the 23rd of July, due on the 12th of October.

  Thus, in the month of November, when the Shrewsbury Races took place, the account stood as follows. There were in Mr Pratt's hands a bill due on the 25th of October for two thousand pounds; another due on the 27th of October for two thousand pounds; two bills, together making one thousand five hundred pounds, due on the 9th of November; a bill, due on the 10th of December for one thousand pounds; one on the 1st of January for two thousand pounds; one on the 5th of January for two thousand pounds; one on the 18th of January for two thousand pounds: making in the whole £12,500. In July, it seems, Palmer contrived to pay one thousand pounds; thus in the month of November bills amounting to £11,500 remained due, and every one of them bore the forged acceptance of the prisoner's mother! You will therefore understand the pressure which necessarily arose upon him, the pressure of enormous liabilities which he had not a shilling in the world to meet, and a still greater pressure arising from the knowledge that, as soon as his mother should be resorted to for payment, the fact of his having committed these forgeries would at once become manifest and bring on him the penalty that the law exacts.

  Now, the deceased Mr Cook had been only partially interested in these transactions. I should mention, before I go into the further history of the case, that Walter Palmer, the brother, died in the month of August, 1855. His life had been insured for thirteen thousand pounds, and the policy had been assigned to the prisoner —who, of course, expected that the proceeds would pay off those liabilities. However, the Insurance Office in question declined to pay; consequently there was no assistance to be derived from that source.

  As I was saying, Gentlemen, Mr Cook had been, to a certain extent—but only to a very limited extent—mixed up with the prisoner in these pecuniary transactions. It seems that in the month of May, 1855, Palmer was pressed—by a person named Serjeant, I believe—to pay a sum of five hundred pounds on a bill of transaction. At that time, Palmer had in the hands of Mr Pratt a credit balance of three hundred and ten pounds; and asked him for an advance of one hundred and ninety pounds to make up the five hundred. When Mr Pratt refused this advance, except on security, Palmer offered him the acceptance of Cook, representing Mr Cook to be a man of substance; accordingly, the acceptance of Mr Cook for two hundred pounds was sent up, and on it Mr Pratt advanced the money. This appears to have been the first transaction of the kind in which Mr Cook figured, and though not knowing whether it has any immediate bearing on the subject, I am anxious to lay before you all the circumstances which show the relation between Palmer and Cook. Palmer having failed to provide for that bill of two hundred pounds, when it became due, Mr Cook had to provide for it himself, which he did.

  In the August of 1855, a transaction took place to which I must again call your particular attention: Palmer informed Mr Pratt that he must have one thousand pounds more by the next Saturday. Mr Pratt declined to advance the thousand pounds without security; whereupon Palmer offered the security of Mr Cook's acceptance for five hundred pounds, again representing him as a man of substance. But Mr Pratt still declined to advance the money without some more tangible security than Mr Cook's mere acceptance. Now, Palmer explained this as a transaction in which Mr Cook required the money, and since I have no means of ascertaining how the matter stood, I will give him the credit to suppose that it was so, and that he had Mr Cook's acquiescence for the proposals he was making to Mr Pratt. Mr Cook was engaged upon the Turf, sometimes winning, sometimes losing; and purchasing horses. It may perfectly well be that he then required this loan of five hundred pounds, as Palmer declared.

  Since, as I said before, Mr Pratt declined to advance the money except upon more available security, Palmer proposed an assignment by Mr Cook of two racehorses—the one called Polestar, the horse that afterwards won at Shrewsbury Races, and the other called Sirius—and, as Mr Pratt agreed, this assignment was executed by Mr Cook, in Mr Pratt's favour, as a collateral security for the loan of five hundred pounds. Now, Mr Cook was entitled to as much money as could be realized upon this security; the arrangement being that Mr Pratt should give him a sum of .£375 in money and a wine-warrant for £65 which, with discount for three months at £50, and expenses at £10, made up the total sum of £500. But Palmer contrived that the £375 cheque and the wine-warrant should be sent to him, and not to Mr Cook; for he wrote, desiring that Mr Pratt should forward them to him at the Post Office, Doncaster, where he would see Mr Cook. He could not, in fact, see Mr Cook there, because Mr Cook did not visit Doncaster; but by these means Palmer got the cheque and the wine-warrant into his own hands. He affixed to the face of the cheque a receipt stamp, and availed himself of the opportunity, now afforded by the law, of striking out the word 'bearer', and writing 'order'. The effect of this was, as you are all no doubt aware, to necessitate the endorsement of Mr Cook upon the back of the cheque; but since Palmer did not intend that these proceeds should find their way into Mr Cook's hands, he accordingly forged the signature 'John Parsons Cook' on the back of that cheque. He then paid the cheque into his bankers at Rugeley: the proceeds were realized, paid by the bankers in London, and went to the credit of Palmer. Mr Cook never received the money, and you will see that at the time of his last illness this bill, which was a bill at three months, in respect of these transactions of the 10th of September, would be due in the course often days; when it would appear that Palmer had forged Mr Cook's endorsement on this cheque and pocketed the proceeds.

  Gentlemen, I wish that this were the only transaction in which Mr Cook had been mixed up with the prisoner Palmer; but there is another to which I must refer. In the September of 1855, Palmer's brother having died, but the profits of the insurance not having been realized, he induced a person by the name of Bate to insure his life. Palmer had succeeded in raising money on former insurances and, I have no doubt, pressed or induced Mr Cook to assist him in this transaction; his object was, by representing Bate as a man of wealth, and producing a policy on Bate's life, to get further advances upon this collateral security. I put it no higher, nor do I suppose Mr Cook would have been a party to any other transaction. It seems that, on the 5th of September, Mr Bate, the prisoner, and Mr Cook were together at Rugeley. Mr Bate was a hanger-on of Palmer's, a person who had before been better off in the world, but
who had fallen in decay and was now compelled to accept employment from Palmer as a sort of superintendent of his stables. He had run through everything, and had nothing left; though he remained a healthy young man. Palmer proposed to insure his life, and handed him that common form of proposal with which we are all familiar. Mr Bate, however, said: 'No, I do not want to insure my life,' and declined the notion of such a thing. Palmer pressed him, and Mr Cook interposed with: 'You had better do it, Bate; it will be for your benefit; you are quite safe with Palmer.' They pressed him to sign the insurance proposal, which Cook attested and Palmer filled in, for no less a sum than twenty-five thousand pounds. In it Palmer was described as the medical attendant, and his assistant, Thirlby, as the referee and friend who would speak to Bate's habits; and these proposals were sent off, I think, to The Solicitors' and General Office. That Office not being disposed to effect the insurance on Bate's life, they sent up another proposal for ten thousand pounds to The Midland Office, on the same life. In each case, further information was required as to Bate's position; but instead of it turning out that he was a gentleman of responsibility and means, it turned out that he was a mere labourer in Palmer's employ. The Office was not satisfied, and the thing dropped.

  lord Campbell. Whatever you have stated so far bears on the question the jury are to try. I suppose that this will have the same tendency?

  the attorney-general. If your Lordship trusts me, I will take care not to state anything that is not important.

  lord Campbell. By our law we cannot allow one crime to show the possibility of another, but whatever may bear on the charge to be tried is strictly admissible.