'Inspectors Field and Simpson of the Detective Force', as they are called—though 'Inspector' is their self-assumed rank, and the 'Detective Force' consists only of themselves—are frequently employed by the larger insurance companies to inquire into dubious or suspicious claims. Both men had belonged to the regular Police Force; and Inspector Field especially, a burly, jovial officer with a face like a sporting farmer's, fists like hams, and a red velveteen waistcoat much stained with snuff, must be worth a fortune to his employers. We wonder that he does not demand a thousand pounds a year retaining fee from them, instead of the miserable three guineas a week and travelling expenses which is all they pay him. This account, as it happens, was given us by his colleague, Inspector Simpson, a lean, pale, clerkly man, who dresses in black as if in continuous mourning for the sins of the world. Inspector Field says of him:' Simpson's not got so keen a nose as yours truly, but he has a far better head for dates and figures. You can rely on him for those.'
INSPECTOR SIMPSON
Inspector Field and I have been employed by the insurance companies to clear up a good many dirty businesses in our day, but this present affair proved to be among the dirtiest. Yes, Sir, we also undertake investigations for private persons, in our scant leisure time—always at your service!
Let me give you the sequence of events as we have reconstructed them by inquiry. Though the ship's log (so to speak) will doubtless be produced at the trial, we know, by and large, how she sailed. Dr Palmer kept a stable for broodmares at Rugeley, his home town, and had several racehorses in training at Hednesford and elsewhere. He hoped that these animals would earn vast sums of money for him but, as you know, Sir, racehorses are expensive to support and run; he achieved some successes, he met with even more failures.
The first horse he had in training was Goldfinder; she ran five times in 1852; once unplaced, twice second, twice third. In 1853, carrying nearly top weight (7 stone 6 pounds), she won the Tradesmen's Plate at Chester May Meeting, Aldcroft up, which was worth £2770. Though Dr Palmer might have netted a deal of money on that occasion had he been able to lay heavily on the horse, at thirty to one, it seems he could only afford a five-pound note—hence the long odds. He backed her at the Shrewsbury May Meeting for the Queen's Plate, but again not heavily, because all the money she won at Chester had gone towards paying his creditors, and the odds were short; we estimate that he cleared three hundred pounds. He ran Goldfinder three more times in 1853, backing her generously. On each occasion he forfeited his stakes, for she never won a place, and went out of training in November.
He also ran Morning Star that year—at considerable loss. It is true that Morning Star won the Cleveland Cup at Wolverhampton, with the celebrated jockey Charley Marlow in the saddle, and then the Optional Selling Plate at Rugeley, but he was unplaced in eleven other races. In 1854 he came second three times, and twice third, and often nowhere.
Then there was Lurley, who ran several times unplaced in 1853 and 1854, and obtained only three seconds. Doubt, who won the Wolverhampton August Handicap and the Marquess of Anglesey's Stakes at Rugeley, proved more trouble than he was worth, because of a weakness in his feet, and went out of training the same year.
Dr Palmer now decided to secure a couple of first-class animals, though it were altogether above his means, and bought The Chicken and Nettle, both much fancied, paying two thousand guineas apiece for them, I believe. The Chicken earned his oats in 1854, by winning the Hopeful T.Y.O. Stakes and the New Stakes at Durham August Meeting, together with £150 ant the £345 Eglinton Stakes at York in the same month, Wells up. Also the Mostyn Plate at the Chester Autumn Meeting, and the Handicap Plate at the Newmarket Houghton Meeting—I did not inquire their value. But Dr Palmer could not afford to run Nettle himself that year; so he leased her to Mr Wilkinson, under whose colours she won the Tyro Stakes at Newmarket, and the famous Gimcrack Stakes at York. I believe he had bargained for a percentage of the stakes. However, he had raised the money at such a high rate of interest, on acceptances forged in the name of his wealthy mother, that even these substantial gains by no means justified his original investment in the horses; and it seemed he must soon be pulled up short by his creditors—whereupon the forgeries would be discovered and make him liable to imprisonment for life.
In the autumn of 1854, his immediate wants were relieved by the thirteen-thousand-pound cheque which The Prince of Wales Insurance Company paid him for the loss of his wife; but he soon came knocking at the moneylenders' doors again. One of these was a London solicitor named Pratt, a tall, stout man, rather fashionable in his style of dress, with an enormous pair of brown whiskers, the eyes of a London street-boy, and the low voice of a retiring spinster. He practises in Queen Street, Mayfair, being, I understand, a good family man with three young children and a prominent supporter of the Church Missionary Society; yet never hesitated to charge Dr Palmer sixty per cent for his accommodation, despite the Biblical injunction against usury. He must have been well aware that the acceptances were forged, since the death of his wife had reduced Dr Palmer to copying the old lady's signature himself.
It was this same Pratt whom Dr Palmer used as his agent when insuring Walter Palmer's life. From what Inspector Field and I learned subsequently, the Doctor's approach to Walter was something of this nature: 'How about selling your life, Watty? You know it can't be a long one, not above ten years at the rate you're going; but you can at least make it a little merrier. I'll tell you what: I'm ready to insure it for a thousand pounds, paying the Office their five per cent rate every year, and of that thousand pounds I'll advance you four hundred at once, free and for nothing, to spend as you please. If you last beyond eight years, I'll be the loser, yet I don't mind taking the risk, if you promise to play fair. What say you, Watty, old chum? It's easy money, like pledging your skeleton to a hospitaclass="underline" as paupers do for a tobacco allowance.'
Walter eagerly agreed, because these four hundred pounds extra drinking money seemed manna from Heaven; whereupon Dr Palmer warned him that, to secure the usual five per cent rate, a couple of examining doctors must first pass him as a sound investment. For a month, at least, he would have to forswear hard liquor and pack good food into his belly. Walter protested that such self-denial would exceed his moral strength; but Dr Palmer undertook to keep him sober during that period. 'I'll engage Tom
Walkenden as your trainer,' he said. 'Afterwards, if you please, you may drink again.'
Proposals were now made by Pratt, Dr Palmer's name not appearing in the application, to no less than four Offices—The Prince of Wales, The Solicitors' and General, The Universal, and The Indisputable—for about thirteen thousand pounds apiece. Other agents of Dr Palmer's sounded two other Offices—The Athenaeum and The Gresham—suggesting policies of fourteen thousand and fifteen thousand pounds respectively. The total sum sought was eighty-two thousand pounds, which called for initial premiums in the amount of some four thousand five hundred pounds.