Cheshire weakly consented; and on December 5th, three days later, intercepted and read Professor Taylor's letter to Mr Gardiner, afterwards reporting its gist to the Doctor, whom he found in bed, seriously ill of a liver complaint brought on by his excessive consumption of brandy.
The letter ran:
Guy's Hospital, Tuesday, Dec. 4th, 1855
My dear Sir,
Dr Rees and I have compared the analysis today. We have sketched a report, which will be ready tomorrow or the next day. As I am going to Durham on the part of the Crown in the case of Regina v. Wooler,the report will be in the hands of Dr Rees, No. 26, Albemarle St. It will be most desirable that Mr Stevens should call on Dr Rees, read the report with him, and put such questions as may occur. In reply to your letter received here this morning, I beg to say that we wish a statement of all the medicines prescribed for the deceased until his death to be drawn up and sent to Dr Rees. We did not find Strychnia, nor Prussic Acid, nor any trace of Opium. From the contents having been drained away, it is now impossible to say whether any Strychnine had or had not been given just before death. But it is quite possible for tartar emetic to destroy life if given in repeated doses; and, so far as we can at present form an opinion, in the absence of any natural cause of death, the deceased must have died from the effects of antimony in this or some other form.
I am, Sir,
Yours very truly,
Alfred S. Taylor
Dr Palmer gleefully told Cheshire: 'Of course, they found no poison! And of course, almost every man's stomach has some traces of antimony in it. I'm as innocent as a babe.'
The news afforded him great relief because, in addition to those three grains of strychnine given him by Newton at about eleven o'clock on the Monday night, he had bought six more grains from Messrs Hawkins, another Rugeley chemist, between eleven and twelve on Tuesday morning—also two drachms of Batley's solution of opium, and two drachms of prussic acid. He knew that Mr Stevens had obtained evidence of his purchases from Hawkins' Poison Book. All these drugs, by the way, were found in the Doctor's surgery after his arrest—all, that is, except the strychnine.
While visiting London on December ist, Dr Palmer had taken the precaution of sending a gift-hamper to Mr William Webb Ward, the Stafford Coroner. This contained a 20-lb. turkey, a brace of pheasants, a fine cod, and a barrel of oysrers, and was sent by railway to Mr Ward's private residence at Stoke-on-Trent, without a sender's name. It is understood that Dr Palmer wrote to Mr Ward by the post, but that Mr Ward destroyed the letter in disgust and very correctly sent the hamper to the Stafford Infirmary for the benefit of pauper patients. Whether the patients, rather than the medical staff, enjoyed them, is, however, highly doubtful.
Dr Palmer could never leave well alone. The news of Professor Taylor's findings so elated him that, the next morning, he sent two letters to Stafford by the hand of George Bate. The first was sealed, and addressed to Mr Webb Ward; the second, an open note, ordered Mr France, the poulterer,' to supply the bearer with some nice pheasants and a good hare'.
Bate found a boy who for threepence would take the hamper of game to Mr Ward's house, and delivered the letter to Mr Ward himself at The Dolphin Inn, as he played billiards in the smoking-room. This letter, which Mr Ward at once handed to Captain Hatton, the Chief Constable of Police, bore no date, but ran as follows:
My dear Sir,
I am sorry to tell you that I am still confined to bed. I do not think it was mentioned at the inquest yesterday that Cook was taken ill on Sunday and Monday night in the same way as he was on the Tuesday when he died. The chambermaid at The Crown—Master's hotel— can prove this. I also believe that a man by the name of Fisher is coming down to prove that he received some money from Cook at Shrewsbury. Now here Cook could only pay Jeremiah Smith £10 out of the £41 he owed him. Had you not better call Smith to prove this?
And again whatever Professor Taylor may say tomorrow, he wrote from London last Tuesday night to Gardiner, to say: 'We have this day finished our analysis and find no traces of either strychnine, prussic acid, or opium.'
What can beat this from a man like Professor Taylor, if he says tomorrow what he has already said—and Dr Harland's evidence? Mind you, I know and saw it in black and white, what Professor Taylor said to Gardiner, but this is strictly private and confidential; but it is true. As regards the betting-book, I know nothing of it and it is of no good to anyone.
I hope the verdict tomorrow will be that Cook died of natural causes, and thus end it.
Ever yours,
Wm Palmer
The inquest did not, in the event, take place on the next day, being postponed for another week. Since neither of the hampers was returned to him, Dr Palmer concluded that he had the Coroner 'in his breeches' pocket', as the cant saying is, and therefore on Thursday, December 13 th, wrote him another letter. This should have gone in a sealed envelope with a present of money; but finding that he had only a £50 note in his possession, he asked Bate to borrow a 'pony' from Ben Thirlby. Bate went off and presently returned with a £5 note.
At this moment, what he had been dreading for so long, at last happened. A knock sounded at the door; Eliza Tharm opened it, and in came two Sheriff's officers to arrest the Doctor for forgery. Bate was ordered from the room while they performed their duty, but as soon as both had retired downstairs, Dr Palmer summoned him again, put the bank-note in the envelope, and said: 'George, take this to the Coroner at once. Let nobody see you!'
Bate protested: 'Nay, Mister, can't you send someone else? I don't like this hole-and-corner game, indeed I don't, not with the Police in the house.'
'Why, George,' Dr Palmer answered, 'as to this poor fellow Cook, they'll find no poison in him. He was the best pal I ever had in my life—why should I have poisoned him? I'm as innocent as you are, George.'
Bate therefore took the missive which, an hour later, catching Mr Ward on the road between Stafford railway station and The Junction Hotel, he handed to him with a knowing wink. Mr Ward angrily crumpled and thrust it into his pocket. The envelope, when opened, contained no letter, but only the £$ note, and a message scribbled on a piece of newspaper: 'I understand that France, the poulterer, was one pheasant short of my order. This I sincerely regret. W.P.'
The inquest was finally held on the next day, Friday, December 14th. Elizabeth Mills, Lavinia Barnes, Dr Jones, Dr Bamford, who were the principal witnesses, testified that Cook had suffered first from vomiting, and then from tetanic convulsions. Professor Taylor, however, argued that these convulsions were produced by strychnia, even though he and Dr Rees had been unable to find traces of such a drug in the organs sent them for analysis.
'With a nicely calculated dose,' Professor Taylor wrote, 'this was not to be expected, since strychnia is a poison rapidly absorbed into the blood.'
Roberts, assistant to Messrs Hawkins, the chemists, then testified that he had sold Dr Palmer six grains of strychnine on the Tuesday morning. Newton kept quiet about his gift to the Doctor of the earlier three grains; and the eye-witnesses' account of Cook's illness was strictly as we have recorded it in the foregoing chapter.
The Coroner invited Dr Palmer to give evidence, but he sent word that illness prevented him from attending. It has been said, by the way, that the Sheriff's officers prompted this plea, not wanting him to escape.
On the following day the jury retired. Some minutes later, disregarding a plain conflict of testimony; misdirected by the Coroner, who perhaps wished to assure the Police that the proffered bribes had not warped his judgement; and, finally, stirred up by their foreman, Mr Tunnicliffe, Newton's father-in-law, they returned a verdict of 'Wilful Murder' against Dr Palmer.