Captain Hatton, to whom the Coroner had forwarded the incriminating letters, made the arrest. Ben Thirlby was sitting by Dr Palmer's bedside at the time, and felt so convinced of his innocence that he leaped at the Captain and tried to seize him by the throat. 'The charge is wicked and diabolical!' he cried. But the Police officers gave Thirlby a rough handling for his pains. Dr Palmer then summoned Jeremiah Smith, who delayed half an hour before he dared comply, first fortifying himself at The Albion public bar. 'This news makes me feel sick,' said he.
Smith, it should be explained, had fallen in disgrace with old Mrs Palmer on the Monday night—the night on which Newton handed Dr Palmer the three grains of stiychnine. After bidding
Cook good-night, he and Dr Palmer had gone together to The Yard, where the old lady gave them both a terrible brushing down. Having been informed by her son George, the solicitor, that a moneylender wanted him to certify her signature on an acceptance of a bill for two thousand pounds, which he had refused to do, she now charged Smith with drafting this document for her Billy.
'I know well,' she cried, 'that Billy here would never have expected me to pay. This was just his way of tiding himself over a bad situation—but that you aided and abetted him and said never a word to me, I cannot forgive! Be off now, Mr Smith, I don't want to see your treacherous face ever again. It's not even as if you'd been faithful to my bed.'
When Smith at last entered the bedroom, he saw Dr Palmer surrounded by Police officers. Pointing to them, he gasped out: 'William, oh, William, how is dris?'
The Doctor could not answer, but tears trickled down his cheeks.
He was judged unfit to be moved until the next day, when the Police, after examining his house from attic to cellar, and taking close precautions against his attempted escape or suicide, conveyed him in a covered van to Stafford Gaol. He had bidden an affecting good-bye to Eliza Tharm, throwing his arms around her neck, and requited her love with the gift of his last £50 note. Their illegitimate child, by the bye, had died at five weeks old, not long before this: it was sent out to a poor nursing mother near the Canal Bridge at Armitage, three miles from Rugeley, but she neglected her charge.
Samuel Cheshire was presently arrested on a charge of tampering with the Royal Mails. Dr Palmer's letter to Mr Webb Ward provided the Postal Authorities with the necessary evidence and he earned a severe prison sentence.
Chapter XVIII
STAFFORD GAOL
WHILE describing Stafford town, in an earlier chapter, we purposely reserved our account of the ' County Gaol and House of Correction' until this story should reach the point where Dr Palmer entered it as an inmate. It has very much the appearance of a solid, squat brick castle, because of the round towers placed at its four corners, and the steep outer walls which connect them. The pile gives off a glare like the embers of a coal furnace. The principal entrance, however, is built of stone, and we found it quite refreshing to approach its cool shade.
Facing the porter's lodge stands the Governor's house, with a little bit of garden stretched before it; but the grass seems to know that it is prison grass and therefore denied all such luxuries as manure or prepared soil. The beds grow no flowers worthy of notice, and are rich only in flints. A pathway leads thence to the debtors' airing court, a sizeable gravelled square surrounded by white-painted wooden railings; and next to this rises the prison bakehouse from which proceeds a hum of machinery and a grinding noise. The power that turns the millstones is that of a tread-wheel, worked by thirty-two felons, in prison-grey, trudging for an hour at a time up the endless stairs which turn away beneath their feet. Prison officers armed with cudgels discourage the rebellious or the laggardly from a neglect of their task. The result is both a sensation of health produced by wholesome exercise, which many of the felons are taking for the first time in then-disorderly lives, and a large quantity of flour—not perhaps of the highest quality, yet passed as fit for human consumption. Through the bakehouse windows may be seen great stacks of bread, baked into slabs three inches thick, which are then sawn into yard lengths and piled together in orderly fashion, like planks of rare timber at a cabinet-maker's shop. Square loaves, such as free men eat, are suspect as serving to conceal such forbidden objects as bottles of
spirits, rope-ladders, and weapons of destruction, smuggled in with the grain.
When Dr Palmer reached the Gaol, he still felt ill; and, immediately donning nightcap and nightshirt, went to bed again. Major Fulford, the Governor, took advantage of this removal of his clothes to remove them even farther, fearing that poison might be concealed in them. He ordered another suit to be made for Dr Palmer, not of prison-grey, since he was not yet a convict, but of a sober broadcloth. However, he declined to wear these new clothes, insisting that the Governor had no right to force them on him, and that they were badly cut. His wilfulness convinced the prison officers that poison must surely lurk in the seams or corners of coat, waistcoat or trousers; two or three grains of prussic acid or strychnine would, of course, suffice to end his life. When, a fortnight later, his own clothes were at last returned, every garment had been searched with a fine comb and beaten hard to dislodge any powder. All the seams had also been opened; all the buttons examined lest one of them should serve as a miniature poison-box; the heels unfastened from his boots, lest these too should serve as receptacles for poison, and put back after careful scrutiny.
Much as Dr Palmer hated sleeping alone, almost more he hated being cut off from the racing news; but the Governor had strong views on the subject of horse-racing and gambling and let him read no newspaper which contained any talk of 'form' and 'odds'. In his despondency, Dr Palmer determined on self-destruction. No easy means offered, however, since he might use neither knife nor fork for his meals, ate off a tin plate and drank from a tin mug. He therefore resolved on starvation, simply sipping a little water from time to time, and lying motionless in bed, his face turned towards the wall. The Governor, during his usual morning visit, became alarmed by this behaviour, and tried to argue him into eating. Dr Palmer replied courteously that he was not hungry, and wanted nothing. Since, by the seventh day of this obstinate abstention from food, his prisoner had lost a stone of weight and seemed in danger of making good his resolve, the Governor had a savoury bowl of soup prepared, and sent for a spoon and a stomach-pump.
He told Dr Palmer that, according to the prison doctor, his pulse was regular, his looks those of a healthy man, and there seemed no reason why he should not partake of this succulent soup.
'It's only that I have no appetite for coarse food,' Dr Palmer murmured faintly.
'Then, Sir,' cried the Governor, 'you shall choose between this spoon and that other instrument! I don't care a fig (let me be frank) whether you live or die, except in so far as my own appointment is concerned. But if I pander to your desire for self-extinction, my superiors will punish me severely; which I do not intend to happen. You have five minutes to decide whether you will drain your bowl, or oblige me to take compulsory measures. In the latter case, I shall summon a force of officers, of whom I have fifty at my orders, wedge open your jaws, drop the tube of this pump down the gullet, and pretty soon soup will be warming your stomach. It is by no means the pleasantest way of eating, but what other recourse have I?'
Dr Palmer said: 'I had not considered, Sir, that my loss of appetite might endanger your appointment here. And though I don't welcome your poor opinion of me—which I find unbecoming when I'm not yet pronounced guilty, and won't be, neither— nevertheless, if you insist, I'll consent to drink the damned beverage with your greasy spoon.'