Nevertheless, when the case came before the Coroner, the jury, instigated by Mr Hawkins, the chemist, who had been chaffed a good deal for having supplied Dr Palmer with enough poison to destroy the whole parish, brought in yet another verdict of wilful murder. Walter's widow, Mrs Agnes Palmer, had attended the Court, but was so broken by grief that the Coroner led her to a private room where he took her evidence in the presence of the Foreman and the Clerk. Among others who appeared were George Palmer, the solicitor, who told the Court: 'Mr Hawkins feels rancour towards my brother, and will, I am sure, find him guilty of murder whatever the evidence. At my brother's sale, Mr Hawkins bought a medical book, to use against him when he comes to be tried on the equally false charge of poisoning his friend, the late Mr Cook.'
Pratt, the moneylender, was also called, because he held Walter Palmer's life insurance policy as collateral security for Dr Palmer's debts to him, and because he had approached the insurance companies on the Doctor's behalf; which led him to be suspected of complicity in the supposed murder. The Coroner and jury asked him searching questions; denounced his rate of interest—sixty per cent a year—as usurious; and treated him so roughly that at last he screamed in falsetto, tears of rage streaming down his plump face: 'How can you ask such questions of a family man with three young children and a dear wife, who will probably be ruined by this affair? I lost over four thousand pounds through Palmer!'
The Court burst into loud laughter.
This, however, was not yet the end of the matter, for at the next Stafford Assizes the Grand Jury threw out the bill against Dr Palmer for wilful murder of his brother Walter, finding the evidence insufficient.
Now, if it is asked why Professor Taylor had been so ready to name prussic acid as the cause of dcadi, the answer is clear. A detective, employed by Mr Stevens to make inquiries at Wolverhampton, discovered that on the Monday before Walter's death, while the race-meeting was in progress there, the Doctor had visited a chemist's shop and bought a quantity of prussic acid and jalap from the assistant. Mr Stevens acquainted Professor Taylor with this news, and the evidence which the assistant gave at the inquest, supporting Professor Taylor's seemingly unaided diagnosis, prompted the verdict of wilful murder. But George Palmer prudently took the precaution of checking the Poison Book and found no entry, on the date concerned, referring to prussic acid. He then threatened to indict the assistant for perjury—a crime which carries the statutory punishment of transportation—if he would not publicly withdraw his statement. This the young man hastened to do, though transportation has, of course, been suspended since 1846, when the authorities of Van Diemen's Land, overwhelmed by a horde of idle and depraved convicts, far outnumbering the free settlers, begged the Government to send no more. The probability is that the assistant had made Dr Palmer a present of the prussic acid, just as Newton did; and that the Doctor intended to use it on other owners' horses—for it can at least be said that he always ran his own to win.
While held in Stafford Gaol, Dr Palmer was only once allowed outside the building. On January 21st, policemen escorted him to Westminster where he appeared as a witness at a trial in which Padwick, the moneylender, was plaintiff, and old Mrs Palmer defendant. (This, it will be recalled, was the day artfully chosen by the managers of Tattersall's to put the 'all-yellow' horses under the hammer; the coincidence excited high bidding.) Padwick was trying to recover a £2,000 loan, in the form of a bill which apparently bore old Mrs Palmer's acceptance. She denied the handwriting, and was supported in this by three of her children: Mr George Palmer, the Rev. Thomas Palmer, and Miss Sarah Palmer. The dramatic appearance of Dr Palmer, who had presented the bill to Padwick, caused quite a stir. The door of the Judge's private room was thrown open and he entered, cool and collected, in the custody of a large and muscular police officer. From the witness box he leisurely surveyed the crowded audience, to some of whom he gave a familiar nod, before fixing his attention on a person located between him and the learned counsel who conducted Mrs Palmer's case. This was a young red-haired woman, believed to have been the same Jane Widnall, or Smirke, lately-returned a widow from Australia, who had first seduced him from the narrow path of virtue. She afterwards applied for a seat at the murder trial, but the demand being too great, failed of her expectation.
Dr Palmer was then sworn and answered the following questions in a low, yet firm and distinct voice, without betraying the least hesitation or nervousness.
MR EDWIN JAMES (handing him the bill of exchange).Is the signature 'William Palmer' as the drawer of this bill in your handwriting?
DR PALMER. Yes.
MR JAMES. And you applied to Padwick to advance you money on it?
DR PALMER. I did.
MR JAMES. Who wrote Mrs Sarah Palmer's acceptance on it?
DR PALMER. Ann Palmer.
MR JAMES. Who is she?
DR PALMER. She is now dead.
MR JAMES. Do you mean your wife?
DR PALMER. Yes.
MR JAMES. Did you see her write it?
DR PALMER. Yes.
A shudder went through the audience. That a man should accuse his dead wife of a crime which he had himself forced upon her, seemed a heartless proceeding; yet, she being dead and past caring, his chief concern was to preserve his mother's esteem. She had assured Jeremiah Smith that 'my Billy would never seek to rob me', nor was she disappointed; his honest confession of fraud now saved her two thousand pounds, for Mr Padwick's Counsel saw no course open to him but retirement from the case. The jury found in favour of old Mrs Palmer, and the prisoner was hurried back to Euston Square station.
It is an ironical circumstance that Mr Padwick, half an hour earlier, had purchased two of the Doctor's horses: a bay yearling colt, by Touchstone out of the Duchess of Kent, at 230 guineas; and a brown yearling filly, by Touchstone out of Maid o' Lyme, at 250 guineas. He swore that had he known how the case would go, he'd never have 'bought hoof or hair of that twister's bloodstock'.
Chapter XIX
UNRELIABLE WITNESSES
DR PALMER'S younger brothers, George the solicitor, and Thomas the Anglican clergyman, had cooled off considerably towards him of late years; yet kept the peace to please old Mrs Palmer. Since she never disguised her fondness for 'my roguish Billy', they did not vex her by evincing their repugnance for him; in part, no doubt, because she was worth some seventy thousand pounds, but principally because she was their mother. When the Police arrested the Doctor on a charge of murder, they at once rallied to his defence. Neither of them, from their long experience of him, could bring himself to believe in the charge; nor, being respectable citizens, would they consent to be known as the brother of a murderer, without doing everything that might he in their power to wipe out this stigma. Old Mrs Palmer, though repudiating the debts which Dr Palmer had incurred in her name, promised to engage the best lawyers available.
George secured Mr John Smith of Birmingham—the famous 'Honest John Smith of Brum'—as solicitor for the Defence, and consulted with him as to what leading Counsel should be retained. John Smith swore that the most suitable man in all England would be Mr Serjeant Wilkins, Q.C., who had enjoyed a medical education until taking to the Law, and could therefore confidently handle the abstruse evidence expected. Serjeant Wilkins agreed to act; and appeared for them in January when, in the suit brought by Padwick, Dr Palmer admitted having forged his mother's acceptances to the bills—but, three weeks before the trial, he threw up his brief, pleading ill health. In point of fact, we understand, the duns were after him; and it was with difficulty that he escaped by fishing-smack to Dieppe. This came as a great disappointment to John Smith. Having failed to secure the services of Sir Frederick Thesiger, who had been Attorney-General during the Peel administration, he fell back on an Irishman, Mr Serjeant Shee,