SERJEANT SHEE. So an unknown gentleman came to you at Dolly's!
Did he tell you from whom he came?
MILLS. No, he asked: "Will you answer a few questions?' I said:
' Certainly.' He did not tell me his name, neither did I ask it.
SERJEANT SHEE. Did he ask you many questions ?
MILLS. Not very many.
SERJEANT SHEE. Did he write down your answers ?
MILLS. Yes.
SERJEANT SHEE. But he did not tell you who he was, or whom he
came from, or for what your answers were wanted?
MILLS. No.
SERJEANT SHEE. Did he mention Mr Stevens's name?
MILLS. Yes.
SERJEANT SHEE. What did he say about Mr Stevens?
MILLS. Mr Stevens was with him in the sitting-room; he called Mr
Stevens by name.
SERJEANT SHEE. Why did you not tell us that before?
MILLS. I was not asked. [Laughter in Court.]
We have heard of Judges warning juries to place no reliance on witnesses whose conduct and demeanour were in every way superior to those of Elizabeth Mills; yet the Lord Chief Justice supported her with romantic fervour and characterized Serjeant Shee's suggestion that Mr Stevens paid her money as 'a most foul charge'. The Dr Collier mentioned by Elizabeth Mills had gone, at John Smith's request, to Hitchingley, where he took down her statements. When informed that he was now in Court, Baron Alderson exclaimed angrily: 'Dr Collier should be absent, if he is to be examined for facts. He is here under the false pretence of being a doctor!' Baron Alderson forgot that three doctors called by the Prosecution to be examined for facts were also in Court.
Further evidence that day came from Lavinia Barnes, who docilely supported Mills's new story of having been poisoned after tasting the broth, but otherwise added nothing to the stock of common knowledge; from Dr Jones, Cook's oldest friend, and the only medical eye-witness of his death, who kept to his view that Cook had died of natural causes; from Dr Savage, the London physician, who gave evidence that Cook was in reasonably good health, save for a weakness of the lung, up to a fortnight before his death; and finally from Charles Newton, Dr Salt's assistant.
Newton now testified to having given Dr Palmer three grains of strychnine crystals at nine o'clock on Monday night, November 19th. He also told a most improbable tale about a meeting on Sunday, November 25 th, the eve of the post-mortem examination.
Cross-examined by Mr James, Q.C., for the Prosecution:
JAMES. Do you remember Sunday, the 25th of November?
NEWTON. I do.
JAMES. Where were you at about seven o'clock that evening ?
NEWTON. At Dr Palmer's house.
JAMES. What was the cause of your going there?
NEWTON. I was sent for.
JAMES. Where did you find Palmer when you went, and what was he doing?
NEWTON. He was alone, sitting by the kitchen fire, reading.
JAMES. What did he say to you ?
NEWTON. He asked me how I was, and would I take a little brandy?
JAMES. Did he say anything else to you ?
NEWTON. He asked me: 'What dose of strychnia would be required to kill a dog?' I told him, 'a grain'. He then asked me whether it would be found in the stomach after death.
JAMES. What did you say?
NEWTON. I told him there would be no inflammation, and that I did
not think it would be found.
JAMES. Did he make any remark upon that?
NEWTON. I think he said: 'It is all right,' as if speaking to himself.
Then he did that [snapping his fingers).
Newton's evidence was greeted by a loud clapping of hands in Court, as though he had delivered a telling dramatic speech at Drury Lane. Lord Chief Justice Campbell made no attempt to quell the applause.
Cross-examined by Mr Grove for the Defence:
GROVE. You were examined at the inquest, I think you have stated; did you then say anything either about your conversation with respect to the dog, or about the three grains of strychnia ?
NEWTON. NO, I did not.
GROVE. Did you say anything about the conversation of Cook's suffering from diseased diroat—syphilis? NEWTON. Yes, I did.
GROVE. At the inquest?
NEWTON. I was not questioned there about the post-mortem at all . . .
Re-examined by Mr Attorney-General Cockburn:
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL. You have said that you gave information to the Crown on Tuesday about this fact of the three grains of strychnia. How was it you did not give that information before?
NEWTON. On account that Dr Palmer had not been friends with Dr Salt; they never speak to each other.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL. What had that to do with it?
NEWTON. I thought Dr Salt would be displeased at my letting Dr Palmer have anything.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL. YOU say they did not speak?
NEWTON. No; Mr Thirlby lived with Dr Salt for nineteen years . . .
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL. Was it in consequence of Mr Thirlby going to Dr Palmer's that this difference took place between Dr Palmer and Dr Salt?
NEWTON. Yes; Dr Salt did not speak to Dr Palmer, or Mr Thirlby either.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL. Was there any other reason besides that for
your keeping it back?
NEWTON. That was my only reason.
SERJEANT SHEE. Will your Lordship ask this witness whether he has not given another reason: the reason being that he was afraid he should be indicted for perjury?
NEWTON. No, I did not give that as a reason, though I mentioned it to the gentleman sitting there [Mr Greenwood]. I stated that I had heard about a young man from Wolverhampton whom Mr George Palmer had indicted for perjury because this young man could not produce a book to show that he had sold Dr Palmer some prussic acid.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL. In what case was that?
NEWTON. The inquest upon Walter Palmer.
The Defence did not challenge Newton's reliability as a witness, but it has since been revealed that he was Ben Thirlby's illegitimate son by one Dorothy Newton of Bell's Yard, Long Row, Nottingham. His half-brother John was sentenced to four years' penal servitude for picking pockets at Lincoln Races; and he himself, as a boy, had been caught breaking up a stolen silver spoon belonging to his employer Mr Crossland, a wine merchant, and thereupon spent three days in the Nottingham House of Correction. The records show that his mother, a charwoman, begged him off from the magistrates who examined the case, promising to make good Mr Crossland's losses. A second offence has been mentioned, but we lack for details. Newton later, after attendance at the National School, assisted a Nottingham surgeon; and was then cunningly insinuated by Ben Thirlby into Dr Salt's employment. Dr Salt did not know of the blood-relationship between these two.
When the trial was over, the same obliging Newton, prompted perhaps by certain insurance company officials, called on the Attorney-General. He said that if Sir George Grey considered granting a reprieve (on the ground that Dr Palmer did not have time to make up the strychnine pills in his own surgery, and then administer them at the hour stated by the Prosecution) he would willingly swear to having given Dr Palmer the strychnine in the form of pills already made up—a fact he had hitherto forgotten! The Attorney-General undertook to bring this new evidence before his fellow-Minister, should Dr Palmer's lawyer sue for a reprieve.
Chapter XX
ABSENT WITNESSES
SERJEANT SHEE'S main ground of defence was that Dr Palmer did not stand to gain financially by John Parsons Cook's death, since it made him liable to repay debts which they jointly incurred, in an amount far exceeding such small sums as the Prosecution accused him of robbing. He had, indeed, bought six grains of stryclinine on the Tuesday morning from Hawkins's shop, openly and for a legitimate reason; Serjeant Shee, however, preferred to deny his having procured any from Newton on the Monday evening. Therefore, the convulsions reported by Elizabeth Mills that night were not, he argued, attributable to strychnine poisoning, but rather to tetanus or epilepsy, or some other ailment, as were also those of the Tuesday night winch carried Cook off early the following morning. Furthermore, had Dr Palmer planned to murder Cook, he would never have sent for his friend, Dr Jones of Lutterworth, an experienced physician, to sleep in the same bedroom and witness his death agonies. Nor would he have dared to rob Cook of the Shrewsbury winnings when Dr Jones was aware of their exact value and when Cook, being perfectly conscious, would have complained to him if Dr Palmer had stolen his hoard.