Serjeant Shee made great efforts to bring out this point in cross-examining Sir Benjamin:
SERJEANT SHEE. Would you think that the description of a chambermaid, and of a provincial medical man who had seen only one case of tetanus, could be relied on to state what sort of disease Cook's was?
THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (nodding wisely to the jury). He is asked, on
the assumption that both witnesses are speaking the truth.
SIR BENJAMIN BRODIE (uncomfortably). I must say, I thought that the
description was clearly given.
SERJEANT SHEE. On which of the two would you rely, supposing that
they differed—the chambermaid or the medical man ?
THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (in injured tones). This is hardly a proper
question.
MR BARON ALDERSON. It is a proper observation for you to make, Brother Shee!
The question was, of course, disallowed. But surely it had been most properly put? If Sir Benjamin had answered that he relied on Elizabeth Mills's untrained observations, then the jury would have set the fact against their memories of certain most disingenuous answers given by this witness when questioned about her meetings with Messrs Stevens and Gardiner. If, however, Sir Benjamin had answered that he preferred Dr Jones's testimony, the inference would have been that Cook died from natural causes.
We believe that this ruling by the Lord Chief Justice did more to hang Dr Palmer than any other. Yet it is an axiom of the Law, dear to all Englishmen, that in any criminal trial, the presiding Judge is 'prime counsel for the prisoner'.
Serjeant Shee's speech for the Defence was eloquent enough. He could show that Dr Palmer and Cook owned a racehorse in common; had contracted certain debts jointly; and trusted each other to lay money on horses. The brotherliness of their relations was suggested by a letter, produced in evidence, which Cook wrote Dr Palmer from Lutterworth, on January 4th, 1855.
My dear Sir,
I went up to London on Tuesday to back St Hubert for £50, and my commission has returned 10s/1d. I have therefore booked £250 to £25 against him, to gain money. There is a small balance of £10 due to you, which I forgot to give you the other day. Tell Will Saunders to debit me with it on account of your share in training Pyrrhine. I will also write asking him to do so, and there will be a balance due to him from me.
Yours faithfully,
J. Parsons Cook
But Serjeant Shee attempted too much. Cheshire's and Pad-wick's testimony proved conclusively that Dr Palmer had forged Cook's signature to a paper and got for himself the money Cook won at Shrewsbury. Granted, Cook's murder could have benefited him neither in the long run nor in the short, since liabilities to the amount of twelve thousand pounds were outstanding; yet the evidence of fraud was plain. A plea that Dr Palmer had taken advantage of Cook's natural sickness to rob him would have been a safer one. Dr Palmer would, it is true, have received a very severe prison sentence in consequence; but the crime of forgery, which he had admitted on oath, already made him liable to that.
Serjeant Shee surprised the Court with a most remarkable statement. 'I believe,' he said, 'that truer words were never pronounced than those uttered by the prisoner when pleading "Not Guilty" to this charge. I will prove to you the sincerity with which I declare my personal conviction of his innocence—when I meet the case foot by foot.'
The Attorney-General replied: 'You have just heard from my learned friend the unusual and, I may add, the unprecedented assurance of his personal faith in his client's innocence. When he made it—and I know no man in whom the spirit of truth is more keenly alive—he gave expression to what he sincerely believed. But what would lie diink of me if, imitating his example, I at this moment revealed to you upon my word and honour, as he did, what is my personal conviction from a meticulous review of the whole case?'
The Attorney-General could not, it seems, forget his private conversation with Frank Swindell, who had accused Dr Palmer of 'doctoring him for death' at Wolverhampton Races.
Among the witnesses, other than medical, called for the Defence and present in Court, were George Myatt, the Rugeley saddler; John Sergeant, a racing man; and, finally, Jeremiah Smith. Myatt testified that he had been at The Raven Hotel on the night when Cook complained of the brandy, and that nobody could have doctored Cook s brandy and water without his knowledge. He also testified that a great many people fell sick at the Shrewsbury Meeting, and that Dr Palmer himself had vomited violently out of the carriage window on his return to Rugeley by the six o'clock express. Cook, Dr Palmer, and himself had then discussed the prevalence of these symptoms and thought that the Shrewsbury water supply must have been tainted. Myatt swore that Cook had been very drunk, even before he took the brandy and water; and that Cook's words were not: 'It burns my throat dreadfully,' but: 'There's something in it.'
Sergeant testified that at the Liverpool Races, a week previously, Cook had asked him to look at his ulcered throat, and that he had made the same request on several other occasions. 'He also went to Dr Palmer,' Sergeant continued, 'and in my hearing applied for a mercurial lotion called "black wash".' From Sergeant's further evidence it seems probable that Cook's remark, 'It burns my throat dreadfully,' did not refer to the brandy, but was a retrospective complaint about an injury done him at Liverpool railway station. Gingerbread nuts were sold on the course— some innocuous, others containing cayenne pepper—and when the races had ended Dr Palmer humorously gave Cook one of the latter sort. At The Raven, Cook drunkenly suspected Dr Palmer of dosing the brandy too—the peppered ginger-nut being still active in his memory.
Jeremiah Smith testified to Cook's not possessing enough money, after the Shrewsbury Races, to pay him more than five pounds of the £41 10s. debt due, and saying: 'I can't let you have the remainder, Jerry, because I've given most of my winnings to Palmer, but you shall be paid when I've been to Tattersall's on Monday.' Smith also testified that he had waited for Dr Palmer's return to Rugeley on the fateful Monday night, and met him at ten minutes past ten outside The Talbot Arms Hotel. Cook, whom they then visited briefly, in his bedroom, complained: 'You're late tonight, Doctor. I didn't expect you to look in. So I took Dr Bamford's pills'—the inference being that he would not have taken them, had Dr Palmer come earlier. When Cook told them both: 'I was up this afternoon talking with Saunders and Ashmole,' Dr Palmer answered: 'You oughtn't to have done that.'
Afterwards, so Jeremiah Smith testified, Dr Palmer and himself walked to The Yard, a few hundred paces away, and spent half an hour in the company of old Mrs Palmer, who had important business to discuss. He then left Dr Palmer at The Yard, and went home. As for the allegedly poisoned broth, he had sent it as a gift to Cook, who was not well enough to accept an invitation to dine; this broth being the liquor in which his own leg of mutton had been boiled at The Albion Inn. That Mrs Rowley, the cook, should take it along the street in a saucepan, to be warmed up at Dr Palmer's and there poured into the invalid-cup, was very natural, considering the distance and the state of the weather. Jeremiah Smith also testified to having once watched Ben Thirlby, Dr Palmer's assistant, dress Cook's ulcered throat with caustic.
Nevertheless, the good impression thus made on the jury was entirely swept away by the Attorney-General's cross-examination of Jeremiah Smith, on matters irrelevant to the trial. Serjeant Shee knew that any objections to these he might lodge would be vain. Indeed, Smith gave such a lamentable exhibition of cowardice that the spirit of tragedy which had for days brooded over the Old Bailey gave place, at times, to farce.