The first and only premium paid to The Prince of Wales was seven hundred and sixty pounds; but though, my brother tells me, the official at The Sun who had been in treaty with The Solicitors' and General urged The Prince of Wales to refuse payment until a rigid inquiry had been made into the circumstances of Annie's death, the policy could not be invalidated. Three doctors had signed the certificate, pronouncing English cholera to have been the cause, and The Sun's own agent, Mr Jeremiah Smith, signed a sworn statement that nothing was amiss. The Prince of Wales therefore sent Dr Palmer a thirteen-thousand-pound cheque. Yet even that immense sum proved insufficient to wipe out his indebtedness. He still owed two thousand pounds to Mr Padwick, the commission-agent: a loan covered by another forged acceptance in old Mrs Palmer's name.
The Doctor's reputation as a poisoner had recently increased; and when news of the insurance payment spread—for he deposited the cheque in the Market Square Bank at Rugeley—he found himself looked upon as a sort of leper. Old friends would cross the street when they saw him approaching. The only female who comforted him—besides his sister Sarah and old Mrs Palmer, both of whom continued affectionate as ever—was Eliza Tharm. He hated to sleep alone, and now that Eliza's moral obligations to Annie were at an end, she became his mistress and cared for him pretty well, I must say; though the affair disgusted me, as taking place so soon after Annie's death.
Chapter XI
A GOOD LIFE
IT would not be amiss at this point to give a short description of "Walter Palmer who, like his brother William, suffered from a fatal taste for racing and betting. Walter, a large, heavy, simple-hearted, drunken man, had been placed as a youth with Messrs Procter and Company, Corn Merchants, of Brunswick Street, Liverpool, to learn the business. He remained in their employment until, coming of age and inheriting the same sum as his four brothers, namely seven thousand pounds, he set up as a corn factor at Stafford. Familiarly known as 'Watty', he was a great favourite among members of the trade, both in Liverpool, where he continued to pay a weekly visit to the Corn Exchange, and in his new home. He courted a ladylike and elegant wife, by name Agnes Milcrest, who enjoyed an income of four hundred and fifty pounds a year, and was a sister-in-law of his elder brother Joseph. Joseph's wife, having by this time taken the measure of the family she had married into, and found that it fell considerably short of the ideal, warned Agnes against making the same mistake as herself; but to no avail. Walter already drank far more spirits than suited his health, and devoted considerably closer attention to his betting-book than his ledger; if Agnes hoped to redeem him, she came too late. His bankruptcy, in 1849, had the unfortunate effect of limiting his interests. He took no pleasure in reading, or in music, and since the corn trade could no longer afford to support him, nor could he afford to visit the racecourse, there was little left for him to do but drink hard liquor, and he counted on it to stave off boredom. Agnes Palmer still possessed her annuity, of which she could not be deprived by Walter's creditors, and continued to love him. During the bankruptcy proceedings they went together to the Isle of Man, and rented a house in the picturesque old town of Douglas; but the quietude excited rather than soothed his nerves and, after an attack of delirium tremens,
he unsuccessfully attempted suicide by cutting his throat with a kitchen knife.
A second attack, at Stafford, made Agnes Palmer decide, most reluctantly, to separate from Walter. She retired to Liverpool and there lived with her sister, who needed company, having just got rid of Joseph in much the same circumstances. Walter, now thirty-two years of age, settled down in Earl Street, Stafford. Agnes paid him one hundred pounds of her annuity, to which old Mrs Palmer added a further fifty pounds a year. For want of other amusement, he spent his mornings and afternoons at the bowling green, where he would bet in halfpennies on the matches. He always sent his wife an affectionate weekly letter; and she had promised to rejoin him so soon as he was himself again, though not before. Like the generality of drunkards, he had become reserved in his habits, and would walk up and down for hours in silence; but could not wean himself from the bottle, try as he might.
Dr Palmer's moral decline was, we believe, precipitated by his wife's death. Far from taking to heart the lesson which she tried to teach him by her fond self-sacrifice—that he must abandon his gambling ways and seriously resume the practice of medicine— he had learned from her an exceedingly simple method of making money: which was to insure the lives of those who stood only a few steps from the grave. We may acquit him of knowing or suspecting that Annie had died of anything but English cholera; and he could hardly have been expected, when Eliza Tharm told him the truth, to let the Police know about the poisonous powders which she had administered in all innocence. With his brother Walter, however, he certainly took one step farther in the direction of crime: not by poisoning him, as was afterwards charged, but by encouraging him to a speedier end than he might otherwise have met.
'Inspectors Field and Simpson of the Detective Force', as they are called—though 'Inspector' is their self-assumed rank, and the 'Detective Force' consists only of themselves—are frequently employed by the larger insurance companies to inquire into dubious or suspicious claims. Both men had belonged to the regular Police Force; and Inspector Field especially, a burly, jovial officer with a face like a sporting farmer's, fists like hams, and a red velveteen waistcoat much stained with snuff, must be worth a fortune to his employers. We wonder that he does not demand a thousand pounds a year retaining fee from them, instead of the miserable three guineas a week and travelling expenses which is all they pay him. This account, as it happens, was given us by his colleague, Inspector Simpson, a lean, pale, clerkly man, who dresses in black as if in continuous mourning for the sins of the world. Inspector Field says of him:' Simpson's not got so keen a nose as yours truly, but he has a far better head for dates and figures. You can rely on him for those.'
INSPECTOR SIMPSON
Inspector Field and I have been employed by the insurance companies to clear up a good many dirty businesses in our day, but this present affair proved to be among the dirtiest. Yes, Sir, we also undertake investigations for private persons, in our scant leisure time—always at your service!
Let me give you the sequence of events as we have reconstructed them by inquiry. Though the ship's log (so to speak) will doubtless be produced at the trial, we know, by and large, how she sailed. Dr Palmer kept a stable for broodmares at Rugeley, his home town, and had several racehorses in training at Hednesford and elsewhere. He hoped that these animals would earn vast sums of money for him but, as you know, Sir, racehorses are expensive to support and run; he achieved some successes, he met with even more failures.
The first horse he had in training was Goldfinder; she ran five times in 1852; once unplaced, twice second, twice third. In 1853, carrying nearly top weight (7 stone 6 pounds), she won the Tradesmen's Plate at Chester May Meeting, Aldcroft up, which was worth £2770. Though Dr Palmer might have netted a deal of money on that occasion had he been able to lay heavily on the horse, at thirty to one, it seems he could only afford a five-pound note—hence the long odds. He backed her at the Shrewsbury May Meeting for the Queen's Plate, but again not heavily, because all the money she won at Chester had gone towards paying his creditors, and the odds were short; we estimate that he cleared three hundred pounds. He ran Goldfinder three more times in 1853, backing her generously. On each occasion he forfeited his stakes, for she never won a place, and went out of training in November.
He also ran Morning Star that year—at considerable loss. It is true that Morning Star won the Cleveland Cup at Wolverhampton, with the celebrated jockey Charley Marlow in the saddle, and then the Optional Selling Plate at Rugeley, but he was unplaced in eleven other races. In 1854 he came second three times, and twice third, and often nowhere.
Then there was Lurley, who ran several times unplaced in 1853 and 1854, and obtained only three seconds. Doubt, who won the Wolverhampton August Handicap and the Marquess of An
glesey's Stakes at Rugeley, proved more trouble than he was worth, because of a weakness in his feet, and went out of training the same year.
Dr Palmer now decided to secure a couple of first-class animals, though it were altogether above his means, and bought The Chicken and Nettle, both much fancied, paying two thousand guineas apiece for them, I believe. The Chicken earned his oats in 1854, by winning the Hopeful T.Y.O. Stakes and the New Stakes at Durham August Meeting, together with £150 ant the £345 Eglinton Stakes at York in the same month, Wells up. Also the Mostyn Plate at the Chester Autumn Meeting, and the Handicap Plate at the Newmarket Houghton Meeting—I did not inquire their value. But Dr Palmer could not afford to run Nettle himself that year; so he leased her to Mr Wilkinson, under whose colours she won the Tyro Stakes at Newmarket, and the famous Gimcrack Stakes at York. I believe he had bargained for a percentage of the stakes. However, he had raised the money at such a high rate of interest, on acceptances forged in the name of his wealthy mother, that even these substantial gains by no means justified his original investment in the horses; and it seemed he must soon be pulled up short by his creditors—whereupon the forgeries would be discovered and make him liable to imprisonment for life.
In the autumn of 1854, his immediate wants were relieved by the thirteen-thousand-pound cheque which The Prince of Wales Insurance Company paid him for the loss of his wife; but he soon came knocking at the moneylenders' doors again. One of these was a London solicitor named Pratt, a tall, stout man, rather fashionable in his style of dress, with an enormous pair of brown whiskers, the eyes of a London street-boy, and the low voice of a retiring spinster. He practises in Queen Street, Mayfair, being, I understand, a good family man with three young children and a prominent supporter of the Church Missionary Society; yet never hesitated to charge Dr Palmer sixty per cent for his accommodation, despite the Biblical injunction against usury. He must have been well aware that the acceptances were forged, since the death of his wife had reduced Dr Palmer to copying the old lady's signature himself.
It was this same Pratt whom Dr Palmer used as his agent when insuring Walter Palmer's life. From what Inspector Field and I learned subsequently, the Doctor's approach to Walter was something of this nature: 'How about selling your life, Watty? You know it can't be a long one, not above ten years at the rate you're going; but you can at least make it a little merrier. I'll tell you what: I'm ready to insure it for a thousand pounds, paying the Office their five per cent rate every year, and of that thousand pounds I'll advance you four hundred at once, free and for nothing, to spend as you please. If you last beyond eight years, I'll be the loser, yet I don't mind taking the risk, if you promise to play fair. What say you, Watty, old chum? It's easy money, like pledging your skeleton to a hospital: as paupers do for a tobacco allowance.'
Walter eagerly agreed, because these four hundred pounds extra drinking money seemed manna from Heaven; whereupon Dr Palmer warned him that, to secure the usual five per cent rate, a couple of examining doctors must first pass him as a sound investment. For a month, at least, he would have to forswear hard liquor and pack good food into his belly. Walter protested that such self-denial would exceed his moral strength; but Dr Palmer undertook to keep him sober during that period. 'I'll engage Tom
Walkenden as your trainer,' he said. 'Afterwards, if you please, you may drink again.'
Proposals were now made by Pratt, Dr Palmer's name not appearing in the application, to no less than four Offices—The Prince of Wales, The Solicitors' and General, The Universal, and The Indisputable—for about thirteen thousand pounds apiece. Other agents of Dr Palmer's sounded two other Offices—The Athenaeum and The Gresham—suggesting policies of fourteen thousand and fifteen thousand pounds respectively. The total sum sought was eighty-two thousand pounds, which called for initial premiums in the amount of some four thousand five hundred pounds.
On January 3 1st, The Prince of Wales, unaware that Walter was related to Annie Palmer, by whose insurance they had gone down so heavily, issued a policy of fourteen thousand pounds on the recommendation of Drs Hughes and Harland, both of Stafford. Dr Harland, an elderly physician newly arrived in the town, had passed Walter as a good life without making any close inquiries into his medical history. Dr Hughes also passed him, but added the following qualification: 'The applicant is now temperate and healthy; previous habits, however, reduce his chance of longevity to less than the average. He owns to an attack of delirium tremens five years ago.'
One of the medical men consulted by The Universal was Dr Monckton of Rugeley. After first passing Walter, he soon changed his opinion as the result of a talk with Dr Campbell of Stoke-on-Trent, Walter's former physician. He appended to his report:
most confidential!
Walter Palmer's life has been rejected by two Assurance Offices. He drinks hard and has had delirium tremens. His brother, Dr William Palmer, insured his own wife not long ago for ^13,000. She died after a single premium had been paid.
Beneath this postscript Dr Monckton wrote in capital letters: BE CAUTIOUS!
Dr Waddell of Stafford, now Walter's private physician, was also consulted by The Universal, and likewise refused to recommend him. He countersigned Dr Monckton's confidential report with: 'I believe that the above facts are true.'
Though not shown this paper, Walter knew at least that he had been turned down as a 'bad risk', and meeting Dr Waddell one day on Castle Knoll, reproached him with a lack of consideration. 'My habits are entirely altered, Doctor,' Walter said. 'I drink no more than three glasses of bitter beer in a day, and eat like a thresher. Why didn't you pass me?'
Dr Waddell answered drily: 'Continue so for six months, and I'll begin to believe in your reform; continue for five years, and I'll do so with a good heart. But your last attack of delirium tremens caused me great trouble and anxiety, and I can't guarantee that there won't be others—not without stronger evidence than your own hopes of a cure.'
The Gresham, which appointed Drs Harland and Waddell to examine Walter, accepted the policy, while making it a condition that 'no insurance will be paid if this person dies before five years have elapsed'. On receipt of this reply, I am informed, Dr Palmer wrote to his agent, a Mr Webb: 'That would not suit my book at all. We had better drop the matter.'
In order to pay The Prince of Wales their initial premium of seven hundred pounds odd, Dr Palmer borrowed one thousand five hundred pounds from Pratt, at the usual sixty per cent rate, against one more forged acceptance from his mother; and, having done so, set about restoring Walter's former intemperance, and even enhancing it. He hired the same Tom Walkenden, who had hitherto prevented him from drinking, to be Walter's 'bottle holder'. Walkenden is a powerful man, with a broad, flat face and coarse features; he has been a potman, and once served a prison sentence in London for larceny. The assignment of the insurance policy to Dr Palmer was then duly drawn out, and witnessed by Jeremiah Smith, who took five guineas as his fee. Yet Walter did not get the promised four hundred pounds, but only sixty in cash, and unlimited credit with Mr John Burgess, the innkeeper and spirit merchant of Dudley Port.
Walter kept a cask of gin in the house and never drank less than a quart a day, besides the three-pint bottle which Walkenden placed every night at his bedside, and which he had always emptied by the early morning. He would toss off half a tumbler at a gulp. In the early morning, Walkenden had orders to bring him a cup of hot coffee and some buttered toast. This he would swallow but throw up again; afterwards he steadied himself with three or four glasses of gin and water, before starting the day's serious drinking. He constantly complained of pains all over his body, particularly below one shoulder-blade. He also coughed and spat a great deal.
Dr Waddell, meeting him one day at the bowling green, asked: 'Well, Walter, and how do you do?'
'Why, lad, I'm very bad indeed,' Walter replied. 'I fear I shall never recover. Pity me for a most wretched man.'
'Nonsense, nonsense!' cried Dr Waddell. 'I'll guarantee your cure, if you'l
l only obey my instructions.'
'Well, I think not,' said Walter, 'but my brother William is bringing me some pills tomorrow.'
'If you won't come back to me—if you put yourself under anyone else, even your own brother—I give you up!' Dr Waddell declared. 'But tell me, why have you relapsed, Walter, after being so much improved not many weeks ago?'
Walter replied simply: 'The fact is, lad, that I owe my brother William four hundred pounds, and it weighs on my conscience; he's pretty short of money these days. I feel like a pauper defrauding the hospital of its skeleton.'
Dr Waddell's being a near neighbour of Walter's may have been the reason why William Palmer now removed the latter to Castle Terrace, beyond the railway station. To make everything look above board, he had invited Dr Waddell and Dr Day, The Prince of Wales's regular insurance doctor, who also lived in Earl Street, to keep an eye on his brother; but encouraged neither of them to see too much of him. In the middle of July he visited Walter, and pretended to be greatly distressed by his drinking. 'You must make an endeavour, Watty,' he said, 'to sober up. Come, what do you say to visiting Agnes for a week and showing yourself in your true colours ? Tom Walkenden, here, will help you to train for the meeting, and I'll have a word with Dr Waddell first.'
Inspector Field and I have since questioned Walkenden about this episode. This is what he told us: 'Poor Watty was in a pretty bad state last July. He often begged me, if I ever saw that another attack of the horrors was on the way, not to take his gin from him, as I'd done in December before he went in front of the insurance doctors. "That sober stretch did me plenty of harm," said he. "If only I'd only been allowed my gin then, when I wanted it, I shouldn't have been half so bad when I got it back again." Well, while he was under Dr Waddell's care, sobering up for the visit to his wife, I had orders to allow him only two or three small glasses a day, as when he'd had the horrors. But when I witnessed the poor fellow's despair, and he threatened to do himself an injury, well, I sometimes gave him a glass or two more than Dr Waddell permitted, if there was real necessity. What could I do? The wretched cove used to beg and cry for liquor as if that were his life. He used to do all he could to get gin, and be very cunning about it, too. One morning, after I'd been sitting up with him all night, I reckoned he was so ill he couldn't leave his bed. Downstairs I went, to the kitchen for my coffee and my plate of bacon and eggs; and was well engaged with the victuals when I heard a noise overhead. "Why," I says to myself, "that sounds as if he were out of bed, but it's hardly possible." Upstairs I went again, and found him on his hands and knees, searching beneath the dressing table, which was where he used to hide his gin from me.