the medicine, which wasn't her affair. This Mrs Bradshaw is a good, honest woman as ever lived; but I could see that she suspected Dr Palmer of poisoning her beloved mistress—for she threw him hateful looks. Mrs Rowley, on the other hand, trusted him completely, and testified to the sincere and beautiful love between the two. Annie had whispered to her once: 'I'd do anything in the world for him, Mrs Rowley, indeed I would; and he for me, I believe, don't you?'
When Annie was at her last, Mrs Rowley rang the bell for Dr Palmer. He tiptoed into the bedroom and stood hesitating, aghast at the change in Annie's face. Mrs Rowley said: 'I fear your wife's dying.' He appeared stunned and hurt. He didn't come quite round the bed, Mrs Rowley says, but remained at the foot, staring down at Annie with a dazed look. Then he walked away into the next room, Mrs Rowley doesn't know why, and though he was back only half a minute later, she had died in the meanwhile.
'She's gone,' sobbed Mrs Rowley, and the news sent him stumbling out again. Mrs Rowley sat by the bed for the best part of half an hour, hoping that she had been mistaken, and that Annie was only in a deep coma. When she at last rose to fetch Dr Palmer, he was found in the next room, straddling a chair, with his arms folded on the rail and staring stupidly before him. She took him by the shoulder, and whispered: 'Come, Doctor, be a man!' He seemed not to hear, so she poured a little brandy into a tumbler and set it to his lips. At this he came to himself, muttered: 'I think I must have been asleep,' rubbed his cold hands together, and returned to the deathbed, where Mrs Rowley left him to indulge his grief.
As soon as I could find the time, I sought out Eliza. A wild look in her eye informed me that she was frightened. I drew her into the small room used for*sewing, and said: 'My girl, you need have no fear. Dr Bamford, Dr Knight, and Mr Tnirlby have all signed the death certificate to say that your mistress died of English cholera. There'll be no Coroner's inquest, you may be sure. But I want the truth! Now, I suspect poison, though I cannot suspect Mrs Bradshaw, or Mrs Rowley, or Dr Palmer, or yourself, of wilfully murdering my beloved friend. If it were not manifestly impossible for her to poison herself without detection —except perhaps at Liverpool—I should think that she had taken her own fife. Come, speak up, or I'll call the Police!'
The strange story that Eliza told completely satisfied me of its truth. Annie had asked her to slip certain powders into the gruel or tea while nobody was watching: she pretended that they were a charm procured from a wise woman over at Abbot's Bromley, and designed to restore her husband's love. Eliza believed Annie, and did as she was bidden. On the Thursday night, Annie whispered: 'Let him know quietly, when it's all over, that I have done it because I love him so. Suicide is the second crime I've committed for love of him, Eliza; but I trust God will pardon me, as our dear Lord Jesus Christ pardoned the woman in the Gospel 'because she loved much'.' So Eliza guessed that the powders must have caused her mistress's death.
I have lately learned that the poison was antimony, which she probably read about in her husband's medical books, and of which he kept a supply in the surgery. Yet even if I had known of this at the time, I should still have concealed my knowledge. Annie was dead, dead by her own hand, though using Eliza as a cat's paw, and nobody came under the suspicion of administering poison. Eliza had acted not only innocently, but nobly; for I could see that she was deep in love with the Doctor herself. An ill-natured girl would never have put the love-philtres in a rival's gruel to make her more attractive. Why, then, should I stir up trouble by speaking the truth? Dr Palmer was, she had hinted, in a terrible state of indebtedness, and would be ruined but for the insurance which she had urged him to take on her life.
When I told Eliza: 'For your sake, I'll remain silent. You have been a good girl, I believe!', she fell on her knees and kissed my hands. She must have delivered Annie's message to the Doctor; as I judged from his behaviour at the funeral, where he stood in the pew, with tears coursing visibly down his face, and sobbing loudly throughout the service. When the sad moment came for the coffin to be lowered into the Palmer vault, he cried aloud: 'I want to die, O God! I want to go to Heaven, with my darling treasure!'
Afterwards he said to me: 'I shall never forget your love and loyalty to my poor wife! But oh, how desolate my life will be henceforth.' He laid a peculiar emphasis on the words 'love' and 'loyalty' which was, I suppose, his way of hinting that Eliza had reported our conversation, and that he thanked me for my promise to keep silent.
When the funeral had ended, he drove little Willie over to my brother's house, with all his clothes and toys, where my sister-in-law hugged him affectionately, saying: 'I'm your new mamma now, and hope you'll love me as I do you.' Dr Palmer promised to visit the child often and, what is more, kept his promise. He doted on Willie. But foul-minded people said that this was a sham, to conceal a guilty passion for my sister-in-law. How I detest this gossip-ridden town!
I puzzled for a long time about the other crime, besides suicide, to which Annie had confessed; but it is only lately that the truth has come out. Dr Palmer, I'm told, was in extreme difficulties for money, having borrowed from moneylenders at a ruinous rate of interest, and the sole security he could offer—except the racehorses, which he counted upon to restore his credit—was the fortune of his mother, old Mrs Palmer, reputedly worth seventy thousand pounds. She is a shrewd lady, however, and though doubtless he asked her help, must have been convinced that his one sure way out of trouble would be to declare himself bankrupt. Mrs Palmer loved him dearly and would afterwards, I feel certain, have relieved his distress—on condition that he promised to abandon the Turf and resume his medical career.
The Doctor is no hunting man; yet I can say, metaphorically, of his business career, that he has never been able to rein in his mount, nor does he baulk at any fence or five-barred gate. He rides straight ahead to his destruction. He decided to raise loans from the moneylenders on the security of old Mrs Palmer's estate, though without her knowledge; and this meant that he must forge her signature to every acceptance of indebtedness. But to imitate a female hand was beyond his power; so he persuaded Annie to commit the forgery. How he overcame her scruples I can only guess: perhaps he assured her that this was no more than a temporary expedient, to satisfy a pressing creditor, and that money would come from another source within a few days, enabling him to regain and destroy the forged acceptance. At all events, for love of him she became guilty of a crime which, if detected, would have earned her a long prison sentence.
I believe myself that Annie's dawning realization of his inability to redeem these forged acceptances prompted her suicide. She hoped that the insurance money would straighten out his affairs, and trusted that her self-sacrifice would be a harsh enough lesson to make him abandon his spendthrift ways for ever.
My brother tells me that Dr Palmer profited to the extent of thirteen thousand pounds. At Annie's insistence, he had applied for insurance to the value of well over thirty thousand pounds at various first-rate offices, including (I believe) The Gresham, The Prince of Wales, The Scottish Equitable, The Atlas, The Norwich Union, and The Sun—of which Jeremiah Smith was the agent. After much correspondence and quibbling about terms, he had settled with The Prince of Wales for thirteen thousand pounds; and The Prince of Wales had sub-contracted with The Scottish Equitable and The Sun for three thousand pounds apiece. He nearly succeeded in getting twelve thousand pounds more from The Solicitors' and General, but that insurance fell through because, as it happened, they also tried to sub-contract with The Sun; and The Sun replied that they were already engaged to assist The Prince of Wales in insuring the very same person for thirteen thousand pounds. The Solicitors' and General smelt a rat. They knew that to insure the life of a woman who had an annuity of two hundred pounds, and no expectations, for a sum of twenty-five thousand pounds would be absurd: the premium must enormously exceed the value of the annuity.
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.
