Rugeley and find out what you can about this 'George Bate, Esq.' At the same time, The Prince of Wales, who have joined us in this inquiry, empower you to investigate on their behalf the death of Walter Palmer. I should add that Mr Jeremiah Smith has recently approached The Indisputable for a further insurance on Mr Bate s life.'
'Very good, Sir,' said I, 'but seeing that, if I understand you aright, there's suspicion of murder here, I'm not putting my head into any noose unless I have a colleague to stand by me, with a knife to cut the rope if it tightens.'
'Yours is a very sensible attitude,' the General Manager answered. 'Take Inspector Simpson, by all means. We will pay him his usual fee.'
He handed us five guineas on account, and we boarded the Rugeley train. Inspector Simpson went on to Stafford, to take statements from Dr Waddell and Tom Walkenden, and pick up what talk might be current in the inns near Castle Terrace.
On reaching Rugeley, I called on Mr Samuel Cheshire, the Postmaster, one of the referees. It has since transpired that Dr Palmer had some hold over this former schoolfellow of his, though the exact nature of Cheshire's obligation remains doubtful. Some ascribe it merely to the pony-chaise which, after Annie Palmer's death, Mrs Cheshire constantly borrowed for Sunday outings; others hint at a disreputable disease for which Dr Palmer treated Cheshire. Whatever the truth may have been, this hold gave him the freedom of the Post Office: that is to say, Cheshire would detain incoming and outgoing letters addressed to whatever person Dr Palmer named and, after steaming open the envelopes in his presence, would allow him to read the contents. Most of the letters were then re-sealed and dispatched to the addressees, but some Dr Palmer had permission to pocket, upon his undertaking to deliver them in person. Among these, we now know, were demands made by Pratt on old Mrs Palmer, and by Padwick, another moneylender, to repay loans for which Dr Palmer had fraudulently made her responsible. I knew nothing of this arrangement when I presented my credentials to Cheshire that day. He is a frail, simple-looking man in his early thirties, With fair hair and a nervous habit of twiddling the seal-ring on his little finger. I asked him, first, where I might find Mr John Parsons Cook's office.
He answered: 'Mr Cook has no offices in Rugeley. At present he's staying around the corner at Dr Palmer's.' 'Then where does he practise?' I asked. 'He used to practise at Watling,' Cheshire informed me, 'but since he took to the Turf, he has more or less abandoned the Law.'
On learning that I came as agent for The Midland Insurance Company, he appeared puzzled. I said: 'Mr Cheshire, pray be plain with me. Mr Jeremiah Smith, the Company's Rugeley agent, has named you as one of our referees, has he not? Mr Cook is the other; Dr Palmer and Mr Benjamin Thirlby are the medical referees. I have come to discuss a proposed policy on the fife of George Bate, Esq.'
Cheshire swallowed once or twice, and fairly spun the seal-ring around his finger. 'I had quite forgotten the circumstance,' he muttered at last. 'What do you require of me?'
'This is a mere formality, Sir,' I replied. 'My employers wish to be satisfied that your Mr Bate is a man of property.'
Cheshire answered, without looking directly at me: 'Why, of course, Mr Bate is well regarded in the neighbourhood. He is a fine judge of horses, and was a substantial farmer before he retired.'
I asked: 'And what do you suppose his income to be?'
'I shouldn't care to guess,' he said.
'For a life insurance often thousand pounds, he must doubtless be possessed of at least three hundred to four hundred a year?' I suggested.
'Thereabouts, perhaps,' he agreed.
'Does he live in style? Does he entertain much?' I continued.
' Oh, he has a capital cellar,' says Cheshire with sudden inspiration, 'and you should see his thoroughbred brood mares! Dr Palmer envies him those stables, I can tell you.'
'Any debts?' I asked.
'No, no debts of any consequence,' he replied. Returning to the matter of the cellar, I asked: 'Has he good port?'
'Why, his bins are celebrated in Rugeley,' Cheshire asserted.
'That's good news,' I exclaimed. 'I have a slight weakness for port, and this is the hour when I usually take a glass. Perhaps, though, I had better hasten back to the railway station with my report and catch the London train.' Then I thanked him for his courtesy, telling him that in the circumstances I would not trouble Mr Cook; and when two customers came in, bade him good-day.
Instead of returning to the railway station, however, I entered The Shoulder of Mutton inn, took a tankard of ale, and inquired for Mr George Bate. Clewley, the landlord, after directing me to a farmhouse across the fields, asked: 'Have you come to dun the poor fellow? I hope not. Though he pays only six shillings a week rent to the farmer's wife for a room, there's six months owing.'
'No,' said I, 'you mustn't mistake me for a bailiff. I've come to give him some good news.'
I proceeded to the farm, and the farmer's wife showed me a field, where 'George be a-hoeing turmuts.' Presently I heard the sound of singing:
and the singer was George Bate, Esq. He proved to be a red-snouted, bleary-eyed, youngish fellow, with ragged trousers, a filthy shirt and no more education, it seemed, than he had managed to snatch in his brief visits to Sunday School—whenever he was not herding geese, scaring crows, or doing something else of equal importance.
I took off my hat, and said: 'Mr George Bate, I presume?'
He leaned on his hoe and asked: 'Who may you be?'
'I'm a representative of The Midland Assurance Company,' I answered, 'come to ask about this policy of yours.'
When I saw that he did not understand the word 'policy' and, on further talk, found that he was totally ignorant of the nature of life assurances, and that 'premium', 'proposal', and 'assignment' meant nothing to him, I said: 'They tell me at the Post Office that you're a man of property, Mr Bate.'
'Oh, no, you must have heard wrong, Sir,' he replied. 'I'm not a man of property yet, but they've promised me two thousand gold sovereigns, and a vote for the county.'
'Who are these benefactors of yours, Mr Bate?' I inquired.
'Well, it was like this,' he said. 'One day, along comes Dr Palmer in the company of Jerry Smith and that young swell Cook, who's always at the races with the Doctor. I took the opportunity to ask for my pay, because I was behind with my rent, and the Doctor hadn't paid me for a while. The Doctor regrets that he's short of change, and asks Mr Cook to pay me my two guineas, which he obliges with. Dr Palmer then says, says he: 'I'm sorry, George, to be so forgetful. I'd like to do something for you, that I would, and better your position.' At this Jerry Smith grins and says: 'Then why not insure his life for, say six thousand pounds, and give him an advance of a couple of thousand? That'll enable him to live in style, and drink himself to death if he pleases.' Then he gives Dr Palmer a peculiar look and bursts into laughter. The Doctor seemed put out, but all the same he says: 'Why, Jerry, what a capital idea! Let's set up George as a man of property. Your life is worth every penny of six thousand pounds, isn't it now, George?' I tells him: 'No, Doctor, it's not worth sixty pence at the moment, apart from these two guineas you've just paid me, and much obliged for them I am, too.' 'Well, it's about time a hard-working fellow like you should go up in society,' says Jerry, 'don't you agree, gentlemen?' Mr Cook, he agreed with pleasure, and the Doctor nodded, but as if his mind were busy with other thoughts. Then Jerry says again: 'Let's invite George to dinner some day next week—eh, Billy?—and talk it over?' 'Very well,' says the Doctor, but not too readily. 'Bring him to my house.' '
I asked George Bate: 'Are you on good terms with Dr Palmer?'
'Oh, yes, Sir!' he answered. 'He never did me no injury, and is always ready to do me a service; so if I'm behind-hand with the rent, it's not his fault. Nor he don't mind my doing a bit of work here, on the side, while the beasts are a-grazing. But I get dead-drunk every Saturday and Sunday night and Lord, how the money flics!'
