'So you dined at his house the next week?' I asked.
'Indeed, Sir, that I did!' George answered. 'I'll never forget it. Mr Cook was there, and Cheshire the Postmaster, and Will Saunders, the trainer from Hednesford. When Jerry Smith brought me into the dining-room, Dr Palmer seemed surprised, but Jerry, he says: 'You invited this gentleman here, Billy—surely you've not forgotten? He's been looking forward to a good dinner all week.' Well, the Doctor makes me welcome, and that was the first time I ever sat down at a gentleman's table, with silver spoons and forks and fancy china, and port poured from a decanter. Jerry Smith told Saunders, who didn't recognize me: 'This is George Bate, Esq., a gentleman of property. His cellar is the best in Rugeley. You'll excuse his rough appearance, but he's something of an eccentric: can't be bothered to dress for dinner, nor even change his shirt. He's worth a mint of money, however.' Saunders shook hands with me, and I was grateful to Jerry for putting me at my ease; but, not to make a fool of myself, I watched carefully how the other gentlemen handled their knives and forks. I kept mum, as you can guess, except when a discussion came up about Lord George Bentinck's victory with Elis in the 1836 St Leger. It happened that nobody present could remember the name of her companion whom Lord George brought along with him travelling from Goodwood to Doncaster in a six-horse van—the bookmakers laid heavily against Elis, thinking him a non-runner, for it's a good two hundred and fifty miles from Goodwood to Doncaster. The horses got there in time, you know, after stopping
over at Litchfield for a gallop to loosen them up, and Elis wasn't dead meat after all—not by half, he wasn't! So at last I opens my trap. 'Drummer was the horse in Lord George's van,' I says— just that! And everyone admitted I was right.'
George Bate rambled on of the sporting talk heard at table on that occasion, but I brought him quietly back to the matter of his life insurance. 'Why, for sure,' he said, 'Jerry Smith reminded the Doctor about it after dinner; and the Doctor protested: 'Can't we leave this in pickle for another day or two, lad?' 'Oh, no,' says Jerry, 'you pledged your word that you'd do something for George. Now I've taken the trouble to get the papers from The Midland, and suggested Sam Cheshire and Mr Cook and you to vouch for him; so what do you say?' The Doctor answers: 'Very well, Jerry, as you please. But I've promised Will Saunders a bit of sport, and we mustn't waste the afternoon.' 'True enough,' says Jerry. 'Then permit me to take Will out to the warren, while you and Cook show George how to sign the paper.' At this, Jerry and Saunders take their guns and go out. The Doctor stays, and says to Mr Cook: 'I'm not sure that the wording's in order. Let's leave it for a day or two.' 'I'm a qualified solicitor, Billy, you forget,' says Mr Cook. 'I think George had better sign that paper, here and now, and take his first step towards prosperity.' They showed me where to sign, and when Dr Palmer had vouched for my being healthy and sober, Mr Cook witnessed the paper, and sanded it, and folded it away. I never asked what amount had been fixed for the value of my life, but Mr Cook, he looks steadily at Dr Palmer, and says: 'We can fix the amount later, but let it be sufficient to pay George his advance of two thousand guineas.' The Doctor answers in an offhand manner: 'Yes, the amount's of no consequence for so long and valuable a life as George's. Any sum between five and twenty-five thousand pounds will do. Come, Johnny, stop fooling and let's be off! Where's your rabbiting piece?' Then he asked me: 'Will you join us, George?' But I shook my head and went home.
George Bate's account suggested to me that Mr Smith had been forcing this insurance on Dr Palmer for a joke, and that the Doctor was putting as good a face on it as possible, but not liking his situation by any means. Cook seemed to have played his part under Smith's direction; but I couldn't fathom what they were at. That night, however, when Inspector Simpson and I compared notes, he having meanwhile talked not only with Walkenden and Dr Waddell—the results of which he's already told you—but also with Mr Lloyd, the landlord of The Junction Hotel, I came to understand the case better.
Jeremiah Smith had involved Dr Palmer's close friends— Cheshire, Cook and Saunders—in the practical joke on George Bate, by way of warning them against the Doctor as one who had procured his own brother's death for the sake of insurance money and might do the same again with any other simple drunkard. He was at the same time warning Dr Palmer not to press The Prince of Wales for payment, because if he did, the truth about his misdeeds must come tumbling out. It may be that Mr Smith suspected Dr Palmer of hastening Walter Palmer's death with prussic acid; for Inspector Simpson has uncovered some odd circumstances which may point that way.
To be explicit: the Boots at The Junction Hotel, Stafford, was entrusted by the Doctor on Wednesday, August 14th, with two bottles wrapped in white paper. Boots guessed from the feel that they were medicine bottles. Dr Palmer asked him to keep them unexposed to the air until he passed by again; which he did an hour later, and fetched them away. He was absent for perhaps another hour, then left them in Boots' charge once more. The next morning, Thursday, he came for the bottles again, took a very small phial from his waistcoat pocket and, having poured a little of its contents drop by drop into one of the bottles, which Boots describes as having been four inches long, returned the phial to his waistcoat pocket. Mr Lloyd, the landlord, happened to visit the stables while the Doctor was engaged in this mixing operation, and reports that he did not look in the least surprised or flurried by the interruption. Mr Lloyd said: 'Good morning, Doctor, and how is your brother today?' Dr Palmer answered: 'He's very ill, very low; I'm going to take him something stimulating. Day, who's attending him, isn't so well acquainted with his habits as I am. Taking his gin away and giving him gruel instead won't help a man who's accustomed to drink heavily; but I hope this medicine will improve matters. He went, very foolishly, to Wolverhampton the day before yesterday. It might have been the death of him, from the state he was in. What a sad thing it is that honest folk like my brother deliberately drink themselves to perdition!'
That was the Thursday of Walter's death. Mr Lloyd told Inspector Simpson that the little phial seemed to contain sal volatile; and that Dr Palmer had bought a bottle of the very best old brandy from him on the previous Saturday, saying:' If my brother wants any more of this, let him have it, and I'll foot the bill.'
Inspector Simpson also visited Messrs Mander & Company, the wholesale chemists of Stafford, and there confirmed, by an interview with George Wyman the assistant, a story current at The Lamb and Flag: Dr Palmer, on the day before Walter's death, had purchased an ounce of prussic acid from Mander's, along with certain other drugs. Inspector Simpson gave this event more importance than I cared to concede. The Doctor, it appeared to me, must have seen clearly enough that Walter was dying of drink, as had been expected, and would hardly have hastened his end by use of a poison which two people had watched him mix. I refused, in fact, to connect the prussic acid with the case. He might well, however, have employed the poison to make rival racehorses 'safe'; and that, I decided, was the explanation. What sort of medicine Mr Lloyd saw him mixing, I cannot say; but why not sal volatile, a harmless stimulant which might persuade Dr Day of an improvement in Walter's health? My guess is that Jerry Smith had heard the gossip, which not only decided him to make a game of Dr Palmer by suggesting the insurance on George Bate's life; he also forwarded the signed proposal to The Midland Company—so that the jest became earnest. He counted, I mean, on The Midland to inquire into George Bate's health and financial stability. They would soon discover that the proposal was fraudulent, and all eyes would then be focused on Walter's death. Smith himself hoped to keep in the background, leaving the insurance companies to carry out their investigations with help from the Police.
Well, I had no means of proving my conjectures, and because Dr Palmer, having long ceased to practise as a surgeon, could be called upon to account for this unusual purchase of prussic acid, I naturally reported the circumstance to The Prince of Wales managers. It also came into my mind that perhaps Cook's demand, during Smith's absence from the dinner table, that George Bate should sign the proposal paper, had decided the Doctor to be revenged on him later. For when Dr Palmer heard from Bate of my questioning him, he said: 'George, you should never have talked to the Inspector. It was cutting your own throat. Now we can't proceed with your insurance, and you'll never be rich. If he comes again, pray tell him that you've given up the idea, and are letting it drop.' But Bate, I now diink, had concluded, with the prompting of his neighbours, that the Doctor's intention was to poison him; and presently revenged himself by setting hounds on the broodmares in his charge, so that two of them slipped their colts. I believe, too, that Dr Palmer, whom the loss of these foals sent into a rage, suspected Cook of having blabbed to Bate; and that this suspicion rankled, because the scheme of insuring Bate's life had not been the Doctor's own, but was foisted on him by Smith. He could not afford to quarrel with Smith, who knew too much, and guessed more; yet he could still play a trick or two on Cook, as I believe he did.
This account, Sir, has a nice dramatic close. Inspector Simpson and I went to visit Dr Palmer, where he sat at dinner, and told him that, as agents of The Midland, we had made inquiries into the proposal for Bate's life, and found it based on falsehood. He laughed and said: 'I'm sorry, Inspector Field, that you have had this trouble. The proposal to insure my overseer's life was a practical joke played on the poor innocent by some of my friends. I can only think that Mr Smith’s clerk must have forwarded the proposal to The Midland in error, not realizing its farcical
