They Hanged My Saintly Billy

A drowsy chambermaid brought him a jugful of warm water. When Cook had drained it, Dr Gibson ordered: 'Now tickle the back of your throat with a feather from your pillow, Mr Cook, if you please!'

Cook replied: 'There's no need to open the pillow, either. The handle of my toothbrush will do as usual.'

He presently vomited up the water, having nothing else left to offer the basin. Dr Gibson laid him on the bed, probed his abdomen, found him to be severely constipated, and thereupon prescribed compound rhubarb pills and calomel, to be followed by a black draught of senna and magnesia. With that, he turned on his heel and left the hotel.

Half an hour later, Fisher knocked up Dr Gibson again, telling him: 'Don't go fooling about, Sir; give my friend something to settle him for the night!' Dr Gibson aggrievedly prepared an anodyne draught and paregoric, which Fisher took back to The Raven, and by two o'clock in the morning Cook told his friends that he was somewhat improved. No longer feeling bound to wait up for Dr Palmer, who had some time before disappeared, they bade Cook good-night, and he thanked them heartily.

At nine o'clock Cook arose, shaky and feeble, but much relieved by an undisturbed sleep. He went across the corridor to call on Fisher, from whom he retrieved his packet of notes, still securely sealed. Dr Palmer now returned to The Raven, after an all-night absence. He found Fisher breakfasting, and said:' Cook's recovered, I'm glad to see. But I wish the damned fool wouldn't publicly accuse me of dosing his drink! I've a good mind to sue him for slander.'

'Then what ailed him, Billy?' asked Fisher. 'We were up with him until the small hours.'

'He was beastly drunk, that's what he was,' cried the Doctor. 'And I keep telling him that drink is the worst thing possible for his old complaint.'

'Well, at least his stomach has got a long-delayed clean-out,' remarked Fisher, not wishing to argue the point. 'Dr Gibson told us that Johnny can't have been to the bogs for a week or more.'

There is a certain Mrs Anne Brooks of Manchester who, much against the wish and orders of her husband, a prominent Mancunian, frequents race-meetings, bets on commission, and has at her disposal a number of jockeys for whom she secures mounts. These jockeys, together with black-legs, tipsters and other members of her private intelligence service, form what the French call a salon sportif around this remarkable personage. Mrs Brooks had met Dr Palmer in the street on the Wednesday evening; and when asked what news there was of a horse called Lord Alfred, which the Earl of Derby had entered for the same race next day as Dr Palmer's Chicken, she gaily answered: 'Nay, Lord Alfred's said to be in champion form, lad.'

The Doctor answered: 'Good, Ma'am! That means I'll get longer odds. I'm putting my whole sack on The Chicken.'

At about 10.30 p.m., Mrs Brooks sent a servant to Dr Palmer, requesting a private word with him. When he agreed, the servant showed her upstairs. She found him standing in the corridor, holding a tumbler, which seemed to contain a small quantity of water, close against the gas-light, and examining it. Though Dr Palmer heard her corning, he continued to hold the tumbler in the same position, now and then shaking it.

'Dirty weather tonight,' remarked Mrs Brooks.

'Yes, the running will be agreeably soft tomorrow,' he answered. 'It should suit The Chicken. He loves mud so much, I have a mind to rename him The Duckling. Excuse me, I'll be with you presently.'

He went into his bedroom and, emerging half a minute later, carried the same tumbler into the sitting-room where Cook, Myatt and Cheshire sat drinking convivially. Mrs Brooks waited outside until he fetched her a similar tumbler full of brandy and water, which she drank without any ill consequences. They discussed Lord Alfred's chances in low tones, and the Doctor told her: 'Do as I do, and remember me when you win! I'm still backing The Chicken.' The remainder of their conversation was private, and may well have been sentimental; which would account for Dr Palmer's disappearance from The Raven between midnight and nine-diirty.

According to Mrs Brooks's statement at the Old Bailey, many racing men whom she knew were seized by nausea that Wednesday, and vomited their dinners, and there was talk of a poisoned water supply. She added: 'I assumed Dr Palmer to be mixing a cooling drink when he stood in the corridor.' The Prosecution's case is that the liquid was water doctored with tartar emetic, which is a form of antimony; and that Dr Palmer poured this colourless poison into Cook's tumbler. The Defence contends that he held up to the light a glass of the city's drinking water, in the hope of detecting a cloudiness winch might explain the general sickness. However, we accept neither theory, since Mrs Brooks has since privately told Will Saunders, the trainer: 'Billy Palmer was hinting in dumb-show that Lord Alfred would be made 'safe' with a drug of his own concoction. I acted on this hint;

but whether he deceived me, or whether Lord Derby's stablemen were too wide-awake, my people can't find out.' At any rate, Lord Alfred stayed un-nobblcd, The Chicken displayed no liking for mud, and Dr Palmer lost several hundred pounds.

On the Thursday evening, the races over, Dr Palmer, Cook, Cheshire, and Myatt caught the express train to Stafford, and thence went together by fly to Rugeley, where the Doctor engaged a room at The Talbot Arms Hotel for Cook. If we are to

THE TALBOT ARMS, RUGELEY, THE SCENE OF COOK'S DEATH

believe Mr Herring, the betting-agent, who had attended the Polestar dinner, Cook asked him on the Thursday morning: 'Don't you think Palmer drugged me last night?'

'I shouldn't like to venture an opinion,' Herring answered, 'but if you so mistrust him, why are you going to Rugeley with him tonight?'

Cook, Mr Herring declares, replied sadly: 'I really must go there: you don't know all.'

Mr Herring, alias Mr Howard, is held in high esteem by his clients, and we should be prepared to accept his word; save that he told this story (which makes remarkably little sense) while smarting under a natural resentment. Dr Palmer had, by then, swindled him out of a large sum of money.

Perhaps the following light-hearted account of Mr Cook's illness at Shrewsbury, which appeared in a London newspaper on the last day of the Meeting, may not be far from the truth:

After indulging freely in the foreign wines of Shrewsbury, the owner of Polestar called for brandy and water to restore his British stolidity. Tossing off his glass, he grumbled that there was something in it, and complained of a burned throat. Perhaps those who have drunk strong brandy and water with similar haste may recognize the sensation; perhaps also, like Mr Cook, they have vomited afterwards. Mr Cook bolted his brandy and water down at Dr Palmer's challenge and bolted it up again when it encountered the cold champagne. That night he was very drunk, and very sick, and very ill. His dinner he cast into a basin; his money he deposited with his friend Mr Ishmael Fisher, a sporting City wine merchant, expressing his belief at the same time that Dr Palmer had dosed him for the sake of his money. If such had been the Doctor's intention, would he not have followed his victim from the room and kept close to him all night? But he never went near the ailing Mr Cook, a neglect that certainly shows how hollow was his friendship, yet proves his innocence; for a guilty man would have been much more officious. The next morning, Mr Cook looked very ill, as men are apt to do after excessive vinous vomiting, but his drunken suspicions of Dr Palmer had evaporated with the fumes of the brandy, and they were again friends and brother- sportsmen.

Arrived at Rugeley, Cook retired to his room at The Talbot Arms Hotel, where he lay in bed all night, and all the next morning. At one o'clock, he got up for a walk through the town; ate bread and cheese with Jeremiah Smith at The Shoulder of Mutton, and watched some lads playing an unseasonable game of cricket. Without revisiting The Talbot Arms, he then accompanied Smith to dinner at Dr Palmer's house. At about 10 p.m., he went across the street and back to bed. That was Friday, November 16th; and early on Saturday morning, Dr Palmer came knocking at his bedroom door to announce breakfast. It had been agreed that Cook should lodge at the hotel, but take his meals at the Doctor's.

Since the subsequent events are obscured by a conflict of evidence, we shall content ourselves with a summary of unchallenged facts. That Saturday morning, Cook preferred to drink a cup of coffee in bed rather than step over to Dr Palmer's and breakfast on bacon and eggs. Coffee was accordingly brought up by Elizabeth Mills, the flirtatious young chambermaid, who placed it in his hands; and the Doctor departed to his own breakfast. An hour later, Cook was seized by the same nausea as had plagued him at Shrewsbury, and vomited the coffee into a chamber pot. By this time, Dr Palmer had gone off to Hednesford for a review of his horses. Soon after he had returned, Mrs Ann Rowley, of The Albion Inn, arrived with a saucepan of broth and put it by a fire in the back kitchen to warm. 'Mr Jerry Smith's compliments, and this is a gift for Mr Cook,' she told him. Dr Palmer presently