Greenwood]. I stated that I had heard about a young man from Wolverhampton whom Mr George Palmer had indicted for perjury because this young man could not produce a book to show that he had sold Dr Palmer some prussic acid.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL. In what case was that?
NEWTON. The inquest upon Walter Palmer.
The Defence did not challenge Newton's reliability as a witness, but it has since been revealed that he was Ben Thirlby's illegitimate son by one Dorothy Newton of Bell's Yard, Long Row, Nottingham. His half-brother John was sentenced to four years' penal servitude for picking pockets at Lincoln Races; and he himself, as a boy, had been caught breaking up a stolen silver spoon belonging to his employer Mr Crossland, a wine merchant, and thereupon spent three days in the Nottingham House of Correction. The records show that his mother, a charwoman, begged him off from the magistrates who examined the case, promising to make good Mr Crossland's losses. A second offence has been mentioned, but we lack for details. Newton later, after attendance at the National School, assisted a Nottingham surgeon; and was then cunningly insinuated by Ben Thirlby into Dr Salt's employment. Dr Salt did not know of the blood-relationship between these two.
When the trial was over, the same obliging Newton, prompted perhaps by certain insurance company officials, called on the Attorney-General. He said that if Sir George Grey considered granting a reprieve (on the ground that Dr Palmer did not have time to make up the strychnine pills in his own surgery, and then administer them at the hour stated by the Prosecution) he would willingly swear to having given Dr Palmer the strychnine in the form of pills already made up—a fact he had hitherto forgotten! The Attorney-General undertook to bring this new evidence before his fellow-Minister, should Dr Palmer's lawyer sue for a reprieve.
ABSENT WITNESSES
SERJEANT SHEE'S main ground of defence was that Dr Palmer did not stand to gain financially by John Parsons Cook's death, since it made him liable to repay debts which they jointly incurred, in an amount far exceeding such small sums as the Prosecution accused him of robbing. He had, indeed, bought six grains of stryclinine on the Tuesday morning from Hawkins's shop, openly and for a legitimate reason; Serjeant Shee, however, preferred to deny his having procured any from Newton on the Monday evening. Therefore, the convulsions reported by Elizabeth Mills that night were not, he argued, attributable to strychnine poisoning, but rather to tetanus or epilepsy, or some other ailment, as were also those of the Tuesday night winch carried Cook off early the following morning. Furthermore, had Dr Palmer planned to murder Cook, he would never have sent for his friend, Dr Jones of Lutterworth, an experienced physician, to sleep in the same bedroom and witness his death agonies. Nor would he have dared to rob Cook of the Shrewsbury winnings when Dr Jones was aware of their exact value and when Cook, being perfectly conscious, would have complained to him if Dr Palmer had stolen his hoard.
Upon Newton's testifying that the Doctor asked him one day to describe the effect of strychnine on a dog and say whether its presence in the stomach could afterwards be detected—though having himself, as the Prosecution showed, a precise knowledge of poisons, whereas Newton was young and ignorant—Serjeant Shee, who should have rejected this as an improbable fiction, made the mistake of accepting it in support of his case. The Prosecution had called George Bate (despite Serjeant Shee's protests against the irrelevance of the matter) to give evidence about Dr Palmer's attempted insurance of his life for twenty-five thousand pounds. With this witness in the box, Serjeant Shee now contended that the strychnia was bought at Hawkins's shop to poison certain dogs which, as Bate knew very well, had been worrying the Doctor's broodmares. However, Bate (or so Inspector Field has privately assured us) bore a grudge against Dr Palmer for having plotted his death; and though forced to admit that The Duchess of Kent had slipped her foal, pretended ignorance that the same thing had also happened to Goldfinder ten days before. He would give only artful and evasive answers to any of the questions put by Serjeant Shee, though he had been in charge of the Doctor’s stables at the time of these mischances. Here is a sample of the cross- examination:
SERJEANT SHEE. Can you give me any notion of these mares' value?
BATE. I don't pretend to tell the value of the stock.
SERJEANT SHEE. Do you know that one of them sold for eight hundred
guineas ?
BATE. I have heard so.
SERJEANT SHEE. Were any of them in foal shortly before or at the
beginning of November ?
BATE. I cannot say. I should suppose there were some in foal.
A witness who behaved in this sullen way would have been sternly rebuked by most judges and ordered to give fair and proper answers. But the Lord Chief Justice was seen to smile; and his smile widened as Bate adroitly parried Serjeant Shee's subsequent questions.
SERJEANT SHEE. Had any complaint been made about the dogs going
into the paddock?
BATE. I think I once said to Harry Cockayne: 'The turf seems a good
deal cut up here; how is it?'
SERJEANT SHEE. What did you see on the turf that induced you to
make that observation ?
BATE. I saw it cut up, which I supposed to be the horses' feet, for they
couldn't cut it up without they galloped.
SERJEANT SHEE. Did you attribute that to anything ?
BATE. Why, yes, I attributed it to the mares' galloping about.
SERJEANT SHEE. Had you any reason to think they had been run by dogs?
BATE. I never saw any dog run them.
This was no answer to the question, but it much amused the Lord Chief Justice. The exchange continued:
SERJEANT SHEE. Did Harry Cockayne keep a gun in the stable? BATE. I have seen one there.
SERJEANT SHEE. Did he keep a gun, which belonged to his master, for
any purpose?
BATE. I have seen a gun at the paddock.
SERJEANT SHEE. Did it belong to the master?
BATE. I cannot say.
SERJEANT SHEE. Did you ever see it used?
BATE. NO.
SERJEANT SHEE. Was it in a condition to be used?
BATE. I never had it in my hands to examine it.
In the end, Bate stood down without admitting that Dr Palmer had complained about the hounds, or threatened to poison them, or ordered Harry Cockayne to use the gun. According to Harry's belief, Bate had himself revengefully introduced hounds into the paddock; and Harry, if called, could at least have testified to the hounds and the gun. His sworn deposition concerning them, made at the inquest, lay before both the Lord Chief Justice and the Attorney-General. But though Serjeant Shee counted on cross-examining Harry, whom the Prosecution had subpoenaed as a witness, he found himself checkmated. The Crown lawyers kept Harry under their thumb, yet never put him in the witness box; and, as soon as the case for the Prosecution was over, smuggled him out of Court and away to Staffordshire, where Captain Hatton told him to fie low if he knew what was for his advantage.
Serjeant Shee lost two other important witnesses—one of them being Will Saunders, the trainer from Hednesford. When the Grand Jury held the inquest at Stafford, Saunders had deposed on oath that Cook sent for him, on the Monday afternoon, thirty-six hours before his death, gave him ten pounds on account of a ?41 6s. debt, and excused himself for not paying the remainder— because of having handed Dr Palmer all his cash to settle urgent business affairs in London. This evidence, collusive though it may well have been, would have decidedly weakened the Crown's case that the Doctor had stolen Cook's money. The Crown lawyers, therefore, engaged Saunders to give evidence on their behalf, refrained from calling him, and then packed him off out of Mr Serjeant Shee's reach.
The third important witness was a man by the name of Allspice, who drove Dr Palmer in a fly from Stafford to
