Attorney-General
Now, any one of those circumstances in itself would not be such as I could venture to submit to you as conclusive of the prisoner’s guilt, but I ask your attention to a series of things following one upon the other, which, at the same time, are of a most remarkable character, and, taken as a whole, lead but to one conclusion. The death having taken place (I am passing over for a moment other circumstances which have no reference to the immediate cause of death, I shall come back to them in another part of the case), we find the father-in-law comes down to Rugeley upon the Friday. Let us see what the conduct of the prisoner is then. The father-in-law applies to him for information on the subject of his stepson’s affairs. I pass that over, because that, too, will come under a different head; but having done so, and it appearing from the representation which the father-in-law made that the man had died in comparative poverty, something is said about his being buried. “Well,” says Mr. Stevens, “rich or poor, poor fellow, he must be buried.” Mr. Palmer immediately says, “If that is all, I will bury him myself.” “No,” says the stepfather, and the brother interposes. Mr. Stevens says, “No, I am his stepfather and his executor, and it is my place to bury him.” Well, there is nothing in all that. Palmer may have said, with regard to his friend, that he would see the last respect paid to his memory. But there is this remarkable thing, when the stepfather says that nobody shall bury him but himself, and makes the observation that perhaps it will be inconvenient to the people at the inn to have him lying there for two or three days, because he intended to have him buried in town, so that the poor man might lie in the same grave with his mother—immediately after this Palmer says, “There will be no harm in that, he can stay as long as you like; but the body ought to be put in a coffin immediately.” After that Mr. Stevens gets into conversation with Dr. Bamford about his son-in-law, and while they are in conversation Mr. Palmer slips away, goes out into the town, and comes back in abouthalf an hour, when Mr. Stevens asks him for the name of some undertaker in order that he may go and give the undertaker directions about the funeral, and he finds to his surprise that Mr. Palmer has gone out, and has himself, without any authority, ordered a shell and a strong oak coffin in order that the body may be immediately put away. This, again, is a circumstance not unworthy of consideration. Why should he interfere and meddle in a matter which did not concern him, and which it was the business and province of another man to attend to, except this, that he had made up his mind that that body should be consigned to its last resting-place and removed from the sight of man with as much rapidity as circumstances would permit of? You have heard what took place in the course of conversation upon the subject of the betting book. I pass that by for the present.
I now come to Saturday, when, returning from London, Mr. Stevens and Mr. Palmer met in the railway train, and at the different stations when the train stopped had conversations with one another; and it appeared at that time Mr. Stevens had fully made up his mind to have the body examined—there were circumstances which had engendered suspicion in his mind; he had seen the attitude of the corpse; he had seen the clenched hands; and, being a man of sagacity and shrewdness, upon putting things together, there was a lurking suspicion in his mind that he could not overcome, and he was determined that he would be satisfied, and he made known his intention of having the body examined before it was consigned to the grave. It is due to Mr. Palmer to say that he did not flinch from the trying ordeal of Mr. Stevens’ scrutinising glance when he mentioned the subject of post-mortem examination; he makes no objection to the post-mortem examination; he is anxious to know who shall perform it, but Mr. Stevens will not inform him of the fact. It is to take place, and it is appointed to take place on the Monday. On the Sunday we have that remarkable conversation to which Newton speaks, and which has been in the possession of the Crown (it is not, like the other part of his evidence, brought forward at the last moment) and in the possession of my learned friend. It is true he did not state it before the coroner, but the explanation is extremely easy. Before the coroner, Roberts was the man who came forward to prove the purchase of strychnia, and vouched Newton being there. Newton was immediately fetched, and his deposition will be found immediately following that of Roberts; not for the purpose of giving a general statement, but for the purpose of corroborating Roberts, which he does. Hence it came to pass, in answering only the questions which were put to him by the coroner, nothing was said upon the subject of that Sunday’s conversation, but it was given immediately afterwards to the Crown.
Attorney-General
I think you will not believe that Newton comes forward for the purpose of making a false representation as to this conversation. What was the conversation? He is sent for by Mr. Palmer to his house, and he is treated with a glass of brandy and water, and when he has a glass of brandy and water they get into general conversation, and then, I think, the prisoner says, “How much strychnia would you give if you wanted to kill a dog?” “Why, I should give from half a grain to a grain.” “Would you expect to find any appearances in the stomach after death?” “No inflammation or erosion, no appearances.” Upon which a sort of half-uttered ejaculation comes from the prisoner. “That is all right,” and a sort of action of the hands. Was that entirely an invention? Was nothing said about a dog? Was nothing said about strychnia? Now, it may have proceeded from two causes, if you believe the conversation. It may have been that the prisoner was in a state of great anxiety when he found the post-mortem examination was to take place, and he was anxious to know whether the views of another medical man confirmed his own with regard to the appearances in the body after death, where death had been occasioned by strychnia. It may have been that he meditated some trickery, some jugglery, that involved the real destruction of a dog, which may have given rise to those questions which were suggested on the part of the defence to one of the witnesses who were called; it may have been that something was in contemplation to destroy or attempt to destroy a dog, to account for the purchase of the strychnia, which he knew was likely to be brought up in evidence against him, and which it would be a difficult matter to explain. Whether any such attempt was afterwards made I know not; I imagined that we were going to have some evidence to that effect, from the questions that were asked, but no such evidence has been afforded—not the slightest as to what purpose this quantity of strychnia has been applied. It has not been found upon the prisoner’s premises. What has become of it? I cannot solve precisely the secret of that conversation. Like many other matters in this case, it remains a mystery; but this I know, I can look at it in no aspect in which it does not reflect light upon the guilt in which this transaction is involved; if you can solve the difficulty, for heaven’s sake do, but I can suggest to you no solution. From that man Newton, then, he got his strychnia on the Monday night, and for that man he sends on the Sunday. With that man he holds a conversation—was it with the view of leading Newton to believe that it was for the purpose of killing a dog he had got it? These are speculations and surmises, into which I do not deem it necessary further to go. It will be for you to say whether you canentertain any doubt upon all these facts, when they are before you, that this death was occasioned by strychnia, and that that strychnia was administered by the prisoner, either from what he obtained upon the Monday night, or from that which, beyond the possibility of question, he obtained upon the Tuesday, for which he has failed to account, and for which, indeed, he has not attempted to account.
But, then, my learned friend says that the man had no motive to take away the life of his friend, and it is right we should see how that matter stands. Gentlemen, if, indeed, I have satisfied you, beyond the reach of reasonable doubt, by the evidence I have adduced, and by the failure on the part of the evidence for the defence to neutralise its effect, that the death here was occasioned by strychnia—that the strychnia could have been administered by no one, and, in fact, was administered by no one, save Mr. Palmer—the question of motive becomes a matter of secondary consideration. It is often difficult to dive into the breasts of men, to understand the motives that have been working there, and by those motives to account for their actions. Omniscience alone can exercise that faculty and that power; and therefore, where acts are proved against a man beyond the reach of reasonable doubt, it is not because we may not be able to exercise a sufficiently scrutinising power to ascertain the motives that we are to doubt the facts, the existence of which is brought beyond the reach of reasonable doubt; but nevertheless it is always an important element in a case, and it is, above all, an important element in a case upon which any reasonable doubt can by possibility rest, to see whether there was an adequate motive to lead to the perpetration of the act which is charged. On the other hand, gentlemen, we must not be too precise in weighing the question of adequacy of motive; that which, to the good, would appear of no influence, however remote or minute, in inducing them to commit crime, oftentimes, with the wicked, is quite sufficient to impel them into crime, and it may have been so here.
Attorney-General
But let us see, before I make any further observations upon that point, how the matter stands upon the proof which is before us. I told you that Mr. Palmer was a man in circumstances of the direst embarrassment, with ruin actually staring him in the face, and that nothing could avert that ruin save pecuniary means at once obtained for his purpose. The proof which I have offered to you has fully come up to the proposition with which I started. The fact has been proved beyond the possibility of doubt. It appears that in the month of November, 1855, Mr. Palmer was in this position. He owed upon bills, all of which were forged, the sum of £19,000; he had bills to the amount of £12,500 standing in the hands of Mr. Pratt; he had bills to the amount of £6500 standing in thehands of Mr. Wright; and he had a bill for £2000 in the hands of Mr. Padwick. Although it is true that £1000 upon that account had been paid off to Mr. Pratt, yet the bills still remained for the full amount in Mr. Pratt’s hands. Although £1000 had been paid to Mr. Padwick, he held a warrant of attorney and a bill of sale upon the stud for the remaining £1000. All those bills, without exception, were forgeries. A correspondence took place between Mr. Pratt and himself with regard to the £13,000 policy upon his brother’s death, through which he hoped to liquidate Mr. Pratt’s demand; he had been disappointed of that money, and upon the office declining to pay the money, as early as the middle of October, Mr. Pratt gave him to understand, in the most distinct and positive terms, that the bills must be met. Bills for £4000 were due, or were coming due, at the end of that month—one upon the 25th for £2000, and another upon the 27th for £2000. Bills already renewed were coming due from month to month, and there was £5500 which it was necessary immediately to provide for. Mr. Pratt gave him notice that he could give him no longer delay, inasmuch as the office had resolved to dispute this policy. It was no longer an existing valid security, and consequently Mr. Pratt could not be a party to representing to his clients, with whose money those bills had been discounted, that it was in any respect a valid security, therefore the bills must be met.
Attorney-General
The matter was coming to a crisis; the bills must be paid at maturity; he sends him up three small sums, first a sum of £300, and then two sums of £250 each, making the sum of £800. Of that sum £200 was to come off other bills to fall due in January, leaving only £600 applicable to the principal. He is told at once that he must do a great deal more; he is told, late in October, that unless he does a great deal more writs will be issued against his mother and against himself, which would at once bring the matter to a termination by showing that those bills were forgeries. He entreats that time shall be given; he obtains this concession from Mr. Pratt, that the writs shall not be served until a given day, and he in the interval must make further payments on account of the principal bill due. That being the state of things upon the 13th, Mr. Pratt writes and presses him for further payment. On that day “Polestar” won. Cook was, as you have heard, in an ecstasy of delight, feeling that his difficulties were, at all events for a time, removed; that he should now get through the winter and live happily till the next racing season. He little thought what was about to take place. If this accusation is well founded, the mare winning, and his being entitled to a large sum of money, was the most fatal thing that could have befallen him. Alas! how great is the shortsightednessof mortal man! When we have the highest cause of joy and exultation, often while the sunshine of our prosperity warms and gladdens our heart for a moment, there is lurking beneath our feet a fatal abyss, into which we are about to fall. This poor man, if this charge be true, might have been living now, had it not been that upon that fatal day his mare won, and he became entitled to a large sum of money, which afforded temptation to his murderer.
Attorney-General
Now, it becomes perfectly clear that at this moment matters were approaching an immediate crisis. What was Mr. Palmer to do? He had no source to which to turn for money. It is clear that he could not go to his mother. I presume that source had long since been exhausted, or he would not have forged her name. What was he to do if he could not get money to satisfy Pratt’s demand? You know, although a moneylender is considerate and indulgent enough as long as he is certain of his payment, and gets his heavy usurious interest paid down on the nail, if he once becomes doubtful of the security and uncertain of payment, you may as well ask mercy of a rabid tiger, or you may as well ask pity of stones, as hope to find bowels of compassion in him. Pratt gave him fair warning that the money must be paid, or something must be paid by way of instalment on the principal, and to keep the interest down. Where was Mr. Palmer to get money from? My learned friend says Cook was his best friend, and that Cook was the man he was to look to; and that as long as he kept Cook alive he had a friend in need to whom he could resort for assistance. In what way? Was Cook to give acceptances to Pratt? Is anybody weak enough to suppose that Pratt would have taken Cook’s acceptances to keep those bills alive, unless there was a part payment of the principal and interest? It is quite clear that he would not. When even for the sum of £500 he was asked to take Cook’s security, he refused to do so, unless there was the collateral security of an assignment of his horses. Cook had assigned to him all the property he possessed. All that Cook had in the world was his winnings upon that day’s race at Shrewsbury, and what little money he may have obtained by his winnings at the races at Worcester. If you believe the witness Myatt, those winnings were exhausted, and therefore this man had nothing except his winnings at the Shrewsbury races; and you are asked by my learned friend to believe that it would have been of use to Palmer to keep this man alive. The reverse is proved by the evidence. With Pratt his personal security would have been unavailing. Pratt tells you that he would not take anything from him unless it was the real security of an assignment of his horses or other property. Just see the interest which Palmer had in securing all Cook’s effects. My learnedfriend says they were mixed up together in transactions in which they had a joint and common interest—they were confederates upon the turf and had joint bets together. Yes; but one man putting another on does not mean that when A puts B on and says we are likely to make a good thing, and we will share it, that B is to pay A’s losings if they do not win. They might be confederates on the turf, but that did not make Cook responsible for Palmer’s liabilities. Does any one suppose that Cook intended to find the means to enable Palmer to meet Pratt’s insatiable demands, to stave off the difficulties in that quarter? Was Cook to deprive himself of his winnings, and leave himself without money, for the benefit of his friend? That is the proposition, for the whole of which my learned friend must contend before you before he can establish anything like a case to show that if Cook had lived it would have been better for Palmer than that he should die. My learned friend says there is proof that they were mixed up closely together to be found in this, that Cook writes to his agent, Fisher, and says to Fisher, writing on the Friday after he had dined with Palmer, “There is a matter which is of importance to Palmer and to me, that £500 should be paid to Mr. Pratt to-morrow; £300 has been sent down to-night, and I request you will be so good as to pay Mr. Pratt £200 to-morrow on my account, and charge it to me.” My learned friend thought that that transaction would be favourable to his client, and he put it prominently forward. To my mind he could have adduced nothing more fatal. The explanation of it is to me as clear as the sun at noonday. Cook had brought with him some £600 or £700; at least at Shrewsbury he was seen by Fisher with a roll of notes amounting to some £700 or £800. On the same evening the parties came to Rugeley, when he had not had time to spend the money. He speaks of a £500 transaction, in which he and Palmer have a joint interest. There is only that one transaction with Pratt in which they had a common interest, that was the £500 raised by the assignment of “Polestar,” and a bill, of which we say Cook never got the proceeds; and he says, writing on that night to Fisher, “£300 have been sent up to-night, and I will be obliged to you to pay the other £200 to make up the whole.” No £300 were ever sent up that night. Mr. Pratt has given an account of the whole transaction. £300 were to be sent that night; by whom were they to be sent? Can you doubt? Where is all Cook’s money gone? I can quite understand that he handed over £300 to Palmer to send up to Pratt, and directed Fisher to pay another £200. What followed in respect to the joint transaction? What was the joint transaction? they never had but one, and that was for £500. What was it? Why, it was the money which had been got by theassignment of “Polestar” and “Sirius”; “Polestar” had just won at Shrewsbury—it was natural that the man should desire to redeem his mare; moreover, the bill was coming due; he had the cash in his pocket, and he knew that he was going to receive money at Tattersall’s, which he never did; and he says, “£300 will be sent up to-night.” It is the only matter in which they have a common interest, not only as to the £500, but in any respect; Pratt had no other dealing whatever with them jointly or with Cook, if we except the bill for £500—what does it show? It shows that £300 had been sent for the purpose—he sends up £300, but how is it applied? Pause for a moment; the £300 is not sent up, Palmer keeps it in his pocket; what is done with the other £200? Is it carried to the account of the matter in which they had joint interest with Pratt? No such thing; it goes as part of the payment made by Palmer to Pratt on account of the bills which Pratt then held—it never went to any matter of joint interest—it is an idle and false pretence to say that Cook was in any way responsible to Pratt; it may have been the intention of Palmer when Cook should be no more to represent him as so, but there is no foundation in reality and in fact for the statement. I say the transaction of the £500, so far from helping the prisoner’s case, shows conclusively that the £200 advanced by Fisher, and the £300 to be sent up that night to satisfy this bill for £500, and the assignment to release “Polestar” and “Sirius,” was £500 more taken from this young man and appropriated by the prisoner to his own use.
Attorney-General
But the matter does not rest there—would it did. I come now to the transaction of the Monday, and I find £1020 of Cook’s money applied to the prisoner’s use. He goes up to London; he had ascertained by some means or other the amount that Cook was entitled to receive on the Monday—possibly Cook had told him; Fisher was Cook’s agent, and the probability is that Cook desired the prisoner to hand an account of his bets which he had won to Fisher, who would go and settle with the parties at Tattersall’s; Fisher would have to pay himself back the £200; we know that he intended his accounts should pass through Fisher, because he asked Fisher to advance the £200 upon the credit of it; but it is suggested that under the guidance of Palmer he now meditated a fraud, and that he intended to pass his account through Mr. Herring, in order to avoid paying Fisher the £200 for a time. Is it charitable to Mr. Cook to ascribe to him a fraud of this description, which, so far as we know, he was not in the habit of doing? I ask you this question as reasonable men, supposing he had disposed of his ready money, and we find none left—that he had given the prisoner £300 to send up, you cannot suppose that this man who had nothing of his fortuneleft, who sees ruin staring him in the face—he was not a ruined man as long as he had this money, but having parted with this money he was a ruined man—you cannot suppose that he intended to deprive himself of the whole of the money that he had won, to leave himself destitute and naked for the coming winter; the thing is out of the question—besides, if the prisoner’s representation is true which he made to Mr. Cheshire, that he had got the genuine cheque of this man for very nearly the amount, through his agents, Messrs. Wetherby, of the stakes at Shrewsbury, you are asked to believe on the one hand that he had given him his ready money, and on the other hand that he had given him a cheque to receive of Messrs. Wetherby, and that he had given him £1020, which constituted absolutely the whole that the poor man possessed—you are asked to believe that he hands it over to the prisoner to go and dispose of as he pleases—that is my learned friend’s proposition, but I do not think you will adopt it.
Attorney-General
Then, if that be not so, what does the prisoner do? He goes to London, but does not go to Fisher, who was the agent of Cook, who would, in the first place, have paid himself back the £200, and, in the second place, would not have paid the sums which he received except upon Cook’s authority and instruction, but would have sent the money to Cook, or have paid it upon Cook’s written direction as to what was to be done with it. He takes the account, therefore, to a comparative stranger, who never had acted for Mr. Cook before, feeling that that stranger would have no hesitation or repugnance in paying the money according to the direction of the man from whom he had the direction to receive it, supposing that both emanated from Mr. Cook, the person interested in the money. Accordingly he says to Mr. Herring, “Here is a list of bets which Cook will be entitled to be paid at Tattersall’s; they are so much, you dispose of it in this way; pay yourself £200”; it being the fact that Mr. Cook and the prisoner had before raised the sum, I think, of £600; £200 had been raised by Mr. Cook on his acceptance, and £400 had been raised on the acceptance of the prisoner. Mr. Cook’s portion had been paid off, but that of the prisoner remained unpaid. Palmer says to Mr. Herring, “Pay yourself £200, then go to Pratt’s and pay him £450; then go to Padwick and pay him £350.” Now, it is perfectly clear that the £450 was a debt due from Palmer to Pratt, and it is untrue that Cook had anything to do with it. The debt of £350 to Padwick was for some bet, and although it is not proved, I have reason to believe that the minor part of it was a debt of Cook’s, but the larger part was a debt of Palmer’s upon a matter in which they stood in together. There is evidence that Mr.Palmer treated the debt due to Padwick as his. He says, “I will pay you my bet of £350 at such a time.” I am giving him credit for what I believe was the fact, that a part of it was Cook’s. Why was Cook’s debt paid then? There was a warrant of attorney in the hands of Mr. Padwick, and Mr. Padwick was getting impatient for his £1000, and if this bet had not been paid to Mr. Padwick, Mr. Padwick would have resented the non-payment of the debt of honour which he had no means of enforcing, and would have come down upon Mr. Palmer, no doubt, at a very early period in respect of the £1000 due upon the bill dishonoured twelve months before. Exactly that came to pass—in consequence of Mr. Herring not receiving the whole of the money, he was not able to pay Mr. Padwick, and the result was that Mr. Padwick put the process of the law in motion against the prisoner on that bill, and brought an action against his mother. The bill for £1000 was the bill of Mr. Palmer, upon which Mr. Cook was not primarily liable. I say here was a distinct interest which the prisoner had to appropriate this money to himself, because it was the means for the moment, and the only means he could resort to, of staving off the evil hour which was rapidly approaching. The degree of difficulty in which he was placed must not be measured simply by the amount of his pecuniary liabilities. It was not merely that he had these large bills upon which at any moment process might be issued, but he had made his mother answerable for those bills, and the moment the first of them was put in motion in the Courts the fraud and forgery would come to light, and he would be exposed not merely to the consequences of his inability to pay his debts, but to the consequences of the law which he had violated. The former might have been got rid of in the Insolvent Court or the Bankruptcy Court, but the crime of forgery could not have been got rid of; for that he would have to answer at the bar of a Court of criminal justice, and would have incurred the penalty of transportation, or of penal servitude in an aggravated form. But there is a further sum besides the £1000; he appropriated a further sum of £350, which was to be got from Messrs. Wetherby. It is said that he got a genuine cheque from Cook to entitle him to receive that money, but it is not for a moment suggested what induced Cook to give it to him. Was it a genuine cheque? That matter might have been solved by its production. It is not produced; yet it is quite clear that it was returned to the prisoner’s hands by Messrs. Wetherby when they could not get the money. It is quite clear that it was of great importance to him to get the money, because there was £100 to be paid to Pratt, which must be paid in order to stave off the evil day upon the bill of £1500, which was due on the 9th of November. Where isthat cheque? If it had been produced we could have seen whether it was a genuine cheque or not. It is not forthcoming. What are the circumstances under which he presents that cheque to Mr. Cheshire? He goes to Mr. Cheshire upon the Tuesday, and, having shown the cheque to Mr. Cheshire, he asks Mr. Cheshire to be so good as to fill up the body of it. I suppose he saw some manifestation of surprise in Mr. Cheshire, and he said, “Cook, poor fellow, is ill, and I am apprehensive if I fill up the body of the cheque Wetherbys will know my handwriting.” Why should not they know his handwriting? What objection was there, if the cheque was genuine, and if the transaction was an honest one, to Messrs. Wetherby knowing that the handwriting was his? Does not it pretty plainly indicate that there was some fraud going on which he was afraid might be detected? Why, in heaven’s name, should he send for Cheshire? He had to send for Cheshire from the post office when Cheshire was busily engaged in the business of the evening, at seven o’clock in the evening. Just about that same period, a little before or a little after, as the case may be, he had to meet Dr. Bamford and Mr. Jones in consultation as to Cook’s case. Mr. Jones was his intimate friend—the trusty friend that came over that afternoon. If poor Cook intended to give him the cheque, and was at the same time so ill that he could not write, why not have said to Mr. Jones, “Jones, I do not want to bother Cook to fill up this cheque, fill it up in my favour for £350, and we will get Cook to sign it?” Why should he send to the post office to get Cheshire down to his house, alleging at the time that he was apprehensive that if he filled it up his own handwriting might be known. Does not that transaction bear fraud upon the face of it? On the other hand, it may be a genuine cheque; but, I ask again, where is it? Between the time when these matters were called in question and the time when Mr. Palmer was finally arrested, not upon the criminal but upon the civil process, which came down unluckily for him before the coroner’s inquest, which secured his bodily presence to answer not only the pecuniary matters but these charges, in the interval he had undisturbed possession of his own papers. From the moment when that freedom of action and possession ceased, we have traced the possession of the papers; and it is clear that at the time those papers were taken possession of that cheque was not amongst them; it is clear that the prisoner, who had possession of it, must have dealt with it in some manner. What has become of it? Why is it not produced? Can you help drawing the inference from its non-production that there is something in the transaction that will not bear the light? It is clear that he intended to get possession of the £350, which ought to have been givento Cook, upon false pretences. He had not a farthing himself, for when he went to Shrewsbury races he borrowed £25. As I have shown, a person made a bet for him upon the races, and, having won £200, pressed him for the debt, but could not get another shilling from him. I show you that he comes back to Rugeley, and is from that moment in the possession of money. Where could he have got that money? It is clear that he must have got it from Cook, who had not any left himself; it is clear that he had all that money to the extent of £350, probably much more, and besides that he gets £1020 as the proceeds of the betting at Tattersall’s, and he attempts to get, but does not get, £375, which ought to have been paid into Messrs. Wetherbys’ hands. This was the whole of the worldly possessions, the whole sum of the wealth of this poor young man.
Attorney-General
But he is not satisfied with that—it is clear that he meditated another fraud of a different description. On the Friday, almost as soon as the breath is out of the man’s body, he intimates that he has a claim upon him for £3000 or £4000 in respect of bills which had his (Palmer’s) name or acceptance upon them, but which, in fact, had been negotiated for Cook’s purposes. He tells the same story to the father-in-law, but it is as clear as the sun at noonday that he endeavoured to fabricate an instrument to give a show of colour to those representations. He goes on the Thursday or the Friday to Mr. Cheshire, and brings to him a document which he asks him to attest, that document bearing the signature “J. P. Cook.” The man having left the body, and living only in the spirit eight-and-forty hours before that signature had been brought to be attested, who can fail to see that here was some great fraud and design meditated? What was the document? It was a document which purported to be an acknowledgment from Cook that certain large bills which had been negotiated were for Cook’s benefit, and for Cook’s benefit alone, and that he (Palmer) had had no part of the proceeds. Now, there are no such bills in existence. We have exhausted the bills pretty well, I think, and none such are proved to exist; but if there be any such bills in existence, who would know it better than the prisoner at the bar? He could have no difficulty in satisfying you of the fact, and of removing this great stumbling-block in the way of his defence; but he produces this document; and on the same day, the day that followed this poor man’s death, he writes to Pratt, and says, “Mind, I must have ‘Polestar’ if it can be arranged.” What was this scheme? Having got every shilling of the man’s money, his purpose was to secure the little property that remained in “Polestar,” the value of which he may perhaps to himself have considerably exaggerated. The mare had just won, and she might besupposed to be worth more than she had been, or he had in view speculating at other races to bring about results of benefit to himself. Further, he may have intended to pay out of Cook’s estate some of those bills, under the pretence that Cook had had the money for them. For all these purposes, from the beginning to the end, it was necessary that Cook should be put on one side. Then with this document in his hand he goes to Cheshire, and he asks Cheshire to attest the signature of a man who was then dead. If Cheshire had had the weakness and wickedness to comply he would have had him in his power; and the next thing would have been that he would have brought him trembling and reluctant into the witness-box of some Court of justice to swear to the fact that he had seen the dead man put his signature to that piece of paper. But it may be suggested that, after all, the document was a genuine one, and that the signature was not a forgery. Then produce it and we can judge. Here, again, I point out, and there is no escape from it, that the papers of the prisoner were in his possession till the time of his arrest, and they have been taken care of since then, and are here one and all, either to be answered for or produced in his presence, or they have been handed over to his brother. Who would not fail to notice that this paper has never been found or asked for? Who can doubt that that paper brought to Cheshire remained in the possession of the prisoner? Who can doubt that it is either destroyed or is purposely withheld? Under these circumstances who can doubt that in it is to be found proof of some meditated act—of some vast design of a fraudulent and flagitious character, for the full completion of which the death of Cook was a necessary thing?
Now, gentlemen, I have gone through that part of the case which relates to the motives of the prisoner, and it will be for you to say whether you are satisfied that this was a death by strychnia—that the prisoner was in possession of strychnia—that he had access to the dead man’s bedside, and that he administered pills to him at a period short enough to be capable of being connected with the catastrophe that afterwards happened; and it will be for you to say whether you do not find that the state of things with reference to pecuniary matters to which I have been just alluding is sufficient to account for the act which is ascribed to the prisoner.
Attorney-General
But there is another part of his conduct as throwing light upon this matter to which I cannot fail to refer. What has become of Cook’s betting book? What has been the conduct and the language of the prisoner with reference to it? On the night when Cook died, ere the breath had hardly passed from that poor man’s body, the prisoner at the bar was rummaging his pockets and searching under his pillow. Thatmay have been for a perfectly legitimate purpose. But let us see what takes place. He calls to Mr. Jones, and he tells Mr. Jones that it is his duty, as the nearest friend of the dead man, to take possession of his effects, and Mr. Jones does take possession of his watch, and afterwards, at the suggestion of the prisoner, of his rings. At the same time Mr. Jones asks for the betting book. My learned friend endeavoured to explain away this most awkward part of the case by saying, “There were other persons who had access to the place. The undertaker came there with his men, the women came to lay out the dead body, and the servants were there; any one of those might have stolen the book.” But all this is met by the fact that, on that same night, before the women had had anything to do in the room—before they came to lay out the corpse—before anybody made their appearance—that very night, when Mr. Jones is seeking to gather up the effects of the dead man, he asks for the book. What is the answer? “Oh,” says Palmer, adopting the language which he afterwards repeated, “the betting book will be of no use to any one.” Does anybody doubt in his own mind where that betting book had gone to? The father-in-law came down on the Friday, and he begins to discourse about the affair, and he is not satisfied with the answers he gets. The day passes away. He says to Mr. Jones, “Be so good as to collect my son-in-law’s betting book and papers and bring them away.” Mr. Jones goes upstairs; he is immediately followed by the prisoner—up they go, but there is no betting book to be found. Down comes Mr. Jones, and says to Mr. Stevens, “We cannot find the betting book.” “Not find the betting book! surely you must be mistaken”; and, turning round, he says, “Why, Mr. Palmer, how is this?” Upon which Mr. Palmer says, “Oh, the betting book is of no use.” “No use! I am the best judge of that. I think it will be of a good deal of use.” The observation is again repeated, “It is of no use.” Mr. Stevens said, “Why?” “Because a dead man’s bets are void, and because he received the money himself upon the course at Shrewsbury.” A dead man’s bets are void! Yes, that is true; they are void, but not when they have been received in his lifetime. Who received the dead man’s bets? The prisoner at the bar. Who appropriated the proceeds of the dead man’s bets? The prisoner at the bar. Who was answerable for them? The prisoner at the bar. Who had an interest in concealing the fact that he had received them? He had. What was the best mode of doing it? The destruction of the betting book. What was the best mode of calming the determination of the man who was the executor of the dead man, when he wanted to know what he was entitled to receive and what he had received, and to see the record of his pecuniarytransactions? Why, to tell him that the record, even if found, would be of no use, for a dead man was not entitled to any bets, he having died before they were received—yet at that very moment he had received the proceeds of the bets which he was representing as void, and was applying the proceeds to his own purpose. Does not that throw light upon the real nature of the transaction? What possible motive could he have for representing that the bets were void, having himself received them, unless he knew that he had received them fraudulently and wrongfully? See what would have taken place if the truth had come out. Mr. Stevens, if he had seen that book, would have seen that his stepson was entitled to receive £1020. He would have inquired who was his agent, to see whether by any possibility those debts could be realised; he would have learned what everybody knew, at least that portion of the turfites with whom Cook was in the habit of communicating, that Fisher was his agent. Fisher would have told him, “I ought to have received the money to repay myself £200, but Mr. Herring received the money.” He would have gone to Mr. Herring, and he would have found that every shilling of the money found its way into the prisoner’s pocket, and was appropriated for his own purposes. How was all this to be done? By the removal of Cook, and then by the destruction of the only record which could have afforded to his representative, who was entitled to stand in his place and realise his pecuniary rights, the information of the money having been received by a wrongdoer, by a man who had no right to it. Gentlemen, I submit these things to your consideration, but I submit them to you as leading, unhappily, but to one conclusion, and that the conclusion of the prisoner’s guilt.
Attorney-General
But, gentlemen, the matter does not even rest here; there is more of the prisoner’s conduct yet to be commented upon, on which I must say a few words before I conclude. Mr. Stevens determined upon having a post-mortem examination. Let us watch the conduct of the prisoner in respect of that most important part of the history of this case. Dr. Harland comes over to perform this most important office; the prisoner is on the watch to see who comes; he meets him as he alights at the inn; he accompanies him to Dr. Bamford’s; they get into conversation about this death, and Dr. Harland says, naturally enough, speaking to a brother medical man who he supposed had been attendant upon the patient, “What is this case? I hear there is a suspicion of poisoning.” “Oh, no,” says Palmer, “not at all; no suspicion of poisoning; the man had two epileptic fits upon the Monday and Tuesday, and you will find old disease, both of the head and of the heart.” Well, there was no disease found of the head or of the heart, unless that very wise gentleman, whom I should have liked tohave asked a few questions of to-day, was right about his story of angina pectoris, which I doubt was ever accompanied by tetanic symptoms in this world, or that any other man in the universe would declare that it was. “You will find disease of the head and the heart.” They opened him, and found neither. He said, “He had two epileptic fits on the Monday and Tuesday.” That very same man the day before had gone to Dr. Bamford, and asked Dr. Bamford to fill up the certificate, and Dr. Bamford said naturally enough, “He is your patient, not mine; I have only attended him at your request.” “No, I would rather you did.” He gets Dr. Bamford to fill in “apoplexy”; the next day he tells Dr. Harland that it is a case of epilepsy. This is not an ordinary individual, but a medical man, possessing full knowledge and information with regard to medical matters. However, the post-mortem examination took place; before they go to it there is some conversation with Newton which I will not again more particularly refer to; it is not satisfactory, nor does it show the state of mind in which you would expect to find a man whose friend had just died, from the way in which he speaks of the examination about to take place. Let us come to the examination itself. The stomach and its contents are, as we understood, removed; there is some story about his having pushed against the parties who were performing the examination; I think that is carrying the matter too far; it may have been an accident, and we will look at it in that light; at last the stomach, we say without its contents, and a portion of the intestines are put into a jar, and the jar is fastened with a parchment covering doubled over it; it is tied and sealed, and then it is placed upon a table while the post-mortem examination, with reference to other parts of the body, is made. Dr. Harland has this done; when Dr. Harland turns round he finds the jar removed; he immediately makes an outcry, and then at the other end of a long room, and at a door which was not the proper entrance, but a door which led into a different apartment, which apartment led into the passage, the prisoner was found with the jar in his hand, and when Dr. Harland exclaims, he says, “I thought it would have been more convenient to you when you were going out.” That might have been his motive, though it was an awkward circumstance that the jar containing the stomach should be in the hands of the man against whom there rested a suspicion of having deprived the deceased of life by unfair means. That is not all; two slits were found in the parchment cover when it was tied and sealed up; who could have made them except the prisoner? What did he do it for? There, again, we are lost in conjecture, but the only conclusion at which we can arrive is against the honesty of the purpose and the integrity of the transaction;whether it may have been for the purpose of introducing something which might be capable of neutralising the poison, I cannot tell you; all I know is the fact, and it is a fact of very significant importance in the consideration of the case.
It does not end there—we find that he is restless and uneasy as to what is going to be done with the jar, and objects to its being taken away; he remonstrates with Dr. Bamford at letting it go away, as if Dr. Bamford had any interest in the matter, and as if any one would suspect Dr. Bamford of having had any hand in the taking off of this poor man. The jar is taken away, and then that occurred which must have made a painful impression upon all who heard it in this Court—then comes the story of his going to the post boy, and asking him to upset the carriage which was conveying those who had possession of the jar to Stafford or London, for the purpose of its contents being analysed. My learned friend sought to give a comparatively innocent complexion to this transaction; he says that this bribe of £10 to upset the carriage arose simply out of resentment against the officious stepfather who had dared to interfere in this matter—to insist upon a searching investigation—he had been guilty, my learned friend says, in return for the civility, courtesy, and kindness with which he had been treated by the prisoner, of “prying, meddling, insolent curiosity.” A man who had seen his poor stepson, to whom he was tenderly attached, lying dead under circumstances which raised in his mind a suspicion—and I think I am fully justified, at all events, whatever may be the result of this inquiry, in saying that the very inquiry we are now upon—the gravity and importance of it—at least fully justify Mr. Stevens in the suspicions which he entertained for having insisted upon the inquiry, and that ought to have protected him against the suggestion of “insolent curiosity.” It was known that Mr. Stevens insisted upon inquiry—was it a reasonable motive operating upon this man’s mind that it should occasion such a sense of resentment and anger that he should desire the destruction or mutilation of this man, and offer £10 to the post boy to upset him upon the road? I believe the other to have been the true version—if you upset him you may break the jar, and then the contents never could be found, and there would be no danger of strychnia being discovered.
Attorney-General
But it does not stop even there; the inquiry takes place, and the post-mortem examination having been made, a coroner’s inquest is insisted upon and becomes inevitable, and then we have the prisoner seeking to tamper with the administration of a most important office; sending presents to the coroner at the time the inquest was sitting; presents, unquestionably, of game and things of that description, and if the evidence does notvery much mislead us a present of money also. For what purpose was all that done? We find him, with uneasy restlessness, obtaining through Cheshire information of what is taking place between the professional man who was employed to analyse the contents of the stomach and the attorney at Rugeley who was instructed on behalf of Mr. Stevens; is that the conduct of innocence or of guilt? Why should he be desirous of knowing whether strychnia, above all other things, should be found in the intestines of the deceased? Let me call your attention to the letter which he writes to the coroner—“I am sorry to tell you that I am still confined to my bed; I do not think it was mentioned at the inquest yesterday that Cook was taken ill on Sunday and on Monday night in the same way that he was on Tuesday night when he died; the chambermaid at the Crown Hotel can prove this; I believe a man of the name of Fisher is coming down to prove that he received some money at Shrewsbury; now, here he can only pay Smith £10 out of £41 he owed him. “Does he tell what had become of the rest of the money that the man had at Shrewsbury? “Had you not better call Smith,” that is, Mr. Jeremiah Smith whom we saw here to-day, “to prove this?” What a witness Jeremiah Smith would have been in the hands of the coroner, Mr. Ward, the friendly coroner of Staffordshire! And, again, “Whatever Professor Taylor may say to-morrow, he wrote from London last Tuesday night to Gardner to say, we (that is, Dr. Taylor and Dr. Rees) have this day finished our analysis, and find no traces of either strychnia, prussic acid, or opium; what can beat this from a man like Taylor, if he says what he has already said of Dr. Harland’s evidence? Mind you, I know it, I saw in black and white what Taylor said to Gardner; but this is strictly private and confidential, but it is true. As regards his betting book, I know nothing of it, and it is of no good to any one”; the repetition of the same story. “I hope the verdict to-morrow will be that he died of natural causes, and thus end it”; but the verdict was not so, and it did not end it; and it is for you to say whether upon a review of the whole of this evidence you can come to any other conclusion than that of the prisoner’s guilt. Look at his restless anxiety; it may possibly, it is true, be compatible with innocence, but I think on the other hand it must be admitted that it bears strongly the aspect of guilt; if it stood alone, I would not ask you upon that to come to a conclusion adverse to the prisoner, but it is one of a series of things, small perhaps, each individually in themselves, but, taken as a whole, as I submit to you, leading irresistibly to the conclusion of the guilt of this man.