There can be no doubt that Cook attached great value to Sirius and Polestar, which mare was, probably, then booked for the engagements in which she won so much money at Shrewsbury; and it is to the last degree improbable that he would have executed this bill of sale, with a power of attorney to enable the mortgagee or assignee to enforce it at once effectually, and yet have received no money. Would he, if such had been the case, have remained quiet to the day of his death, and never have written to Pratt to say that although he had sent him the required documents he had never received the money? Cook was as much in want of money as Palmer was, and would he thus have thrown away his money? Is it credible that if Palmer had misappropriated the cheque he could for three months have kept Cook in ignorance of the transaction? Is it not probable that Cook’s name was written on the cheque with his full knowledge and consent? It is not suggested that there was any attempt to imitate his handwriting. Is it not more probable that Cook, who, I will prove to you from the letter, wanted ready money, and who would probably be put to inconvenience by receiving only a cheque, which he would not get cashed for a day or two, took the ready money—£315, which Pratt sent at the same time to Palmer—and that Palmer took the cheque? On the 6th of September Palmer wrote to Pratt:—
“I received the cheque for the £100, and will thank you to let me have the £315 by return of post, if possible; if not, send it me (certain) by Monday night’s post to the Post-office, Doncaster. I now return you Cook’s papers signed &c., and he wants the money on Saturday, if he can have it; but I have not promised it for Saturday. I told him he should have it on Tuesday morning at Doncaster; so please enclose it with mine, in cash, in a registered letter, and he must pay for it being registered. Do not let it be later than Monday night’s post to Doncaster.”
So that Palmer asked that it should be sent like his own, Cook, according to the letter, wanting it in cash. Pratt replied to Palmer, acknowledging the receipt of the documents, and promising that he would send him his money to Doncaster on the Monday, and would endeavour to let Cook have his at the same time. On the 9th of September Palmer wrote to Pratt:—
“You must send me, for Mr. Cook, by Monday night’s post (to the Post-office, Doncaster,) £385 instead of £375, and the wine warrant, so that I can hand it to him with the £375, and that will be allowing you £50 for the discount, &c. I shall then get £10, and I expect I shall have to take the wine, and give him the money; but I shall not do so if you do not send £385, and be good enough to enclose my £315 with it, in cash, in a registered letter, and direct it to me to the Post-office, Doncaster.”
In these letters there is an intimation that Cook wanted the money on the Saturday. He was inconvenienced by only getting a cheque upon London, which he could not immediately change; and, therefore, Palmer gave him the money and took the cheque. It is remarkable that, when we look to the banking account of Palmer at Rugeley, we find that the £375 is paid in by somebody to his account, but that the £315 is not paid in to his account at all. The bill was accepted for Cook’s accommodation, Cook gave security for it, and he never, during the three months which elapsed before his death, complained to Pratt that he had not received the money for it. I submit that the fair version of the transaction is that which is given in a letter from Palmer—that Palmer let Cook have the cash, and himself took the cheque, having Cook’s authority to put his name at the back of it. How else can you account for the silence of Cook, and for the fact that the £375 is paid into the Rugeley Bank, but there is no trace of the £315? This being so, the result of Cook’s death was to make Palmer liable for the £500 bill, on the back of which he had put his name. Therefore, I submit to you, that on the second motive suggested by my learned friend (the Attorney-General), the case has entirely failed. In addition to this, however, we find from these letters the difficulties which the death of Cook brought upon Palmer. We find the disappointment of Pratt that he could send no more money, the bill for £500, the danger of losing Polestar, which Palmer very much wanted to have, and which Pratt would, unless paid the £500, bring to the hammer in order to realise his security; and we find that inquiries were at once apprehended from Cook’s friends as to the moneys which Pratt had paid to Cook, and the probable value which the latter had received for the endorsements and acceptances which he had given. There is another, although not so strong a reason, why it is improbable that Palmer should have desired the death of Cook. Mr. Weatherby has told us to day that, although it frequently happens that the moneys won at a race are sent up by the clerk of the course in a week after the race, yet that does not always happen. On Tuesday, November the 20th, on the night of which day he died, Cook, who was then perfectly sensible, perfectly comfortable and happy, and enjoying the society of his friend Mr. Jones, gave to Palmer a cheque for £350 upon Weatherby’s. If Palmer killed Cook, and it happened that Fraill had not sent up the money so as to be there by Wednesday morning, Weatherby’s would not pay the cheque, nor would they have cashed it if they had received information that Cook had died during the night. It actually happened that the cheque when presented was not paid, because Fraill did not send up the money. Was it probable that Palmer, having got from Cook a cheque for £380, would have run the risk of losing his money by destroying him the same night?
It is suggested that he obtained this cheque fraudulently, and then, lest Cook should detect the fraud, destroyed him. That was not likely to answer his purpose. He might be certain that directly the breath was out of Cook’s body, Jones would go to Mr. Stevens; that Stevens and Bradford, Cook’s brother-in-law, would go down to Rugeley; that the death being sudden there would most likely be a post-mortem examination; and that, instead of settling for the £500 bill and the £350 cheque with Cook, he would have to settle with hard men of business, men who cared nothing for him, who would probably look upon him as a “leg” upon the turf, and would regard neither his feelings nor his interests, but would let him go to ruin any way he might, not stirring a finger to save him. Is it probable that a shrewd intelligent man of business would make such a choice as that. More than this, we know that at that very time Herring held one bill for £500, and three for £200 each, to which there were the names of both Palmer and Cook, and for all of which, either in the whole or in part, Cook must, unless he rushed to his own ruin, provide. If Palmer put Cook to death, he immediately became solely liable, not only for these bills, but for that, as security, for which the bill of sale was executed on Sirius and Polestar, which would not be so easily renewed as those for the large sums on which the enormous usury was paid. That bill would very likely soon find its way to his mother, and that it should do so would not suit Palmer, for his mother is a respectable and serious person, who, although she loved her son, did not like and gave no encouragement to his gambling; nor did that excellent and most honourable man who stands by him—his brother, who was estranged from him for a length of time, until this calamity came upon him, simply because he disapproved the gambling by which he lived. Cook being dead, there was, therefore, no one to save Palmer from ruin, for in all this voluminous evidence there is not the smallest trace that there was any one else in the world who would lend Palmer his name or would assist him to obtain money. If it be, as it is stated, a fact that he forged the name of his mother, is not that conclusive evidence that he had no other resource but the goodnature—the easiness, perhaps the folly of Cook? Is it then credible that under such circumstances he would have desired to bring upon himself not merely the creditors and executors of Cook, but their solicitors—men who, in the discharge of their duty to their clients, can have no sympathy for any one, and with whom no arrangement is possible? I have, therefore, I hope, shown you that Palmer had an interest in the life of Cook. But, more than that, was it safe for him that Cook should die? Palmer was a man who had a shrewd knowledge of the world and a knowledge of his profession, and, among other things, of chemistry. My learned friends have put in a book which was found in his house, and among other notes one in which there is this, “Strychnia kills by causing tetanic fixing of the respiratory muscles.” In the same book there are many other notes.
Lord Campbell: The Attorney-General stated that he did not place much reliance upon that note.
Mr. Serjeant Shee: My learned friend did not press this note, but he thought it was evidence which ought to be before you (the jury). I use it to satisfy you that Palmer had studied his profession sufficiently to know, and knew perfectly well, that if strychnine were administered it would in all probability kill the victim in horrible convulsions, in a very short time, and in a way so striking as to be the talk of a small neighbourhood like Rugeley for a month or more—time enough to alarm everybody and provoke inquiry into the circumstances of the death, which must certainly, in all probability, end in the detection of guilt. If that is so, was he at that time so circumstanced as to render it safe for him to run the risk of such suspicions? His brother, Walter Palmer, had died in the month of August; and, unless his mother forgave him, or recognized the acceptance, his only hope of extraction from his difficulties lay in getting from the Prince of Wales office the money due to him as assignee of the policy on his brother’s life. That his chance of getting that money was good is shown by the fact that he refused the offer of the office to return the premium, and that it was upon it that Pratt had obtained the discounts, and had resolved, under the direction of Palmer, to put it in suit. It was really the only unpledged property which he had, and how he was situated with regard to it appears from the letters and from the evidence. The Insurance company, annoyed at being called upon to pay so large a sum, were determined to do all they could to resist it. They accordingly sent Inspector Field and his man to Stafford to make inquiries. They could not do this without talking, and this had been going on for some time. [To show that this had been the case the learned Serjeant read the deposition of the witness Deane, who was examined yesterday.] So that just before the death of Cook, Palmer knew himself to be the subject of what he appeared from his actions to consider a most unfounded and unwarrantable suspicion. He put the policy into the hands of an attorney to enforce payment of the sum due upon it. The office met the claim by insinuations and inquiries which were of a nature to destroy his character and to bring upon his head the suspicion of a murder. The pressure by Pratt upon Palmer to meet the £2,000 bills did not commence until the office disputed the payment of that policy. All went as smooth as possible as long as Pratt held what he believed to be a good security, but when they began to dispute that, Pratt writes to Palmer and tells him that the state of things is changed. After saying that nothing can be done towards compelling the office to pay until the 24th, he says in his letter of the 2d of October:—
“This, you will observe, quite alters arrangements, and I therefore must request that you make preparations for meeting the two bills due at the end of this month.... In any event, bear in mind that you must be prepared to cover your mother’s acceptances for the £4,000, due at the end of the month.”
There was the pinch. The office would not pay, and bills for £4,000 were coming due. If anything occurred to increase the suspicions of the office—which was very very unwilling to pay—all chance of the £13,000 was lost. That £13,000 is sure to be paid unless that man (pointing to the prisoner) is convicted of murder. As sure as he is saved, and saved I believe he will be, that £13,000 will be paid. There is no defence—no pretence of a defence. The premium taken was an enormous one, and that £13,000 is good for him and will pay all his creditors. This correspondence of which my learned friend must have taken a view different from any which I can take, but which I am sure he would have put in, whatever had been his view of it—this correspondence saves the prisoner if there is common sense in man. Here is another letter from Pratt to Palmer, dated October the sixth:—