They Hanged My Saintly Billy by Robert Graves Read Free Book Online Page B

Duffy. My missus pretended at first she knew noth ing of them, but they threatened to take away the licence if she would not give them up; so my sister-in-law brought them in—which she had kept for a lark, she said, without my missus's knowledge, when ordered to burn them in the bread-oven.
    But why should the letters be taken off? The reason, Sir, is plain enough. If old Mrs Palmer were called by the Defence lawyers to give evidence on behalf of her son, which she'd do with a good heart, then the Prosecution would out with those letters and get leave from the Court to put them in as 'evidence of character'. She couldn't deny 'em as her own, and even if she told the truth about Dr Palmer, proving his alibi (as it's called) on the particular hour when he is supposed to have poisoned Cook with strychn ine pills, who would believe her? Those letters are plain evidence of schemings, lyings, and adultery. No, Sir, old Mrs Palmer won't appear in the witness box at the Old Bailey, of that you may be sure! If she did, not only would she do her son no particle of good, but the secrets of he r heart would be published by th e newspapers throughout the length and breadth of England.

Chapter IV
    COLONEL BROOKES'S RESOLUTION
    ABBOT'S BROMLEY, th e country house belonging to Charles Dawson, Esq., a wealthy wholesale chemist from Stafford, is one of the handsomest and most comfortably furnished in the entire county, besides being wonderfully placed for scenery. It lies some seven miles from Stafford. Close by, rise the famous oaks of Bagot's Park, said to be the largest in England and perhaps in the world. Within walking distance you come upon Cannock Chase with its grassy slopes and great wealth of wild flowers, and Shoughborough Park with its banks of tall ferns. Abbot's Bromley also commands a view of Colnwich Nunnery, and of the swans reflected in the Trent's placid waters.
    Charles Dawson, a robust and mellow-voiced widower in his sixties, has a fine eye for horseflesh, an epicure's taste in port, a connoisseur's knowledge of pictures, statuary, medals, et alia— and much to relate about th e next stage in William Palmer's chequered career. The rest of this chapter will be told in his own words.
    charles dawson esq., j.p.
    Poor little Annie, how sadly we all miss her here! I did my best to cure her infatuation for that smooth-tongued young scamp— as much, I swear, as any loving guardian could have done—but she would not listen to me. She had set her heart on becoming Mrs Wm Palmer. I also quarrelled mortally on her account with my old friend Mr Thomas Weaver, the solicitor; nor have I since had reason to repent my attitude, the way things turned out. Far otherwise, indeed!
    Let me begin at the beginning—though, I warn you, it's by no means a savoury story. One day, while I was still actively conducting my druggist's business at Stafford, a gentleman with trembling hands and a face as yellow as a guinea, pushed open the shop door. I summed him up at once as an officer, attached to the East
    India Company's forces, who had ruined his constitution by persistent bouts of fever, over-exertion in the sweltering heat of the Bengalee Plains, and constant indulgence in the curree and chutney used by the native cooks to disguise the unpalatable taste of their goat's flesh and chicken. He asked whether we could furnish him with a certain foreign drug which one of the retail druggists of the town, to whom he had applied, ignorantly asserted did not exist. I attended to this customer personally, and produced a sample of the drug named; though counselling him in a friendly manner against its in discriminate use. He then explained that it had been recommended to him by an old English physician in Bombay as strongly assisting the action of the liver. I told him, with what I hope was becoming modesty, that some druggists often know more about the action of drugs than do some physicians; and suggested another course of treatment as both less