0:03 [SPEAKER_00]: the Talbot arm stood dark against the November sky. 0:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Gas white flickered behind drawn curtains. 0:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Fall crept through rugally street, muffling the last sounds of a market town, settling into sleep. 0:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Across the narrow street, another window glowed. 0:25 [SPEAKER_00]: William Palmer stood at his parlor window, watching. 0:30 [SPEAKER_00]: He could see the lamplight and room 10. 0:33 [SPEAKER_00]: He could count the shadows moving behind the curtain. 0:37 [SPEAKER_00]: John Parsons' cook lay in that room, convinced the man watching him, had poisoned his brandy at Shrewsbury. 0:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Yet 0:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Last episode we met William Palmer, the gambling surgeon whose deaths had driven him to murder. 1:02 [SPEAKER_00]: His wife, his brother, perhaps a dozen others whose deaths brought him money or relief. 1:10 [SPEAKER_00]: And we met John Parsons' cook, the racing gentleman, whose victory at Shrewdbury, left nearly 3,000 pounds in his pocket. 1:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer desperately needed. 1:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Cooks suspected Palmer was poisoning him. 1:26 [SPEAKER_00]: He told friends at the raceway, finally, that damn Palmer has been dosing me, yet he returned to Rugerly anyway. 1:36 [SPEAKER_00]: He booked his usual room at the Talbot arms, directly across the street from the man he feared. 1:51 [SPEAKER_01]: Palmer stood at his parlor window at dawn on November the 16th. 1:55 [SPEAKER_01]: His coffee called beside him on the side table. 1:59 [SPEAKER_01]: He watched the chamber made carrier breakfast tray across the streets to the tall but arms. 2:04 [SPEAKER_01]: He counted the minutes until she emerged. 2:07 [SPEAKER_01]: The tall but arms was a coaching in on market street. 2:10 [SPEAKER_01]: The main thoroughfare through Rougeley. 2:13 [SPEAKER_01]: Room 10 faced the street directly. 2:16 [SPEAKER_01]: His window looked across at William Palmer's house. 2:21 [SPEAKER_01]: When Palmer stood at his window, he could see Cook's room. 2:25 [SPEAKER_01]: When Cook looks out of his window, if he had enough strength to rise from the bed, he could see Palmer watching him. 2:34 [SPEAKER_01]: Twenty yards of cobbled separated them, a lifetime of trust had already collapsed between those windows. 2:41 [SPEAKER_01]: Palmer moved between his house and the inn with ease. 2:44 [SPEAKER_01]: He was, after all, cooks friend, his physician, the man tending his illness out of kindness and concern. 2:53 [SPEAKER_01]: Servants grew accustomed to seeing the doctor across the street at all hours, carrying medicines, carrying food, carrying whatever cook might need. 3:02 [SPEAKER_01]: They thought nothing of it, they thought it was kindness. 3:06 [SPEAKER_01]: Cook's condition fluctuated over those first days. 3:09 [SPEAKER_01]: He would improve slightly enough to sit up to take broth, to hope he might recover. 3:15 [SPEAKER_01]: Then he would worsen again, violently ill, racked with pain that seemed to come from nowhere. 3:20 [SPEAKER_01]: The pattern repeated, Improvement collapse, Improvement collapse. 3:26 [SPEAKER_01]: Each collapse followed by a visit from Palmer. 3:29 [SPEAKER_01]: On November 17th, tragedy struck at the Palmer Household, Williams' imprint son Alfred died. 3:37 [SPEAKER_01]: Convulsions, the desktif, it said. 3:40 [SPEAKER_01]: The fifth of Palmer's children to die the same way. 3:43 [SPEAKER_01]: Borsons and a daughter. 3:45 [SPEAKER_01]: All dead before their first birthdays. 3:48 [SPEAKER_01]: All in convulsions. 3:50 [SPEAKER_01]: The neighbours offered condolences, a grieving father they said. 3:54 [SPEAKER_01]: So much sorrow for one family. 3:57 [SPEAKER_01]: That same evening, the evening his infant son was laid out for burial. 4:02 [SPEAKER_01]: Palmer invited Kirk to die in this house, a grieving father seeking distraction perhaps. 4:09 [SPEAKER_01]: Kirk accepted, he was feeling better that day. 4:12 [SPEAKER_01]: Yate the food Palmer provided, he drank what Palmer poured, with her now as Kirk was violently ill again, the pattern was impossible to ignore, at least in hindsight. 4:25 [SPEAKER_00]: November 19th, Palmer announced he would travel to London. 4:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Hooks racing affairs needed settling. 4:34 [SPEAKER_00]: He explained. 4:36 [SPEAKER_00]: The bookmakers held winnings from Shrewsbury. 4:39 [SPEAKER_00]: The betting books required attention. 4:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Someone needed to collect what cook owed, and cook was far too ill to travel himself. 4:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Cook must have been grateful, a friend handling tedious business while he recovered in bed. 4:56 [SPEAKER_00]: He handed over his bedding books without hesitation. 5:00 [SPEAKER_00]: He gave Palmer authority to act on his behalf. 5:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer boarded the morning train from Mugally, three hours through the Midlands Countryside 5:12 [SPEAKER_00]: He arrived at Houston Station and moved through the city with purpose. 5:17 [SPEAKER_00]: His first stops were the bookmakers. 5:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Cook had one nearly 3,000 pounds at Shrewsbury, but much of that money remained scattered across a various bedding accounts. 5:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer collected what he could, he presented himself as Cook's agent, he pocketed the money, then came the forgeries, 5:38 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer had done this before, forging his mother's signature, his brother Walter's name, his hand was steady. 5:48 [SPEAKER_00]: He drafted checks and cooked's name, totalling hundreds of pounds, cooked signature, perfectly imitated, cooked's money flowing into Palmer's accounts. 6:02 [SPEAKER_00]: The debts demanded payment, the money lenders were growing impatient, Palmer needed every pound he could steal. 6:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Evening fell over London, the glass lamps flickered to life along the streets, Palmer made one final stop before catching his train home. 6:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Hawkins chemist shop. 6:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Charles Newton worked behind the counter that night. 6:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Newton was a medical student, young, attentive, trained to follow proper procedure. 6:37 [SPEAKER_00]: He recorded every transaction in the poison register. 6:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Even a physician needed documentation. 6:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Even a surgeon needed a reason 6:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer requested three grains of strictening. 6:52 [SPEAKER_00]: He asked for it casually, the way a doctor might request any common pharmaceutical. 6:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Newton asked the purpose, standard procedure, for destroying stray dogs near his stable, Palmer explained, a common enough use for strictening and rural areas, farmers and 7:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Newton asked for the name of a horse. 7:21 [SPEAKER_00]: This two was standard practice, a way of verifying the purchasers identity, of ensuring the poison went, where it was supposed to go. 7:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer named a horse, all doctor. 7:33 [SPEAKER_00]: He did not own a horse by that name. 7:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Three grains of strickening, 7:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Newton waited carefully on the brass scales, three grains, approximately three lethal doses for a human being. 7:50 [SPEAKER_00]: He recorded the sale in the poison register, noting the date, the quantity, the purchasers name, Palmer paid and left. 8:01 [SPEAKER_00]: The last train to Rougley departed at 9 o'clock, Palmer boarded with cooks money in one pocket, and strict name in the other, 8:10 [SPEAKER_00]: he arrived home near midnight. 8:14 [SPEAKER_00]: The light still burned in room 10 of the tablet arms. 8:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Cook was still alive. 8:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Still trusting. 8:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Still waiting for his friend. 8:24 [SPEAKER_00]: The doctor to return. 8:28 [SPEAKER_01]: The day before Palmer's London trip, something had happened that would prove crucial at trial. 8:34 [SPEAKER_01]: Elizabeth Mills, the chamber made attending Kirk at the tour but arms, tasted his coffee on November the 18th. 8:41 [SPEAKER_01]: Perhaps she was checking the temperature before serving it. 8:45 [SPEAKER_01]: Perhaps she was simply curious about the broth that Palmer brought so faithfully to the sick room. 8:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever her reason, she drank from Kirk's cup. 8:55 [SPEAKER_01]: What happened next was striking. 8:57 [SPEAKER_01]: With an hour's mills fell violent me ill, the same symptoms as Kirk, stomach pains that doubled her over, nor was the other wouldn't stop, weakness that kept her in bed. 9:08 [SPEAKER_01]: Mills recovered within days, Kirk did not. 9:12 [SPEAKER_01]: The difference prosecutors would later argue was simple. 9:16 [SPEAKER_01]: Mills tasted once from a single cup. 9:20 [SPEAKER_01]: Kirk received dose after dose, day after day, from the hands of his trusted physician, 9:25 [SPEAKER_01]: November the 20th, Dr. William Bamford was summoned to room 10. 9:31 [SPEAKER_01]: Bamford was 82 years old, respected hugely physician, who had practiced medicine for half a century. 9:39 [SPEAKER_01]: His hands shook with age, but his reputation was impeccable. 9:43 [SPEAKER_01]: Bamford examined to cook, and diagnosed severe gastric disturbance. 9:48 [SPEAKER_01]: He prescribed morphine pills to ease the stomach pain, standard treatment for the era. 9:54 [SPEAKER_01]: The pills would be prepared by the local chemist and delivered to the tool but arms. 9:59 [SPEAKER_01]: Palmer intercepted the prescription. 10:01 [SPEAKER_01]: He drew Bamford aside, one physician speaking to another. 10:05 [SPEAKER_01]: Let me prepare something special he suggested. 10:09 [SPEAKER_01]: Something more suited to Cook's particular condition. 10:12 [SPEAKER_01]: I know his constitution, I know what he needs. 10:16 [SPEAKER_01]: Bamford agreed, one physician deferring to another, Professional courtesy between colleagues. 10:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Palmer disappeared into his private room. 10:25 [SPEAKER_01]: The surgery attached to his house where he kept his instruments, his medicines, his secrets. 10:31 [SPEAKER_01]: The prosecution would later ask the jury to imagine what happened in that room. 10:36 [SPEAKER_01]: The morphine pills sitting on his workbench. 10:40 [SPEAKER_01]: The three grains of strict nine purchase the night before in London. 10:44 [SPEAKER_01]: The careful hands of a surgeon who knew exactly 10:49 [SPEAKER_01]: Palmer emerged with pills of his own preparation. 10:53 [SPEAKER_01]: He carried them across the street to room ten. 10:56 [SPEAKER_01]: He administered them to cook personally, watching as his friends swallowing the medicine, watching as cooked thanked him for his care. 11:04 [SPEAKER_01]: Cook took the pills around 11 o'clock that night. 11:08 [SPEAKER_01]: Within an hour, his condition deteriorated sharply. 11:13 [SPEAKER_00]: November 20th became November 21st. 11:17 [SPEAKER_00]: The clock in the Talbot arms struck midnight. 11:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Most of rugally slept, unaware of what was happening in room 10. 11:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Cook did not sleep. 11:28 [SPEAKER_00]: He couldn't. 11:29 [SPEAKER_00]: His stomach burned. 11:31 [SPEAKER_00]: His muscles twitched involuntarily. 11:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Small spasms at first, barely noticeable. 11:38 [SPEAKER_00]: But growing stronger. 11:40 [SPEAKER_00]: something was terribly wrong, something beyond ordinary illness. 11:46 [SPEAKER_00]: He called for help. 11:48 [SPEAKER_00]: His voice was weak at the nightboarder, heard him. 11:53 [SPEAKER_00]: The porter-fetched Elizabeth Mills, the same chamber made, who had tasted Cook's coffee and fallen ill herself. 12:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Mills found Cook, doubled over in his bed, watching his abdomen with both hands. 12:08 [SPEAKER_00]: His face was pale as candle wax, his breathing came in short, sharp gasps, sweat soaked through his night shirt. 12:19 [SPEAKER_00]: They sent for Dr. Palmer. 12:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer arrived within minutes. 12:23 [SPEAKER_00]: He must have been awake, watching that window across the street. 12:29 [SPEAKER_00]: He must have been waiting for this moment. 12:32 [SPEAKER_00]: He walked into room 10 with a calm authority of a physician answering a medical emergency. 12:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Strictening attacks the nervous system with terrible efficiency. 12:43 [SPEAKER_00]: The poison blocks the receptors that normally inhibit muscle contraction. 12:49 [SPEAKER_00]: The chemical signals that tell your muscles when to relax. 12:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Without that break, every muscle fires at once. 12:58 [SPEAKER_00]: The body seizes the spine arcs backward in a terrible curve that medical texts call 13:08 [SPEAKER_00]: The body bent like a bow drawn to breaking. 13:12 [SPEAKER_00]: The victim remains conscious throughout. 13:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Strictening does not cloud the mind. 13:18 [SPEAKER_00]: It leaves its victims aware of every convulsion, every spasm, every moment of their own death. 13:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Shortly after midnight, hooks convulsions began. 13:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Elizabeth Mills watched from the doorway of room 10. 13:36 [SPEAKER_00]: She saw Cook's body arc backward, off the mattress with such force that only his heels and the back of his head touch the bed. 13:46 [SPEAKER_00]: His fists clenched, so tightly that his nails cut into his palms. 13:52 [SPEAKER_00]: His jaw locked shut. 13:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Every muscle in his body rigid as iron, 13:59 [SPEAKER_00]: He screamed one word through his clenched teeth, murder, Palmer stood at the bedside. 14:08 [SPEAKER_00]: Mills would later testify under oath in the most famous courtroom in England that he made no move to restrain Cook, no attempt to ease the convulsions, no emergency measures of any kind. 14:25 [SPEAKER_00]: the physician simply watched. 14:29 [SPEAKER_00]: The convulsions lasted perhaps 10 minutes. 14:32 [SPEAKER_00]: They cook's heart stopped. 14:35 [SPEAKER_00]: The muscles that had been seizing finally relaxed. 14:39 [SPEAKER_00]: The room fell silent. 14:42 [SPEAKER_00]: John Parsons' cook, instead, he was 28 years old. 14:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Dawn came gray and cold overreusely. 14:53 [SPEAKER_01]: Words spread quickly through the market town. 14:56 [SPEAKER_01]: John Parsons' cook was dead. 14:58 [SPEAKER_01]: The racing gentleman who had won so handsomely at Shrewsbury dead in his room at the tour with arms. 15:05 [SPEAKER_01]: Palmer took immediate control of the situation. 15:08 [SPEAKER_01]: He ordered a coffin from the local carpenter before Cook's body was cold. 15:12 [SPEAKER_01]: He began making funeral arrangements, the grieving friend handling difficult details so that others wouldn't have to. 15:20 [SPEAKER_01]: He also signed the death certificate himself. 15:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Gors of death, a pop-in-exe, a stroke, natural causes. 15:28 [SPEAKER_01]: A man in his twenties, no history of heart 15:34 [SPEAKER_01]: Palmer moved three cooks belongings that morning. 15:38 [SPEAKER_01]: He searched the room methodically. 15:40 [SPEAKER_01]: He intercepted mail before it could reach cooks family. 15:43 [SPEAKER_01]: Let us cook at written in his final days, address to a stepfather, to friends, to anyone who might listen. 15:49 [SPEAKER_01]: Did those letters contain accusations, warnings, or never know, those letters disappeared? 15:58 [SPEAKER_01]: The £3,000 Cook had won at Shreesbury, most of it remained depositors with Ishmael Fisher, a racing acquaintance Cook had trusted with his winnings, but the rest had vanished. 16:09 [SPEAKER_01]: The money Palmer had collected in London, the forged checks, all of this absorbed into Palmer's deaths. 16:17 [SPEAKER_01]: Elizabeth Mills told the other servants what she witnessed in room 10, the screams, the convulsions, the doctor he simply stirred and washed. 16:26 [SPEAKER_01]: Whispers spread through the toolbed arms, through the market square, through every street, emrusely. 16:33 [SPEAKER_01]: William Steven Cook's stepfather was already travelling north from London when word reached him. 16:39 [SPEAKER_01]: He had received a lettered 16:46 [SPEAKER_01]: Steven's arrived in Ruzely on November 23rd. 16:50 [SPEAKER_01]: He found Kirk already in a coffin. 16:52 [SPEAKER_01]: The betting book's missing. 16:54 [SPEAKER_01]: The sure is very winnings unaccounted for. 16:57 [SPEAKER_01]: And a destitute could sign by the last man to see Kirk alive. 17:01 [SPEAKER_01]: A destitute Kirk that claimed natural causes for a 28-year-old who had died screaming. 17:07 [SPEAKER_01]: Steven's began asking questions. 17:10 [SPEAKER_01]: Difficult questions. 17:18 [SPEAKER_00]: John Parsons Cook trusted William Palmer. 17:21 [SPEAKER_00]: He trusted him as a friend, a fellow racing enthusiast, a drinking companion at Tracks across England. 17:30 [SPEAKER_00]: When Cook won at Shrewsbury, Palmer was the first to raise a glass in celebration. 17:37 [SPEAKER_00]: He trusted him as a physician, 17:40 [SPEAKER_00]: when Cook fell ill, when that first dose of poison-pringity began its work, all more was there. 17:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Crossing the street at all hours, bringing medicine, bringing comfort, bringing death, careful doses, Victorian medicine operated on faith, patients trusted doctors implicitly, completely, without question 18:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Physicians held unquestionable authority over treatment, diagnosis, and the final determination of how a person had died. 18:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer exported every element of that trust. 18:20 [SPEAKER_00]: His friendship opened doors, his credentials, silenced questions, his proximity ensured no one else could intervene. 18:31 [SPEAKER_00]: six days from Shrewsbury to Room 10, from Celebration to Convulsion, Palmer had planned to carefully, the trip to London to collect Cook's money. 18:45 [SPEAKER_00]: The strictning purchased at Hawkins Kim's shop, the intercepted pills, each step deliberate, each movement calculated, 19:01 [SPEAKER_00]: his friend, the doctor, stood beside the bed and simply watched. 19:07 [SPEAKER_00]: But Palmer had made mistakes. 19:10 [SPEAKER_00]: He had assumed no one would question a physician's diagnosis. 19:15 [SPEAKER_00]: He had assumed grief with silence doubt. 19:19 [SPEAKER_00]: He had assumed that a death certificate signed by a doctor would close every door. 19:32 [SPEAKER_00]: He couldn't know that Stevens would refuse to accept, Apoplexi as explanation. 19:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Couldn't know that the coming weeks would bring an inquest, an exclamation, and a forensic examination that would put the touring and toxicology itself on trial. 19:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer stood beside Cook's deathbed and simply watched. 19:58 [SPEAKER_00]: The chamber made saw him, the servants whispered, and yet he signed that death certificate without a moment's hesitation. 20:08 [SPEAKER_00]: How many other death certificates did Victorian physician sign without question? 20:15 [SPEAKER_00]: How many other murders slipped past simply because a doctor's word was law. 20:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Next episode, the stepfather demands an autopsy, the body tells its secrets, and William Palmer discovers that the same medical knowledge that made him a killer now makes him a suspect. 20:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, good night, friend.
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