They Hanged My Saintly Billy (31 page)
Equally
dubious
is
the
story
told
by
Tom,
the
Boots
at
The Junction
Hotel,
Stafford,
whom
we
have
been
at
pains
to
question.
The
hotel
stable
is
in
the
courtyard,
a
low-roofed,
whitewashed
building
with
stalls
for
five
horses.
On
one
side
a
ladder
stands
flat
against
the
wall,
up
which
one
climbs
to
the
hayloft. Here
Tom
sleeps:
a
ragged,
ferret-faced
young
man,
notable
for a
cast
in
one
eye
and
a
very
strong
bodily
smell
compounded
of liquor,
blacking,
stable
and
foul
linen.
Tom
is
a
proud
man
these days:
a
local
celebrity,
a
victim
of
Dr
Palmer's
poisoning
who
has lived
to
tell
the
tale.
He
declares
that,
after
his
interview
with Inspectors
Field
and
Simpson,
Dr
Palmer
met
him
on
the
road between
The
Junction
and
the
railway
station,
and
asked:
'Tom, what
will
you
have?'
The
rest
of
the
story
is
best
told
in
Tom's
own
words,
and
he must
here
be
imagined
rubbing
his
hair
to
shine
up
his
thoughts, then
picking
his
nails
as
though
the
dirt
they
concealed
were
the evidence
he
was
seeking,
and
finally
crouching
on
a
stone
mounting
block,
knees
to
chin,
and
hugging
his
ill-shaped
boots—which, for
a
Boots'
boots,
are
singularly
devoid
of
polish.
TOM
THE
BOOTS
I
says:
'I'll
take
a
drop
of
brandy,
if
anyth
ing,
Doctor.
It's
a
chill evening.'
'Then
let's
go
to
The
Junction,'
says
he.
'I
dpn't
want
to
offend old
Lloyd
by
standing
you
treat
elsewhere.'
So
we
came
back
to
the
bar
and
he
mixed
the
brandy
and
water. 'Take
it
here?'
asks
the
Doctor.
To
which
I
answered:
"Well,
I'd rather
take
it
outside.'
'No,
here,'
he
says.
'What
are
you
afraid
of?'
And
I
drank.
The
queer
thing
was
it
didn't
taste
queer,
but
oh,
my
dear Lord!
what
happened
after?
It
was
just
like
common
brandy
and water,
as
is
made
hot
with
sugar,
my
favourite
drink,
and
I shouldn't
have
drunk
it
if
it
had
tasted
bad—because
I'm
very particular
with
my
drinks,
always
have
been,
but
oh,
my
dear Lord!
I
went
out
into
the
yard,
and
was
I
took
bad?
I
was
indeed! I
felt
drunk,
like.
I
didn't
know
where
I
was,
like.
I
certainly
had some
recollection
of
what
was
said,
but
my
senses
were
gone,
like. Directl
y
I'd
drunk
it,
I
knew
I'd
been
nobbled:
the
drink
lay heavy
on
my
stomach,
like
a
crab.
Then
up
it
all
came.
I
clapped my
hand
over
my
mouth,
I
ran
out
that
way
into
the
yard
and there,
just
where
you're
standing,
Sir,
I
threw
it
up,
together
with my
supper—pig's
liver,
ale,
soused
herring,
red
cabbage
and
all. It
was
a
fair
mess,
like.
I
never
was
took
that
way
after
drinking
brandy,
not
in
all
my
life
before.
I
don't
drink
so
much
of
it neither,
now.
Ten
shillings
a
week
is
what
Lloyd
pays
me;
you can't
drink
brandy
on
that,
but
only
ale.
And
I'd
spewed
out
two good
quarts
there
on
the
stable
floor.
I
generally
drinks
brandy
when
I
can
get
it.
At
one
time,
while I
was
working
for
old
Mr
Venables
up
by
Castle
Knoll,
who
kept a
good
cellar
and
didn't
mind
my
sampling
it,
I
used
to
drink
all day,
like.
I'd
begin
in
the
morning
and
carry
it
on
till
night,
and
I kept
this
game
up
for
nearly
eight
year,
until
Mr
Venables
died and
the
cellar
ran
dry,
at
much
the
same
time.
Then
I
had
to
come here
to
The
Junction.
Needs
must
when
the
Devil
drives.
Lloyd's ale
is
good
ale
for
sure,
but
it
ain't
brandy;
nor
don't
go
well
with brandy.
The
two
liquors
quarrel,
like,
in
the
belly.
But
they
tell me
Dr
Palmer's
a
poisoner,
so
of
course
he
must
have
gave
me arsenic,
or
something
wicked
of
the
same
nature,
mixed
in
the water.
I
was
never
so
sick
in
my
life
before,
not
after
drinking.
I
went and
laid
me
down
in
the
kitchen;
and
the
missus
she
comes
in
and sees
me
there,
all
of
a
tizzy.
'Good
God,'
says
she,
'why,
what's the
matter,
Tom?
You
look
white
as
a
sheet!'
'I've
been
drinking,
Ma'am,'
says
I.