Since the arrest of her husband, Polly Palmer had been kept under constant supervision by the Reading police and officers from Scotland Yard, both parties anxious to discover all they could about the movements of Mother and Arthur Palmer. She was called on in particular to give a detailed account of the circumstances surrounding the murder of Doris Marmon and Harry Simmons in the sitting room of her house at Willesden, and the packing of the bodies in Willie Thornton’s carpet bag.
During questioning she unwittingly revealed details of her own involvement in what was clearly the family business, and this prompted the policemen to place her under house arrest.
The adjourned inquest into the death of the sixth baby found dead in the Thames was due to take place at the Reading Borough Police Court on the afternoon of Friday 1 May and Polly was to be called as a witness.
When the time came for her to travel to Reading under police escort, her adopted son Harold had to be left in Willesden, possibly under the temporary care of her landlady, Charlotte Culham. He had been with Polly for less than six months and his health was deteriorating rapidly.
The police and the public at the time were never to learn what became of young Harold Palmer; his fate was no concern of theirs. Indeed, they were never aware that his young life had ever been in danger. But a death certificate written out in July 1896 reveals a sinister and tragic truth.
Not long after Polly was taken to Reading, Harold Palmer was passed over into the care of Mr C. W. Wright, the master of Hendon Union Workhouse. He was already seriously ill and on 11 July, aged just two years, he died of a condition known as stomatitis, or cancrum oris. The gums and linings of his cheeks would have been severely inflamed and ulcerated, the infection spreading until his lips and cheeks were slowly eaten away by the gangrenous disease. The most common cause of cancrum oris is severe malnutrition and very low levels of hygiene. Polly, it seems, had perfected the art of slow starvation and neglect.
At the Reading Borough Police Court all eyes were on Polly as she entered the room in the company of a Scotland Yard detective.
Miss Elizabeth Goulding, a rather shabbily dressed thirty-year-old spinster, had contacted the police after reading about the reading baby Murders in her local paper. In November 1894, she had given birth to an illegitimate child, a little girl she had named Frances Jessie. The father was a married man whose wife insisted that the baby be adopted out to save them all from shame and gossip. Elizabeth Goulding had little choice in the matter, being unable to support the child herself. The following September, when Frances Jessie was almost ten months old, a woman had been contacted through an advertisement in a newspaper and it was arranged that Elizabeth should meet her at a solicitor’s office to hand over her daughter.
Elizabeth Goulding was able to identify Polly Palmer as the woman she had handed her child to on 9 September 1895, along with the sum of £10. She had later received a number of letters from Mrs Palmer describing the progress of her daughter, but since just before Christmas last she had heard nothing and her own letters of enquiry had been returned to her marked “Gone Away”. The body in the mortuary could have been her Jessie; her facial features had rotted away but the little scrap of hair looked familiar. Frances Jessie’s hair had been a similar colour, although maybe not quite as dark.
Polly seemed calm as she stood in front of the coroner and the jury of twelve men. Dressed in a stylish outfit with her hair neatly arranged beneath her bonnet, her manner and composure set her apart from the distressed and dishevelled woman who had just given evidence.
She agreed that she had indeed adopted the child Frances Jessie Goulding, but she had not meant to have the child herself. She explained that she had been authorized by Mother to get a baby for a young actress called Miss Robb who lived in Birmingham. Miss Robb had had her own illegitimate child and was receiving an annuity from the father. When this child died she wanted to replace it with another so she would continue to get the money.
“I took the child the next day and handed it to Miss Robb.”
“How came you to write to Miss Goulding and describe the progress of the child?” the coroner asked.
“Because Miss Robb wrote to Mrs Dyer that the child was getting on well and I told her what Miss Robb had told me about the child.”
“How is it you say that you and your husband were both very fond of it? You could not hear that from a letter from Miss Robb.”
Polly did not reply.
“Cannot you account for that?”
“Miss Goulding was loath to part with the child and seemed fidgety. I thought if I said that she would be more satisfied.”
Polly claimed that Miss Robb had been confined to Mother’s house in Fishponds for three months before giving birth to her baby. She was sure she would be able to produce the child if she could find Miss Robb. But she did not know her by any other name, or what theatre she worked in.
Granny Smith, who was fast becoming a fixture on the witness stand, ended the inquest by stating that Polly had not been correct in saying that she had brought a child home one night and then taken it the next day to Birmingham. Granny Smith could not recall the child being brought back to Elm Villas at all.
The coroner reminded the jury that if they thought Mrs Dyer had murdered this child and that Mrs Palmer was an accessory before the fact, they must be satisfied that she was an accessory not only to bringing the child to Reading, but that she was an accessory to the death of the child. It was clear Mrs Palmer brought a child to Reading, but there was a doubt whether this was the child for which they were holding the inquest. No doubt the child had been murdered. It was for the jury to say whether Mrs Palmer had told untruths. She had certainly given her answers with hesitation and some of them seemed insufficient.
The jury did not take long to reach a verdict of “Wilful murder” against Mrs Dyer with Mrs Palmer being an accessory before the fact.
Superintendent Tewsley immediately placed Polly under arrest and she was led from the police station into a waiting cab and taken to prison. For most of the way a large crowd of people followed behind, anxious to see the daughter of the “Reading Baby Farmer”. More and more people joined the throng as the horses pulled their passengers through the streets of Reading. The angry mob continued to yell out their anger and hatred long after the black cab disappeared through the prison gates.