The Slaughtered Widow: Guilty until proven innocent... by David Field

Author:David Field [Field, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapere Books
Published: 2024-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

10

Senior Constable Patrick Shanahan looked up from his desk inside the Guildhall as Edward entered the room.

‘Good afternoon, Patrick. I’m here to visit your most important prisoner, who I hope you’ve been looking after?’

‘We certainly are, sir, and he seems to be in good spirits. But the assize is next week, so then we’ll probably be transferring Bailiff Barton to the Shire Hall cells. After that, there’ll be nothing I can do for him.’

‘You can leave that to me,’ Edward said. ‘But while I’m here, you’d better tell me if there’s anything that requires my attention.’

‘Not really, sir — nothing out of the ordinary. There’s been a few late-night assaults up at the market, but we reckon we know who the culprit is, and when he shows his face back in Friar Row we’ll have him. Then there was a riot in The Crusader a few nights since, but that had broken up afore we got there. Seems there’s a band of ruffians staying down in Narrow Marsh, and we thought it best to leave them until they come out again, rather than risk a few broken heads if we went in after them.’

‘They may be the same scoundrels that I’m looking for,’ Edward told the constable. ‘Let me know if they come out of their pigsty and I’ll bring in a few reinforcements from the county.’

Francis looked up accusingly as Edward entered the cell. ‘I was beginning to think you’d abandoned me,’ he said mournfully.

‘Such gratitude, when I have found the key to your deliverance — in more ways than one,’ Edward said with a grin. ‘I’ve found the serving girl who drugged your wine and who can tell the assize jury that she let someone else into the Timberlake house while you were insensible. It was almost certainly he who killed Agnes, but he committed a serious blunder when he failed to kill you as well. He was too clever by half when he left you to take the blame.’

Francis’s eyes widened. ‘You have found Mary? How did this come about?’

‘By a curious coincidence,’ Edward explained, as he lowered himself to the floor in order to talk more comfortably with Francis. ‘Sir Francis Willoughby set me the task of finding a young woman who had been reported missing from her parents’ home in Wollaton. It transpired that she was the same girl who had been in service with Agnes Timberlake on the day that she was murdered. She had been overcome with concern for her own neck, fearful that she would incur blame for the death, and I pursued her into Derbyshire.’

‘And you found her?’

‘Rather, she found me. I unwisely placed my trust in a local constable and told him that I was seeking a girl called Mary who had gone into hiding with a gang of villains. I then fell victim to the same poison as yourself, but Mary found me and sought my protection, which naturally I readily agreed to supply, since it will be her testimony that will save you from the hangman.

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