The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder And The Undoing Of A Great Victorian Detective Read Online Free PDF Page A

hesitated, he said, before replying that 'there was a blanket taken from the cot, or drawn from the cot'.
    Urch and Morgan asked to see the cellar, but found it was locked. One of the elder Misses Kent held the key but the constables chose not to involve the family in their inquiries. They returned to the drawing room to look for 'foot-tracks', as Morgan referred to them - to Urch they were 'footmarks' or 'footprints'; the science of detection was young, and its vocabulary still unsettled. Soon afterwards Elizabeth Gough looked for footmarks there, and found the imprints of two large hobnailed boots on the white drugget, a coarse woollen rug that lay over the carpet by the window. It turned out that these had been made by PC Urch.
    Mrs Kent sent her stepdaughter Constance to ask the Reverend Peacock to come to Road Hill House. Edward Peacock lived in a three-storey gothic parsonage next to Christ Church with his wife, their two daughters, two sons and five servants. He and Samuel were friends, and the parsonage was only a few minutes' walk from the Kents' house. The vicar agreed to help with the search.
    William Nutt, a shoemaker with six children who lived in the tumbledown cottages by the house, was at work in his shop when he overheard Joseph Greenhill, an innkeeper, talking about Master Saville's disappearance. Nutt headed for Road Hill House: 'Having an affection like for the father, I said, "I must go and hear further about this." ' Nutt was 'a strange-looking person', reported the Western Daily Press: 'sallow, thin, and bony, with prominent cheek bones, pointed nose, receding forehead, and a cast in one eye; while he is what is called "bumble-footed", and has a habit of placing his attenuated arms in front of his chest, with his hands drooping'. Just outside the gates, Nutt came across Thomas Benger, a farmer, driving his cows. Benger suggested to Nutt that they join the search. Nutt hesitated to go on the lawn without permission, and told Benger he 'did not like to go on a gentleman's premises'. Benger, who had heard Samuel Kent offer Urch and Morgan a PS10 reward if they found his son, persuaded Nutt that no one could reprimand them for looking for a lost child.
    As they searched the thick shrubbery to the left of the front drive, Nutt remarked that they would find a dead child if the living one was not found. He then struck off to the right, towards a servants' privy hidden in the bushes, and Benger followed. They came to the privy and looked in: a small pool of clotted blood lay on the floor.
    'See, William,' said Benger, 'what we have got to see.'
    'Oh, Benger,' said Nutt. 'It is as I predicted.'
    'Get a light, William,' said Benger.
    Nutt went to the back door of the house and along the passage to the scullery. There he found Mary Holcombe, the gardener's mother. She was employed by the Kents as a charwoman for two days or so each week. Nutt asked for a candle, and she looked at him.
    'For God's sake, what's the matter, William?'
    'Don't alarm yourself, Mary,' he said. 'I only want a candle for a minute to see what we can see.'
    While Nutt was gone, Benger lifted the lavatory lid and peered in until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. 'By steadily looking down, I could see better, and saw a something like clothing below; I put my hand down and raised the blanket.' The blanket was soaked with blood. About two feet under the seat, on the wooden 'splashboard' that partly blocked the descent to the pit beneath, was the boy's body. Saville was lying on his side, one arm and one leg slightly drawn up.
    'Look here,' said Benger as Nutt appeared with the candle. 'Oh, William, here it is.'

CHAPTER TWO
THE HORROR AND AMAZEMENT
    30 June - 1 July
    As Thomas Benger lifted Saville's body from the privy, the boy's head tipped back to expose the clean cut through his neck.
    'Its little head fell off almost,' said William Nutt, when he gave his account of the day's events in the Wiltshire magistrates' court.
    'His throat was