Detective and mystery stories; England -- Fiction; Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction
It was the press that said the last word on the subject. The _Daily
Budget_, always in search of the sensational, thought the affair
strange enough to give it the honour of a leading article. As many
people may remember the perplexity of police and public in connection
with this murder, it may not be uninteresting to give an extract or
two from the article.
"The inexplicable murder in Troy is one of those crimes which at once
startle and shock the public. That a woman should be done to death in
this manner is bad enough, but that with our wonderful police
organisation, her identity should remain a mystery is nothing less
than a scandal and a shame. If the houses of law-abiding citizens are
to be made the shambles for unknown assassins, the sooner the police
force is reorganised the better. And again, is it not disgraceful that
nothing can be found likely to prove who this poor creature is? Have
we not newspapers and agents and handbills and all the paraphernalia
of civilisation for the detection of the unknown? Search should be
made in the most minute manner in order to prove who this dead woman
is. Once her name is discovered, in her past life may be found the
reason of her untimely and tragic death. This is the opinion of
Inspector Derrick, who has handled the case, with all its strange
elements of mystery, with but an indifferent degree of success. Not
but what we are prepared to admit that the case is remarkably
difficult and would tax the intellect of a Vidocq to unravel.
"It would seem that the woman went to the house between eight and nine
o'clock, and was murdered shortly after she entered the door.
Certainly she was seated at the piano, and certainly the song of
'Kathleen Mavourneen' was open before her. But we are sure that she
never sang the song. While waiting for some one--perhaps the assassin
who struck her down--she may have played for a time. But the woman who
sang the song did so some three hours after the death of the
unfortunate creature. Mulligan swore that he heard the song about
eleven; the doctor declares that the woman was murdered before nine
o'clock. On the face of it, it is impossible to reconcile this
conflicting evidence.
"No one saw the woman enter the house, although many people were
about Achilles Avenue during the evening. But in the multitude of
people--especially on a Saturday night--would lie the chance of the
woman not being observed. Few people knew that Mr. Fane and his
family--one little girl--were at the seaside; so even if any one had
noticed the woman enter the gate of Ajax Villa such a thing would not
be fixed in the mind of the observer. All inquiries have been made,
but no one appears to have noted the woman's coming. It is therefore
impossible to say if she entered the house alone or in the company of
the assassin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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