8. Body buried in hole he had dug, probably from boredom with his uneventful existence.
9. Head smashed in. Fancy dress torn off.
9. Head smashed in. Boots taken off.
10. Found by search-party sent to look for her.
10. Found by accident.
11. Gypsies suspected but cleared.
11. No obvious suspects, certainly not gypsies who never passed cottage en route to sell or beg in town.
12. Children accustomed to play down by sheepwash.
12. Children knownto have played in ruined cottage.
13. Killed at approx. eleven p.m. on the Saturday. Body found at three a.m. on following morning.
13. Killed possibly on the Friday. Body found some days later.
14. Connected with Hill Hill House (festivities).
14. Connected with Hill House (relationship).
And so, for the time being, the matter rests. It has to be borne in mind that whereas Mr Ward's death could have been premeditated-there is a theory that he may have been slaughtered somewhere else and taken to the cottage for burial-it hardly seems likely that Miss Patterson's murder was previously planned. Readers will remember that she had not been invited to Hill House, but was taking her brother's place. Did the murderer-since she was wearing a bulky and not very attractive fancy dress-mistake her for her brother?
We think the police might give this point more serious consideration than, so far, they appear to have done. To our mind this matter needs far more probing into than it has yet received.
* * *
The manor itself is mentioned in Domesday Book and seems to have been of moderate wealth. The entry, part of which, by courtesy of Professor Donald Cuttie who translated the abbreviations for us, we reproduce, states that 'William de Gyffe holds Hill. It was always assessed for forty hides. The land is twenty-five carucates. In the demesne there are three hides and a half. There are two ploughs there. Among the free men and the villeins there are fifteen ploughs and five more could be made.'
And so on and so forth. The entry goes on to list the tenants' various holdings, mentions the fact that the manor had a mill-some distance from the present village if it was a water-mill, we would think!-and notes that the value of the property had dropped since it was valued in the reign of Edward the Confessor, although how that value was arrived at seems to be speculative.
The historians tell us no more of Hill until the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, when the property came into the hands of a wealthy clothier from Somerset, who built the present Hill Manor House. It is a moderate-sized mansion erected in pleasant, mellow, Cotswold stone. It came into the hands of Mrs Kempson's grandfather by purchase towards the end of last century. The original gatehouse fell into disrepair and was demolished in 1906 to make way for a lodge which, owing to the shortage of domestic staff, is now untenanted, and past which it seems probable that Miss Patterson strayed on the night of her death.
The main feature of the mansion is a magnificent oak staircase leading up to the principal rooms. These rooms themselves, with their decorated plaster ceilings and Tudor fireplaces, are, we understand, show pieces. It was in the largest and grandest of these rooms, known as the
There is no legend of the customary 'grey lady' who haunts so many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century manor houses, but if we were inclined to superstition (and who is not?) we might be forgiven if we fancied we met a 'glimmering girl', as W. B. Yeats expresses it, flitting about the grounds of Hill Manor House. The police have not yet decided exactly where Merle Patterson and Mr Ward were actually done to death (it now seems unlikely that these spots were Lovers' Lane and the cottage), or what sudden panic caused the murderer to throw what seems to have been his bloody (we use the word in its Shakespearian sense-i.e. 'What bloody man is that?'
Did someone who has not come forward, but who could be, perhaps, the only person on earth who could help the police with their enquiries, did someone actually surprise the murderer just as he had concluded one or other of his devilish machinations? If so, we would remind this person of his civic duties and beg him to be manly and courageous enough to come forward and tell what he knows.
If there is such a man (or woman, for the matter of that) he is assured of complete police protection from the instant he decides to open his mouth. The murderer has struck twice. It should be a matter of conscience to someone, somewhere, to come forward and help to make sure that he does not strike again.
* * *
Your correspondent has just heard that after diligent and patient search for clues, the police have come to the conclusion that Miss Patterson was enticed or forced into the disused lodge at Hill Manor House and done to death there. The public, needless to say, are rigidly excluded from the grounds.
Part One: Verdict
CHAPTER TWELVE
MRS LESTRANGE BRADLEY TAKES A HAND
Well might I say with the Apostle, 'The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus,' for I have kept you informed to some extent, my dear Sir Walter, of what has been happening during the past weeks at the Oxfordshire village of Hill. However, it now seems possible and desirable to furnish you with a fuller and more connected narrative of events, if only to clarify my own mind by airing my theories concerning their import.
As you know, I was called to Hill Manor House in my professional capacity by Mrs Kempson, in order to examine and report upon the mental state of a man who claimed to be her brother. As you also know, she then
