The Cretingham Murder by Sheila Hardy

were several strange circumstances connected with the occurrence.’
    At this point three letters were handed to the magistrates’ clerk to read out. These all related to the details of Arthur’s mental instability and his confinement in hospital.
    Harriet Louisa was then called upon to repeat her evidence yet again. While she was describing her offer to read to the curate during the evening shortly before the tragedy occurred, Arthur struggled to his feet and in an incoherent manner, said something about appealing. He had to be persuaded by the constables guarding him to resume his seat. Three times more he stood up as if to protest but said nothing. Between these outbursts he persisted in putting on his hat which the constables would remove from his head but not from him entirely.
    During her cross-examination by the defence solicitor, Harriet Louisa was asked if she considered the prisoner’s head was ‘not in a fit state’. Before she had time to reply, the prosecution objected to the question, saying that he knew what the defence was but that ‘we must have it regularly.’
    Harriet’s own solicitor, C.E. Machen, then stirred things up by asking her ‘Is there the slightest foundation for saying that there was any impropriety between you and the prisoner?’
    Again she was not given time to answer for the prosecution lawyer was on his feet to declare that certainly he had not alleged such a thing. Mr Machen countered that in justice to his client . . . but here the Bench stepped in and decreed that they would ‘not go into that.’
    After Dr Jones had given his evidence of what he had seen on the night in question, he was asked about his recent visit to Arthur while in custody. He had, he said, found him excited and in unsound mind. However, he would not offer an opinion as to whether or not the prisoner had been insane three days earlier.
    As Dr Jones was describing the wound inflicted upon the victim, Arthur again rose from his seat and passed a forefinger across his throat. The journalist who reported this action took it as an indication that the prisoner was trying to describe the way in which he had inflicted the wound. But there could be another explanation. Just after his arrest, Arthur was reputed to have said, ‘I am a Mason.’ The passing of the hand across the throat is a Masonic sign and it may be that Arthur was attempting to convey the fact of his membership to the court rather than imitating what the doctor had described.
    Bit by bit the various accounts were gone over and along the way certain discrepancies were revealed. For example, Harriet Louisa reverted to her original statement that it was Arthur and not her husband who had laughed defiantly. She was also less clear of her actions after she had discovered her husband lying face down on the floor. She now said that she went to the kitchen at about twelve thirty. When asked why, she replied that she had gone for help from the groom and maid. Asked if she had found them there, she replied she had.
    Dering : Making allowances for your being in an agitated state of mind, are you quite sure the groom had not gone to bed?
    Mrs Farley : Yes, he had and then got up again.
    She then retracted this statement and said she had called them from their beds, as Bilney was to testify.
    No satisfactory explanation could be offered either to account for how Farley had managed to turn over from the face down position that Bilney had witnessed to being on his back when the doctor arrived. Again, both Harriet and Bilney persisted that there had been no sound as the twenty stone vicar had hit the floor.
    Arthur made another attempt at protest as Harriet recounted how she had taken the razor case from his room but by now the constables were ready with firm hands upon his shoulders to prevent him from rising.
    One new piece of information emerged during Eliza Smith’s testimony. Describing the state of the victim’s bed; how it showed no signs of a struggle and