Free Murder by Candlelight by Michael Knox Beran Page A

toward the stable. A moment later, one of them led out a horse.

    They brought the body back by way of the garden gate. Thurtell led the horse; Probert held the sack to keep it from falling off. Every murder re-enacts the eternal mystery of evil; and like the first transgression in paradise, the re-enactment gains in power if there is a woman in it, a garden, and a snake or two. Mrs. Probert “heard something dragged, as it seemed, very heavily.” She went to the window and saw them taking the sack through the garden to the pond. She lost sight of them; but after an interval she heard “a hollow noise, like a heap of stones being thrown into a pit.”+

    * Hunt suspected that Thurtell and Probert misled him concerning the amount of money found on Weare’s body in order that they might divide a larger sum between themselves. It is very likely that they did “well it” at Hunt’s expense; but no proof of the deception has survived.

CHAPTER TWELVE
    A Deeper Abyss
    Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than in the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. . . .
    â€” Shakespeare
    A little after six o’clock the next morning, John Harrington, a laboring man, and his partner were at work in Gill’s Hill Lane, engaged in widening the road. Two men passed by them, a tall one and a short one. They went down the lane and stopped not far from a maple tree. Harrington watched as they “grabbled in the hedge.”
    When they came back up the lane, the tall man spoke to Harrington’s partner. “Are you going to widen this lane?” he asked.
    â€œYes, as wide as we can.”
    â€œI was nearly capsized here last night.”
    â€œI hope you were not hurt.”
    â€œOh, no, we were not thrown out.”
    The two men went on their way, and Harrington and his partner resumed their work. When, afterwards, Harrington went over to the place where the men had grabbled, he found a hole in the hedge and a quantity of blood. Something in the cart-rut caught his eye. It was a knife. It had two blades, one of which was broken, and it was covered with blood.
    When Mr. Nicholls of Battlers Green came up the lane, Harrington showed him the knife. They searched among the brambles, and Harrington found a pistol. There was clotted gore on it, in which some hairs had become stuck.

    Susan the cook was on her way to the kitchen to get breakfast ready when she met Thurtell and Hunt coming up the steps from the garden. Their boots were dirty.

    After breakfast, the roan gray was harnessed to the gig, and Probert brought out Weare’s carpetbag, backgammon box, and gun. Thurtell said he would come down the next day to dispose of the body for good. He and Hunt drove off, and Probert went for a walk with his dog, intent on retrieving the knife and pistol. But the presence of Harrington and his partner, who were still at work on the road, disconcerted him. He wished them good morning and said it was a good job they were doing, before he turned around and went back to the cottage.

    Thurtell got out of the gig in Oxford Street, fearful lest he should meet Upson, the Bow Street officer who had a warrant against himfor defrauding the County Fire Office. He made his way by back streets to the Coach and Horses. Hunt drove on to his lodgings in King Street, Golden Square, where he hid Thurtell’s greatcoat under the bed, for although it had been copiously sponged, it was still “a great deal stained with blood.” He then returned the horse and gig and walked to Conduit Street, where he met Thurtell. Together they went to an ironmonger’s in Warwick Street to purchase a spade. Afterwards, they dined in the Coach and Horses; Hunt, in high spirits, told the company that he and Jack had been netting game, and had left Probert holding the bag. “We Turpin lads,” he said, “can do the trick.” *

    On Sunday morning, Thurtell and Hunt