“How is Mr. Munro?” I inquired.
“He will survive,” my great-aunt replied with an amused expression. “Was it Lily or you who landed the blow?”
Lily confessed. “That was before Miss Mikaela showed me how to sweep someone off their feet,” she added with what could only be described as keen excitement.
What might have passed for a decanter of tea sat on the table, along with a pitcher of lemonade. I discovered that her ‘tea’ was actually some of my aunt’s whisky with water.
My aunt poured a glass of lemonade for Lily as I explained to her what we had learned with our inquiries so far.
“That man with the Times—Burke, I believe is the name—has certainly been writing about the murders a great deal,” Aunt Antonia commented. “It does have the entire city of London astir, very much the same as the Whitechapel murders that have never been solved,” she commented.
“It does remind one of another murder some years ago, it must be very near five years now. You wouldn’t know of it,” she continued. “You were off on one of your travels at the time.
“There was quite a to-do about it at the time,” she added. “The man was eventually caught through someone who saw something or some other such thing.”
“Was there a trial?” Lily asked.
“Oh, yes. Such a tragedy the way it all turned out,” my great-aunt went on to explain.
“What happened?”
“It seems that the man who was accused of the murder—Ormsby was the name from the Ormsby family as I remember it—had been spurned by the young woman.”
“Spurned?” Lily asked, scrunching up her nose as she had a habit of doing.
I smiled to myself, obviously a new word for her.
“She rejected him, and according to the Gazette at the time, he killed her in a fit of passion,” my aunt explained. “Such a tawdry affair. He was eventually caught, charged with the murder, and taken to trial.
“Was he hanged?” Lily asked as I took a biscuit from the refreshment plate and continued to listen to the story. Aunt Antonia thoroughly enjoyed the moment.
“That was the scandal of it,” she replied with great drama. “The man’s family acquired the services of the best lawyer money could buy for his defense, and apparently the witness in the case disappeared.”
Lily frowned. “How could he disappear?”
“That, my dear, is a very good question. The judge had no choice but to dismiss the case.”
“What happened to the man who murdered the young woman? That was the end of it? He got away with murder?” Lily exclaimed.
“Not precisely,” Aunt Antonia replied. “The young man was found dead with a broken neck sometime later, an apparent accident while out riding in Rotten Row.”
“Rotten Row?”
I had to laugh at Lily’s response to that, not to mention her expression at the odd name.
“It’s in Hyde Park,” I explained. “Gentlemen and ladies ride their horses there when the weather allows.”
“Seems like justice was served, filthy bugger.”
We did need to work on improving Lily’s choice of words, however I caught my great-aunt’s amusement.
“Yes, quite,” she replied with a chuckle. “But that was not the end of the tragedy. Just after the trial, the young woman’s mother died, from grief according to the newspaper, and the father perished in a fire at the family business that had been in London for decades—a coffee import company, as I recall.
“Of course, there were those who said that the family must be cursed, though I never put any stock in that,” she continued. “Such a tragedy to have suffered so much loss. And the mysterious part of it all,” my great-aunt added with great suspense, “according to the newspapers at the time, a bouquet of flowers was delivered to the young woman’s grave each year for several years on the anniversary of her death.”
“Who would send them?” Lily replied. “Everyone was dead.”
“That was the mystery. No one seemed to know. However, I am most grateful that there are people such as Mikaela and Mr. Brodie with their private inquiries, who find those who commit these dreadful crimes.”
