I wasn’t certain now whether it was the warmth of the bed with icy rain pelting the windows of the bedroom, or ‘my charms,’ as he called them, that had finally persuaded him.
“I don’t want to be late,” he had grumbled, after which I informed him to quit complaining about it, and…
Hmmm. I did hope that he wasn’t late.
As for my task for the morning, I wrote down the year my great-aunt had been fairly certain that earlier murder had occurred and submitted the call slip to the clerk. He returnedwith a tin of film for issues of the newspaper including the crime sheets for the entire year of 1886.
“Has Mr. Burke consulted any of the archives in the past two weeks?” I inquired with a thought of what Lily had shared from her last conversation with Charlotte Mallory. He checked his visitor log.
“I don’t see that he requested anything from the archive, although I am not the only clerk. However, if he had checked out any of the film archives, it would be shown in here.”
I thanked him, then took the tin with that film roll to the viewing machine. I then threaded the film from one spindle over the viewing plate with that light above, and onto another spindle, scrolled to the first crime sheet, and began my search.
In addition to the year of that murder, I had a name—Ormsby, fairly well-known, according to Aunt Antonia.
Failing that, I could always search the death notices, as she claimed the young man was killed in a riding accident only a few months after that tragic murder.
How difficult could it be?
That is, if my great-aunt was correct about when the murder took place. If not, I might be here most of the day searching, or possibly into the following day.
It was very near midday when I found it. The entry on the crime sheet covering the murder was brief, with scant details, but it was enough.
It made note of a young woman by the name of Amelia Harris of Abbington Lane, who was found dead after a late supper with friends. She had been found strangled to death after not returning to the family home.
The name Harris was familiar. Aunt Antonia had mentioned something about the family business, coffee imports.
Several persons were questioned, including a man, Mr. E. Walmsley, a bookkeeper returning from a late appointment.
Walmsley! The same name that was on that letter to Charlotte Mallory.
The report then went on to mention that several persons were questioned but no suspect was detained.
I now had a specific date and that report on the crime page of the Police Gazette. I then scrolled through the next few issues of the newspaper that followed that date.
I eventually found the funeral notice for Amelia Harris, then a subsequent article about the ‘horrible crime and a devastated family’ by Times writer, Walter Morrison. I made notes of everything including Morrison’s name.
The next article I found was several days later, reporting that Mr. Gerald Ormsby of London, to whom Amelia Harris had been engaged to marry, was being questioned in the matter. There were additional articles, as the Harris and Ormsby families were well known.
Mr. Morrison was quite flamboyant in the additional articles he wrote, sensationalizing the details that followed. Mr. Ormsby was eventually ‘detained,’ and held on charges of murder.
There was one witness, a man by the name of Walmsley, and the evidence seemed quite incriminating even though Mr. Ormsby was to be defended by Sir Edward Mallory, considered to be one of the most successful barristers in London when it came to defending a client.
Apparently there had been a falling-out between Amelia Harris and Gerald Ormsby. He had been outspoken in that he refused to accept that the marriage would not take place. And there was that witness who was to give testimony at the trial.
I stared at the stunning headline of the next article as Mr. Morrison followed the trial. The prosecutor for the Crown was unable to produce the witness. He had disappeared!
Without the witness, the Crown’s case against Mr. Ormsby collapsed and the judge was forced to dismiss the charges against him. The judge was Harold Cameron!
There were attempts by Mr. Morrison of the Times to meet with the Harris family in the aftermath however, Amelia’s father refused to meet with him.
In following issues of the Times over the next two months, articles about the tragedy continued.
Amelia’s mother was stricken with some sort of fever that was attributed to mourning the murder of her daughter. She died shortly afterward. Amelia’s father, devastated by the double loss, was rarely seen except to take care of the affairs of his import business.
This was followed by an article about a devastating fire in the warehouse office at the docks. Caught in the inferno, Simon Harris perished. The only survivor was the long-time warehouse manager.
There was another article several months after the devastating tragedies. Gerald Ormsby was riding in Hyde Park and suffered a tragic accident when he was thrown from his horse, his neck broken.
