A Possible Case of Circumstantial Evidence

Here is a curious story, told by a London detective officer to a relation of mine. I vary no important fact, and merely alter names:

Henry Ranthorpe was a literary man; he had made some slight success as a provincial journalist and a political pamphleteer. He had a tragedy in his trunk, a plot of a comedy in his head, and one five-pound note in his pocket, and he must needs come up, in the naughtiness of his heart, stirred by

“That last infirmity of the noble mind,”

To win golden opinions and earn golden sovereigns in the great world of London. He had, moreover, made what is called an improvident marriage—that is, he had married a pretty girl without a farthing, who nevertheless was a very good wife. They were as happy as the res angusta would permit them to be. They took cheap lodgings in “the wilds of Pimlico”. The tragedy had not been accepted (tragedies never are)—at least, the manager had not vouchsafed a reply. Nevertheless, he worked at the comedy laboriously and hopefully. As he had, however, not been for years in a London theatre he thought, wisely enough, that it would considerably assist him if he saw a play acted at the house where he intended his five acts to be brought out. He had no especial interest with actors or critics by which to secure an “order,” and his wife agreed with him that the expenditure of half a crown, low as their finances were, would nevertheless be a wise outlay. Meanwhile, a pair of boots, the only shoe-leather he had brought with him from the country, had become so heelless, dilapidated, and shabby, that he made an investment in a pair of cheap shoes, and discarded the ruined bluchers. How to dispose of them was now his difficulty. He was ashamed to give them away at his lodgings; and they were not, after a grave consultation on the subject between his wife and himself, deemed worthy… Read More