Weird Tales/Volume 4/Issue 2/Singular Discovery of a Murder in 1740
Singular Discovery of a Murder in 1740
A WOMAN living at St. Neots, returning from Elsworth, where she had been to receive a legacy of seventeen pounds that was left her, for fear of being robbed, tied it up in her hair. As she was going home, she overtook her next door neighbor, a butcher by trade, but who kept an inn, and who lived in good repute. The woman was glad to see him and told him what she had been about. He asked her where she had concealed the money. She told him in her hair. The butcher finding a convenient opportunity, took her off her horse and cut her head off, put it into his pack and rode off. A gentleman and his servant coming directly by, and seeing the body moving on the ground, ordered his servant to ride full speed forward and the first man he overtook to follow him wherever he went. The servant overtook the butcher not a mile off the place and asked him what town that was before them. He told him St. Neots. Says he, "My master is just behind and sent me forward to inquire for a good inn for a gentleman and his servant." The murderer made answer that he kept a good inn where they should be well used. The gentleman overtook them and went in with them and dismounted, bidding his servant take care of the horse whilst he would take a walk in the town and be back presently. He went to a constable and told him the whole affair, who said that the butcher was a very honest man and had lived there a great many years in good reputation; but going back with the gentleman and searching the pack, the constable, to his great surprise, found it was the head of his own wife! The murderer was sent to Huntingdon gaol, and shortly after executed.