Two lines of morbid public lead to the spot where 'Nellie' Howard

died.  Preserving a crime scene was not a consideration in those

days.  In fact the police took up a collection to pay for the funeral.

Camera conscious bystanders and police mill around the scene of death

on Spixworth Road.  Sergeant Slater dominates the road.

The Friday morning saw the investigation moving quickly to revelation on all fronts.  Inspector Roy and Sergeant Slater took Nellie's grandfather to The Maid's Head coach house and the grief stricken man identified Nellie.  He was taken home where her grandmother collapsed at the confirming news.

At Buxton Police Station, a farmer's assistant named William Arnold handed in a rattee cane and umbrella he had found on the Spixworth Road the previous evening.  He pinpointed his find a quarter of a mile the Spixworth side of where he had cycled past two policemen standing over a young woman.  Mabel Smithson, Nellie's cousin, also living at Radford Hall Farm, identified the umbrella as belonging to Nellie, taken with her when she went to meet Larter.  (William Kynvett, tram conductor, would have recalled the rattee cane).  Larter and Nellie had clearly turned back in some disorder.

At nine thirty-five that morning Larter presented himself at the Guildhall Police Station in Norwich and saw Inspector William Ebbage.

Larter said, in the form of a question, 'You want to see me about that job last night?'

Inspector Ebbage didn't particularly want to see Larter and all he knew of the 'job last night' was what he had just read in the morning newspaper headed 'Terrible Murder Near Norwich'.  But he noted that Larter was visibly excited and his hand was bound by a handkerchief.

Larter blurted out, 'I was there, and I happened to -', he broke off, and then continued, 'Well, we had a little bit of nonsense.  The old woman interfered.  Her people, I mean.  In a fit of jealousy I suppose.  I think that is the case.'

Inspector Ebbage asked 'what job' Larter was referring to, though he now had a good idea, and received the reply, 'The murder charge at Hainford, Catton, last night.  I have made a good job of it this time: I thought I would make a good job of it whilst I was about it.'

Larter was taken into custody and searched.  Blood was found in large quantities on his jacket and on the front of his trousers, going through to his thigh and knee.  Small spots were found on his right boot.  When his hand was unbound cuts were found at the base of the second and third fingers and upon the tip of the little finger.  There were six fine scratches across the back of his left hand and a half-inch abrasion between the first and second finger with the skin looking as if he had been nipped or bitten out.  Nellie had fought for her life.

 

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