Murder at Blind Beck (Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates Book 25)

THE LAST WOMAN TO BE TRANSPORTED FROM CUMBRIA BARELY OF AGE eighteen-year-old Flora Mary Graham was found guilty by a jury of twelve good Kendal men and true of the murder in his prime of the Seventh Earl of Fellside by striking him about the head and sending him to his death in Blind Beck the town’s stream running in violent spate on the stormy night of Halloween 1852. Apprehended at the scene bearing a babe in arms the child swaddled and soaked three gold sovereigns were found in Flora’s possession half a year’s wages for a servant girl such as she. The motive ascribed was thus one of robbery but Flora had been born a deaf-mute and was unable to proffer a defence. It was speculated by the Prosecution that Lord Fellside great benefactor and philanthropist had come across Flora in the act of drowning her child and in a vain attempt to thwart her had forfeited his own life an altruist to the last. Flora would have been for the gallows to s