Who 殺人d Mrs Moneybags? It's a 150-year-old whodunit Conan Doyle couldn't solve. And, 主張するs Sinclair McKay, the wrong man was hanged...
The Mile End 殺人
Sinclair McKay
Autumn 圧力（をかける） £20
率ing: 
The eccentric and very funny American poet Ogden Nash once wrote this ditty about 探偵，刑事 stories:
Had she told the 刑事s
How she got in that 直す／買収する，八百長をする
I would be much apter
To read the last 一時期／支部.
I thought of this charming little 詩（を作る） as I was reading Sinclair McKay’s 利益／興味ing new 調書をとる／予約する about the real-life Victorian 殺人 of a 豊富な old lady. Though the 罪，犯罪 took place more than 150 years ago, McKay thinks he has finally worked out who did it ? and, によれば him, it wasn’t the poor man who was sent to the scaffold.
But has he fingered the 権利 villain? Only the 犠牲者 could ever really tell the 刑事s ‘how she got in that 直す／買収する，八百長をする’, and she, 式のs, is beyond words, having been 設立する lying dead in a messy 低俗雑誌 on the 最高の，を越す 床に打ち倒す of her own home in the hot summer of 1860.
Mrs Emsley, an 年輩の 未亡人 living in Stepney, London, was beaten to death in August 1860
Mary Emsley was by no stretch of the imagination a 同情的な character. Rather like the 殺人 犠牲者 in Dostoevsky’s 罪，犯罪 And 罰, she was a しっかり掴むing, mean-spirited moneybags who seemed to take delight in collecting rent from hundreds of poor tenants, and 立ち退かせるing those who were unable to 支払う／賃金, never 許すing them any more than a week’s grace.
Twice-未亡人d, and with no children, she lived by herself in a three-storey house in the East End of London, and seemed to relish her own miserliness. Rumours went around her 隣人s ? many of whom were also her tenants ? that she spent her evenings counting out her money.
In August 1860, one of her rent-collectors grew worried that no one had seen her for two or three days. One thing led to another, and soon the police were letting themselves into the house.
The first thing that struck them was the ‘foul and unmistakeable smell’. On the 最高の，を越す-床に打ち倒す 上陸 they noticed a 血まみれの 足跡 and an intensification of the ‘nauseating stench’.?
Seconds later, they つまずくd upon the 死体 of Mrs Emsley, her 長，率いる pulverised, and ‘maggots writhing in and around the lurid 噴火口，クレーター in her skull’.
As you can see, Sinclair McKay doesn’t believe in 持つ／拘留するing things 支援する. He knows 十分な 井戸／弁護士席 that we British prefer our 殺人s grisly, and preferably in Technicolor. There was, he 追加するs, a ‘gre enish hue’ on her 直面する, and one of her 手渡すs was しっかり掴むing a （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する 脚. その上に, there had been an 爆発 of 血 ‘in three directions’.
And now read on… Needless to say, it’s impossible not to. McKay tells a 説得力のある story, and skilfully weaves into it fascinating threads about Victorian London, with illuminating sketches on such diverse 同時代の 主題s as 移民／移住, the workhouses, the coming of gaslight, the temperance movement and the 脅し of テロ行為.
Given that Mrs Emsley was a mean-spirited moneybags with more than a hundred hard-圧力（をかける）d tenants, there should have been any number of 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うs. At first, the police spread their 逮捕する wide, realising, in their blunt way, that ‘some hundreds… of the most depraved and lowest class… have frequently 脅すd her’.?
But they soon 納得させるd themselves that, as there was no 調印する of 軍隊d 入ること／参加（者）, and very little taken, the 殺害者 must surely have been someone she knew and 信用d.?
A 公正に／かなり typical 殺人 had suddenly turned into a proper whodunit, with what appeared to be a 公正に／かなり 限られた／立憲的な cast of 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うs.
Mrs Emsley’s solicitor 申し込む／申し出d £200 for （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状） 主要な to a 有罪の判決, to which the 政府 追加するd a その上の £100. In today’s money, this would 量 to £35,000 or more, so a かなりの fortune, and やめる enough to transform an entire neighbourhood of paupers into fanatical sleuths.
One of those with an 注目する，もくろむ on the reward money was an 半端物-職業 man 指名するd James Mullins, who had been 雇うd by Mrs Emsley to help 修理 her 多重の 所有物／資産／財産s.?
With an 注目する，もくろむ to the main chance, Mullins led the police to a shed in which he （人命などを）奪う，主張するd to have 秘かに調査するd Mrs Emsley’s 長，指導者 rent-collector, Walter Emm, depositing a mysterious 小包.?
The police opened the 小包 and 設立する a f ew sundry 反対するs, の中で which were four teaspoons owned by the late Mrs Emsley, along with a cheque made out to her.
An open-and-shut 事例／患者, one might have thought, but at this point the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議するs were turned on Emm’s accuser, Mullins, when the sharp-注目する，もくろむd police 視察官 noticed that the string that wrapped the 小包 正確に／まさに matched the string Mullins used to lace up his boots.?
Might Mullins have 始める，決める Emm up? And might Mullins himself be the 殺害者?
The police decided to hedge their bets, and 逮捕（する）d both men. They then went off to search their homes and, の中で Mullins’s 所有／入手s, chanced upon a 大打撃を与える which soon became one of their 重要な pieces of 証拠.?
It was, they said, ‘with just such an 器具 that the 死んだ, Mrs Emsley, was struck’. その上に, they thought that Mullins’s boots matched the 血まみれのd 足跡 on Mrs Emsley’s floorboards.
Within a 事柄 of days, there seemed to be a solid 事例／患者 against Mullins, and the public were soon 納得させるd that he was the 有罪の man. It didn’t 事柄 to them, or to the police, that there was no trace of 血 on his 大打撃を与える or on his boots: there was no 不足 of nosey 隣人s happy to say that they had noticed a strange, haunted look on his 直面する in the hours after the 殺人.?
One of them, Mrs Fuke, even remembered the （刑事）被告 telling her that Mrs Emsley deserved everything that was coming to her. ‘It was a 広大な／多数の／重要な pity,’ she （人命などを）奪う，主張するd he had told her, ‘that such a 哀れな old wretch should be 許すd to live.’
The Old Bailey 裁判，公判 lasted two days, which was considered やめる 非常に長い at that time. The 裁判官 解任するd as ‘idle dreaming’ the 証拠 of those who said that they had spotted Mullins on the night in question looking crazed and haunted, and made it （疑いを）晴らす that he thought that the 血d 足跡 on t he floorboard, theatrically 陳列する，発揮するd in the courtroom, had no relation to the （刑事）被告’s boots.?
にもかかわらず, the 陪審／陪審員団 returned a 判決 of 有罪の and, after a failed 控訴，上告, the unhappy Mullins was 遂行する／発効させるd before an audience of 30,000, which some felt was the largest ever seen at Newgate.
Mullins, it 現れるs, had lived an 驚くべき／特命の／臨時の life before 会合 this sorry end. As a young man, he had been 新採用するd into the newly formed police 軍隊, and then had served as a 秘かに調査する in Ireland, 首尾よく infiltrating a bloodthirsty group of Irish 国家主義者s.
But this テロリスト 独房 had got 勝利，勝つd of him, and had been about to 遂行する／発効させる him when he managed to escape and raise the alarm. 軍隊d to return to the British 本土／大陸, he was demoted, then 不正に 負傷させるd in an 事故, and driven to petty 罪，犯罪, for which he was 宣告，判決d to six years in Dartmoor 刑務所，拘置所.
Once out of 刑務所，拘置所, he seemed to have fallen on his feet when he got plastering work from Mrs Emsley. But then （機の）カム her 殺人, his over-熱心な sleuthing and his その後の 逮捕（する）.?
Sinclair McKay waits until the last two 一時期／支部s in his 調書をとる／予約する to 明らかにする／漏らす the true 身元 of the 有罪の party. His choice of the real villain is ingenious, and artistically 満足させるing, too
Did he 現実に commit the 罪，犯罪 that sent him to the scaffold? 令状ing about the 事例／患者 40 years later, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, felt that his 犯罪 should be reclassified as ‘unproven’, but McKay is 完全に 納得させるd that Mullins was innocent.
With (a)手の込んだ／(v)詳述する taran-taras, he has waited until the last two 一時期／支部s in his 調書をとる／予約する to 明らかにする／漏らす the true 身元 of the 有罪の party. My lips are 調印（する）d. All I will say is that his choice of the real villain is ingenious, and artistically 満足させるing, too, in that it would have pleased Wilkie Collins, or even Conan Doyle.
But is it true? Perhaps it is, and perhaps it isn’t. But it doesn’t strike me that, based on McKay’s 公正に／かなり わずかな／ほっそりした 証拠, a sensible 陪審／陪審員団 would 罪人／有罪を宣告する. My own 疑惑 is that Mrs Emsley might have let a total 部外者 into her house ? she had advertised a sale of wallpaper, so would have been 推定する／予想するing strangers ? which means that her 殺害者 might have been anyone.?
And I 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑う, too, that McKay is not やめる as 納得させるd by his 解答 as his publishers, who confidently 明言する／公表する that he has finally 明らかにする／漏らすd the ‘true 殺害者’, would have us believe.?
存在 an honest writer, he uses the weasel-word ‘かもしれない’ on two different occasions when 発表するing whodunit. Nonetheless, this is a fascinating 調書をとる／予約する, by turns riveting and unsettling, and wonderfully rich in period 詳細（に述べる）.
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