The Cretingham Murder by Sheila Hardy Page B

with hindsight that we now approach the questions which were not asked at the time and advance some possible answers.
    It was obvious at the inquest that the villagers saw the murder as a crime of passion. They either knew or had concluded that ‘something was going on’ between Harriet Louisa and Arthur. Not content with references to their being openly seen walking together, they dragged out of poor Frank Bilney the gossip that the former maid had spread abroad, namely that Harriet Louisa was in the habit of visiting Arthur’s room in the early morning and had been seen kissing him. Harriet Louisa herself admitted that she might have kissed him but that there was nothing in that; she merely regarded Arthur as she would a younger brother. She boasted that she was quite used to looking after the young men in her former husband’s regiment in a maternal role. But was it? Had Lt-Col Moule appreciated his wife’s efforts to ‘play mother’ to his junior officers?
    As we have already seen, the contents and tone of the colonel’s will suggest that the almost twenty-year-old marriage was not as happy as it should have been. Could it be that the colonel had become tired of her ‘maternal attentions’ to his ensigns and that they were in fact estranged?
    If she was indeed disinherited by her husband, it is no wonder that when just a year into widowhood she met and married the elderly Revd Farley, she made sure that his will was entirely in her favour.
    It is very tempting to paint Harriet as a manipulative schemer who was bored with life in the country, married to an old man whose health was deteriorating. She also had to endure his uncertain temper which, it was suggested, led to his striking her on occasions. She was tied with little sign of release in the immediate future. No wonder she grasped at the chance of some diversion with the attractive and sympathetic younger curate. Had she during her walks and talks with Arthur confided her problems to him? Had she unwittingly, or even deliberately, planted the idea of getting rid of Farley? Was hers one of the voices he later told the doctors he had heard? Was she one of the ‘two at Cretingham’ to whom he referred as guiding his actions?
    In fact, it is possible to make out a good case that Harriet Louisa herself committed the murder. Let us suppose that she had indeed become fond of Arthur and that the village gossips were right, the relationship had gone further than was appropriate. During the five weeks that he was away, she had time to assess her situation and became depressed, seeing nothing for herself beyond the tedious routine of looking after her ailing husband. She was trapped in a marriage which was nothing more than a duty. Given her age at the time, she might well have been suffering from violent mood swings herself. Did she, during a black moment, conceive that the only way out was her husband’s death? If she had discussed Arthur’s mental health problems with him, did she suddenly see that she could use him to extricate herself from what had become an impossible situation?
    Certainly something happened in the first days after Arthur’s return to change his calm holiday disposition to one of agitation. At the same time Harriet Louisa made sure that it was known that Arthur was ‘not himself’. Was she working towards the fruition of her plan?
    Was it pure coincidence that on the morning of the murder she should arrange to have a sleeping couch placed in the Farleys’ bedroom? Had she suggested to Arthur that such a move from the marital bed would leave her free to slip out easily, perhaps to join him in his? Did he come knocking because the anticipation of her nocturnal visit had become too intense for him? That would certainly account for her alleged words to him ‘Are you mad?’ when she first opened the door.
    In her narration of the events of the night she said that the Revd Farley had said, ‘See what the poor fellow wants’ which had