270 In May 1866 Samuel Kent renewed his plea . . . congestion of the lungs. Papers on Samuel Kent's application to retire on full pay in HO 45/6970. In March the annual report of the factory inspector Robert Baker had referred to the great wrong done to Samuel in the years since Saville's death. An extract from Baker's account of his colleague's trials, including the 'threatened blindness' and subsequent paralysis of Mrs Kent, was published in The Times on 24 March 1866. According to her death certificate, Mary Kent died at Llangollen on 17 August 1866 – Samuel was present at her death.
270 That summer he was awarded . . . common and cruel. See The Times, 9 July 1866.
271 Through the winter of 1867. Information about William Kent's life after 1865 from Savant of the Australian Seas (1997) by A.J. Harrison. An electronic second edition of this biography, completed in 2005, is available on the STORS website of the State Library of Tasmania – members.trump.net.au/ahvem/Fisheries/Identities/ Savant.html.
271 He gave the name 'retrospective prophecy' . . . a word as "back-teller"!' said Huxley. From the essay 'On the Method of Zadig: Retrospective Prophecy as a Function of Science' (1880). In Lady Audley's Secret Mary Braddon described the detective's procedure as 'retrograde investigation'. The American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce developed his theory of 'abduction', or retrospective deduction, in about 1865. 'We must conquer the truth by guessing,' he wrote, 'or not at all.' For the idea of 'backward hypothesising', see: The Sign of Three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce (1983), edited by Umberto Eco and Thomas A. Sebeok; The Perfect Murder (1989) by Peter Lehman; and Forging the Missing Link: Interdisciplinary Stories (1992) by Gillian Beer.
272 'Alone, perhaps, among detective-story writers . . . more essential and more strange.' From Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens (1911) by G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton was adapting Job 19: 'For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth' (King James Version of the Bible).
Others have found the endings to detective stories disappointing: 'The solution to a mystery is always less impressive than the mystery itself,' wrote Jorge Luis Borges in the short story 'Ibn Hakkan-al-Bokhari, Dead in His Labyrinth' (1951). 'Mystery has something of the supernatural about it, and even of the divine; its solution, however, is always tainted by sleight of hand.'
273 He left his money . . . joint executors. From Samuel Kent's will, dated 19 January 1872 and proved by William on 21 February that year.
273 In January 1872 Samuel Kent . . . of a stillborn boy. Biography from Savant of the Australian Seas (1997, revised 2005) by A.J. Harrison; Guidebook to the Manchester Aquarium (1875) by William Kent; A Manual of the Infusoria (1880–82) by William Kent; death certificate and will of Samuel Kent; birth announcement in The Times; marriage certificates of William Kent; census of 1881.
275 In 1875 William's wife . . . obstruction of the bowel. According to the death certificate, she died in Withington, Manchester, on 15 February.
275 Jack and Charlotte Whicher . . . fields of lavender. Lavender Hill information from: Directory for Battersea Rise and the Neighbourhoods of Clapham and Wandsworth Commons (1878); Directory for the Postal District of Wandsworth (1880); The Buildings of Clapham, edited by Alyson Wilson (2000); and Battersea Past, edited by Patrick Loobey (2002).
276 In the summer of 1881 . . . went to his wife. From Whicher's death certificate, will and probate in the Family Records Centre and the Court of Probate.
276 After Jack's death . . . executor of her will. From Charlotte Whicher's will and probate at the Court of Probate.
277 Williamson was . . . unofficial hours.' From Fifty Years of Public Service (1904) by Arthur Griffiths.
277 The Chief Superintendent . . . a game of chess. From Scotland Yard: Its History and Organisation 1829–1929 (1929) by George Dilnot.
277 'A Scot, from the crown of his head . . . valuable public servant.' From Scotland Yard Past and Present: Experiences of Thirty-Seven Years (1893) by Timothy Cavanagh.
277 Field – who by the 1870s was reduced almost to poverty. In a letter written in January 1874 from 'Field Lodge', his home in Chelsea, he begged a client for £1 that he was owed – he had spent the past four months ill in bed, he said, and his doctor's bill was £30. From a letter in the British Library manuscripts collection: Add.42580 f.219. Field died later that year.
277 In a notorious trial of 1877 . . . six detective inspectors. From Critical Years at the Yard: The Career of Frederick Williamson of the Detective Department and the CID (1956) by Belton Cobb, and the census of 1881. Wilkie Collins also died in London in 1889, aged sixty-five.
278 According to a police commissioner . . . harassing work'. Unnamed police commissioner quoted in Scotland Yard: Its History and Organisation 1829–1929 (1929) by George Dilnot.
278 the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral in London. Most of the mosaic floor in the St Paul's crypt was made by female inmates of Woking prison between 1875 and 1877, according to the St Paul's chapter minute books for 1874–89.
278 Major Arthur Griffiths . . . intelligence was of a high order.' From Secrets of the Prison House (1894) by Arthur Griffiths.
279 Griffiths returned in another memoir . . . her name was never mentioned.' From Fifty Years of Public Service (1904) by Arthur Griffiths.
279 In 1877 Constance petitioned . . . marked her petition 'nil'. Petitions and letters of support in HO 144/20/49113.
CHAPTER 19
283 In 1884 William . . . and Florence (twenty-five). The information about William and his family in this chapter is drawn mainly from Savant of the Australian Seas (1997, revised 2005) by A.J. Harrison. Other sources include: 'Emigration of Women to Australia: Forced and Voluntary', a paper delivered to the Society of Genealogists in London by Noeline Kyle on 31 August 2005; the English census of 1881; and two of William's own books – The Great Barrier Reef (1893) and especially The Naturalist in Australia (1897).
286 At Burlington House, London . . . and torso'. From The Times of 11 June 1896.
287 Two Japanese scientists were credited . . . before them. The Australian pearl specialist C. Dennis George pointed out that the stepfather of the two Japanese pearl pioneers spent several months on Thursday Island in 1901, and had opportunity to observe William Saville-Kent's methods. George also argued that Saville-Kent succeeded in cultivating whole pearls before he died, and claimed that a string of these were found in the possession of a female vet in Brisbane in 1984; another set is rumoured to be in the possession of a family in Ireland. See Savant of the Australian Seas (1997, revised 2005) by A.J. Harrison.
288 Mary Ann and Elizabeth . . . corresponded to the end. Information about the Kent family from death certificates and wills, correspondence in Bernard Taylor's archive and research in Australia by A.J. Harrison and Noeline Kyle. St Peter's Hospital is described in Old and New London: Volume 6 (1878).