The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder And The Undoing Of A Great Victorian Detective (47 page)
Authors: Kate Summerscale
Tags: #Detectives, #Fiction, #Great Britain, #Murder - General, #Espionage, #Europe, #Murder - England - Wiltshire - History - 19th century, #Murder, #Mystery & Detective Fiction, #True Crime, #Case studies, #History: World, #Wiltshire, #Law Enforcement, #Whicher; Jonathan, #19th century, #History, #England, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Europe - Great Britain - General, #Detectives - England - London, #Literary Criticism, #London, #Biography & Autobiography, #Expeditions & Discoveries, #Biography
For their advice and their support, huge thanks to my family and friends, among them Ben Summerscale, Juliet Summerscale, Valerie Summerscale, Peter Summerscale, Robert Randall, Daniel Nogues, Victoria Lane, Toby Clements, Sinclair McKay, Lorna Bradbury, Alex Clark, Will Cohu, Ruth Metzstein, Stephen O'Connell, Keith Wilson and Miranda Fricker. In the early stages of my research, I was sent to excellent sources by Sarah Wise, Rebecca Gowers, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst and Kathryn Hughes. Towards the end, I had wonderful readers in Anthea Trodd and Peter Parker. My thanks also to PD James for her observations on this case and to former Detective-Inspector Douglas Campbell for his comments about detective work in general.
For putting so much into publishing the book, thank you to Alexandra Pringle, Mary Morris, Kate Tindal-Robertson, Meike Boening, Kathleen Farrar, Polly Napper, Kate Bland, David Mann, Phillip Beresford, Robert Lacey, and the rest of the brilliant people at Bloomsbury. Thank you to my terrific editors at Walker & Co, George Gibson and Michele Amundsen, and to the other publishers who have shown faith in the book, including Andreu Jaume of Lumen S.A. in Barcelona, Dorothee Grisebach of Berlin Verlag, Dominique Bourgois of Christian Bourgois Editeur in Paris, Andrea Canobbio of Giulio Einaudi Editore in Turin, and Nikolai Naumenko of AST in Moscow. I am grateful also to Angus Cargill and Charlotte Greig for their early interest and encouragement. My thanks to the excellent Laurence Laluyaux, Stephen Edwards and Hannah Westland of Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd, to Julia Kreitman of The Agency, and to Melanie Jackson in New York. Special thanks to David Miller, my friend and agent, for always seeming to understand better than I did what it was that I was trying to do. His contribution to this book is immeasurable. My son, Sam, has already been rewarded (with a trip to Legoland) for being patient while I worked, but I'd like to thank him here for being altogether fantastic.
Samuel Kent, circa 1863
The second Mrs Kent, circa 1863
Sketch of Elizabeth Gough in 1860
Constance Kent, circa 1858
Edward Kent, early 1850s
Mary Ann Windus in 1828, a year before she became the first Mrs Kent
Road Hill House, front view
Road Hill House, back view, with the drawing-room windows to the right
Engraving of Road Hill House in 1860, bird's-eye view
Engraving of Road Hill House in 1860, back view
Adolphus 'Dolly' Williamson, police detective, in the 1880s
