Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 2, September 24, 1927

Her confession was given only in part to the press, the details being the most horrible narrative of ghastly facts ever poured into human ears.

“Mrs. Thomas came in and went upstairs. I went up to her and, after a violent quarrel, I threw her from the top of the stairs to the ground floor. I ran down and, to prevent her screaming and getting me in trouble, I caught her by the throat, and in the struggle she was choked.

“I then became entirely lost and without any control over myself, and looking on what had happened and the fear of being discovered, I determined to do away with the body as best I could.

“I laid it on the kitchen table and chopped the head from the body with the assistance of a cleaver. I also used the meat saw and carving knife to cut the body up. I prepared the copper with water to boil the body—”

But there is no use continuing the actions of a frenzied fiend. The head, never discovered, she dropped into the river, in the oilcloth bag, weighted.

At a quarter to nine on the morning of Monday, July 29, 1879, the bell of Wandsworth Jail began to toll, and the prisoner came out into the yard leaning on the arm of her confessor.

They descended a flight of steps to the place of execution, where Marwood, the hangman, was waiting. He pinioned the prisoner’s arms and placed her in position.

Shortly after the black flag was run up to the head of the flagpole, and the crowd of curious persons waiting outside the prison walls knew that Kate Webster had paid the penalty of her crime. They quietly dispersed.

It is a curious commentary on the case that when Mrs. Thomas’s effects were auctioned off there was a large and jovial crowd present.

Popular Mr. Church was there, with his usual genial laugh and joke, and bought a number of things. One collector bought the meat saw and cleaver, and another paid as much as five shillings for the fatal carving knife.

And for years maiden ladies and childless widows were scared to death to hire servant maids who did not come provided with a whole portfolio of sworn and attested references.

No servant applying for a place dare admit to the possession of the name of Kate or its several variations. Such was the dark shadow which the name of Kate Webster cast upon English homes and their fabled security.

With His Own Weapon by Harold De Polo

No crocodile tears were shed for Amos Crocker — but a girl in danger is a girl in danger — and men, after all, are men.

I

“Like to see you a minute, Whitcher,” said Crocker ingratiatingly, stopping his car in front of the sheriff’s dwelling just as Bemis stepped out and closed the door behind him.

“Make it a short ’un, Amos,” Whitcher rather discourteously suggested. “ ’Most four now, ’n’ I aim t’ git me in a hour ’r so wadin’ the Stony ’fore dark comes!”

Pausing, he wheezed a bit petulantly and fumbled with the buckle that held the strap of his wicker creel over his shoulder. He began puffing, then, and had to lay down the aluminium case that protected his three-ounce split bamboo rod before he satisfactorily adjusted his trout basket. He seemed, suddenly, to have completely forgotten his broad if not bald hint of being in a hurry.

“Wisht I was ’s lean ’s you be, Amos,” he complained. “Judas Priest, I got me on the scales down t’ Del’s store, yes’d’y, ’n’ I dumb a heap sight nigher t’ the two seven’y mark ’n I did t’ the two sixty, I ain’t denyin’. Have t’ try me some o’ them reducin’ diets some o’ them tony lady summer campers uses, I reckon, do I hanker t’ slim me down m’ figger. Yessir, Amos, I’m giftin’ right — right obese, I cal-’late the word is, I be!”

He chuckled as he finished, his great china-blue eyes going very wide and the thumb and index finger of his right hand traveling to his huge nether lip with his characteristic gesture.

“I—”

“I just wanted to see you, Whitcher,” cut in Amos Crocker, rather nervously wetting his lips and blinking behind his silver-rimmed spectacles, “to ask if—”

“I know w’ot y’ want t’ ask me — want t’ ask me w’ere the best troutin’ is, now the end o’ the season’s comin’ ’long,” interrupted the sheriff with a genial grin. “Shucks, I ain’t one o’ them miserly fellers, neither,” he went on, pulling out his lip and letting it go back with a hearty plop.

“Don’t keep the good places f’r m’self, I don’t — like t’ share ’em. Yep, Amos; the Stony’s the stream this time o’ year, w’ere I’m a goin’ now. Lemme git y’ a rod ’n’ y’ c’n traipse up there with me now.”

He looked at the man behind the wheel eagerly, his eyes shining as they always did when the topic of conversation was troutin’ or birdin’ or else his stamp collection.

“W’ot say?” he cried jovially, as the other hesitated and fidgeted in a search for words.