It seems to be strongly suspected that the remains are
those of a woman called Harriet Lane, and who went by the name of "Mrs. King," with whom Wainwright—who is a married man—had lived, and by whom he had had children. This woman disap- peared a year ago,—strangely enough, according to one account, she was last seen on the day of which the day of 1Vainwright's arrest was the first anniversary, i.e., 11th September, 1874. The remarkable feature, not indeed of the murder, but of the attempt to conceal it, is the trustfulness with which Wainwright twice left Stokes alone with the packages containing the corpse. First, he sent Stokes up alone to the room in which the packages were ; afterwards Stokes was left to watch them in the street while Wainwright fetched a cab, though the tasks of the two men might so easily have been interchanged. Also to Stokes were con- signed the chopper, shovel, and hammer with which apparently the corpse had been cut up, with instructions to sell them, and to speak of them in selling them as his own. Could these manceuvres have been intended ultimately, in case of discovery, to furnish evidence that Stokes was the principal in the transac- tion ? or were they only intended by their trustfulness to divert Stokes's suspicion from Wainwright? In that case, Wain- wright's finesse was clumsy indeed.
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