The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes

TEMPTATION AND THE ELDER by Jack Smith-Hughes

A genuine mystery, and a real period piece, from Edwardian rural England, with religious rectitude challenged by the fleshly temptations of a lusty country girl. The victim, Rose Harsent, was by all accounts a nymphomaniac who had set her cap at an older, married man called William Gardiner. He was a stalwart of the local Primitive Methodists whose wife was expecting their eighth child, but whether he killed Rose Harsent when he discovered that she, too, was pregnant is a moot point. The question divided and defeated not one jury but two, with the result that Gardiner was freed to spend the rest of his days in obscurity. But the writer here, Jack Smith-Hughes (1918-94), is unequivocal and makes out a strong case against the accused man. Smith-Hughes played a key role in the resistance movement on the island of Crete during the Second World War. After the war, he qualified as a barrister and worked in the Army Legal Service for much of the 1950s. During this time he also wrote several true crime collections. In 1958 he joined the Northern Circuit, but after the death of his wife in 1972, Smith-Hughes emigrated to the British Virgin Islands and eventually established his own legal firm there. He also served as chief magistrate and acting attorney-general in the town of Tortola.