Page 16 - The Devil's Arsonist

Chapter 5

The Shepherdess Hat

Memorial, Burwell Fire, 1727, St. Mary’s Church

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Ipswich Journal, 9 September 1727
“…tis the melancholy employment of the neighboring places, to pick out, and discover the
mangled bodies of their relations and friends, and the dead bodies taken out of the barn;
were carry’d to carts, and put into a hole in the church yard; there was among them several
young women of considerable fortunes, and one Mr. James Brinley, a wholesale Turner, and
Elizabeth his Wife, who had been marry’d but that morning”

Thursday 1 December 1994, A Nursing Home, Great Malvern, Hereford & Worcester
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The day had begun before dawn had broken, for I had much to do and a long way to travel.
To my chagrin, I had last night asked Ivy, a question I did not think important at the time of
our meeting. What became of the hatbox? I did then think it strange that Ivy mentioned such
apparent trivia. I was wrong, the opposite was so, as all that she had said was important, then
why not this also. Ivy when asked told me that Ruby had given the hatbox to Mary; and when
pressed to think, she said it was because her sister could not bear to touch it!

So early did I arrive at Somerset House off of London’s Strand, it had net yet opened and
thus I was the first to enter the Principal Probate Registry, eager to find that which I sought -