by John Kerr
Mrs Jane Clark, about whose role in the poisoning speculation continued to swirl long after the inquest, bid her sister and niece in Birmingham farewell and, accompanied by her two children, booked passage on a steamer to the West Indies in the autumn of 1872. Arriving at Kingston, Jamaica before Christmas, they proceeded to St. Ann’s Bay on the north shore of the island and to Content, one of the largest coffee plantations in the colony, the home of Mrs Margaret Clark, her late husband’s aunt. Within two years of their arrival, Margaret Clark died, bequeathing the plantation and her entire estate to her niece Jane, as she and her late husband had no children of their own. That she stood to inherit this large estate had been explained to Jane Clark in a letter she received from her aunt a year before Charles Cranbrook’s murder, another of her secrets that certainly would have deflected suspicion from her had she revealed it to the police or coroner’s inquest. Hence she raised her family in luxury on Content, returning near the end of her life to England, where she died and was buried in Lewisham, a village south of London, presumably in peace, at the ripe old age of ninety.
The whereabouts of Jenny Blackthorn and Little Davy remained unknown, though it may be safely surmised that they were generously supported by a familial benefactor.
Copyright
© John Kerr 2012
First published in Great Britain 2012
This edition 2012
ISBN 978 0 7198 0783 1 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0784 8 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0785 5 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7090 9838 6 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
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The right of John Kerr to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988