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Arthur’s behaviour.
    Having said goodnight to each one, the mistress of the house left the kitchen by one door and mounted the front stairs to her room. The servants went to their quarters in the attic using the back staircase as did Arthur to gain access to his room next door to his employer.
    By just after ten o’clock, the stillness of night descended upon the vicarage.

2
    SUNDAY 2 OCTOBER 1887
    Only three people were privy to the momentous event which was to disturb the peace of the vicarage as Saturday turned into Sunday 2 October. Of those, one was soon to be dead while the second was to remain almost silent upon the subject. Only Harriet Louisa Farley ever described in any detail what had occurred; she being the principal witness at the coroner’s inquest and the subsequent trials which followed it.
    At about fifteen minutes past midnight, Frank Bilney heard his mistress calling to him from the foot of the attic stairs. Still half asleep and in his nightshirt, he came down to be told that his master was ill and in need of urgent medical attention. Harriet Louisa took him into the bedroom where he saw the vicar lying face down on the floor, having apparently fallen out of bed. He must have leaned over the body for he assured himself that Farley was still breathing. He was not aware of any blood flowing and Harriet Louisa said nothing beyond urging him to dress and go as fast as he could to Framlingham, some four miles away, to fetch Dr Jones. As Frank passed the open door of Arthur’s room, he heard what he later described as ‘moaning noises’. That he was at that time totally ignorant of there being anything amiss with his master’s ‘accident’ is borne out by the fact that during the course of his journey, he passed the local policeman but did not stop to inform him of what had occurred. After his departure, Harriet Louisa attempted to raise her husband’s head and cradle him in her arms and in so doing she discovered that he was haemorrhaging severely from the throat. In a matter of minutes he was dead.
    Annie Wightman, the maid, was now up and dressed and was either sent or volunteered to fetch help from a neighbour. Mrs Smith was often in attendance at deaths and was well practised in the procedure of laying-out a body. Accompanied by her friend, Mrs Coates, the women came first to the vicarage kitchen where they found Mrs Farley in a dazed, fainting condition, quite unable to tell them what had occurred. When Mrs Smith viewed the body it was lying on its left side.
    When Dr Jones arrived at a quarter to two he found the corpse lying on its back. The doctor, who was Farley’s regular medical attendant, had not been prepared to find that his patient’s throat had been cut. An incision some 7½in long had wounded but not penetrated the windpipe. The external jugular vein and the muscles surrounding it had been cut accounting for the severe haemorrhage. Death was due to the resultant loss of blood. As was to be expected in such a case, Dr Jones ordered that the police be informed, though whether the doctor suspected suicide or foul play was never made clear.
    Without waiting for the police to examine the scene, Mrs Smith, who had now been joined by her husband John, and Mrs Coates began their business. A board was found and placed across three or four (accounts vary) chairs and with some difficulty, the exceedingly heavy corpse was raised and laid out upon the makeshift trestle.
    While all this activity was going on, Arthur dressed in his outdoor clothes and left the house. No attempt was made to stop him or perhaps in all the bustle, no one noticed his going. Had Harriet Louisa not mentioned his part in the dreadful business at this stage? If she had, it is surely strange that the doctor or Frank had not taken the precaution to lock him in his room until the police came. Instead, Arthur was able to slip away out into the countryside in the dark hours before dawn. But far from running away, at around