It was the strangest murder trial I have ever attended. They
named it the Peckham murder in the headlines, although
Northwood Street, where Mrs Parker was found murdered,
was not actually in Peckham.
The prisoner was a well-built man with bloodshot eyes. An
ugly man, one you wouldn’t forget in a hurry – and that was
an important point. The prosecution intended to call four
witnesses who hadn’t forgotten him and who had seen him
hurrying away from the little red house in Northwood Street.
1English File third edition Intermediate Student’s Book Unit 10B, pp.100–101 © OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2013
At two o’clock in the morning Mrs Salmon, who lived at 15
Northwood Street, had been unable to sleep. She heard a
door shut and so she went to the window and saw Adams
(the accused) on the steps of the victim’s house. He had
just come out and he was wearing gloves. Before he moved
away, he had looked up – at her window.
Henry MacDougall, who had been driving home late, nearly
ran over Adams at the corner of Northwood Street because
he was walking in the middle of the road, looking dazed.
And old Mr Wheeler, who lived next door to Mrs Parker, at
number 12, and was woken up by a noise and got up and
looked out of the window, just as Mrs Salmon had done, saw
Adams’s back and, as he turned, those bloodshot eyes. In
Laurel Avenue he had been seen by yet another witness.