Charles Linkworth: Murder, Trial and Prison Haunting

Characters

• Charles Linkworth — He was a condemned man in prison because he had strangled his mother to obtain her money. Linkworth owed a hundred pounds and planned to use his mother's money to pay the debt.
• Doctor Teesdale — The doctor responsible for confirming that Linkworth was dead.
• Mr Dawkins (the prison chaplain) — He heard Linkworth's confession that he had strangled his mother.
• Prison Officer Draycott — The officer who later reported strange events and who was involved when Linkworth's spirit seemed to make contact.
• Mr and Mrs Parker — They lived with Doctor Teesdale as a married couple.

Narrative

Charles Linkworth was a man who had never gotten along with his elderly mother. He also owed a hundred pounds, so one day when his wife was not at home he decided to strangle his mother so he could take her money and pay his debt. He planned everything as well as he could. After he killed his mother, he buried the body in the small back garden behind his shop.

Time passed and neither his friends nor his wife realized the death of Linkworth's mother. That was because Linkworth had told everyone that his mother, as always, disagreed with him and had decided to go to live in London.

To make this believable he sent all her luggage to the station.

So that nobody would know about the murder, it remained hidden until one day his wife received a letter from the railway company saying that Linkworth's mother's luggage was still in the lost-luggage office.

Since then, everybody began to suspect that Linkworth's mother was missing. The secret police inspected the garden where Linkworth had buried his mother's body.

After some days the police arrested Linkworth and condemned him to death.

When he was in prison the chaplain, Mr Dawkins, visited him and tried to make him confess his crime. But it was useless, because Linkworth would not tell the truth.

Linkworth was hanged and died immediately. After his death, the person in charge of confirming that the condemned man was dead was Doctor Teesdale. So when Doctor Teesdale was checking the dead body he had a strange feeling. It seemed to him that the spirit of the dead man was near him.

Suddenly one of the officers of the prison came into the room and told the doctor that the rope that had been around the neck of the condemned man had disappeared.

Teesdale was surprised by the news.

He decided to go home. There, in his room, he felt again the same spirit he had felt once in the prison.