They agree to meet again someday, just not Sunday, which would be blasphemous. Huckleberry makes it back into bed just before dawn.
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Miss Watson tries to explain prayer to Huckleberry in Chapter Three. Huckleberry gives up on it after not getting what he prays for. Miss Watson calls him a fool, and explains prayer bestows spiritual gifts like sel essness to help others. Huck cannot see any advantage in this, except for the others one helps. So he resolves to forget it.
Widow Douglas describes a wonderful God, while Miss Watson's is terrible. Huck concludes there are two Gods. He would like to belong to Widow Douglas's, if He would take him — unlikely because of Huck's bad qualities. Meanwhile, a rumor circulates that Huck's Pap, who has not been seen in a year, is dead. A corpse was found in the river, thought to be Pap because of its "ragged" appearance, though the face is unrecognizable.
At first Huck is relieved. His father had been a drunk who beat him when he was sober, though Huck stayed hidden from him most of the time. Soon, however, Huck doubts his father's death, and expects to see him again. After a month in Tom's gang, Huck quit along with the rest of the boys.
There was no point to it, without any robbery or killing, their activities being all pretend. Once, Tom pretended a caravan of Arabs and Spaniards were going to encamp nearby with hundreds of camels and elephants. It turned out to be a Sunday school picnic. Tom explained it really was a caravan of Arabs and Spaniards - only they were enchanted, like in Don Quixote. Huckleberry judged Tom's stories of genies to be lies, after rubbing old lamps and rings with no result. In Chapter Four, Huckleberry is gradually adjusting to his new life, and even making small progress in school.
One winter morning, Huck notices boot tracks in the snow near the house. Within one heel print is the shape of two nails crossed to ward off the devil. Huck runs to Judge Thatcher, looking over his shoulder as he does. He sells his fortune to the surprised Judge for a dollar. That night Huck goes to Jim, who has a magical giant hairball from an ox's stomach. Huck tells Jim he found Pap's tracks in the snow and wants to know what his father wants.
Jim says the hairball needs money to talk, and so Huck gives a counterfeit quarter. Jim puts his ear to the hairball, and relates that Huck's father has two angels, one black and one white, one bad, one good. It is uncertain which will win out. But Huck is safe for now. He will have much happiness and much sorrow in his life, will marry a poor and then a rich woman, and should stay clear of the water, since that is where he will die. That night, Huck finds Pap waiting in his bedroom! Pap's long, greasy, black hair hangs over his face.
The nearly fifty-year-old man's skin is a ghastly, disgusting white. Noticing Huck's "starchy" clothes, Pap wonders aloud if he thinks himself better than his father, promising to take him "down a peg. He threatens Huck not to go near the school again. He asks Huck if he is really rich, as he has heard, and calls him a liar when he says he has no more money.
He takes the dollar Huck got from Judge Thatcher. He leaves to get whiskey, and the next day, drunk, demands Huck's money from Judge Thatcher. The Judge and Widow Douglas try to get custody of Huck, but give up after the new judge in town refuses to separate a father from his son. Pap lands in jail after a drunken spree. The new judge takes Pap into his home and tries to reform him. Pap tearfully repents his ways but soon gets drunk again. The new judge decides Pap cannot be reformed except with a shotgun. Pap sues Judge Thatcher for Huck's fortune. He also continues to threaten Huck about attending school, which Huck does partly to spite his father.
Pap goes on one drunken binge after another. One day he kidnaps Huck and takes him deep into the woods, to a secluded cabin on the Illinois shore. He locks Huck inside all day while he goes out. Huck enjoys being away from civilization again, though he does not like his father's beatings and his drinking. Eventually, Huck finds an old saw hidden away. He slowly makes a hole in the wall while his father is away, resolved to escape from both Pap and the Widow Douglas.
But Pap returns as Huck is about to finish. He complains about the "govment," saying Judge Thatcher has delayed the trial to prevent Pap from getting Huck's wealth. He has heard his chances are good, though he will probably lose the fight for custody of Huck. He further rails against a biracial black visitor to the town.
The visitor is well dressed, university- educated, and not at all deferential. Pap is disgusted that the visitor can vote in his home state, and that legally he cannot be sold into slavery until he has been in the state six months. Later, Pap wakes from a drunken sleep and chases after Huck with a knife, calling him the "Angel of Death," stopping when he collapses in sleep. Huck holds the ri e against his sleeping father and waits. Huck falls asleep, to be awakened by Pap, who is unaware of the night's events.
Pap sends Huck out to check for fish. Huck finds a canoe drifting in the river and hides it in the woods. When Pap leaves for the day, Huck finishes sawing his way out of the cabin. He puts food, cookware, everything of value in the cabin, into the canoe. He covers up the hole in the wall and then shoots a wild pig. He hacks down the cabin door, hacks the pig to bleed onto the cabin's dirt oor, and makes other preparations so that it seems robbers came and killed him. Huck goes to the canoe and waits for the moon to rise, resolving to canoe to Jackson's Island, but falls asleep. When he wakes he sees Pap row by.
Once he has passed, Huck quietly sets out down river. He pulls into Jackson's Island, careful not to be seen. They shoot cannon over the water and oat loaves of bread with mercury inside, in hopes of locating Huck's corpse. Huck, careful not to be seen, catches a loaf and eats it. Exploring the island, Huck is delighted to find Jim, who at first thinks Huck is a ghost. Now Huck won't be lonely anymore. Huck is shocked when Jim explains he ran away. Jim overheard Miss Watson discussing selling him for eight hundred dollars, to a slave trader who would take him to New Orleans.
He left before she had a chance to decide. Jim displays a great knowledge of superstition. He tells Huck how he once "speculated" ten dollars in live stock, but lost most of it when the steer died. He then lost five dollars in a failed slave start-up bank.
He gave his last ten cents to a slave, who gave it away after a preacher told him that charity repays itself one-hundred-fold. But Jim still has his hairy arms and chest, a portent of future wealth. He also now owns all eight-hundred- dollars' worth of himself. In Chapter Nine, Jim and Huck take the canoe and provisions into the large cavern in the middle of the island, to have a hiding place in case of visitors, and to protect their things.
Jim predicted it would rain, and soon it downpours, with the two safely inside the cavern. The river oods severely. A washed-out houseboat oats down the river past the island. Jim and Huck find a man's body inside, shot in the back. Jim prevents Huck from looking at the face; it's too "ghastly.
Huck has Jim hide in the bottom of the canoe so he won't be seen. They make it back safely to the cave. In Chapter Ten, Huck wonders about the dead man, though Jim warns it's bad luck. Sure enough, bad luck comes: Jim's leg swells, but after four days it goes down. A while later, Huck decides to go ashore and to find out what's new.
Jim agrees, but has Huck disguise himself as a girl, with one of the dresses they took from the houseboat. Huck practices his girl impersonation, then sets out for the Illinois shore. In a formerly abandoned shack, he finds a woman who looks forty, and also appears a newcomer. Huck is relieved she is a newcomer, since she will not be able to recognize him.
The woman eyes Huckleberry somewhat suspiciously as she lets him in. Huck introduces himself as "Sarah Williams," from Hookerville. The woman "clatters on," eventually getting to Huck's murder. She reveals that Pap was suspected and nearly lynched, but people came to suspect Jim, since he ran away the same day Huck was killed. There is a three- hundred-dollar price on Jim's head. But soon, suspicions turned again to Pap, after he blew money the judge gave him to find Jim on drink. But he left town before he could be lynched, and now there is two hundred dollars on his head.
The woman has noticed smoke over on Jackson's Island, and, suspecting that Jim might be hiding there, told her husband to look. He will go there tonight with another man and a gun. The woman looks at Huck suspiciously and asks his name. He replies, "Mary Williams.
Finally, she asks him to reveal his male identity, saying she understands that he is a runaway apprentice and will not turn him in. He says his name is George Peters, and he was indeed apprenticed to a mean farmer. She lets him go after quizzing him on farm subjects, to make sure he's telling the truth. She tells him to send for her, Mrs. Judith Loftus, if he has trouble. Back at the island, Huck tells Jim they must shove off, and they hurriedly pack their things and slowly ride out on a raft they had found.
Huck and Jim build a wigwam on the raft in Chapter Twelve. They spend a number of days drifting down river, passing the great lights of St. Louis on the fifth night. They "lived pretty high," buying, "borrowing", or hunting food as they need it. One night they come upon a wreaked steamship. Over Jim's objections, Huck goes onto the wreck, to loot it and have an "adventure," the way Tom Sawyer would.
On the wreck, Huck overhears two robbers threatening to kill a third so that he won't "talk. One of the two manages to convince the other to let their victim be drowned with the wreck. Huck finds Jim and says they have to cut the robbers' boat loose so they can't escape. Jim says that their own raft has broken loose and oated away.
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Huck and Jim head for the robbers' boat in Chapter Thirteen. The robbers put some booty in the boat, but leave to get some more money off the man on the steamboat. Jim and Huck jump right into the boat and head off as quietly as possible. A few hundred yards safely away, Huck feels bad for the robbers left stranded on the wreck since, who knows, he may end up a robber himself someday.
They find their raft just before they stop for Huck to go ashore for help. Ashore, Huck finds a ferry watchman, and tells him his family is stranded on the steamboat wreck. The watchman tell him the wreck is of the Walter Scott. Huck invents an elaborate story as to how his family got on the wreck, including the niece of a local big shot among them, so that the man is more than happy to take his ferry to help. Huck feels good about his good deed, and thinks Widow Douglas would have been proud of him.
Jim and Huck turn into an island, and sink the robbers' boat before going to bed. Jim and Huck find a number of valuables among the robbers' booty in Chapter Fourteen, mostly trinkets and cigars. Jim says he doesn't enjoy Huck's "adventures," since they risk his getting caught. Huck recognizes that Jim is intelligent, at least for what Huck thinks of a black person.
Huck astonishes Jim with his stories of kings. Jim had only heard of King Solomon, whom he considers a fool for wanting to chop a baby in half. Huck cannot convince Jim otherwise. Jim is incredulous when Huck explains that the French do not speak English, but another language. Huck tries to argue the point with Jim, but gives up in defeat. But one densely foggy night, Huck, in the canoe, gets separated from Jim and the raft. He tries to paddle back to it, but the fog is so thick he loses all sense of direction.
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After a lonely time adrift, Huck is reunited with Jim, who is asleep on the raft. Jim is thrilled to see Huck alive. But Huck tries to trick Jim, pretending he dreamed their entire separation. Jim tells Huck the story of his dream, making the fog and the troubles he faced on the raft into an allegory of their journey to the free states. But soon Jim notices all the debris, dirt and tree branches, that collected on the raft while it was adrift. He gets mad at Huck for making a fool of him after he had worried about him so much.
He feels bad about hurting Jim. Jim and Huck hope they don't miss Cairo, the town at the mouth of the Ohio River, which runs into the free states. Meanwhile, Huck's conscience troubles him deeply about helping Jim escape from his "rightful owner," Miss Watson, especially after her consideration for Huck.
Jim can't stop talking about going to the free states, especially about his plan to earn money to buy his wife and children's freedom, or have some abolitionists kidnap them if their masters refuse. When they think they see Cairo, Jim goes out on the canoe to check, secretly resolved to give Jim up. But his heart softens when he hears Jim call out that he is his only friend, the only one to keep a promise to him. Huck comes upon some men in a boat who want to search his raft for escaped slaves.
Huck pretends to be grateful, saying no one else would help them. He leads them to believe his family, on board the raft, has smallpox. The men back away, telling Huck to go further downstream and lie about his family's condition to get help. They leave forty dollars in gold out of pity. Huck feels bad for having done wrong by not giving Jim up. But he realizes that he would have felt just as bad if he had given Jim up. Since good and bad seem to have the same results, Huck resolves to disregard morality in the future and do what's "handiest.
Later, a steamboat drives right into the raft, breaking it apart. Jim and Huck dive off in time, but are separated. Huck makes it ashore, but is caught by a pack of dogs. A man finds Huck in Chapter Seventeen and calls off the dogs. Huck introduces himself as George Jackson. The man brings "George" home, where he is eyed cautiously as a possible member of the Sheperdson family. But they decide he is not.
The lady of the house has Buck, a boy about Huck's age thirteen or fourteen get Huck some dry clothes. Buck says he would have killed a Shepardson if there had been any. Buck tells Huck a riddle, though Huck does not understand the concept of riddles. Buck says Huck must stay with him and they will have great fun. Huck invents an elaborate story of how he was orphaned. The family, the Grangerfords, offer to let him stay with them for as long as he likes. Huck innocently admires the house and its humorously tacky finery.
He similarly admires the work of a deceased daughter, Emmeline, who created unintentionally funny maudlin pictures and poems about people who died. Huck admires Colonel Grangerford, the master of the house, and his supposed gentility. He is a warm- hearted man, treated with great courtesy by everyone. He own a very large estate with over a hundred slaves. The family's children, besides Buck, are Bob, the oldest, then Tom, then Charlotte, aged twenty-five, and Sophia, twenty, all of them beautiful.
Three sons have been killed. One day, Buck tries to shoot Harney Shepardson, but misses. Huck asks why he wanted to kill him. Buck explains the Grangerfords are in a feud with a neighboring clan of families, the Shepardsons, who are as grand as they are. No one can remember how the feud started, or name a purpose for it, but in the last year two people have been killed, including a fourteen-year-old Grangerford. Buck declares the Shepardson men all brave. The two families attend church together, their ri es between their knees as the minister preaches about brotherly love.
After church one day, Sophia has Huck retrieve a bible from the pews. She is delighted to find inside a note with the words "two-thirty. There he finds Jim! Jim had followed Huck to the shore the night they were wrecked, but did not dare call out for fear of being caught. In the last few days he has repaired the raft and bought supplies to replace what was lost. The next day Huck learns that Sophie has run off with a Shepardson boy. In the woods, Huck finds Buck and a nineteen-year-old Grangerford in a gun-fight with the Shepardsons.
The two are later killed. Deeply disturbed, Huck heads for Jim and the raft, and the two shove off downstream. Huck notes, "You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft. Huck and Jim are lazily drifting down the river in Chapter Nineteen. One day they come upon two men on shore eeing some trouble and begging to be let onto the raft. Huck takes them a mile downstream to safety.
One man is about seventy, bald, with whiskers, the other, thirty. Both men's clothes are badly tattered. The younger man had been selling a paste to remove tartar from teeth that takes much of the enamel off with it. He ran out to avoid the locals' ire. The other had run a temperance sobriety revival meeting, but had to ee after word got out that he drank. The two men, both professional scam-artists, decide to team up. The younger man declares himself an impoverished English duke, and gets Huck and Jim to wait on him and treat him like royalty.
Huck and Jim then wait on him as they had the "duke. The Duke and Dauphin ask whether Jim is a runaway, and so Huckleberry concocts a tale of how he was orphaned, and he and Jim were forced to travel at night since so many people stopped his boat to ask whether Jim was a runaway.
That night, the two royals take Jim and Huck's beds while they stand watch against a storm. The next morning, the Duke gets the Dauphin to agree to put on a performance of Shakespeare in the next town they cross. Everyone in the town has left for a revival meeting in the woods. The meeting is a lively afiair of several thousand people singing and shouting. The Dauphin gets up and declares himself a former pirate, now reformed by the meeting, who will return to the Indian Ocean as a missionary.
The crowd joyfully takes up a collection, netting the Dauphin eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents, and many kisses from pretty young women. Meanwhile, the Duke took over the deserted print offce and got nine and a half dollars selling advertisements in the local newspaper. The Duke also prints up a handbill offering a reward for Jim, so that they can travel freely by day and tell whoever asks about Jim that the slave is their captive.
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The duke also works on his recitation of Hamlet's "To be or not to be," soliloquy, which he has butchered, throwing in lines from other parts of the play, and even Macbeth. But to Huck, the Duke seems to possess a great talent. They visit a one-horse town in Arkansas where lazy young men loiter in the streets, arguing over chewing tobacco. The Duke posts handbills for the performance. Huck witnesses the shooting of a rowdy drunk by a man, Sherburn, he insulted, in front of the victim's daughter.
A crowd gathers around the dying man and then goes off to lynch Sherburn. The mob charges through the streets in Chapter Twenty-two, sending women and children running away crying in its wake. They go to Sherburn's house, knock down the front fence, but back away as the man meets them on the roof of his front porch, ri e in hand. After a chilling silence, Sherburn delivers a haughty speech on human nature, saying the average person, and everyone in the mob, is a coward.
Southern juries don't convict murderers because they rightly fear being shot in the back, in the dark, by the man's family. Mobs are the most pitiful of all, since no one in them is brave enough in his own right to commit the act without the mass behind him. Sherburn declares no one will lynch him: Huck then goes to the circus, a "splendid" show, whose clown manages to come up with fantastic one-liners in a remarkably short amount of time.
A performer, pretending to be a drunk, forces himself into the ring and tries to ride a horse, apparently hanging on for dear life. The crowd roars its amusement, except for Huck, who cannot bear to watch the poor man's danger. Only twelve people came to the Duke's performance, and they laughed all the way through. The new performance plays to a capacity audience. The Dauphin, naked except for body paint and some "wild" accouterments, has the audience howling with laughter. But the Duke and Dauphin are nearly attacked when the show is ended after this brief performance. To avoid losing face, the audience convinces the rest of the town the show is a smash, and a capacity crowd follows the second night.
As the Duke anticipated, the third night's crowd consists of the two previous audiences coming to get their revenge. The Duke and Huck make a getaway to the raft before the show starts. From the three-night run, they took in four-hundred sixty-five dollars.
Jim is shocked that the royals are such "rapscallions. Huck doesn't see the point in telling Jim the two are fakes; besides, they really do seem like the real thing. Jim spends his night watches "moaning and mourning" for his wife and two children, Johnny and Lizabeth. Though "It don't seem natural," Huck concludes that Jim loves his family as much as whites love theirs. Jim is torn apart when he hears a thud in the distance, because it reminds him of the time he beat his Lizabeth for not doing what he said, not realizing she had been made deaf-mute by her bout with scarlet fever.
In Chapter Twenty-four, Jim complains about having to wait, frightened, in the boat, tied up to avoid suspicion while the others are gone. The Dauphin calls Huck "Adolphus," and encounters a talkative young man who tells him about the recently deceased Peter Wilks. Wilks sent for his two brothers from Shefield, England: Harvey, whom he had not seen since he was five, and William, who is deaf-mute. He has left all his property to his brothers, though it seems uncertain whether they will ever arrive. The Dauphin gets the young traveler, who is en route to Rio de Janeiro, to tell him everything about the Wilks.
In Wilks' town, they ask after Peter Wilks, pretending anguish when told of his death. The Dauphin even makes strange hand signs to the Duke. A crowd gathers before Wilks' house in Chapter Twenty-five, as the Duke and Dauphin share a tearful meeting with the three Wilks daughters. The entire town then joins in the "blubbering. Wilks' letter which he left instead of a will leaves the house and three thousand dollars to his daughters, and to his brothers, three thousand dollars, plus a tan-yard and seven thousand dollars in real estate.
The Duke and Dauphin privately count the money, adding four-hundred fifteen dollars of their own money when the stash comes up short of the letter's six-thousand, for appearances. They then give it all to the Wilks women in a great show before a crowd of townspeople. Doctor Abner Shackleford, an old friend of the deceased, interrupts to declare them frauds, their accents ridiculously phony. He asks Mary Jane, the oldest Wilks sister, to listen to him as a friend and turn the impostors out.
In reply, she hands the Dauphin the six thousand dollars to invest however he sees fit. Huck has supper with Joanna, a Wilks sister he refers to as "the Harelip" "Cleft lip," a birth defect she possesses. She cross-examines Huckleberry on his knowledge of England. He makes several slips, forgetting he is supposedly from Shefield, and that the Dauphin is supposed to be a Protestant minister. Finally she asks whether he hasn't made the entire thing up.
Mary Jane and Susan interrupt and instruct Joanna to be courteous to their guest. Huck feels awful about letting such sweet women be swindled. He resolves to get them their money. He goes to the Duke and Dauphin's room to search for the money, but hides when they enter. The Duke wants to leave that very night, but the Dauphin convinces him to stay until they have stolen all the family's property. After they leave, Huckleberry takes the gold to his sleeping cubby, and then sneaks out late at night.
Huck hides the sack of money in Wilks' coffn in Chapter Twenty-seven, as Mary Jane, crying, enters the front room. Huck doesn't get another opportunity to safely remove the money, and feels dejected that the Duke and Dauphin will likely get it back. The funeral the next day is briefly interrupted by the racket the dog is making down cellar. The undertaker slips out, and after a "whack" is heard from downstairs, the undertaker returns, whispering loudly to the preacher, "He had a rat! Huck observes with horror as the undertaker seals the coffn without looking inside.
Now he will never know whether the money was stolen from the coffn, or if he should write Mary Jane to dig up the coffn for it. Saying he will take the Wilks' family to England, the Dauphin sells off the estate and the slaves. He sends a mother to New Orleans and her two sons to Memphis. The scene at the grief-stricken family's separation is heart-rending. But Huck comforts himself that they will be reunited in a week or so when the Duke and Dauphin are exposed. When questioned by the Duke and Dauphin, Huck blames the loss of the six thousand dollars on the slaves they just sold, making the two regret the deed.
Huck finds Mary Jane crying in her bedroom in Chapter Twenty-eight. All joy regarding the trip to England has been destroyed by the thought of the slave mother and children never seeing each other again. Touched, Huck unthinkingly blurts out that the family will be reunited in less than two weeks. Mary Jane, overjoyed, asks Huck to explain. Huck is uneasy, having little experience telling the truth while in a predicament. He tells Mary Jane the truth, but asks her to wait at a relative's house until eleven that night to give him time to get away, since the fate of another person hangs in the balance.
He tells her about the Royal Nonesuch incident, saying that town will provide witnesses against the frauds. He instructs her to leave without seeing her "uncles," since her innocent face would give away their secret. He leaves her a note with the location of the money. She promises to remember him forever, and pray for him. Though Huck will never see her again, he will think of her often. Huck meets Susan and Joanna, and says Mary Jane has gone to see a sick relative.
The real Harvey, in an authentic English accent, explains the delay: The doctor again declares The Duke and Dauphin frauds, and has the crowd bring both real and fraudulent Wilks brothers to a tavern for examination. The frauds draw suspicion when they are unable to produce the six thousand dollars. A lawyer friend of the deceased has the Duke, Dauphin, and the real Harvey sign a piece of paper, then compares the writing samples to letters he has from the real Harvey. The frauds are disproved, but the Dauphin doesn't give up.
So the real Harvey declares he knows of a tattoo on his brother's chest, asking the undertaker who dressed the body to back him up. But after the Dauphin and Harvey say what they think the tattoo is, the undertaker declares there wasn't one at all. The mob cries out for the blood of all four men, but the lawyer instead sends them out to exhume the body and check for the tattoo themselves. The mob carries the four and Huckleberry with them.
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The mob is shocked to discover the gold in the coffn. In the excitement, Huck escapes. Passing the Wilks's house, he notices a light in the upstairs window. Huck steals a canoe and makes his way to the raft, and, exhausted, shoves off. Huck dances for joy on the raft, but his heart sinks as the Duke and Dauphin approach in a boat. The Dauphin nearly strangles Huck in Chapter Thirty, out of anger at his desertion.
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Subjects James, Ralph -- Childhood and youth. World War, -- Personal narratives, English. View all subjects More like this Similar Items. Allow this favorite library to be seen by others Keep this favorite library private. Find a copy in the library Finding libraries that hold this item Ralph James Find more information about: On Sunday 2 October, police with the assistance of Gordon Wardell, carried out a reconstruction of his movements on the Sunday night before his wife was found murdered. He retraced his steps, having left his home in Meriden, he had driven to Coventry to post some letters at the main sorting office before driving to a public house located in the suburbs of Coventry where he had two drinks before returning home to find his wife held at knife point.
Police hoped that the reconstruction, which was covered by local and national media, might jog someones memory so that they might come forward with new information. Early during the investigation, police began to suspect that Gordon Wardell's story was not all that it seemed. Wardell had previously been convicted of a serious sexual assault and grievous bodily harm in the s for which he had spent time in prison. This had brought him under suspicion. Members of the press had also discovered this and raised questions about it during press conferences.
During the police reconstruction of the night before the murder, Wardell visited a public house in Coventry called The Brooklands, but none of the staff nor customers remembered seeing Wardell in the pub. The manner under which Wardell had been found tied and gagged in his home also didn't make sense to investigating officers. He had described being attacked by two men approaching him from the side, just after he had entered his house. Officers noticed that there wasn't enough room near the door for two men to stand or hide. Wardell had been found by police in his underpants, tied and gagged on the living room floor.
It didn't make sense that police found Wardell's clothes and shoes had been placed carefully to one side near where he was found. Wardell had stated that he had been made unconscious by a drug administered via cloth that had been placed over his face. The drug had left him unconscious for several hours until police arrived the following morning. Experts had stated that there wasn't a drug that could be administered this way that would sedate Wardell for any more than a few minutes. A drug could have been injected but would have required medical knowledge and wouldn't have lasted for more than seven hours.
Police became aware that Wardell had been visiting prostitutes in the red light district of Coventry. Two of the prostitutes came forward to tell Police that they recognised Wardell from regular visits he'd made to them. On Thursday 20 October , Gordon Wardell was arrested on suspicion of his wife's murder. He was taken to Nuneaton police station to be questioned. Wardell was questioned at the police station for four days before being charged on the evening of 23 October with the murder of Carol Wardell.
The prosecution represented by Richard Wakerley QC alleged that Wardell had killed his own wife, dumped her body and then staged an "elaborate scheme" to "deceive and divert attention" away from himself. During the trial, the jury was told how Wardell had been found lying on his living room floor in his underpants.
He was gagged with a strip of cloth, his hands tied with plastic ratchet ties to a plastic refuse sack holder. Ambulance crews who attended the scene, noted that Wardell did not have a raised heart rate or high blood pressure, although appeared to have bruising to his stomach. Wardell told the court that he had returned home from the pub at 10pm to find his wife being held at knife point.
He was grabbed from the sides and forced to the ground. When asked if he had killed his wife, Wardell replied "Absolutely not. The trial lasted for six weeks, during which, witnesses were called. At the end of the trial the jury was sent out to consider its verdict. The jury deliberated for nine and half hours before returning a verdict of guilty. Mr Justice Cresswell told Wardell: This murder was an outrage to your wife and to her family.
On 21 December , Gordon Wardell was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Home Secretary set Wardell's minimum tariff to 18 years. In , through his solicitors, Gordon Wardell made an application under Schedule 22 or the Criminal Justice Act for his minimum term, the amount of time before which he would be eligible for parole, to be reduced. Mr Justice Teare who considered the application ruled that the minimum tariff of 18 years set by the Home Secretary would stand, less 14 months Wardell had already spent in custody awaiting trial.
Carol Wardell was described by John Stewart, CEO of The Woolwich as "very well respected and highly regarded" having worked for the company for 12 years. He also described her as "the perfect employee". In the days after the murder, local people left floral tributes at the front of the Woolwich branch in Nuneaton. Carol Wardell's funeral was held on 13 October , attended by more than of her friends and relatives.
Following the conviction of Gordon Wardell, Carol's mother, Joan Heslop said, "Carol will be able to rest now in peace. She loved life and was full of life. To have it taken away in such a way was terrible. It is located between Solihull and the city of Coventry, and is approximately 10 km from Birmingham Airport, the American city of Meriden, Connecticut is named after the village. Historically part of Warwickshire, the countryside, known as the Meriden Gap. It gives its name to the Meriden parliamentary constituency, which covers the Meriden Gap, the A45 bypass opened in In the United Kingdom Census the population of the Meriden parish was 2, and it is possibly the site of an Iron Age field system.
The original name of the village was Alspath and it was centred on the site of the parish church, over the period 15C to 17C the name Meriden gradually supplants that of Alspath. The chancel was extended in 13C, the aisle was added in the late 14C. In the church was restored again and the galleries were removed, legend favours the latter though, from onwards, the choice of 10 Aug for the Patronal feast day and the village fair would indicate the Roman Lawrence, so the issue remains unclear.
Here the Heart of England Way long-distance path wends its way and brings the Staffordshire Heathlands together with the Cotswolds, Meriden is also home to a memorial to all the cyclists who died in the First World War. An annual event, at thousands of cyclists pay their respects to their fallen colleagues. The memorial was unveiled on 21 May , in the presence of over 20, cyclists, some moated farmsteads and several timber-framed buildings can be seen in the village.
From until , Meriden was home to the large Triumph motorcycles production plant, in , Triumph workers blockaded the factory from the new owners, NVT, to prevent closure. The government loaned the subsequent Meriden Workers Co-Operative money to buy the factory, the sit-in and formation of the co-operative were the subject of much media interest including David Edgars contemporary play, Events Following The Closure Of A Motorcycle Factory.
Trading later as Triumph Motorcycles Ltd. A housing estate has been built on the site of the Triumph motorcycle factory at Meriden, road names on the estate include Triumph motorcycle model names such as Bonneville Close and Daytona Drive. A plaque commemorating the former use stands outside Bonneville Close. It covers the western half of the area known as the Midlands. The city of Coventry is also located within the West Midlands county, the region is geographically diverse, from the urban central areas of the conurbation to the rural western counties of Shropshire and Herefordshire which border Wales.
The highest point in the region is Black Mountain, at metres in west Herefordshire on the border with Powys, Wales. Served by many lines in the areas such as the West Coast Main Line. Numerous notable roads pass through the region, with most converging around the central conurbation, the M6 toll provides an alternative route to the M6 between Coleshill and Cannock, passing north of Sutton Coldfield and just south of Lichfield.
The M40 connects the region through South East England to London, with its terminus at its junction with the M42, it passes close to Warwick. The M54 connects Wellington in the west, passing Telford, to the M6 near Cannock, the A5 road traverses the region northwest-southeast, passing through Shrewsbury, Telford, Cannock, Tamworth and Nuneaton. As part of the planning system, the Regional Assembly is under statutory requirement to produce a Regional Transport Strategy to provide long term planning for transport in the region. This involves region wide transport schemes such as those carried out by the Highways Agency, within the region, the local transport authorities carry out transport planning through the use of a Local Transport Plan which outlines their strategies, policies and implementation programme.
The transport authority of Stoke-on-Trent U. A, Major towns and cities in the West Midlands region include, Bold indicates city status. The region is based on the former region of Mercia.