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The Green Bicycle Mystery (2)
Perhaps the most valuable information was supplied
after the inquest by a cycle repairer named Cox, who said that he had had dealings with a
man who had a green bicycle. The verdict of the coroner's jury was an "open"
one, that is to say, " murder against some person or persons unknown."
There the matter was destined to rest for many months.
It was a most mysterious crime. What was the motive? There was no evidence in the road
where the body was found that a struggle had taken place. Robbery was out of the question.
At all events, none had been committed. It seemed that the unfortunate girl, while riding
home on her bicycle, had been deliberately shot by somebody on the left side of her ; that
she had pitched head foremost into the road, her bicycle falling a few yards away. Not far
from where the tragedy was enacted was a gate, tied with rope, and in the adjoining field
was discovered the dead body of what was at first called a raven, but which subsequently
turned out to be a carrion crow. Some said it had gorged on the blood o~
Bella Wright and had died as a consequence. Others
maintained the bird had been shot and had bled inwardly. As the case progressed a good
deal of controversy went on about this dead and, in the circumstances, peculiarly sinister
bird.
It seemed at one time that the murder of Bella Wright
was destined to be added to the already long list of " unsolved mysteries " -
those grim and impenetrable crimes, for which no culprit is ever taken - when suddenly a
strange development took place. This happened in the February of 1920. On the 23rd, a
barge was being towed along the canal when the man in charge noticed something which had
been "fished" from the bed of the stream hanging to the tow-rope. Before he
could get hold of it, however, it slipped off the rope and fell into the water. It was
later recovered and found to be a portion of a bicycle - a green bicycle ! The police
being informed, dragging operations at once began in the canal. It was not long before
other portions of the bicycle came to light. The police found also a revolver holster and
many cartridges. In these operations a curious telescopic instrument was employed, by
means of which a good view of the bed of the canal could be obtained.
It began to look as though the canal was at last
giving up the secret of the Green Bicycle Murder; for when the police came to look closely
at the various parts of the machine they discovered the maker's number. This was stamped
in two places, on the outside of the saddle support and on the inside of it. The number on
the outside had been scratched off by some one. The one inside, however, enabled the
police to trace the maker of the machine. The makers, in their turn, were able to inform
the police to whom they had sold the bicycle, and this turned out to be an agent at
Leicester. This agent, it was found, had in his turn sold the machine to a man named
Light.
Thus, step by step, the police were guided to the
mysterious man who rode that fateful green bicycle on the summer evening when Bella Wright
met her tragic end.
For some years Ronald Light had been in the service of
the Midland Railway Company as a draughtsman. He was then living in lodgings at Derby,
where he remained from November, 1906, until August, 1914. In October, 1914, he returned
to his parent's home at Leicester. Shortly after, he obtained a commission in the
artillery. Before the Armistice he was demobilised, suffering from shell-shock. Five
months before the death of Bella Wright and six months afterwards he was living at
Leicester. In 1910 he had bought a bicycle, a B.S.A., enamelled green, for which he had
certain fittings specially made; and the day before the murder he took this bicycle to a
repairer in Leicester to whom it was said he made a false statement. On the following day
he took the machine away. The repairer noticed that Light was wearing a raincoat and that
he spoke in a squeaky voice. An important observation, for a similar peculiarity was
alleged by witnesses to have characterised "The Man on the Green Bicycle."
Light did not return to his mother's house (his father
was dead) till late on the night of the day of the murder. He was then wheeling his
machine. He told the female servant that he had had a breakdown. Facts that told against
him were that after that night he did not use the machine again, that he was known
to have possessed a revolver, and that the bullet, found in the road, which was supposed
to have caused the death of Bella Wright, was of pre-1915 pattern.
On the strength of all these details elicited by the
police, they felt justified in arresting Ronald Light, and charging him with the murder of
Bella Wright. When at first he was detained, Light said:
"What is this stunt? I sold the machine before I
left Derby. I am not sure whether it was a B.S.A. bicycle. I sold a Raleigh in September,
1919 to an ex-officer I met in Leicester. He kept a motor-bicycle at a garage near the
Bell Hotel."
Light was put up in the usual way for identification
and a number of people picked him out. When eventually he was formally arrested he said,
"It is absurd."
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