There was an unwritten rule of thumb: the person who killed a woman was always her husband. Yet Boulton had an alibi when Anne died.
It was the hottest July on record. The sweltering, overcast weather made staying indoors unbearable, so Anne Boulton crossed the gravel path into the gardens at Soho. Boulton tended his garden with great care. It had greenery, grottoes, and fountains, and, at the gardener's suggestion, he had built a waterfall whose water ran from a pond on the hillside all the way down to the lake below.
There was a boathouse on the island in the lake, as well as a mill that was still in use. The little pond above had a small greenhouse. People of that era loved collecting plants, and in 1778 Boulton decorated the small pond with a giant seashell, purely for ornament.
Still, it was pleasantly cool beneath the dense trees. A woman carrying beer to the hayfield saw Anne walking by the pond. Ten minutes later, she found Anne lying face down in a patch of shallow water. Boulton was in Coventry at the time. Though he claimed, "My heart is at home," he did not return until evening.
He could not possibly have committed the crime himself, and people likewise found it hard to believe that Mr. Boulton would murder his second wife. He had not written poems for her and placed them in her coffin as he had for Mary, nor had he set up a gravestone in the garden. Yet after Anne's death, his health suffered, as though Anne had taken away all his joy and happiness.
With an alibi and no evidence, who would suspect such a pitiful man?
When Katie Bell touched the cursed necklace, Harry immediately accused Draco. Though it was eventually proven