Word: ratanji
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Because Dr. Hakim Bakhtyar Rustomji Ratanji, who legally changed his name to Buck Ruxton, strangled his wife and the pretty nursemaid who saw him do it, subsequently dismembered his victims and threw the bloody fragments into a Scottish ravine known as The Devil's Beef tub (TIME, March 23), British Justice last week hanged this murderer in the courtyard of Strangeways Jail, Manchester...
...carpets spread out in the rain in the back yard, and the bath tub stained a curious yellow most difficult to scrub clean. After she had done her work, Mrs. Hampshire had pressed upon her by her Oriental creditor a blue serge suit with bloodstains all over it. Explained Ratanji, "I cut my finger opening a can." The waistcoat was so badly stained that even the frugal charwoman could think of nothing to do with it except burn...
During the trial there was no direct evidence against Ratanji-Ruxton because nobody had seen him kill or dismember so much as a fly. The Crown produced the patched blouse in which a faceless head had been found wrapped in The Devil's Beef Tub and asked the stepmother of Mary Jane Rogerson to comment upon it as a witness before the jury. "Yes, that is the blouse," said Mrs. Rogerson. "I can tell because I put on the patch. It was an old blouse, but I bought it at a jumble sale for Mary - she had wanted...
This was considered last week the most damaging link in the chain of circumstantial evidence drawn by the Crown about the accused man's neck. On the last day of the trial, Ratanji jittered, wept, frequently wiped with a handkerchief his profusely perspiring hands. Yet there was still no direct evidence. After the jury verdict of guilty, Justice Singleton put on the black cap which in Britain means that sentence of Death is to be pronounced. "The law knows but one sentence," he cried, "for the terrible crime you have committed...
...sentenced to hang by the neck until dead, the Mohammedan seemed stunned. Then suddenly Hakim Bakhtyar Rustomji Ratanji came to himself and without jittering or trembling gave his British judge with upraised arm the salute of Oriental warriors. As two wardens came to lead him from the prisoner's dock, Ratanji gave the same salute to the uncomfortable, astonished British jury...