As John lay in hospital after being helped in the street, the police went to the house, and there they found what John had mumbled that he had seen: the body of Edward Moyse lying in bed, with his head battered. The officers found a scene that made it clear that a desperate struggle had taken place; there was plenty of blood around, and the killer had obviously been searching for a supposed stash of money. All that was found by police was a sum of £8, under the old man’s pillow.

The killer had not done a good job on young John; the boy recovered, and he was questioned by the police. What could he remember about this brutal killer? There seemed to be nothing remarkable at first; any passing vagrant hearing rumours of the miser could have done this and then drifted away elsewhere. But John brought to mind something very particular about this killer: his face twitched. There was decent lead, and the community was told about this, and that the police were very keen to find a man in his twenties, possibly a seaman, with a twitch across his face.

A woman came forward, and he was arrested at his father’s home in Edgeware Street. He was William Miller, and he was indeed a seafaring man. He was cool under pressure, and came up with an alibi about the blood-covered shirt found in his room. He was quick to come up with a story that he had done some work at the slaughterhouse in Gill Street. The police took him there to test the alibi, and he confidently took them to a part of the building where he said he had been working just a few weeks before this. As they were in the presence of a pile of carcasses, this seemed to help him tell his tale about doing the work there.