Zachariah Osborne is exposed and arrested at Priors Court

The visit to Priors Court turns an investigation into a public reversal: Zachariah Osborne arrives expecting to help expose Mr Venables, only to be identified as the man who killed Father Gorman and tried to frame the wheelchair-using suspect. Divisional Detective-Inspector Lejeune reveals how the Pale Horse murder organization operated and then dismantles Osborne’s accusation, making the supposed witness to the crime its actual perpetrator.

The visit to Priors Court

Some three weeks after Lejeune’s assurance that the police would pursue the killer, a car brings four men to the front door of Priors Court: Mark Easterbrook, Lejeune, Detective-Sergeant Lee, and Osborne. Osborne is unusually eager to join the party and treats his presence as a privilege, although he admits he does not understand everything. Lejeune tells him to keep quiet. That instruction acquires an unintended force as the interview proceeds: Osborne has been brought along not simply to support the inquiry, but because the evidence has turned against him.

Lejeune rings for Mr Venables and calmly asks to see him. The visitors enter together, forming what Mark describes as a deputation. Venables receives them with extreme courtesy and shows no outward surprise. His measured response and distinctive appearance make him a striking presence in the room, but Lejeune meets him without aggression. He says the police believe Venables may be able to assist with a matter, an opening that Venables recognizes as familiar and answers with pointed curiosity. The exchange begins as an interview with a suspected man; its purpose is to reveal what the police know about the organization and its crimes.

The organization and its method

Lejeune identifies the headquarters of the operation as the Pale Horse. Venables immediately associates the inquiry with Thyrza Grey and dismisses her claims as nonsense, describing the circle around her as a medium, a local witch, and a group that has acquired a reputation in the neighbourhood. He questions whether the police could really take such supernatural claims seriously. Lejeune’s answer separates the appearance of the operation from its practical means: the deaths are not caused by a trance or black magic, but by thallium poisoning.

Lejeune then explains the financial arrangement. A disbarred solicitor, C.R. Bradley, handles business from an office in Birmingham. A prospective client makes a bet with him on whether a named person will die within a specified period; Bradley usually predicts that the death will not occur, while the client takes the more hopeful side. If Bradley wins, the money must be paid promptly, with unpleasant consequences for a client who fails to settle. The arrangement disguises a murder commission as a wager. Bradley’s role is to organize the financial transaction, while the killing is carried out by other means.

The accusation reverses

The police have not relied on Venables’s reputation or on Osborne’s confidence alone. Lejeune describes surveillance and concealed photography, explaining that people can be photographed without realizing it and that disguises such as false moustaches and different dentures can be penetrated by recognition. Katherine Corrigan, who had used the alias Mrs Mark Easterbrook, and Edith Binns have both recognized the man sought by the police. Lejeune also says that Osborne is willing to swear he saw Venables following Father Gorman in Barton Street on the night of October 7, at about eight o’clock.

Osborne eagerly reinforces that identification, insisting that he described Venables exactly. Lejeune turns the precision of the accusation into the reason it fails. Osborne had not been standing outside his shop as he claimed: he was across the street, following Father Gorman. He followed the priest until he turned into West Street, caught up with him, and killed him. Osborne’s apparent contribution as a witness thus becomes the disclosure of his own movements on the night of the murder. Venables had been cast as the pursuer; the police now identify Osborne as the person who actually followed Father Gorman.

Exposure and arrest

Lejeune makes the reversal explicit by introducing Osborne as a pharmacist formerly of Barton Street, Paddington. Osborne, who has been under observation, planted a packet of thallium salts in Venables’s potting shed. He did so without knowing about Venables’s disability and had privately made Venables the villain of the case; his persistence in that false theory led him to refuse to admit his own mistake. The planted poison was therefore not evidence of Venables’s guilt but part of Osborne’s attempt to direct suspicion toward him.

When Osborne protests that he has done things and can do things the others do not understand, Lejeune answers by reminding him that he should have left the matter alone. He then gives the formal warning that Osborne’s words will be taken down. The confrontation ends with Osborne screaming, while the police have exposed both his murder of Father Gorman and his effort to incriminate Venables. His excitement at being included in the visit has become the scene’s central irony: he accompanies the investigators to help identify a supposed criminal, and is instead confronted with the evidence that makes him the criminal they came to arrest.