AN UNSCRUPULOUS WOMAN.
Some years ago I was retained to penetrate the mystery of a case in manyrespects not very unlike the celebrated Road murder; and I was to bringthe criminal to justice if possible. It was a case of child murder. Thehouse in which the horrid deed was perpetrated was a cottage, standingin the midst of ample grounds--perhaps ten acres in extent--communicatingwith a turnpike-road, not much used or frequented, and along which novehicles passed, except those going to or from the cottage or anadjacent farm-house.
I feel that I am at liberty to indicate the locality of this deed nofurther than to say, it was in a south of England county.
In order to explain the nature of the case I should, however, remark,that the occupiers of the cottage were, a gentleman who had retired froma business in London, his wife, children, and servants.
The man was cynical, misanthropical, and morbidly disposed to seclusion.He was an eccentric man, and he every where excited prejudices againsthimself. Even the retirement of this cottage was not so complete as toexclude him wholly from contact with the world, or to shut him in fromthese prejudices.
He had married--much later in life than is usual with prosperousmen--about a year before he took up his abode in the place I havedescribed. His wife had been a poor young woman, although ratherbeautiful, and, in my opinion, her amiability and goodness compensatedto such a man for her lack of intellectual qualifications.
At the time I speak of there were living in this cottage Mr. Robinson,his wife, their two infant children, and two general domesticservants--one of whom, a young woman about twenty-three years of age,they had brought with them from London to this retreat in the south ofEngland.
One morning in June, Mrs. Robinson arose from her bed about half-pastsix o'clock, and before dressing herself, as was her custom, she crossedthe straggling passage and drawing and dining room to a chamber beyond,in which her children and the servant, who performed the duties ofnursemaid, were supposed to be sleeping. Two of them were sleeping. Shewas, however, astonished to observe that one appeared cold to the touch.In amazement and horror the poor woman discovered that the third--heryoungest child--was sleeping in the embrace of death!
The bereaved mother rushed frantically to her husband, who was justawakening from his slumbers, and she roused him to perfect consciousnessby her shrieks and wild ejaculations. The husband was soon astir, andevery body seemed, as every body ought to have been, affected by intensegrief.
The loudest interest and most demonstrative agony was that poured outin sobs, tears, interjections, and apostrophes--all vague, incoherent,indefinite--by the nursemaid.
I will not dwell upon the frightful incident, nor attempt to sketch indetail the lamentations and misery of that household. It may suffice toobserve, that wicked rumour said all sorts of uncharitable things. Thelocal gossips were immensely dissatisfied with the proceedings at theinquest;--the acumen of the coroner, or the want thereof; and thesagacity of his jurymen, or its deficiency. Among the dreadful factsasserted by rumour (which, let me observe, is, in nineteen out of twentycases, altogether wrong in her suspicions and asseverations) in thiscase, were charges of improper intimacy between the nursemaid and themaster, and jealousy on the part of this girl towards her mistress,which had, it was suggested, led up to the perpetration of the crime,through a desire to wreak vengeance out of a mother's agony. Oneingenious theorist--a sort of local oracle in the estimation of many,and the possessor of all wisdom in his own--hinted that the mean,selfish, egotistical tradesman, Mr. Robinson, afraid lest his childrenshould encroach too rapidly on his accumulated profits, had hit upon theTurkish expedient for thinning families; using, in this case, the handof his dishonoured servant to carry out his infamous design.
The surgeon who made a post-mortem examination--a man by no meansunskilful in his profession--who declined to say whether the inclinationof his belief favoured the theory of an accidental death or of wilfulmurder, did, however, upon oath, admit that it was possible the childmight have been smothered by its nurse in the course of a night quiteaccidentally.
The coroner's jury were for two hours very much divided in opinion aboutwhat verdict they should return. Some were for a verdict of wilfulmurder against Mr. Robinson. One man would have liked to have brought ina verdict that would have handed over his wife to the tender mercies ofJack Ketch. In justification of the eleven others I may add, that astrong disposition was felt, amid the solemnity of that investigation,to inflict corporal punishment upon the stupidest fellow. A very strongdesire was felt in the breast of more than the majority to return averdict of wilful murder against the nurse, either with or withoutyoking her master in that condemnation. The coroner was consulted, and,with an immense amount of circumlocution, which mightily puzzled andconfused his sapient aids, that functionary gave it as his opinion thatno evidence before the jury was sufficient to justify a verdict ofwilful murder against any one. He also ventured to tell the jury thatthey had better, perhaps, find what he called "an open verdict;" that isto say, one of "wilful murder," without divining the culprit, or one of"found dead," and leave the cause of death an obviously more openquestion still.
About this time I was consulted by a gentleman, without the interventionof any lawyer, and I was requested to look up the facts in an impartialmanner; my directions being to nothing extenuate, nor set down aught inmalice.
Who was this gentleman? What his motive? What the latent desire hereally had? Who did he wish to clear, and upon whom may he have desiredto fix the doom of punishment attaching to the supposed crime, I must beexcused from stating.
Just before my visitor called upon me to undertake this matter, I hadreceived instructions to investigate a case of forgery upon a bank, to alarge extent. I was to receive, as a reward for my services in this caseof forgery, a very liberal fee; and I had also, as I have always had, adistaste for investigations into the mystery of deeds of blood. I havenever been the agent through whom a culprit's neck has been encircled bya halter. That is an awful responsibility (for fear of mistake) that Ihave always shrunk from. Frankly, let me say, I would rather haveavoided this engagement altogether, and I did, I think, very gracefullyescape from personal action in the matter, by showing my visitor aletter enclosing an instalment of one hundred pounds on account of myfee over the forgery case. He was a man of business, and saw at oncethat I could not be expected to give up a lucrative and comparativelyeasy job of that kind for the less remunerative, and in any event lessagreeable, inquiry he desired me to prosecute. I, however, took hisretainer, upon the understanding and condition that I should act in thiscase by a deputy, and simply overlook and generally superintend oradvise and direct my assistant's labours.
The reader may as well be informed, that through the intervention of afriend of my visitor's, my assistant was provided with lodging in thecottage, and was told to use that sequestered retreat of commercialease as the central point of his investigations.
I accordingly employed the best man I could get or spare from the othercase I had in hand, in which I needed some assistance, and sent thatperson down to the south of England.
I don't think this man was quite up to his work. Of course I had notformed that opinion when I set him about the job; but a review of whattranspired now inclines me to think he made a too palpable show of hissuspicions. He made no secret of his quality, or the work he had inhand; but for this he _may_ have had adequate reasons.
Mr. and Mrs. Robinson were both convinced that the murder (if murder itwas) had not been committed by any one in their household. They wereboth prepared to spend any amount of money in defence of their suspectedservant, if she had been arrested on suspicion. They had come to theconclusion that the sad affair was the result of an accident,--which wasnot an over-strained hypothesis.
If, however, it was a case of murder, for which there seemed no apparentmotive, it must have been committed by somebody obtaining access fromthe outside to the room in which the child was sleeping; and a cursoryexamination of the place showed my
man it was by no means a difficultthing to obtain both access and egress through a window opening upon aside of the cottage. My man would have arrived at the conclusion verysoon that the death of the poor child had been caused by accident, andwould have returned to London, but for the not over reconditesuspicions generated under his own eye in the cottage itself.
Very curious to know his opinion, very eager in the suggestion ofcontrary and improbable theories, and very profuse in expressions ofregard for Mrs. Robinson and "dear little Willie," was the nursemaid.She followed my man about with a closeness which seemed to indicate akind of fascination or terror. At least this is what he told me hethought of her conduct. This alone marked out that girl as the murderessto his mind, and he resolved to linger as long as he could, with adecent show of appearances, in the cottage, thoroughly confident thatsomething would turn up to fix the crime on her, and perhaps somebodyelse in connexion with her.
The room assigned to him was a rather capacious and tolerablycomfortable one, adjoining that through which the little child passed toheaven, and some distance from the chamber in which its nurse had sleptsince the "accident." Of course my man was not superstitious, and had nounnatural fears--to which circumstance, perhaps, may be ascribed thefact that he left his dressing-case open and his razors loose during hisstay at the cottage.
My man was moreover not afraid of ghosts, which perhaps was fortunate.The window-catch was broken, and the lock of the door was so dilapidatedthat it would have kept no impudent dog or cat from entering, and itafforded the room no protection against intruding spirits.
One night, about a week after his arrival at the cottage, he had falleninto a sleep,--such a sleep as a man of his profession might be allowed,a sort of permanent half-wakefulness, in which the footfall of an elfwould have aroused consciousness without stirring a muscle or raising aneyelid, and from which a salute of artillery could not have disturbedhim abruptly enough to produce a quiver or a twitch of skin ormuscle,--when that insecure door did open, and the form of a woman, inher night-dress, appeared at his bedside.
Her step excited the wakefulness of my man as he lay with his face tothe door. He gently opened his eyes wide enough to enable him to examineand measure the form of the nocturnal visitor, without permitting her tonotice the effect of her presence. He saw her glance round the room,which the beams of the moon lighted up sufficiently to exhibit theseveral articles on the toilet-table and elsewhere. My man thought hisinterrupter's eyes fell upon the loose razors, and he availed himself ofthe opportunity afforded by the turning of her face aslant from his bedto disengage his arms somewhat from the bedclothes. He was now preparedto meet an attack upon him by her with his own material weapons.
He had misunderstood the woman's object in visiting his bedchamber thatnight.
She turned again in the direction of the bed. He now thought it prudentto let her see that she was noticed. He coolly raised himself up on hishaunches, and fixed his eyes upon her.
"What do you want here?" he rather sternly inquired; and the wordsseemed to alarm her.
She replied, in faltering accents and spasmodic sentences, "What? I wantto see you. Why do you look at me all day? What do you mean by lookingat me as you do? Do you mean to say that I killed Willie? Say any thingagainst me, and I will ruin you. Promise me you won't say any thingagainst me, or I will scream out."
Then steadily glancing at him, she uttered what no doubt were about theonly words she had intended to say, "If you don't promise me here, asyou are sitting in that bed, that you don't suspect me, that you won'tsay any thing against me, that you won't look at me as you do and try tomake people suspect me, I will cry out. I will say that you have takenimproper liberties with me; that you have seduced me; that I have beenawakened in my sleep by conscience, and am afraid of your other evildesigns."
"Oh, you will, will you? And what then?"
"What then? Why, won't people say that, after getting me to come hereand sleep with you, you denounced me in order to cover your own improperconduct?"
My man admits that he thought this "devilish clever." If he had not beenthe intended victim, I believe he was so enamoured of the skill of thisyoung woman that he might have offered to take her into a detectivepartnership, and set up in business with her in opposition to me. But hesaw his danger, and did not like being made the object of an experimentwith such very fatal incidents surrounding it.
He seized her wrists with one hand, and with the other thrust her fromthe bedside, placed his hands in so doing over her lips, seized one ofthe razors lying on the table, and held it before her eyes to terrifyher, saying nothing, however, which had reference to that instrument;then he suddenly dropped it near the spot where they were standing,seized her again, and shouted with all his might.
My man was not to be outwitted.
He charged this young woman with having stolen into his bedroom, knowingit to be unfastened, when she calculated that he would be asleep, andknowing also that he had been imprudent enough during his stay in thehouse to leave his razors on the toilet-table. He declared that he awokejust as she was in the act of putting the razor to her own throat,intending to commit suicide in his room, with the intention, it wassuggested, of fastening upon him the crime of her murder.
It will only be necessary to further inform the reader, that although noevidence could be procured sufficient to maintain an indictment forwilful murder against this nurse, and although it was generally believedthat she had committed the murder (a fact about which I had my doubts,for I believe the child was accidentally smothered in its sleep, aschildren often are), no evidence was offered to the jury in support ofan indictment for the capital offence; but she was accused and punishedfor the attempted suicide.