Classic Scottish Murder Stories (41 page)

By the light of the candle, while all those present watched, William peered at his father's face and saw that one eye was shut, and the other open. His lips quivered a little, and he was just breathing. William sent the maid out to fetch William Spence, a servant who was drying corn at the kiln, and when
they returned, the open eye was half closed, and the Kleathing ceased. The maid was sent out again, to fetch John and Ann Keith, the laird's brother and sister. According to Elspet Bruce, when she returned with the two kin, Northfield's body had already been taken out of bed and ‘streikit upon a deal' (laid out on a board). According to Helen and William Keith, this was not done until the brother and sister had arrived. It was now about 10.00pm.

Next morning, George Keith came storming round to look after his inheritance. It is possible that he had not, until then, heard of the provisions of the will, and he was not pleased. Elspet sent him in to view his father's corpse and the events then became horribly out of the ordinary, with far-reaching consequences. There was a ‘blae mark' around the neck. This was new to Elspet and she had a look and she, too, saw the blue mark, about the breadth of two fingers, and also a ‘blae spot' on the breast. Whether or not they were misinterpreting
post mortem
signs out of lack of knowledge and distress, or whether these were genuine signs that, as William expressed it to the maid, there had been foul play, is the crux of the Northfield mystery. The widow and William were to offer a practical explanation which was not quite consistent, one to each. There is also the possibility that, out of malice, George was deliberately magnifying an innocent occurrence in order to bring down the hated step-family.

There was ample evidence that the blae marks did exist. William Taylor, the loyal servant, lifted the cloth from his master's face when he was ‘streikit' and saw a blue mark on the neck, about the breadth of three fingers, but could not say if it went all round the neck. John Strachan, wright of Gardenstoun, who made the laird's coffin and put in the corpse, stated that young Northfield turned down the grave-clothes and showed him a mark round the forepart of the neck, but he did not see the back. There was a mark reaching down towards the ‘slot' of the breast. Both marks were of a
blackish blue, like the neck of a fowl newly strangled. James King, Strachan's assistant, saw a black-red mark round the neck, such as he had never seen before on a corpse. Alexander Hepburn, of Cushnie, who was present, saw some blue spots on the breast, and a ‘blue girth' that went round the neck, and it was like ‘bruised blood'. On the back of the neck he saw a mark ‘like what is occasioned by a knot drawn strait'. No one else described a knot mark. No doctor was called to the corpse. There was no procedure for certification of death. It was up to lay people to assess when life had ceased, to hover with feathers and mirrors. No wonder that premature burial was a real fear.

The widow was standing by at the ‘chesting', and she heard the mutterings. Hepburn considered that she seemed unwilling to have the corpse inspected, saying that there was nothing unseemly to be seen. She helped to put in the body, and as the coffin was rather ‘scrimp' in length, she pressed the head down into it – an unseemly action, one would have thought. Taylor said that no one was actually hindered from looking at the corpse.

He, Taylor, now publicly asked the widow what was the meaning of the blae mark. She replied that it was caused by a string tied around the neck in life ‘for holding on a plaister'. William Keith's explanation, given even more publicly, on a later occasion, was that a blistering plaster had been applied to the back, and when it was taken off, kail blades were put to the same place and tied on with the laird's garters, which went below the armpits and round the farther sides of the neck. The feasibility of this weird arrangement was never challenged, so perhaps it was in common use: they must have been long garters, going several times round the leg to secure the breeches. Cabbage leaves are still used in country districts for various inflammatory conditions.

The garters stayed in that position until the grave linen was put on, when William allowed that he did see a blue spot on the
left breast, about the breadth of three fingers, but tffire was nothing that he saw around the neck: the whole body was grossly swollen. So there was a denial of the neck mark seen by others and not denied by William's mother. A ‘string' is not the same as an arrangement of garters.

That night in the house of mourning, with its strained atmosphere, George Keith was sitting by the corpse. Mrs Keith asked William what George should have for his supper, whereupon, and William Taylor heard this, William Keith, 17-years-old, hospitably remarked that a ‘guid full of the dog's meat was good enough for him: he had no business there, and little hindered him to take a gun to shoot him.'

The time came to discuss the day for the burial. There was a dispute: the widow wanted it on the following Thursday, but George Keith wanted to wait until the Saturday. The Thursday it was. On that day, the Reverend James Wilson was placed in an awkward position. George Keith had taken him upstairs for a private word, to tell him that his father had not got justice in his death. He begged the minister to look at the body and advise him how to act, but Mr Taylor declined, pleading ignorance in such matters and bidding him to consult the medical fraternity. Alone with the responsibility of his suspicions – if they were genuinely based – George objected that he had already written to Mr Finlay, surgeon of Fraserburgh, and had heard in return that he ‘could do nothing single' and advised him to seek the assistance of the two physicians at Banff. Nothing more was heard of Mr Finlay, nor did Dr Chap, who had washed his hands and left two plasters, reappear in any guise.

As they were talking in the upstairs room, George Keith and the minister suddenly saw from the window that the corpse, which had been waiting outside the house, had gone without them. It was three to four miles to the graveyard. The young laird left in pursuit of the cortège, on foot, and the minister set off on horseback. George caught up after one and
a half miles. Soon afterwards, George wrote a letter to his uncle, James Gordon, of Techmuiry (who was brother to Northfield's first wife) expressing his strong suspicion that his father had been strangled by Helen and William Keith, and asking how to proceed. The uncle advised him not to prosecute unless he had clear evidence. He himself did not attend the funeral, and never had much to do with Northfield after his second marriage, which he considered to have been a disgraceful affair. He did go to his niece's wedding (that was the daughter from the first marriage) but only on condition that Helen Keith was not admitted.

The air was thick with accusation, and those who lived and worked around them were intrigued to note that the widow and her cherished young William were beginning to fall out after the funeral. William told a servant, Janet Watt, that his mother was a liar, a thief, and a murderer. William Taylor, who saw, heard and knew everything, overheard William saying to his mother that if it had been her four quarters, his father might have been living yet. The meaning of ‘four quarters' is obscure: it might refer to the portions of the settlement on the estate; or to instalments of her allowance; or, in an old meaning used here to belittle, a quarter was a farthing. His mother would never get justice, William was said to have continued in the same unfilial vein, till she was hung up beside William Wast, and he, William Keith, would be happy to pull on her feet. This ghastly reference was to a felon of the same parish, a ship's captain who had murdered his wife and had been executed in 1752, his body left hanging in chains at Aberdeen for many years.

James Booth, a tailor of Banff, came upon Helen and William Keith quarrelling in his house. The mother said to her son, ‘I know as much of you as would get you hanged.' This dreadful state of affairs continued for ten years. The widow and her five children had to vacate the big house in favour of the rightful heir. William Keith grew to manhood, married and
had children. He was not living with his mother. At the time of the harvest of 1761, the widow went to William Keith and offered her services as a shearer, but he turned her away, remarking to his shearers that his mother would never get justice till she was hanged.

When he had, at first, been living with his mother, William had been afflicted with ‘ghosts and apparitions', like Macbeth. Isobel Robertson, a servant, knew all about it: the young man was trying to sleep in the bed in which his father had died, but was ‘troubled' and a lad, James Irvine, was deputed to share the bed with him. There was a rumour that he was afraid of his stepbrother, George.

The Church and the Faculty of Medicine had failed him, but eventually, still in the grip of his obsession, whether or not it was justified, George Keith turned to the law for retribution. He had no new evidence. Certain witnesses who might have supported the widow's side had died. He had marshalled a formidable band of witnesses to buttress his assertions. It was ten years after the event when George Keith laid information and set on the prosecution of his stepmother and stepbrother.

He himself was not allowed to testify at the trial of Helen and William Keith on July 13th, 1766, because it was argued that he had acted as an agent, attended the precognition, and directed the questions to be put to the witnesses. The proceedings were remarkable in so many ways. The defence objected that the judge had left the court on one occasion, so that anyone could have approached the jury, but it turned out that he had only retired to a corner for the benefit of a little fresh air. A member of the jury, William Forbes of Skellater, found himself in deep trouble for absconding and being seen making for the New Inn, but he had, he claimed, gone out on a necessary occasion.

The long and singular indictment charged that after the execution of the will, the prisoners became impatient for
Northfield's death in order to obtain the benefits, but as counsel for the two Keiths pointed out, they were in fact better off before the death of the laird, following which the heir came into his inheritance. Furthermore, it did not make sense that they should ‘wantonly imbrue their hands in the blood of a husband and a father, merely to obtain a few days, perhaps a few hours, earlier possession of the moderate allowance which he had left them.'

What was really needed was medical evidence as to the condition of Northfield's body both before and after death, but, as we have seen, none was available. The only medical evidence came from Dr Alexander Irvine, of Banff, who stated that the blue marks, as described, could not, in his experience, have been caused by any disease in the absence of external violence. Counsel for the defence, however, well argued that the jury should bear in mind ‘how various the appearances of dead bodies often are', and that the marks were spoken of by ‘ignorant country people' remembering events that had taken place ten years previously.

The indictment, incidentally, charged that ‘there had been no such plaister or dressing tied on with garters upon the deceased that evening' but no evidence to support that important contention, framed in the mind of George Keith, has survived. Years afterwards, it began to be suggested that the blue marks were, in fact, hypostatic lividity, which theory might be supported by the vivid words of the coffin-maker, John Strachan, to the effect that the marks were of a blackish blue, like the neck of a fowl newly strangled. Such changes begin to develop an hour or two after death.

The jury, however, convicted both parties by a majority of nine to six, for what was the future science of forensic pathology to William Forbes of Skellater (even though that gentleman was, as it happens, of the precedent family of Dr Forbes Winslow, famous Victorian alienist)? Quite soon, Helen and William Watt were granted a free pardon, but William
died within a few weeks from an unknown cause. ThQinother lived on into obscurity. Their behaviour certainly had been suspicious, but, as recorded, it arose only after George Keith had seen and possibly misinterpreted the condition of the body.

There was no feasibly discernible motive for murder. Why kill a dying man when euthanasia is not an issue? Why kill and render your own position in life less comfortable? They knew that would be the result. There were no great expectations. If murder it was, could it have arisen out of a sudden access of hatred and revulsion? Helen Keith had complained about her husband's temper. Romantic love had fled. Perhaps he enjoyed reminding her about her humble origins. She was tired. It was late. There were two young children. She was going to be ousted from her home. It was not fair. She was expected to nurse an invalid who was described as valetudinarian. It was all getting on her nerves. We are told that he had ‘purged' in the room after spooning up his meal of slops, which he then imagined that he had instantly eliminated. He was in her power. Did he say something not piteous but taunting, and did she then fall upon him in front of young William's horrified eyes, and did his already weak and failing heart then give out after even a modicum of violence?

J
ames Humphrey was a butcher, who also kept a public house in a poor part of Aberdeen. Catherine, his wife, was a scold, a virago, and the excess of matrimonial drinking made worse the war between them. Everyone knew that Kate hated her husband. She was a shrew, constantly threatening to kill him. Once she had rhetorically asked someone to fetch her some laudanum, to finish him off. There was a wretched, scuttling servant who saw her with a knife clutched in her bony hand, making play to cut Master's throat. An innocent bystander was treated to the sight of a melodramatic tableau: Humphrey was exposing his neck and inviting his wife to use the long razor in her hand. ‘There,' he said, ‘do it now, for you will do it some time.' Both parties had a picturesque turn of phrase. He said that she would swing for him yet, with her face looking down Marischal Street after him.