The Female Detective (18 page)

“But the following eccentricity of this catastrophe is the most marvellous in the whole history. The counterpane and the sheet must have been very considerably displaced by the removal of the blanket from between them. And yet we find them not only not disrupted, but smoothed, and arranged as though the bed had been made
after
the murder and before its discovery. Yet this is not so, for the impression of the child's body is found on the bed, and beneath the smoothed sheets.

“Now, whether the child were removed living or dead from the bed, the re-arrangement of the bed-clothing is inexplicable. Would a sentient murderer, or even a sentient child-thief, have remained to rearrange the sheet and counterpane? Again, if two accomplices were not present, the one murderer would have had to lay the child down while the sheet and counterpane were smoothed. Could the child, if alive when removed from the room, have slept through all these extraordinary proceedings without waking?

“Now comes the removal of the body from the house. The drawing-room window is found open, and this is the only exit from the house discovered unfastened. It is a remarkable fact that this window is the most distant means of exit out of the house from the spot at which the body was found.

“To reach that closet, the person carrying the child had to pass round
the front
of the house, and between it and the road, then to pass the yard-gates, behind which was a watch-dog, and so reach the closet. The closet reached, the child's body is slashed in the most horrible manner, the head is nearly severed from the body, and a frightful stab is found through the body, and near the heart.

“The poor child's body, wrapped in the blanket, is then thrust down the closet for but a few feet, when it rests on the splash-board, and is there found. Also is discovered a small piece of flannel.

“Thus things stand to the inquest, at which all the facts above narrated are stated, and also the following. The nurse says of the arranged bed, ‘the bedclothes were placed neatly, as if I or his mother had done it.' The dog is found to be quite in ordinary health on the morning after the murder. Next follows the evidence of the man who discovered the body, and he states that he found about two tablespoonfuls of blood of a
dark colour
on the ground of the closet. Outside the closet, a piece of bloody newspaper is found, and this is never identified as having formed part of any paper in the house. The evidence of the surgeon is exceedingly important as throwing light on many otherwise inexplicable circumstances of the case. He states that the mouth was discoloured, that the small quantity of blood on the floor of the closet does not represent anything like the entire mass of blood in the child's veins, and that the absence of blood from the walls of the closet goes to prove that the wounds were inflicted after death, or just as death was being consummated, and the action of the heart had ceased.
6
In fact, the evidence of the doctor goes to show that the child was smothered before the wounds across the throat and in the breast were made. The surgeon represented the wounds as of the most savage nature—the throat being cut to the bone, and the chest wound evidencing great force. The doctor, viewing the body at nine a.m., pronounces death to have taken place quite five hours previously—this gives four o'clock as the latest time of the murder (it having then been light one hour, and, it may be supposed, plenty of summer labourers about), while, as the family went to bed at about half-past eleven, midnight may be taken as the earliest hour at which the act could have been committed. This narrows the time of the deed from midnight to four—or more likely, from midnight to two in the morning.

“In summing up, the coroner, apparently a not too able man, lays most stress upon the drawing-room window being found open about a foot.

“Many events follow the coroner's inquest. The mysteries rather than the atrocities of the case attract public notice, and at last a splendid yet ordinary investigation is made—it fails entirely and quite naturally. To hope to discover extraordinary answers to ordinary questions is to be too rational.

“A boy of sixteen, an out-door servant of Mr. Cumberland's, is the first to be suspected, for he had been discharged the day before the murder; but he is shown to have slept at home on the night of the murder, and about two miles away from the scene of the catastrophe—and he is freed from suspicion.

“A daughter of Mr. Cumberland is then taken into custody, because one of her night dresses is missing, and this investigation failing, the nurse herself is literally put upon her trial, apparently because she has said the boy was ‘killed for vengeance,' and because a fragment of flannel is found in the water-closet, and under the body of the child, and which might or might not have been there before the murder. This accusation fails as did the other, though it is conducted magnificently—upon the basis that the murder is one of an ordinary character, committed with ordinary motive and action, but about which many extraordinary circumstances cling. The lawyer who conducts the case points out many valuable facts. He urges that, as there are no marks of external violence about the house, did any one from
without
commit the crime he must have had an accomplice within the house. He then points out that the window is found only a foot wide open—not wide enough for the passage of any one carrying a child—and as the window upon being raised higher makes a noise, he suggests, not only that this proves it was raised by a member of the household, but that it was raised as a blind—he does not, however, tell us of what character. He then argues from the state of the bed that two persons were engaged in the murder, not questioning the eccentricity of this needless act, or doubting if the boy is alive when removed from the room. In fact, this gentleman's argument is, the murder was committed by an inmate of the house, and the nurse is most likely to have committed it.
7

“The case fails entirely—the girl is liberated, and the mystery remains, and has remained, as unaccountable as it was on the first morning after the murder.”

***

Here Hardal, who by this time had a wild look in his eyes, rested for a moment, and then continued: “Now, Roddy, hear
my
version of the business, and then help me to prove it if you like. There are three questions to be answered:—1. Was the murder committed by a non-occupant? 2. Was the murder committed by an occupant? 3. By whom, and wherefore, was the murder committed?

“1. Was the murder committed by a non-occupant?

“If so, he would act either with the connivance of some one within the house, or by himself. Now I think that the awful investigation to which the household has been submitted, pretty clearly proves the absence of an accomplice in the shape of one of its members. Yet there are no signs of a burglarious entry into the house, and therefore if a stranger did enter it, the entry was made by extraordinary means. The only probable one was by a first or upper floor window. Now could this have been done? There is no vine or other creeper about the house by which a window could be reached, say by a revengeful gipsy whom Mr. Cumberland may have threatened, while if a ladder were used it seems impossible to suppose the dog, much less the whole household, could have slept through the noise of fixing it to a window. Again, a gipsy, the most likely man to take such a kind of revenge as the abstraction or killing of a child, would have silenced the dog—an art in which gipsies are known to be proficients.

“The health of the dog next morning, and his silence during the night, prove, first that he was not tampered with; secondly, that he was disturbed by no stranger. Then did any one, not being an inmate of the house, and yet known to the dog, commit the crime? A means of entry to the house is totally absent. Again, did any one conceal himself in the house? This suggestion is the only one holding good in favour of the theory that the murder was committed by a non-occupant. But in the face of this argument stands the peculiarity that in such a case there was evident mystification of the household by leaving the premises, not by a door, but a window, and then partially closing that window.

“2. Was the murder committed by an occupant?

“If it has been shown that it is highly improbable that the crime was committed by a non-occupant, it results that the probability of its having been committed by an occupant is just in inverse proportion with that improbability.

“3. By whom, and wherefore was the murder committed?”

Here Hardal drew a long breath, drank off a large glass of water, and wiping his hot forehead, he continued—“I am going to commit myself to an extraordinary series of—of statements, and if you are like the majority of fools about one, you will pshaw me, and prove by naught that there's nothing in what I say.

“In the first place, let me back my statements with these extraordinary lines taken from a
Times
leader on the whole of this case.

“‘As a painful result, therefore, we are left with the circle of suspicion as narrow as ever, and with the additional embarrassment ensuing on the successive failures of justice…It really seems almost a case for the art of clairvoyance, or the old machinery of the divining rod. Ordinary agencies are completely at fault.'

“This is the
Times!
You see a complete admission that the whole inquiry is a balk; and yet a clinging to the belief that it is cunning and not ignorance which has foiled the inquirer, for the
Times
continues: ‘But we trust that in one respect the views of the magistrate will be carried out. There should not be a remission, even for a single moment, of vigilance or observation.'

“Nor has there been—and nothing has been discovered.

“Now in the first place,” continued Hardal, “let us see who were sleeping in the house on the night in question.

“The inmates on the night of the murder were thirteen in number, ten being adults, and of these some six were able in a measure to exonerate each other. Three slept in one apartment, three in a second, and two in a third, and two more in a fourth; so that, apart from the inmates of the nursery itself, there were but two persons in the house who could not call a certain kind of evidence to their behaviour throughout the night. The cook and the housemaid slept together, the two eldest sisters slept together, and Mr. and Mrs. Cumberland had a young child sleeping in their bedroom. Mr. William Cumberland and Miss Constance Cumberland had each a room a-piece, whilst the two youngest children—the little boy who was murdered and an infant of two years old, were in the nursery with the nurse, as was also a visitor of the nurse, a kind of relation well known in the house and to the children, and who had frequently expressed extreme love for the little murdered child.

“Now,” continued Hardal, “I venture to state at once that there is no evidence of ordinary murder in this case—that its whole facts exhibit an extraordinary amount of eccentricity; and that the murder was eccentrically committed by an inmate of the house. And as most eccentricity is an evidence of mental weakness, I come to the conclusion that if the murderer (as I will call him or her) were aware of his crime, he being eccentric, and therefore weak, would not be able to resist such an extreme investigation as that which has been made. Thus I deduce that the act was committed while the murderer was asleep, and while under the influence of murderous monomania.

“It now remains to be ascertained who was, by the facts of the case, the person most likely to have been under this influence. As to the supposition that murder can be done in the sleep, and that a mania to destroy or act abnormally, may torment a human being for years without a second soul knowing anything about the matter, there are too many well evidenced cases to permit much doubt on these points.

“As regards somnambulism, we find the cases of acts in a somnambulistic state are not frequent; yet, at the same time, not so extremely rare as to be valueless in urging my argument. In Rees' Cyclopædia we find Dr. Stewart saying:—‘There are many cases in which sleep seems to be partial; that is, when the mind loses its influence over some powers and retains it over others.' Dr. Darwin considers somnambulism not so much sleep as a state approximating to epilepsy. Some cases of sleep-walking, where a series of acts have been carried out, are on record.
They all agree with the waking thoughts in some measure
. One case we have of a boy who, being very fond of grapes, starts off in the middle of the night for a vineyard, and gathers the fruit. In another case, a boy rising in his sleep in the dark, calls for a light to find his clothes by, and this being brought, he dresses with ease, and a cuckoo-bell clock striking, he says, ‘There be cuckoos here.' As a proof that the predominating idea submerges all others, this same boy would be sensible of pinches or slight blows, unless ‘he was at the time strongly impressed with some other thing.' The watcher of this lad bid him ‘write a theme.' They say, ‘We saw him light a candle, take pen, ink, and paper from the drawer of his table, and begin to write while one of those about him began to dictate.' Here is a series of events, and yet this case thoroughly illustrates my argument that the acts are imperfect, or rather exhibit imperfection, for the inkstand, which he had opened his eyes to find, being removed, ‘his hand returned as usual to the place where he thought it was.' It must be observed that the motion of his hand was rapid till it reached the height of the inkstand, and then he moved it slowly till the pen gently touched the table as he was seeking for the ink.'
8

“Of homicidal monomania, Dr. Copeland (Dic. Medicine, vol. ii., article ‘Insanity') says:—‘Murder, or attempts to murder, are made by insane persons, 1. When impelled by an involuntary impulse, or instinctive desire, which they are unable to resist; 2. When actuated by motives on which they are capable of reasoning, and whilst conscious of the evil they have committed; 3. When influenced by delusions, hallucinations, or false perceptions; 4. When excited by passion or opposition; 5. When they believe they are opposing an enemy; and 6. When the intelligence is so prostrate as to be incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, and when they act from imitation. The first of these cases is the most frequent, and to which I will draw attention. Persons will appear to enjoy reason; they are irresistibly impelled, with a full consciousness of their state, to commit the crime they most hate. The question is, is there really a form of insanity in which a person may enjoy reason unimpaired and yet commit the greatest crimes? I say, yes. One person suddenly becomes red in the face, imagines he hears a voice addressing him, and acts according to its injunction. Another, a husband, is persuaded his wife is unfaithful to him, although he has considered all the circumstances, and finds them in her favour—and an act of murder is committed. A third, a mother of a family, believes herself in distress, and in a fit of despair she attempts to kill them, when maternal tenderness, speaking louder than despair, exclaims, ‘Protect my children from me.' Another well-authenticated instance is that of a maid, who, on each occasion of her dressing the infant committed to her care, was seized with an uncontrollable desire to kill it. All these instances may be referred to as
momentary
delusions or hallucinations, under the influence of which crimes or insane actions may be committed, after which a lucid period occurs.