The Anatomy of Murder, page 9
On the Saturday morning, she having cleaned the razor, she took an opportunity of replacing it unobserved in a case in the wardrobe. She abstracted the nightdress from the clothes-basket when the housemaid went to fetch a glass of water. The strange garment found in the boiler hole had no connexion whatever with these. As regards the motive of her crime, it seems that although she entertained at one time a great regard for the present Mrs. Kent, yet if any remark was at any time made which in her opinion was disparaging any member of the first family, she treasured it up and determined to revenge it. She had no ill-will against the little boy except that as one of the children of her stepmother. She declared that both her father and her stepmother had always been kind to her personally, and the following is a copy of the letter which she addressed to Mr. Rodway on this point while in prison before her trial:
DEVIZES, May 15th
Sir,—It has been stated that my feelings of revenge were excited in consequence of cruel treatment. This is entirely false. I have received the greatest kindness from both the persons accused of subjecting me to it. I have never had any ill-will towards either of them on account of their behaviour to me which has been very kind. I shall be obliged if you will make use of this statement in order that the public may be undeceived on this point.
I remain, Sir,
Yours most truly,
CONSTANCE E. KENT
She told me that when the nursemaid was accused she had fully made up her mind to confess if the nurse had been convicted, and that she had also made up her mind to commit suicide if she her- self was detected. She said that she had felt herself under the influence of the devil before she committed the murder, but that she did not believe and had not believed that the devil had more to do with her crime than he had with any other wicked action. She had not said her prayers for a year before the murder and not afterwards till she came to reside at Brighton. She said that the circumstances which revived religious feelings in her mind was thinking about receiving sacrament when confirmed.
An opinion has been expressed that the peculiarities evinced by Constance Kent between the ages of twelve and seventeen may be attributed to the then transition period of her life. Moreover, the fact of her cutting off her hair and dressing herself in her brother’s clothes and leaving home with the intention of going abroad, which occurred when she was only thirteen years of age, indicated a peculiarity of disposition and great determination of character which foreboded that, for good or evil, her future life would be remarkable.
This peculiar disposition which led to such singular violent resolves and actions, seems also to colour and intensify her thoughts and feelings and magnify into wrongs that were to be revenged, any little incidents or occurrences which provoked her displeasure.
Although it became my duty to advise her Counsel that she evinced no symptoms of insanity at the time of my examination, and that so far as it was possible to ascertain the state of her mind at so remote a period, there was no evidence of it at the time of the murder, I am yet of the opinion that, owing to the peculiarities of her constitution, it is probable that under prolonged solitary confinement she would become insane.
The validity of this opinion is of importance now that the sentence of death has been commuted to penal servitude for life, for no one should desire that the punishment of the criminal should be so carried out as to cause danger of a further and greater punishment not contemplated by the law.
This confession, which is undoubtedly authentic, is a most extraordinary document. The first question which arises is naturally that of motive. When he arrested Constance in 1860, Inspector Whicher realized the difficulty of proving an adequate motive for the murder. He hoped to establish this by calling a Miss Emma Moody, a school friend of Constance’s. But Miss Moody’s evidence was disappointing. The following is a sufficient extract:
I have heard her make such remarks about the child as this, that she disliked the child and pinched it, but I believe more from fun than anything else, for she was laughing at the time she said it. It was not this child more than the others. She said that she liked to tease them, this one and his younger brothers and sisters. I believe it was through jealousy and because the parents showed great partiality. I have remonstrated with her on what she said. I was walking with her one day towards Road, and I said, “Won’t it be nice to go home for the holidays so soon.” She said, “It may be to your home but mine’s different.” She also led me to infer, but I don’t remember her precise words, that she did not dislike the child, but through the partiality shown by the parents the second family were much better treated than the first. I remember her saying that several times. We were talking about dress on some occasions and she said, “Mamma will not let me have anything I like, and if I said I would like a brown dress she would make me have black, and the contrary.” I remember no other conversation about the deceased child. She has only slightly referred to him.
This evidence was utterly inconclusive in supplying any motive for murder. Whicher was bitterly disappointed with it. He said later:1 “The witness, Miss Moody, in reference to animus, did not give the evidence I was given to understand she could have done.”
But there is no doubt that Constance’s crime was directed, not against the victim, but against her stepmother.
She vowed she would avenge her mother’s wrong, if she devoted her life to it. After brooding over it for some time, she resolved that as her stepmother had robbed her mother of her father’s love, she would deprive her of something she loved best. She then planned and carried out her most brutal and callous crime, one so vile and unnatural that people could not believe it possible for a young girl.2
This last is probably as near the truth as it is possible to get. Constance wished to be revenged on her stepmother, but not for any wrongs that she herself directly suffered. Her immature mind had brooded upon the circumstances which she had observed during her childhood, and these circumstances developed themselves into the crime committed against her mother and the whole of the family. Her eldest brother had chosen the sea as a profession, probably because a seafaring life appealed to him. But Constance believed that he had done so merely to escape from the intrusion of Miss Pratt into the family circle. He had died abroad. To Constance this was a direct result of having been driven from home. There is plenty of evidence that the second family received preferential treatment by their parents. In Constance’s eyes this was magnified into a martyrdom of the children of the first Mrs. Kent. She believed that her younger brother, William, who shared her extraordinary escapade in 1876, was not to be given a fair chance in life. This may or may not have been true at the time. Certainly Mr. Kent evinced more interest in the prospects of his younger children. Finally, there was ever present in her mind a deep resentment at the position of authority achieved by a mere governess. She was old enough, at the time of the crime, to have formed the opinion that this position had been achieved by questionable means.
In her confession she insisted that she bore no ill-will towards her stepmother. This must be interpreted to mean that she bore no ill-will on account of any personal treatment which she had received from her. The clue to the motive appears to lie in another sentence of that confession.
Although she entertained at one time a great regard for the present Mrs. Kent, yet if any remark was at any time made which in her opinion was disparaging to any member of the first family, she treasured it up and was determined to revenge it.
One may perhaps realize the cumulative effect of such a determination on a child of Constance’s nature. She remembered every fancied slight. The second Mrs. Kent was not popular either with the neighbours or the servants. Constance must have heard a thousand suggestions that she was no better than she should be. Her final conclusions must have been that the household had been invaded by an immoral tyrant, who, owing to the influence she exercised over Mr. Kent, was secure from punishment. She felt this to be unjust. Punishment was deserved, and could be inflicted were anyone bold enough to assume the rôle of avenger.
Having decided that her stepmother must be punished, Constance must have reflected upon the form which the punishment should take. Punishment inflicted directly was obviously beyond her powers. But Mrs. Kent was devoted to her children, especially to the boy Francis. If anything should happen to Francis Mrs. Kent would feel the blow as acutely as though it had been directed at herself.
It does not seem to have occurred to Constance that the blow would be almost as acutely felt by her father, to whom she was apparently genuinely attached. Perhaps she believed that her father would soon recover from his sorrow at the death of his youngest son. Mr. Kent had endured such bereavements before without showing any signs of being overwhelmed by them. At the date of the crime he had already had thirteen children, and was expecting the arrival of a fourteenth. Five of these had died in their early infancy. Surely by this time such calamities must have lost their power to depress him unduly!
Constance appears to have experimented with the possibility of making away with Francis. There is very little doubt that she had determined upon the form which the punishment of Mrs. Kent was to take some time before 1860. It so happened that, one night some two years before the crime, Mrs. Kent, Constance, and the two children of the second marriage were the only occupants of the house besides the servants. Francis slept in the nursery with the nurse. During the night the nursery must have been entered, for in the morning Francis was found in his cot with the bedclothes stripped off and his bed-socks missing. It was never discovered how this happened. But Constance was believed to have been at the bottom of it and it was attributed to her well-known spirit of mischief. It was possible that she believed that the exposure of the child would cause his death. It is remarkable that this incident was not mentioned during the inquiry into the cause of the crime.
It is an axiom of criminal investigation that every confession, whether genuine or not, is open to suspicion on the grounds of detail. The criminal may be willing to confess but not, for some strange psychological reason, to reveal his methods. Constance’s confession appears to be no exception to this rule. It is almost incredible that she should have committed the crime by the method to which she confessed.
It is admitted that the methods of the local police in investigating the crime were elementary in the extreme. But the following facts are incontrovertible. Dr. Parsons, as soon as he saw the body, decided that the throat must have been cut with some sharp instrument. It is true that at the inquest he declared that the wound in the breast could not have been produced by a razor. But Dr. Parsons changed his opinion so frequently that too much reliance must not be placed upon his statement. In any case, on the Saturday morning, the idea of a sharp instrument was firmly impressed upon his mind. And he succeeded in conveying this impression to Superintendent Foley.
Now Superintendent Foley, Dr. Parsons, and apparently dozens of others, searched the house from top to bottom early on Saturday morning. One may be allowed to presume that their search was directed primarily towards the discovery of a sharp instrument. Indeed, they made detailed inquiry into the knives cleaned by the garden boy that morning. But surely it must have occurred to them that there were other sharp instruments in the house. And of these sharp instruments, perhaps Mr. Kent’s razors were the most obvious of all.
Yet Constance Kent in her confession says that a few days before the murder she obtained possession of a razor from a green case in her father’s wardrobe and secreted it. This was the sole instrument she used. On the Saturday morning, having cleaned the razor, she took an opportunity of replacing it unobserved in the case in the wardrobe. This seems amazing. She abstracted the razor a few days before the murder. It is possible that Mr. Kent did not notice the absence of this particular razor. He may have put it aside for a time. But how could Constance tell that he would not discover that it had not been removed from its usual place? If he had done so, she could hardly have ventured to use it subsequently. And the difficulty of replacing the razor unobserved on the Saturday morning seems almost insuperable. It is true that Mr. Kent had left the house shortly after being informed of the disappearance of his son, but almost immediately afterwards the house was invaded by a band of searchers, and Constance, self-possessed though she undoubtedly was, would hardly have faced the risk of being accosted with a razor in her hand.
On the whole it seems that her statement regarding the razor was without foundation. She declared that the razor was the sole instrument with which she had done the deed. Dr. Parsons’ opinion as to the possibility of the wound in the breast having been inflicted by a razor has already been quoted. It is unnecessary to examine the medical evidence at length. But the statement of Mr. Stapleton, who was present at the post-mortem and actually assisted in it, is worthy of attention. He says:
Upon the left side of the body below and to the outer side of the nipple, a sharp blade had been passed diagonally over the fifth rib. Severing wholly the cartilage of the sixth, partially that of the seventh rib, it had been thrust into the chest behind the membranous covering of the heart, which it had grazed without entering it. It then penetrated the diaphragm, and had grazed the stomach in a similar manner, without piercing the cavity. In its passage or during its withdrawal this blade had been violently twisted or wrenched round as was evident from the torn appearance of the muscular fibres, and the scraped irregular appearance of the exposed rib at the posterior angle of the cut and the appearance remarkably contrasted with the simple smooth surface of the other parts of its edges, and affording a reasonable inference that it was inflicted with a murderous intent and under some ferocious impulse. Very little blood had flowed from this stab, and none was found adherent to the side, nor was any coagulated upon the corresponding parts of the nightshirt. This stab injured no vital organ nor would it have caused immediate death. It would have been followed by very little bleeding, even if the heart’s action and the circulation in its vessels were still going on at the time of its infliction. Its position and appearances afford no ground for the assumption that it was done by using the knife to thrust down the body of the child into the closet.1
Now it will be observed that though Mr. Stapleton does not expressly say that this wound could not have been inflicted with a razor, his language is very significant. He speaks repeatedly of a stab and of a knife. It is clearly impossible to inflict a stab with an ordinary razor, and the appearance of a wound inflicted by such a weapon is very different from that inflicted by a knife. It seems unlikely that Mr. Stapleton, who was a surgeon of considerable experience, should have spoken of a stab and a knife in describing a wound inflicted by a razor.
In many other details the confession seems difficult to believe. The mystery of the nightdress is certainly explained on the line of Whicher’s theory. But may not this theory, already known to Constance, have inspired her account? She states in her confession that her three nightdresses were examined by Foley, and she believed also by Dr. Parsons, the medical attendant of the family. She thought the bloodstains had been effectively washed out, but on holding the dress up to the light a day or two afterwards, she found the stains were still visible. Now the whole object of the examination of the nightdress was to discover stains. Dr. Parsons, describing the incident before the Trowbridge magistrates, said:
I accompanied Mr. Foley in the search through the house, and in the course thereof went into Constance Kent’s room. I examined her drawers and the night cap and the nightgown which were on the bed, and the whole of the bedding. The nightdress was perfectly free from any stains. The nightdress was very clean, but I could not speak as to whether it had on it the dirt resulting from a week’s wear or not. There was nothing on Constance’s nightdress which attracted my attention more than that it was very clean.
The attention paid to the nightdress lying on the bed, which was, of course, clean, may have distracted observation from the two found in the chest of drawers, but it seems incredible that though a medical man could find no bloodstains on either of the latter, they were visible to Constance a day or two afterwards. Again, Constance avers that, having found these tell-tale stains, she secreted the dress, moving it from place to place, and eventually burnt it in her own bedroom, and put the ashes of same into the kitchen grate. It was about five or six days after the child’s death that she burnt the nightdress. The disappearance of a nightdress was apparently suspected from the first, since a rumour of it had reached Mrs. Holly’s ears as early as the Saturday. Mrs. Holly herself confirms this disappearance. The local police were blunderingly though certainly actively looking for a nightdress. Yet Constance was able to move it about from place to place for five or six days and finally to burn it in her own bedroom. It hardly seems possible that she could have done this without arousing suspicion.
It must be admitted that queer things habitually happened at Road Hill House both before and after the murder. One of the queerest was revealed during the course of the Gilbertian inquiry held by Mr. Saunders on his own account. In the course of his examination of Police Constable Urch, the following extraordinary conversation1 took place.
Were you present with Sergeant Watts in Road Hill House when he found a certain thing?—Yes; I was
What was it?—Some woman’s nightshift.
Where did Sergeant Watts find the article?—In the boiler hole.
Where was the boiler?—In the first kitchen going in, sir.
Was there anyone present? Was it at the entrance of the boiler hole or pushed far up?—It was in, sir, as if to light the fire.
Was it dry or was it wet?—It was dry, sir, but very dirty.
What do you mean by dirty?—I mean as if it had been worn a long time.
What was the dirt upon it?—It had some blood about it.
Was it much blood or little? A large quantity or a small quantity?—There were several places with blood upon them.
