The Anatomy of Murder - Helen Simpson

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Henry Kinder’s fellow-citizens, and there were conjectures in the clubs that a certain Louis Bertrand, who had been heard making extravagant statements concerning his relations with the Kinder family, might be able to answer it. These statements the police investigated, with the result that six weeks after the inquest, on November 29th, Louis Bertrand and his wife Jane were charged before the magistrates at the Water Police Court, Sydney, with the wilful murder of Henry Kinder; Helen Mary Kinder, the dead man’s widow, appearing as accessory to the fact.

      Bertrand was brought to court from gaol, where he had been serving a sentence for using threatening language. The warrant was read to him, it seems, in his cell. “Rather a heavy charge,” was his comment. The detective inquired if he should take that by way of answer. “Am I on my trial now?” the accused asked sardonically; and being told that the officer was only stating the charge, Bertrand answered emphatically: “Then my reply to it is—not guilty.” This he repeated in the dock. His wife echoed him. Mrs. Kinder, brought down in custody from Bathurst to Sydney, indignantly denied any knowledge of the crime. The magistrates heard these answers, refused bail, and at the request of the police remanded the prisoners until the Monday following, December 4th.

      At that hearing nothing new was revealed, except the ages of the accused; Bertrand was 25 years old, his wife 21, and Mrs. Kinder, who refused to give the year of her birth, was stated to be apparently about 30 years of age. They were remanded again until December 7th.

      III

      On December 7th the case for the Crown was opened by Mr. Butler; and it at once became evident that Mrs. Kinder was on her trial, not as accessory to a murder, but as an adulteress. It was “morally impossible,” said counsel, to commit the other prisoners without committing her also. The evidence would consist, in the main, of admissions made by the Bertrands, with other circumstances, all of which were capable of proof. The motive was easily discoverable. Certain writings, now in the hands of the police, would afford evidence that a personal intimacy existed between Bertrand and Mrs. Kinder; and, said counsel, with the ripe conviction of all Sydney’s gossips behind him, “such an intimacy could not exist without furnishing a clue to the imputed crime.”

      Counsel proposed to establish that there had been illicit intercourse between Louis Bertrand and Helen Kinder before the death of the latter’s husband; that it had been Bertrand’s design to divorce his own wife; and that Henry Kinder had been killed in order that Mrs. Kinder might be free to marry Bertrand.

      Detective Richard Elliott was his first witness. This officer produced a packet containing letters found in a drawer in Bertrand’s house; they were unsigned, but appeared to be in the handwriting of Mrs. Kinder. He produced a diary found in an unlocked drawer in Bertrand’s bedroom. He produced a bottle labelled tincture of belladonna, and a phial labelled chloride of zinc; together with a pistol and powder flask, a box containing caps, a tomahawk, a screw such as might be used for the nipple of a pistol, a phial of white powder, unlabelled, and two books. There was a brief interlude while prisoners’ counsel elicited from the detectives concerned the fact that they had not been impeded or hindered in their search; Mrs. Kinder had even asked that a certain desk, to which she could not find the key, should be broken open. She told the officer that she kept none of Mr. Bertrand’s letters, but always burned them after she had read them. He found one, however, dated October 28th, signed by Bertrand. He also found, in a box which contained children’s clothing, a pistol; the pistol, Mrs. Kinder told him, with which her husband had shot himself. These cross-examinations over, Mr. Butler began to read from the letters of Helen Maria Kinder.

      There were nine of them; and a more curious set of documents can seldom have been produced in evidence. There is not space to quote them fully. The picture they offer is of a woman alternately cautious and abandoned. News of her three children, of churchgoing, and of the life in a small country town make up the chief of their matter, but there are outbursts which leave no doubt as to her relationship with Bertrand. It is noticeable that these grow more frequent as she becomes more bored with the life of a small country town, unfriendly to a newcomer without money, inquisitive, uncharitable, and remote from the standards of a wider world. From first to last there is no mention of her husband, and no reference which would imply that she had any knowledge of how he came by his death.

      The first letter, which begins: “My dear friend,” and ends: “Kindest regards to yourself and all the family, and believe me ever to remain truly yours, Ellen Kinder,” is by no means compromising. Fatigue—she had had two days’ coach journey, looking after her three children the while—may possibly account for the non-committal tone of it. “I do not think I was ever so tired in my life; I trust I may never again experience such utter prostration.” Bathurst appeared dreadfully dull, but she would not judge hastily. In the morning she intended going to church to have a look at “the natives”—not aborigines, but such society as the town offered. This is all, except that she sends her “kind love” to Jane, Bertrand’s wife.

      The next letter, written just a week later, is the queerest mixture of passion and practicality.

      MY DEAREST DARLING LOVE,

      I have just received your dear, kind, and most welcome letter. Oh, darling, if you could but know how my heart was aching for a word of love from you. Dear, dear lover, your kind loving words seemed to have filled a void in my heart. I cannot convey to you in words the intense comfort your letter is to me. It has infused new life into my veins.…

      I suppose you must not be ashamed of our poor home when you come up, darling, but I know that will make no difference to you. If I lived in a shanty it would be all the same, would it not? Now about your coming up, dear darling. How I should like to see your dear face, and to have a long talk with you about affairs in general. But, my own love, I fear if you were to come just now you would not find it pay you. Everything is so dull, and what I fear more is that people to whom you owe money would be down on you directly, thinking you were going to run away. Dear darling, all this advice goes sadly against the dictates of my own heart, for my spirit is fairly dying for you. A glimpse of you, oh dearest, dearest, what would I not give to be taken to your heart if only for a moment; I think it would content me.

      It is no use, dear. Your love is food—nourishment to me. I cannot do without it. I tried to advise you for the best, but I cannot. I cry out in very bitterness. If I could only be near you, only see you at a distance once again, I think I could bear myself. I believe, darling, if our separation is for long, I shall go out of my mind.…

      How is Jane? What is the matter? It is of no use to say that I am grieved at her being laid up; that would be a mere farce between you and I. As to her assertions with regard to Mr. Jackson, I shall not answer them; for if I am to be taken to task about all she may choose to say about me I shall have enough to do.… I know her, and you ought to by this time. If you allow everything she may say to influence you against me, I have done, but, darling, I am yours. I leave my conduct to be judged by you as you think fit. There let the matter rest. It ought never to have been broached.

      Mr. Jackson, at the time this letter was written, was serving a sentence of twelve months’ imprisonment for attempting to extort money from Bertrand by threats. (He had written to Bertrand saying that his association with Kinder’s wife was known, and could be proved if Jackson chose to say what he knew.) He was sentenced on the day—October 23rd—that Mrs. Kinder first wrote to Bertrand from Bathurst. He was to be an important witness at the trial, and Mrs. Kinder’s airy “It ought never to have been broached” covers the consciousness that she had in fact lived with Jackson as his mistress. The document ends with an account of her family’s money affairs. Her father’s shop did not prosper, her mother had only £50 coming in yearly from some small property in New Zealand. They were not very easily able to keep four extra persons for an indefinite time. Could Bertrand discover some opening for the family in Sydney? An hotel perhaps? “I am always well when I get a letter to strengthen me.” She ends: “God bless you. Good night, darling love, and plenty kisses from your own darling Child.” In the third letter, dated November 9th, she is, as ever, preoccupied equally with the future and the present. She has tried for a governess’s situation, but times are bad. The clergyman has come to call. Her youngest child, Nelly, would soon be walking. She would like to get into a dressmaking business in Sydney. The thought of seeing

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