LITMIR.BIZ

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been, and they rowed home. This was the last expedition in the boat.

      But not the end of Bertrand’s fantastic preparations. His next act was to cut off his moustache, dress as a woman, and go with Burne to buy two pistols at a pawnshop in Lower George Street, then a fairly tough locality. On the day following this purchase he acquired a sheep’s head, and began to practise shooting at it in his surgery with bullets he had made himself in a mould. His wife and her mother ran in at the first shot, alarmed, naturally enough, by the noise and smell of smoke. This was on a Saturday. On Monday morning Burne was told to destroy the broken skull in the furnace, and did so. That afternoon he heard that Kinder was dying.

      At this point we get Bertrand’s own version of the tragedy as he told it to Burne on his return from Kinder’s house. Kinder, he said, had actually shot himself as the result of a practical joke. The two men had left the house and their wives in search of a pub and a drink. On their way back Bertrand had suggested that the women should be given a fright, and produced a pistol, which he said had no bullet in it, but only powder and a wad. Kinder, who was drunk, agreed to put it against his head and fire; and when they came to the room where the women were, actually did so, with the result that the charge of powder drove the wad into his ear and jaw. Proof of this, said Bertrand, was that no bullet could be found.

      It was a fantastic story, but Bertrand’s counsel seized upon it, and later there was great argument about it and about when the doctors came upon the scene. Unfortunately, Bertrand, forgetting this sketch of a possible defence, later admitted to Burne that his wife had found a bullet, and produced from his pocket a flattened scrap of lead which he said was the bullet in question. Burne secreted one of those that had been made in the surgery to fire at the sheep’s head, and gave it to the detectives; this bullet fitted the second of the pawnshop pistols.

      Defence counsel could not do a great deal with Burne. They could prove him a poltroon, but by no means could they prove him a liar. The butcher who had sold the sheep’s head, the pawnbroker who had sold the pistols, Buckley the boatman, Mrs. Bertrand’s mother who had witnessed the pistol practice—all these in turn corroborated his story. Asked why he did not attend the inquest and there tell what he knew, he answered that he had not been subpœnaed. Asked why he had gone to the detective office afterwards with information, he gave the following answer:

      It was slightly for the sake of public justice, and by way of protecting my life that I went there, the object being self-preservation in particular, the other in a slight degree.

      This naïve statement virtually ended his evidence. His last admission was to the effect that he, Burne, had read part of Bertrand’s diary before the detectives came; then he was told to stand down, having proved himself a useful though contemptible witness for the Crown.

      VI

      After certain corroborating witnesses came one Alexander Bell-house, employed in the Government Service, who had known Bertrand for some years. He repeated an extraordinary statement made to him by Bertrand a month before the trial. After a game of cards at the house in Wynyard Square, Bertrand had accompanied him to the door as he was leaving, and told him that he was responsible for the death of Kinder. “He said that he was sorry for Kinder but wanted him out of his way.” He also told Bellhouse that he was a powerful mesmerist, and could do anything he liked with people. His wife knew of his attachment to Mrs. Kinder. He stated that he had put the pistol in Kinder’s way, not that he had shot him. The witness was so greatly shocked by Bertrand’s statement and manner that he “could not sleep that night because of it”. The impression left on his mind was that Bertrand had somehow compelled Kinder to shoot himself.

      Harriet Kerr, Bertrand’s sister, followed Bellhouse with an even more remarkable story.

      Early in the morning Bertrand came into my bedroom as I was washing the baby. He said, “Stay a minute, I have something to say to you.” He told me to sit on the side of the bed and asked if I had read of the death of Kinder. I said I had. He paused a little, then said, “Kinder did not shoot himself. I shot him.” I replied, “You must be mad to say such a thing!” He said, “No, I am not mad. I tell you I did shoot him.” I said, “But how cruel of you to do so,” and put my hands up to my face. He pulled them down again. I was crying, and he said, “Don’t cry. I don’t regret what I have done.” He said when he had shot Kinder he put the pistol in his hand and a pipe in his mouth.

      Three weeks later Mrs. Kerr had another talk with her brother. This time his wife was present, but asleep. “She used,” said Mrs. Kerr, “to sleep a great deal. It was more like stupor.” Bertrand said that he did not want to have to kill Jane, and that a divorce would be better, if he could get up “an adultery case with a respectable married woman”. His sister took him to task bravely about his behaviour in general and this plan in particular. Jane had done him no harm, she told him, and Mrs. Kinder was a wicked woman. He knew that, he said. She was wicked already, and he would make of her a second Lucrezia Borgia. It was very likely, he intimated, that before his sister went to Brisbane she would find herself attending his wife’s funeral. Mrs. Kerr went on to describe an attempt upon Jane’s life. At one o’clock in the morning there was an argument, and Bertrand, taking up a life-preserver, threatened his wife, who cried out in terror the strange words: “Don’t kill me. You promised on your word of honour you would not kill me.” Mrs. Kerr went to the top of the kitchen stairs and called the servant, then went up again to the first landing, having heard the parlour door open. Her brother was saying: “Now Jane, I want you to go into the surgery. I want you to write on this piece of paper that you are tired of your life.” She refused, saying that he might pour poison down her throat, but she would write nothing. He seemed to abandon his intention, gave her a glass of brandy and water, and sent her to bed in Mrs. Kerr’s room. Poor Jane sat down upon a chair, and there and then, to her sister-in-law’s astonishment, fell fast asleep.

      Now comes an account of the death of Kinder. It is necessarily second-hand; the three persons who took part in the scene were in the dock, and so unable to give direct evidence. But Mrs. Kerr’s recollection of what she had been told was very exact, and there is no reason to suppose that Mrs. Bertrand’s story was fabricated.

      On the morning of the first Monday in October Mrs. Bertrand was told by her husband to take the baby and accompany him to the Kinder’s house on the North Shore. It was a rainy morning, and she was reluctant that the baby should go out; however, as always, she yielded. When they arrived at the house Bertrand seemed more serious than usual, and more gentle with Mr. Kinder. He walked up and down the room very fast, gloved, and with one hand in his pocket. Jane and Mrs. Kinder were looking out of the window when they heard the report of a pistol. They turned, to see a pistol dropping from Kinder’s hand as he sat in his chair, and Bertrand taking a pipe from the table which he stuck in Kinder’s mouth. Mrs. Kinder ran from the room in terror; Bertrand followed, and forced her to return. He then took his wife’s arm in a terrible grip, and made her face the shot man, from whose head blood was flowing. “Look at him well,” said Bertrand, “I wish you to see him always before you.”

      Jane bathed the wound, while Mrs. Kinder and Bertrand walked up and down the verandah embracing. She found a bullet, flattened, which had dropped against the wainscot, and showed it to her husband when he next entered the room. Bertrand took it from her, saying it was just what he wanted, and she never saw it again.

      But Kinder did not die of the wound in his head. A doctor was called, with whose help Jane got him to bed; she then took up her abode in the house and nursed him faithfully for four days, at the end of which time he appeared to be recovering. When she told her husband so, Bertrand in rage said that he must not live; poison should end him if a bullet could not. He made Jane “mix the poison”; and Mrs. Kinder gave it in milk to Kinder, who died soon afterwards.

      This was Jane Bertrand’s story of the crime. It was told to and recounted by her sister-in-law, Harriet, to whose presence in the house in Wynyard Square Jane may have owed her life.

      I wished to protect Mrs. Bertrand, in fact that was what I stayed in the house for, and I must also add, I stayed partly in fear of my life. We were always in dread of our lives. He [Bertrand] did not appear to wish me out of the house, but quite the contrary.… I was his favourite sister, though he did not show it

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