The Anatomy of Murder. Helen Simpson

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.