The candles were on the chiffonier, and no traces of candlesticks were
found on the spot where the fire had burned. Moreover, the appearance of
the secretaire was against this theory. The writing-desk and table
consisted of a falling flap, on which the Countess wrote, and which she
could close and lock. Above this table were several small drawers which
contained her letters, receipted bills, and her jewelry. Below it were
larger drawers. The upper drawers were not completely burnt; on the
other hand, the lower drawers were completely consumed, and their
bottoms and contents had fallen in cinders on the floor beneath, which
was also burnt through to the depth of an inch and a half to two inches.
It was apparent, therefore, that the secretaire had been set on fire
from below. Moreover, there was more charcoal found under it than could
be accounted for, by supposing it had fallen from above. Now it will be
remembered that only the upper portion of the body was consumed. The
Countess had not set fire to herself whilst writing, and so set fire to
the papers on the desk. That was impossible.
The supposition that she had died of spontaneous combustion was also
entertained by a good many. But no well-authenticated case of
spontaneous combustion is known. Professor Liebig, when afterwards
examined on this case, stated that spontaneous combustion of the human
body was absolutely impossible, and such an idea must be relegated to
the region of myths.
There remained, therefore, no other conclusion at which it was possible
for a rational person to arrive who weighed the circumstances than that
the Countess had been murdered.
The Magisterial Court of the city of Darmstadt had attempted to hush-up
the case. The German press took it up. It excited great interest and
indignation throughout the country. It was intimated pretty pointedly
that the case had been scandalously slurred over, because of the rank of
the Count and the intimate relation in which he stood to the royal
family. The papers did not shrink from more than insinuating that this
was a case of murder, and that the murderer was the husband of the
unfortunate woman. Some suspicion that this was so seems to have crossed
the minds of the servants of the house. They recollected his
dilatoriness in entering the rooms of the Countess; the time that was
protracted in idle sending for keys, and trying key after key, when a
kick of the foot or a blow of the hammer would have sufficed to give
admission to the room where she lay. It was well known that the couple
did not live on the best terms. To maintain appearances before the
world, they dined and occasionally supped together. They rarely met
alone, and when they did fell into dispute, and high words passed which
the servants heard.
The Countess was mean and miserly, she grudged allowing her husband any
of her money. She had, however, made her will the year before, leaving
all her large fortune to her husband for life. Consequently her death
released him from domestic and pecuniary annoyances. On the morning
after the death he sent for the agent of the insurance company with
whom the furniture and other effects were insured and made his claim. He
claimed, in addition to the value of the furniture destroyed, the worth
of a necklace of diamonds and pearls which had been so injured by the
fire that it had lost the greater part of its value. The pearls were
quite spoiled, and the diamonds reduced in worth by a half. The agent
refused this claim, as he contended that the jewelry was not included in
the insurance, and the Count abstained from pressing it.
To the Count the situation became at length intolerable. He perceived a
decline of cordiality in his reception at Court, his friends grew cold,
and acquaintances cut him. He must clear himself of the charge which now
weighed on him. The death of the Countess had occurred on June 13, 1847.
On October 6, that is four months later, Count Goerlitz appeared before
the Grand-Ducal Criminal Court of Darmstadt, and produced a bundle of
German newspapers charging him with having murdered his wife, and set
fire to the room to conceal the evidence of his crime. He therefore
asked to have the case re-opened, and the witnesses re-examined. Nothing
followed. The Court hesitated to take up the case again, and throw
discredit on the magistrates' decision in June. Again, on October 16,
the Count renewed his request, and desired, if this were refused, that
he and his solicitor might be allowed access to the minutes of the
examination, that they might be enabled to take decided measures for the
clearing of the Count's character, and the chastisement of those who
charged him with an atrocious crime. On October 21, he received a
reply, "that his request could not be granted, unless he produced such
additional evidence as would show the Court that the former examination
was defective."
On October 25, the Count laid a mass of evidence before the Court which,
he contended, would materially modify, if not absolutely upset the
conclusion arrived at by the previous investigation.
Then, at last, consent was given; but proceedings did not begin till
November, and dragged on till the end of October in the following year,
when a new law of criminal trial having been passed in the grand-duchy,
the whole of what had gone before became invalid, save as preliminary
investigation, and it was not till March 4, 1850--that is, not till
_three years_ after the death of the Countess--that the case was
thoroughly sifted and settled. Before the promulgation of the law of
October, 1848, all trials were private, then trial by jury, and in
public, was introduced.
However, something had been done. In August 1848--that is, over a year
after the burial of the Countess--the body was exhumed and submitted to
examination. Two facts were then revealed. The skull of the Countess had
been fractured by some blunt instrument; and she had been strangled. The
condition in which the tongue had been found when the body was first
discovered had pointed to strangulation, the state of the jaws when
exhumed proved it.
So much, then, was made probable. A murderer had entered the room,
struck the Countess on the head, and when that did not kill her, he had
throttled her. Then, apparently, so it was argued, he had burnt the
body, and next, before it was more than half consumed, had placed it
near the secretaire, and, finally, had set fire to the secretaire.
He had set fire to the writing-desk to lead to the supposition that the
Countess had set fire to herself whilst writing at it; and this was the
first conclusion formed.
That a struggle had taken place appeared from several circumstances. The
bell-rope was torn down. Probably no servant had been in the house that
Sunday evening when the bell rang desperately for aid. The seat flung
over seemed to point to her having been surprised at the desk. One shoe
was in the boudoir. The struggle had been continued as she fled from the
sitting-room into the inner apartment.
Now, only, were the fire-marks on the divan and sofa explicable. The
Countess had taken refuge first on one, then on the other, after having
been wounded, and her blood had stained them. The murderer had burnt out
the marks of blood.
She had fled from the sitting-room to the boudoir, and thence had hoped
to escape through the next door into a corner room, but the door of that
room was locked.
The next point to be determined was, where had her body been burnt.
locked | boudoir
room |
o|o
---------+----------
|a|o
-|
anteroom | parlour
In the sitting-room, the boudoir, and a locked corner room were stoves.
The walls of these rooms met, and in the angles were the stoves. They
all communicated with one chimney. They were all heated from an opening
in the anteroom, marked _a_, which closed with an iron door, and was
covered with tapestry. The opening was large enough for a human being to
be thrust through, and the fire-chamber amply large enough also for its
consumption.
Much time had passed since a serious examination was begun, and it was
too late to think of finding evidence of the burning of the body in this
place. The stoves had been used since, each winter. However, some new
and surprising evidence did come to light. At five minutes past eight on
the evening that the mysterious death took place, Colonel von
Stockhausen was on the opposite side of the street talking to a lady,
when his attention was arrested by a dense black smoke issuing suddenly
from the chimney of the Count Goerlitz' palace. He continued looking at
the column of smoke whilst conversing with the lady, uncertain whether
the chimney were on fire or not, and whether he ought to give the alarm.
When the lady left him, after about ten minutes, or a quarter of an
hour, he saw that smoke ceased to issue from the chimney. He accordingly
went his way without giving notice of the smoke.
So far every piece of evidence went to show that the Countess had been
murdered. The conclusion now arrived at was this: she had been struck on
the head, chased from room to room bleeding, had been caught, strangled,
then thrust into the fire-chamber of the stove over a fire which only
half consumed her; taken out again and laid before the secretaire, and
the secretaire deliberately set fire to, and all the blood-marks
obliterated by fire. That something of this kind had taken place was
evident. Who had done it was not so clear. The efforts of the Count to
clear himself had established the fact that his wife was murdered, but
did not establish his innocence.
Suddenly--the case assumed a new aspect, through an incident wholly
unexpected and extraordinary.
The result of inquiry into the case of the death of the Countess
Goerlitz was, that the decision that she had come to her end by
accident, given by the city magistrates, was upset, and it was made
abundantly clear that she had been murdered. By whom murdered was not so
clear.
Inquiry carried the conclusion still further. She had been robbed as
well as murdered.
We have already described the writing-desk of the Countess. There were
drawers below the flap, and other smaller drawers concealed by it when
closed. In the smaller drawers she kept her letters, her bills, her
vouchers for investments, and her jewelry. Among the latter was the
pearl and diamond necklace, which she desired by her will might be sold,
and the money given to a charitable institution. The necklace was indeed
discovered seriously injured; but what had become of her bracelets,
brooches, rings, her other necklets, her earrings? She had also a chain
of pearls, which was nowhere to be found. All these articles were gone.
No trace of them had been found in the cinders under the secretaire;
moreover, the drawers in which she preserved them were not among those
burnt through. In the first excitement and bewilderment caused by her
death, the Count had not observed the loss, and the magistrates had not
thought fit to inquire whether any robbery had been committed.
A very important fact was now determined. The Countess had been robbed,
and murdered, probably for the sake of her jewels. Consequently the
murderer was not likely to be the Count.
When the case was re-opened, at Count Goerlitz's repeated demand, an
"Inquirent" was appointed by the Count to examine the case--that is, an
official investigator of all the circumstances; and on November 2, 1847,
in the morning, notice was given to the Count that the "Inquirent" would
visit his mansion on the morrow and examine both the scene of the murder
and the servants. The Count at once convoked his domestics and bade them
be in the house next day, ready for examination.
That same afternoon the cook, Margaret Eyrich by name, was engaged in
the kitchen preparing dinner for the master, who dined at 4 P.M. At
three o'clock the servant-man, John Stauff, came into the kitchen and
told the cook that her master wanted a fire lit in one of the upper
rooms. She refused to go because she was busy at the stove. Stauff
remained a quarter of an hour there talking to her. Then he said it was
high time for him to lay the table for dinner, a remark to which she
gave an assent, wondering in her own mind why he had delayed so long. He
took up a soup dish, observed that it was not quite clean, and asked her
to wash it. She was then engaged on some sauce over the fire.
"I will wash it, if you will stir the sauce," she said. "If I leave the
pan, the sauce will be burnt."
Stauff consented, and she went with the dish to the sink. Whilst thus
engaged, she turned her head, and was surprised to see that Stauff had a
small phial in his hand, and was pouring its contents into the sauce.
She asked him what he was about; he denied having done anything, and the
woman, with great prudence, said nothing further, so as not to let him
think that her suspicions were aroused. Directly, however, that he had
left the kitchen, she examined the sauce, saw it was discoloured, and on
trying it, that the taste was unpleasant. She called in the coachman and
the housekeeper. On consultation they decided that this matter must be
further investigated. The housekeeper took charge of the sauce, and
carried it to Dr. Stegmayer, the family physician, who at once said that
verdigris had been mixed with it, and desired that the police should be
communicated with. This was done, the sauce was analysed, and found to
contain 15½ grains of verdigris, enough to poison a man. Thereupon
Stauff was arrested.
We see now that an attempt had been made on the life of the Count, on
the day on which he had announced that an official inquiry into the
murder was to be made in his house and among his domestics.
Stauff, then, was apparently desirous of putting the Count out of the
way before that inquiry was made. At this very time a terrible tragedy
had occurred in France, and was in all the papers. The Duke of Praslin
had murdered his wife, and when he was about to be arrested, the duke
had poisoned himself.
Did Stauff wish that the Count should be found poisoned that night, in
order that the public might come to the conclusion he had committed
suicide to escape arrest? It would seem so.
John Stauff's arrest took place on November 3, 1847, four months and a
half after the death of the Countess. He was, however, only arrested on
a charge of attempting to poison the Count, and the further charge of
having murdered the Countess was not brought against him till August 28,
1848. The body of the murdered woman, it will be remembered, was not
exhumed and examined till August 11, 1848--eight months after the
re-opening of the investigation! It is really wonderful that the mystery
should have been cleared and the Count's character satisfactorily
vindicated, with such dilatoriness of proceeding. One more instance of
the stupid way in which the whole thing was managed. Although John
Stauff was charged with the attempt to poison on November 3, 1847, he
was not questioned on the charge till January 10, 1849, that is, till he
had been fourteen months in prison.
It will be remembered that the bell-rope in the Countess's parlour was
torn down. It would suggest itself to the meanest capacity that here was
a point of departure for inquiry. If the bell had been torn down, it
must have pealed its summons for help through the house. Who was in the
house at the time? If anyone was, why did he not answer the appeal?
Inconceivable was the neglect of the magistrates of Darmstadt in the
first examination--they did not inquire. Only several months later was
this matter subjected to investigation.
In the house lived the Count and Countess, the cook, who also acted as
chambermaid to the Countess, Schiller, the valet to the Count, Schämbs,
the coachman, and the Countess's own servant-man, John Stauff. Of these
Schiller and Schämbs did not sleep in the house.
June 13, the day of the murder, was a Sunday. The Count went as usual to
the grand-ducal palace in his coach at 3 P.M. The coachman drove him;
Stauff sat on the box beside the coachman. They left the Count at the
palace and returned home. They were ordered to return to the palace to
fetch him at 6 P.M. On Sundays, the Count usually spent his day in his
own suite of apartments, and the Countess in hers. On the morning in
question she had come downstairs to her husband with a bundle of coupons
which she wanted him to cash for her on the morrow. He managed her
fortune for her. The sum was small, only £30. At 2 P.M. she went to the
kitchen to tell the cook she might go out for the afternoon, as she
would not be wanted, and that she must return by 9 P.M.
At three o'clock the cook left. The cook saw and spoke to her as she
left. The Countess was then partially undressed, and the cook supposed
she was changing her clothes. Shortly after this, Schiller, the Count's
valet, saw and spoke with her. She was then upstairs in the laundry
arranging the linen for the mangle. She was then in her morning cotton
dress. Consequently she had not dressed herself to go out, as the cook
supposed. At the same time the carriage left the court of the house for
the palace. That was the last seen of her alive, except by John Stauff,
and, if he was not the murderer, by one other.
About a quarter past three the coach returned with Schämbs and Stauff
on the box. The Count had been left at the palace. The coachman took out
his horses, without unharnessing them, and left for his own house, at
half-past three, to remain there till 5 o'clock, when he must return,
put the horses in, and drive back to the palace to fetch the Count. A
quarter of an hour after the coachman left, Schiller went out for a walk
with his little boy.
Consequently--none were in the house but the Countess and Stauff, and
Stauff knew that the house was clear till 5 o'clock, when Schämbs would
return to the stables. What happened during that time?
At a quarter past four, the wife of Schiller came to the house with a
little child, and a stocking she was knitting. She wanted to know if her
husband had gone with the boy to Eberstadt, a place about four miles
distant. She went to the back-door. It was not fastened, but on being
opened rang a bell, like a shop door. Near it were two rooms, one
occupied by Schiller, the other by Stauff. The wife went into her
husband's room and found it empty. Then she went into that of Stauff. It
also was empty. She returned into the entrance hall and listened.
Everything was still in the house. She stood there some little while
knitting and listening. Presently she heard steps descending the
backstairs, and saw Stauff, with an apron about him, and a duster in his
hand. She asked him if her husband had gone to Eberstadt, and he said
that he had. Then she left the house. Stauff, however, called to her
from the window to hold up the child to him, to kiss. She did so, and
then departed.
Shortly after five, Schämbs returned to the stable, put in the horses,
and drove to the palace without seeing Stauff. He thought nothing of
this, as Stauff usually followed on foot, in time to open the coach door
for the Count. On this occasion, Stauff appeared at his post in livery,
at a quarter to six. At half-past six both returned with their master to
the house in Neckar Street.
Accordingly, from half-past three to a quarter past four, and from
half-past four to half-past five, Stauff was alone in the house with the
Countess. But then, from a quarter to five to half-past five she was
quite alone, and it was possible that the murder was committed at that
time. The Count, it will be remembered, on his return, went upstairs and
knocked at the door of the Countess' apartments, without meeting with a
response. Probably, therefore, she was then dead.
At seven o'clock the coachman went away, and Stauff helped the Count to
take off his court dining dress, and put on a light suit. He was with
him till half-past seven, when the Count went out for a walk. The Count
returned at half-past eight; during an hour, therefore, Stauff was alone
in the house with the Countess, or--her corpse.
What occurred during that hour? Here two independent pieces of evidence
come in to assist us in determining what took place. At five minutes
past eight, Colonel von Stockhausen had seen the column of black smoke
issue from the chimney of the house; it ascended, he said, some fifteen
feet above the chimney, and was so dense that it riveted his attention
whilst he was talking to a lady.
At about a quarter-past eight the smoke ceased.
The reader may remember that the window of the inner boudoir did not
look into the Neckar Street, but into a small side street. Immediately
opposite lived a widow lady named Kekule. On the evening in question,
her daughter, Augusta, a girl of eighteen, came in from a walk, and went
upstairs to the room the window of which was exactly opposite, though at
a somewhat higher level than the window of the boudoir. Looking out of
her window, Augusta Kekule saw to her astonishment a flickering light
like a lambent flame in the boudoir. A blind was down, so that she could
see nothing distinctly. She was, however, alarmed, and called her
brother Augustus, aged twenty years, and both watched the flames
flashing in the room. They called their mother also, and all three saw
it flare up high, then decrease, and go out. The time was 8.15. On
examination of the spot, it was seen that the window of Miss Kekule
commanded the corner of the boudoir, where was the divan partly burnt
through in several places.
What was the meaning of these two appearances, the smoke and the flame?
Apparently, from half-past seven to half-past eight the murderer was
engaged in burning the body, and in effacing with fire the blood-stains
on the sofas. During this time John Stauff was in the house, and, beside
the Countess, alive or dead, John Stauff only.
Stauff was now subjected to examination. He was required to account for
his time on the afternoon and evening of Sunday, June 13.
He said, that after his return from the palace, that is, about ten
minutes past three, he went into his room on the basement, and ate bread
and cheese. When told that the wife of Schiller stated she had seen him
come downstairs, he admitted that he had run upstairs to fetch a duster,
to brush away the bread crumbs from the table at which he had eaten.
After the woman left, according to his own account, he remained in his
room below till five o'clock, when the Countess came to the head of the
stairs and called him. He went up and found her on the topmost landing;
she went into the laundry, and he stood in the door whilst she spoke to
him, and gave him some orders for the butcher and baker. She wore, he
said, a black stuff gown. Whilst he was talking to her, Schämbs drove
away to fetch the Count. He gave a correct account of what followed, up
to the departure of the Count on his walk. After that, he said, he had
written a letter to his sweetheart, and at eight went out to get his
supper at an outdoor restaurant where he remained till half-past nine.
He was unable to produce evidence of anyone who had seen him and spoken
to him there; but, of course, much cannot be made of this, owing to the
distance of time at which the evidence was taken from the event of the
murder. According to his account, therefore, no one was in the house at
the time when the smoke rose from the chimney, and the flame was seen in
the boudoir.
If we sum up the points determined concerning the murder of the
Countess, we shall see how heavily the evidence told against Stauff.
She had been attacked in her room, and after a desperate struggle, which
went on in both parlour and boudoir, she had been killed.
Her secretaire had been robbed.
Her body had been burnt.
The blood-stains had been effaced by fire.
The secretaire had been set fire to; and, apparently, the body removed
from where it had been partially consumed, and placed near it.
Now all this must have taken time. It could only be done by one who knew
that he had time in which to effect it undisturbed.
John Stauff was at two separate times, in the afternoon and evening,
alone in the house for an hour, knowing that during that time he would
be undisturbed.