THE CRIME OF KIRKSTONE HALL
It sometimes happens that a youthful spendthrift becomes an aged
miser, and hoards money in the same extreme fashion as formerly he
wasted it. John Kirkstone was a fair example of this species of human
chameleon. As his father's heir, he drained the estate of all ready
money, and squandered the same in London without regard to economy or
even reason. In this riotous life he was encouraged by a former
college companion--one Marmaduke Dean--who even went to the extent of
borrowing money of Kirkstone, and so became his debtor for a large
sum. Dean subsequently married a lady of fortune, and repaid a portion
of the money; but either could not, or--as was more probable--would
not discharge the whole. On this point Kirkstone, who needed money for
his pleasures, quarrelled with his friend, and the pair parted to meet
no more for some years. It would have been better for both had they
never renewed their youthful friendship.
As might be expected, old Squire Kirkstone was by no means pleased
with his son, and did not relish leaving his large fortune to one who
probably would waste it in a few years. The Hall and its surrounding
acres were entailed, and were bound to pass into John Kirkstone's
hands; but the old man possessed a large income acquired by
speculation, which was at his own disposal. Wrathful at his
spendthrift son, he resolved to leave this personal property to his
only daughter; and accordingly, when John became Squire on the death
of his father, he found that his sister Laura was in possession of a
good income, while he had to be content with a dwelling far too large
for his means, and several farms whose tenants did not always pay
their rents. The shock of this discovery was unpleasant, but salutary.
In the first place Kirkstone renounced his London profligacy and
associates, and came to live at the Hall; in the second, he insisted
that his sister should dwell with him, and pay a handsome yearly sum
for the privilege; and in the third, he invited his first cousin,
Ellen Gilmar, to be his housekeeper. Laura Kirkstone, who was a
weak-bodied and weak-natured girl, readily consented to remain at the
Hall, and pay what her brother demanded, and as readily welcomed her
cousin Ellen as mistress of the household, a post for which she herself
had no great love. Having thus arranged matters, Kirkstone--though not
yet forty--became as penurious as formerly he had been wasteful; and
in this system of economy was ably assisted by his new housekeeper, a
shrewd, cold-hearted skinflint.
Laura, in derision, called Ellen Mrs. Harpagon, after Molière's miser;
and well did Miss Gilmar deserve the name. She was a little, black,
active woman, with a neat figure and a somewhat pinched white face.
Her eyes were hard-looking, her lips were thin, and she was a perfect
skinflint in the management of the household. Even Kirkstone, inclined
as he was to economy, grumbled at times about her excessive economy;
but as the months went by, he fell gradually into her saving way of
living, and the Hall soon gained a name in the county for all that was
mean and niggardly. The larder was always kept locked, the servants
were ill fed, and the occasional beggars who came to that forbidden
door were not fed at all. Scraping, and screwing, and hoarding of
money became the order of the day; and Kirkstone soon found that he
was redeeming his former waste, at the cost of a hard and somewhat
hungry life. However, the habit of living thus penuriously became
confirmed, and both he and Mrs. Harpagon vied with one another in
discovering new methods of saving money. The only person in the Hall
who did not relish this extreme economy was Laura Kirkstone.
The attitude adopted by Kirkstone towards his wealthy sister was a
fairly amiable one. Having a strong will, he compelled her weaker one
to bow to it; and kept a sharp watch on her, lest she should marry
some one of whom he did not approve, and so take the money--which he
looked upon as rightfully his own--out of the family. Many a young man
would have been glad to marry Miss Kirkstone, both for her money and
good looks; for in a pink-and-white sort of way the girl was pretty;
but Kirkstone invited none of these would-be suitors to the house, and
turned a cold shoulder to them in public. Laura was forbidden even to
speak to them; and being kept closely to her own home, lived in the
gaunt, grim Hall, like an enchanted princess guarded by two ogres. And
none of the young knights who wished to marry her had sufficient
courage to brave the black looks of Kirkstone, or the acidulated
sneers of his amiable housekeeper and cousin. Such was the position of
affairs at Kirkstone Hall when Marmaduke Dean again entered into the
life of his former friend.
It was the death of his wife which led to Dean's visit to Kirkstone
Hall. He had squandered the fortune of the unhappy lady, and had
treated her with so much coldness and neglect that she had died of a
broken heart, leaving him a little son. Dean promptly placed the
child with some distant relatives, and being poor again, looked
about him for some means whereby he could procure money. Recalling the
easy-going and generous disposition of Kirkstone, he resolved to apply
to him for aid, quite oblivious to the fact that he was already in his
debt. To this end he one day presented himself at the Hall, and was
astonished to find that its owner, from a generous friend, had changed
into a miserly curmudgeon. Kirkstone not only refused to help Dean,
but demanded immediate repayment of the monies already due. Dean,
seeing that only trouble would come of his application, was on the
point of withdrawing, so as to save himself the danger of being sued
for the lent money, when a new idea entered into Kirkstone's knavish
brain which made him detain Dean at the Hall as a necessary element to
bring it to fruition. The scheme was none other than the marriage of
Laura to the disconsolate widower, and comprehended a division of her
fortune between the brother and the proposed husband, an amiable
arrangement which really amounted to robbery.
Laura herself forced Kirkstone to adopt this plan by reason of her
refusal to let him handle the fortune which had been left to her by
their father. Like most weak-minded people she was singularly
obstinate on some points, and, being cunning enough to see that her
sole hold over her brother lay in retaining command of her money, she
always evaded his proposals to manage her investments. Beyond the
income he derived from the sum she paid for board and lodging,
Kirkstone had nothing to do with these monies, of which, as he
frequently stated, he had been robbed. Naturally he was angered to
think of his loss, and tried several times to bully Laura into
surrendering her fortune. The result of this ill-judged conduct was
that Laura met force by cunning, and, taking a dislike to her brother,
executed a secret will, whereby she left the whole of the money to
Ellen Gilmar.
In this case there was no honour among thieves, for the housekeeper
tricked her master and cousin by keeping secret the fact of the will,
and when Kirkstone tried to marry his sister to Dean, he was quite
unaware that Ellen, for her own selfish ends, intended to thwart the
match if she could. Furthermore a new and unforeseen obstacle arose to
complicate matters, for it chanced that both Laura and Ellen fell in
love with Dean. The scamp was a handsome man, with a plausible manner,
and Laura was quite willing to marry him, and to settle half her
fortune on him, receiving in return a presentable husband with a
damaged reputation. It was agreed between Kirkstone and Dean that when
the marriage took place the latter should discharge his debt to the
former, and also pay over a certain sum of money by way of commission
on the marriage settlement. So far all went well, and Kirkstone
invited Dean to stay at the Hall until the marriage took place, and
all pecuniary arrangements between them were settled. It was then that
Ellen threw prudence to the wind, and lost her heart to Dean.
The result of this feminine weakness was that Ellen did violence to
her instincts by relaxing her stingy rule. She kept the table supplied
with better food while Dean stayed at the Hall, she paid more
attention to her dress, humoured the man she loved in every way, and
altogether behaved in a manner so alien to her natural self that Laura
became suspicious. The end of this folly was that Laura discovered
Ellen's secret, and lost her temper over it. She accused Dean of
making love to Ellen, and Ellen of encouraging his advances. Kirkstone
was told this by his sister, and he, seeing a chance of his losing
money by the marriage not taking place, had a stormy scene with Ellen.
He threatened to turn her out of the Hall as a pauper; whereat the
woman turned at bay on her cousin, and revealed the truth about the
secret will.
"If this marriage takes place," she declared, "I lose money as well as
you, and if I can influence Laura to refuse Dean I shall certainly do
so. If it comes to the point, we shall see who is the stronger, you or
I."
The upshot of this conversation was that Kirkstone lost his temper
altogether, and went to bully his sister into revoking her will. Had
he only remembered that the same result would be attained by the
marriage taking place, he would have urged on the match and defied
Ellen. Instead of acting thus sensibly, he vented his rage on Dean,
and accused him of encouraging the folly of the housekeeper. Then Dean
lost his temper in his turn, and quarrelled with Kirkstone and Laura;
so in the month of July, '76, it chanced that the four people
inhabiting Kirkstone Hall quite misunderstood one another, and, for
the time being, were hardly on speaking terms. Dean stormed at
Kirkstone as trying to thwart the proposed marriage; Kirkstone blamed
Dean as having encouraged the love of Ellen; and Laura, in her weak
way, fretted herself ill over the whole disturbance. Only Ellen, the
cause of all the trouble, retained her placidity. She did not move an
inch from her position. She had an end to gain, and in one way or
another she was determined to gain it. It was while things were in
this unhappy state that the country was startled by the news that
Kirkstone had been murdered by Dean.
The tragedy took place in a certain room strangely furnished by the
mother of the present squire, which was known as the Yellow Boudoir.
It was a favourite apartment with Kirkstone, who had turned it into a
smoking-room. On the night of the 16th of July, Kirkstone and Dean
were drinking and smoking in this room, when apparently they renewed
their quarrel with a fatal result Kirkstone was found dead in the room
at midnight with a knife in his heart. This knife had been brought
from America--it was a bowie-knife--by Dean, and his name was marked
on the handle. Ellen deposed at the inquest that, guessing the pair
might quarrel, she had gone downstairs shortly before midnight to
implore them to part. Then she had seen Dean leave the Yellow Boudoir
in a state of alarm and alcoholic excitement. Afterwards Kirkstone
asked her to tell Dean to come down again. She did so, and Dean
rejoined Kirkstone. When they parted for the second time Ellen went to
the smoking-room, and found Kirkstone lying dead with Dean's knife in
his heart The result of this statement was that Dean was arrested for
the murder of his friend, and, mainly on the evidence of Miss Gilmar,
he was found guilty. The man protested his innocence in vain, and
would have suffered the extreme penalty of the law, but that a
sympathizing section of the public, not satisfied with the judgment,
prepared a memorial to the Home Secretary. The sentence was then
commuted to penal servitude for life.
The immediate result of the crime was that Laura, on seeing the dead
body of her brother, and learning that the man she loved had murdered
him, received such a shock that within three months she was dead. As
her will in favour of Ellen had never been revoked, the former
housekeeper came in for all her money. Also, as no male heirs of
the Kirkstone family were left, Miss Gilmar, by the will of her
great-great-grandfather, and as the daughter of John Kirkstone's
paternal aunt; inherited the estates. Therefore Ellen Gilmar lost the
man she loved, but found herself a wealthy and lonely woman. Only one
thing she feared, and that was a violent death; for Dean had declared
that his unjust sentence was due to her lying evidence, and that, if
his life were spared, he would some day kill her. Apparently he had
done so.
Such was the statement of the Kirkstone Hall Crime, which was
undoubtedly in some secret way connected with the more recent murder
of Ellen Gilmar at Grangebury. The question was--did Dean strangle her
out of revenge, since he had escaped from prison about the time Miss
Gilmar left the Hall on her lonely wanderings, and was at large to
carry out his threat?
If Dean murdered Kirkstone he would have no compunction in committing
a second crime to revenge himself on the woman who had delivered him
into the hands of Justice.
If Dean did not murder Kirkstone it might be that, enraged at his
unjust sentence, he had killed Miss Gilmar to punish her for the lying
evidence which had smirched his name and ruined his life.
In either case there was the threat to murder Miss Gilmar, which, on
the face of it, implicated the convict in the Grangebury murder.
Deeming the man guilty of the first crime, Parge declared that he had
committed the second.
Putting aside the first crime, Gebb maintained that Dean was innocent
It now remains to discover which of the two is in the right.