Her Brother's Keeper
Growing up in Whatley House in the idyllic but isolated English village of Baron's Woods, with barely an eleven-month difference in their ages, Millicent and Byron Atwell were closer than most sisters and brothers. Always a highly strung woman, their mother, Juliana, began acting peculiarly shortly after giving birth to her second child. Their father, Alexander Atwell, a railroad inspector whose duties frequently called him away from home, feared his wife's increasingly bizarre behavior was the result of insanity. Erring on the side of caution, he put his wife under a doctor's care and engaged a nanny to watch over his young children.
While her son and daughter were growing up, Juliana continued her slow downward spiral into madness. Often confined to her bedroom and kept in a laudanum-induced stupor, she was little more than a living ghost to her own offspring. It was Emily Jerrold, the nanny, who came to Whatley House when she was but seventeen years of age, who raised them. The young woman not only became parent, teacher, nursemaid and playmate to the two youngsters in her care, she also became indispensible to their father. Over time, their friendship gradually deepened into a close affection. Much to his credit, Alexander took no liberties with his employee, even though he was a lonely man in need of female companionship. A proper Victorian gentleman, he would never dream of disrespecting either his ailing wife or the nanny by engaging in an extramarital love affair.
As the years passed, Juliana's physical health as well as her mental state deteriorated. Millicent was eleven when her mother passed away, and Byron was ten. Her death did not cause them any great sense of loss or grief since their mother was practically a stranger to them.
"I don't see that her passing will make much difference in our lives," the girl confided to her brother after the funeral. "We still have Father and Miss Jerrold."
While theirs was not a traditional family, it was one that pleased the children. Byron, the apple of his father's eye, adored his surviving parent; and Millicent viewed the nanny not as a stern figure of authority but rather as an older sister. A year to the day after Juliana Atwell's body was laid to rest in the vicarage cemetery, however, the dynamics of that family unit irrevocably changed. Having observed a proper period of mourning for his wife, Alexander Atwell proposed marriage to Emily Jerrold, and his offer was promptly accepted.
"Isn't that wonderful?" the father asked his children, smiling like an adolescent schoolboy in the throes of first love. "You two are going to have a new mother."
With the exception of their nanny moving into their mother's old bedroom, neither of the children anticipated any changes in the household. Their father was still the head of the family, and Emily would still perform the lion's share of the child-rearing duties. It did not particularly matter to either Millicent or Byron if they now had to address her as "Mother" rather than "Miss Jerrold." After all, as Shakespeare wrote, "What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet."
Roses and names aside, the children were to learn that the relationship between their father and their nanny was not the same once they were pronounced man and wife. No longer a paid servant, the new Mrs. Atwell soon distanced herself from her former coworkers and even from her stepchildren. On those occasions when their father was not called away by railroad business, the newlywed couple journeyed to London together, leaving the children in the care of the housekeeper.
"I don't know why they can't bring us with them," Byron complained.
"Because they prefer to be alone with each other," answered twelve-year-old Millicent, whose additional eleven months in age made her wiser than her brother.
"I sometimes wonder if they like us anymore."
"Don't be silly! We're their children. Of course, they like us."
"We're not her children. Our mother died. And as for Father ...."
The boy lapsed into silence, brooding with resentment.
"Father still loves us!" Millicent stubbornly insisted. "Especially you. You're the son and heir. One day Whatley House will be yours."
"I don't care about this silly old house or the money. What I want is my father."
"Be patient, Brother. Father and his wife are newlyweds. Once they've been married awhile, they won't be so eager to be alone with each other."
While what Millicent predicted eventually came to pass, another, greater threat to the Atwell children's domestic happiness soon arose. Barely six months after their father remarried the youngsters were informed that their stepmother was with child. The prospect of a baby brother or sister did not make either of them happy.
* * *
"It's a boy!" Alexander Atwell shouted with joy when Emily gave birth to a healthy male child. "My dearest wife has given me a son!"
The words seemed to pierce Byron's heart. For twelve years, he alone had been his father's son. Now he had to share that title with another.
Alexander carried the newborn infant into the drawing room and showed him to Millicent.
"This is Albert Edward," he proudly announced, "your baby brother. We named him after the Prince of Wales."
Although she forced a smile, his daughter did not utter a word.
Byron is my brother! she thought angrily.
Life at Whatley House soon centered on little Bertie. Even though a nursemaid was hired to care for him, Emily spent much of her day with either her son or her husband, with little time left for her stepchildren.
"It's not as though they need a nanny anymore," she contended. "Millicent is thirteen already, and Byron is twelve. They're old enough to amuse themselves when they're not in school."
Neither of Alexander's older children showed signs of anger or sadness at being shunted aside. Rather, the act of abandonment drew the two even closer together. They enjoyed a shared love of books, music and art. Millicent had a fondness for Dickens; her brother showed a preference for Shakespeare. Byron liked to draw and paint, and his sister took pleasure in playing the piano.
For nearly three years it was as though there were two distinct families living in Whatley House: the first consisting of Alexander Atwell, his wife and their child and the second the devoted brother and sister from the first marriage. However, as the American president Abraham Lincoln recently said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." And as that country across the Atlantic was rent by Civil War, the Atwell household was soon torn apart by tragedy.
The nightmare began when Hortense Blunt, Bertie's nursemaid, woke in the morning to find the toddler's bed empty. Although surprised, she was not immediately alarmed. On more than one occasion, when the master of the house was at home, Mrs. Atwell had gone into the nursery and removed her son from his bed and taken him downstairs to have breakfast with his father. Believing her young charge was in the care of his mother, the nursemaid took her time in dressing and pinning up her hair. When she finally went downstairs, she was puzzled by the silence of the house.
"Where is everyone?" Hortense asked the cook.
"Still in bed, I imagine," the elderly woman replied. "Leastways, no one's come down to breakfast yet."
It was at that point the nursemaid had her first inkling of foreboding. She went upstairs, quietly opened Mrs. Atwell's bedroom door and peered inside. The former nanny was sound asleep, and there was no sign of her child.
He must be in the house somewhere, Hortense optimistically believed.
Not wanting to needlessly alarm the mother, she shut the door and went to look for Bertie. When she failed to find the child in the house, she enlisted the assistance of Millicent, Byron and her fellow servants in expanding the search to the outdoors. Meanwhile, Emily woke up and went downstairs, expecting to find her son at breakfast.
"Where's Bertie?" she asked the nursemaid.
"Oh, Ma'am!" the young woman exclaimed. "We can't find him!"
"What do you mean?"
"When I woke up this morning, his bed was empty."
"Why didn't you inform me at once?" the distraught mother demanded to know.
"At first, I thought you had taken him to have breakfast with Mr. Atwell, and then I didn't want to upset you if ...."
"Enough! We must look for him. He might be hurt."
Although the rooms had all been searched, Emily went into every one a second and then a third time, checking beneath and behind furniture, behind draperies and inside cabinets and closets.
On the verge of panic, Emily sent one of the servants to her husband's office to notify him of the boy's disappearance. He came home immediately upon hearing the news.
"Oh, Alexander!" the frantic mother cried, collapsing into his arms. "What's become of our precious little baby?"
"Shhh, my dear," he said, attempting to give comfort to his anxious wife despite his own feelings of dread. "We'll find him."
"But we've looked for him everywhere! Where can he be?"
The mystery was solved two hours later. Three-year-old Bertie Atwell was found dead at the bottom of the outside privy. Still dressed in his nightclothes, his body wrapped in a blanket, he had been stabbed repeatedly, and his throat had been slashed. Given the young age of the victim, the violent nature of the crime and the callous disposal of the body, the murder made headlines throughout England. Even Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, parents of nine children themselves, were horrified by the tragedy.
After their initial investigation, Baron's Woods police apprehended Hortense Blunt for the child's murder.
* * *
Within days of the nursemaid's arrest, Detective Inspector Trent Hammersmith of Scotland Yard arrived in Baron's Woods to assist the local police in their investigation. After questioning everyone involved—servants, family members and responding police constables—it was his opinion that no evidence supported the suspicions against Hortense Blunt.
"But the baby slept in a bed in her room," the police superintendent argued, "less than five feet from where she herself slept. No one could have gotten into the room and taken Albert Edward without her knowing it."
"That's not true. On many occasions the child's mother took the baby out of his bed without waking the sleeping nursemaid."
"Are you suggesting Mrs. Atwell killed her own child?"
"I'm suggesting nothing of the sort. What I am saying is that there is no evidence that points to Miss Blunt's guilt. Besides, what motive would she have for the murder? From all accounts, she seemed generally fond of the child."
"Well, it's possible she had a gentleman friend pay her a visit during the night."
"A gentleman friend? Do you mean a lover?"
"Yes. It's possible, ain't it? She's a comely young woman, after all. Maybe they woke the child and one of them killed the lad to silence his cries."
"I don't suppose you know the identity of this unknown man? Or if you have any evidence that a man was in the house at the time?"
Lowering his voice, the superintendent replied, "The master of the house was at home."
"You believe he was having an illicit relationship with Miss Blunt?"
"I can't say for sure, but the current Mrs. Atwell was once nanny to his two older children. And they do say a leopard never changes its spots."
"Do you realize you're implicating Alexander Atwell in the brutal murder of his own son?"
"Somebody slit that poor tot's throat, somebody inside Whatley House. If you don't believe Miss Blunt did it, then who do you think it was?"
"I expect I'll eventually uncover the killer's identity but only after I conduct a thorough investigation. In the meantime," the inspector said, "I think it would be wise to release the nursemaid. No use keeping the poor woman in jail if we can't prove her guilt."
While Trent Hammersmith did not see eye to eye with the superintendent on his choice of suspects, he did agree with the policeman's general assumption: somebody inside Whatley House murdered Bertie. But who? As is the case with modern police investigations, the inspector had to consider which of the people in the house had the means, motive and opportunity to commit the crime.
Since Miss Blunt is apparently not a light sleeper, he reasoned, everyone in the house—including the nursemaid herself—had the opportunity to first steal a knife from the kitchen and then take the child from his bed and kill him. Likewise, everyone had the means to commit the murder. Killing a three-year-old child does not require any great physical strength nor does disposing of the body by tossing it into a privy. Any one of the inhabitants of Whatley House, young or old, male or female, family member or servant, could have done it.
"But who has a motive?" he wondered.
Trent was sure the answer to that question would lead to his successfully solving the case.
* * *
As Detective Inspector Hammersmith began his second round of questioning, he paid close attention not only to people's replies but also to their tone of voice and the emotions they displayed when answering. He was fairly certain none of the servants were involved in Albert Edward's death. Not one of them appeared to have a motive, and all seemed genuinely horrified by the heinous deed. He also ruled out Mr. and Mrs. Atwell as suspects. The parents were both devastated by the loss of their son.
Emily, in particular, seemed most eager to see her only child's killer brought to justice.
"I want to see him hang for what he did to my baby!" she cried hysterically.
"Are you so certain it was a man who killed your child?" Trent inquired.
"Surely no woman could have done such a thing. Why, it would be against the natural female instinct to take a child's life!"
Believing the servants and parents were innocent, that left only two people to be considered: Millicent and Byron. The inspector did not rule out Atwell's daughter simply because she was female. Contrary to Emily's belief, women were more than capable of murdering children, even their own.
When Byron went into his father's study to meet with the man from Scotland Yard for the second time, his eyes were red and swollen from crying.
"Did you and your brother get along?" asked Hammersmith, keenly observing the boy's face as he replied.
"Yes. Of course, he was so much younger than I, so we didn't spend much time together. When I'm not at school, I spend most of my free time with Millicent, my sister."
"The two of you are close?"
"As close as siblings can be. We're less than a year apart in age, so we grew up together."
After twenty minutes more of questioning, Hammersmith excused the boy, instructing him to send in his sister as he left the room. When Millicent entered soon thereafter, the inspector was struck by her chilly demeanor. Unlike Byron, there were no signs of tears in her eyes. Having previously decided to ask the girl the same questions he had asked her sibling, he began his interrogation.
"Did you and your brother get along?"
"Byron and I have always gotten along extremely well," she replied arrogantly.
"I'm referring to your other brother, Albert Edward."
"My stepbrother, you mean?"
"Technically, he's your half-brother."
"True. Did we get along? Not particularly. I don't consider him a brother since his mother was my former nanny."
Given Millicent's answers and the hostility she seemed to harbor for her stepmother, Trent decided to change his line of questioning.
"And what is your relationship with the current Mrs. Atwell?" he inquired.
"I should think that was obvious. She is my father's wife."
"Your stepmother."
"By definition, yes."
"Do you resent her taking your mother's place in your father's affections?"
"No. I barely knew my mother. She was mad, you see. Rather than being sent to an asylum, she was kept here under a doctor's care. Byron and I rarely saw her since she was confined to her room most of the day."
The inspector decided to steer his line of inquiry toward her knowledge of the crime.
"When did you last see your half-brother alive?"
"Sometime during the afternoon on the day before he was killed."
"Can you be more specific?"
"Am I my brother's keeper, Inspector?" Millicent asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Not to be intimidated by a girl of sixteen, Hammersmith replied, "Funny you should quote Cain, a man known to have murdered his brother."
At his clever response, the girl's cool composure momentarily faltered, but she quickly recovered it.
"I am not Cain, and Bertie was not Abel."
Trent had additional questions, all of which Millicent parried with the panache of a skilled fencing master. Still, the girl's cockiness only managed to convince the Scotland Yard detective that she was the most likely suspect.
Suspicion, however, was useless in a court of law without physical evidence, eyewitness testimony or a confession to back it up. Millicent professed her innocence, and there were no witnesses to the murder. Therefore, the prosecutor would have to rely on physical evidence to prove her guilt. Modern police departments rely heavily on forensics. Even before the advent of DNA testing, there were fingerprints and hair samples. In the year 1860, the best evidence Trent Hammersmith had to prove Millicent Atwell's guilt was the testimony of the laundress that on the day Bertie's body was discovered, the Atwells' laundry was missing a nightgown, one belonging to the sixteen-year-old daughter.
"When I told her it was missing from the bundle," the laundress told him, "she said she didn't know what had happened to it."
Since neither the maid nor the housekeeper had seen it either, Trent theorized that the nightgown, bloodied during the execution of the murder, had been destroyed. The missing nightdress, coupled with Millicent's animosity toward her stepmother, was enough reason to arrest her.
* * *
On the day of Millicent Atwell's trial, Detective Inspector Trent Hammersmith returned to Baron's Woods. He did not anticipate having to stay any great length of time. He was only there to serve as witness for the prosecution. Alexander Atwell, a moderately wealthy man, had hired a prominent barrister to defend his daughter. Mrs. Atwell, still grieving over the loss of her child, was not present in the courtroom, but her husband was. Trent pitied the man, who seemed to have aged well beyond his years.
I can't imagine what he's going through, the inspector mused. His young son viciously butchered and his daughter accused of the crime and likely to be sent to the gallows.
Hammersmith was so convinced of Millicent's guilt that he never imagined she might go free. His mistake was that he did not take into account her father's determination to protect his two remaining children. When the servants were called to give testimony before the court, each of them swore that the girl doted on the toddler.
That's not what they said when I questioned them, he thought.
In all fairness, since their livelihood depended on maintaining their employer's good will, the servants could be forgiven for their perjury.
Besides, his testimony and the matter of the missing nightgown ought to be enough to assure a conviction. Thus, Trent remained confident when the laundress was called to face the barrister. The Scotland Yard detective's dispassionate features crumbled when the woman testified that she had later found the missing nightgown beneath Millicent's bed.
"And what was the condition of that garment?" the barrister asked. "Were there any bloodstains?"
"No, but there was dust on it from being on the floor."
"Why didn't you tell me that when I questioned you?" Hammersmith cried out.
The inspector was cautioned to maintain order. Shaken, his gaze went to Alexander Atwell. The father remained stoic, casting his eyes down.
You old fool! You're letting your son's murderer go free!
With only the inspector's unsupported suspicions against her, Millicent Atwell was found not guilty.
* * *
After returning to London, Trent Hammersmith tried to put the case out of his mind. There were plenty of other crimes in the city that required his attention. In his long career with Scotland Yard, he was called upon to investigate many assaults, suicides and murders, although none was as heartrending as that of three-year-old Bertie Atwell.
In his twilight years, the former detective inspector had the occasion to journey to Baron's Woods one last time. He had not been there since the trial and was curious to learn if Millicent or her brother still lived in the village. As he approached the Atwell home, he noticed that time had not been kind to the old house. No doubt the owners could not afford the many repairs it needed.
When he saw a middle-aged woman working in the garden, not far from the privy where Bertie's body had been discovered, he assumed she was a servant.
"Excuse me," he called. "Do you know what happened to the family who used to live here?"
The woman raised her head, and there was recognition in her eyes.
"Inspector Hammersmith," she said.
"Miss Atwell!" Trent exclaimed with surprise. "Or are you a married woman now?"
"No, alas, I'm a spinster. What brings you to Baron's Woods? Have you come to question me about my missing nightgown or my half-brother's murder?"
"Not at all. I'm no longer with Scotland Yard. I now leave crime solving to younger men."
Millicent saw his eyes wander to the privy, and her face reddened.
"How is your family?" he asked, trying not to dwell on his failure to bring the child's murderer to justice.
"My father passed away some time ago, not long after ...."
"I'm sorry."
"My stepmother remarried and moved to Cornwall. Needless to say, I haven't kept in touch with her."
"And Byron?"
The emotion that was lacking years earlier when she spoke of the murdered Bertie was clearly evident when Byron Atwell's name was mentioned.
"He's not deceased, too, I hope?"
"No," she replied, her eyes brimming with tears. "He lives here with me."
Trent glanced at the house, noticing for the first time the bars on the upstairs bedroom window. Despite his advanced years, his memory was as sharp as ever. He recalled Millicent's words when he questioned her about her mother: "She was mad, you see. Rather than being sent to an asylum, she was kept under a doctor's care. Byron and I rarely saw her since she was confined to her room most of the day."
Madness, he well knew, often ran in families, passed down from one generation to the next. Heredity, aggravated by the traumatic events of the past, must have caused young Byron to lose his mind.
Is it possible that I've been wrong all these years? Trent suddenly wondered.
The look of pain and fear on Millicent's haggard face confirmed his suspicions.
"You've known all along that Byron killed Bertie."
It was a statement, not a question.
"Once he had a new family, my father had little time for us. It bothered Byron so much more than it did me. His resentment kept growing and growing until, finally, he snapped. After the deed was done, he woke me up and sought my help. We disposed of the body, and then I helped clean him up, burning his bloody nightshirt in the fireplace."
"You were on trial for murder. Had it not gone your way, you would have hanged."
"I knew my father would spare no expense in my defense. But even if I was convicted, I would have gone to the gallows keeping Byron's secret."
"In God's name, why?" Trent asked.
"Because, Inspector Hammersmith," she replied, wiping the tears from her cheeks, "I am my brother's keeper."
Although inspired by the 1860 murder of young Francis Saville Kent by his half-sister, Constance, this story is purely fictional.
Salem and his brother were close as kittens. However, Salem didn't care for the "sissy" clothes his mother insisted they wear.
