The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes (55 page)

“People who like legal mysteries and the arts of the literary detective”—the phrase is Andrew Lang’s—can hardly fail to appreciate the Kirwan case. It presents a puzzle sufficiently perplexing to intrigue even a blasé taste, and to stimulate the Sherlockian spirit that sleeps in the bosom of the most blameless of Watsons. It is, in the first place, a trial for murder quite out of the common run. The circumstances of the crime, if crime in fact there was, were at the time unprecedented: the drowning of a wife by her husband; and they remained unparalleled in our annals until the revelations made upon a trial in 1915, when one Mr Smith was found to have eclipsed the achievement of his forerunner of the fifties by drowning no less than three wives in succession. But the quantitative element apart, the earlier case is much the more interesting and instructive. Smith was a mere mechanic, ingenious if you will, and clever at his job; a capable craftsman enough, but lacking imagination and the sense of style. Instead of making his first success a stepping stone to higher things, he was so stupid as to stereotype his method. Further, none but his counsel,
ex officio
, was ever known to doubt his guilt, whereas many have maintained the innocence of his predecessor. The staging, too, of the respective tragedies differed markedly in scenic effectiveness. Smith’s theatre was the domestic bathroom of drab lodgings in mean streets; Kirwan’s, a desolate island of the sea. As to motive, Smith was but a footpad, murdering for money; Kirwan’s act, if he indeed committed it, was of the passionate cast so tenderly regarded by the law-courts of France.

The astute reader will notice that I have safeguarded myself from pronouncing upon Mr Kirwan’s guilt. It was an Irish case, vehemently discussed; and although the passage of some seventy years ought to have cooled the ashes of that old controversy, I am not going to take any risks. Convicted by a Dublin jury, with the approval of two eminent judges of the Irish bench, the prisoner after a three days’ trial was duly sentenced to death. The tide of public opinion, which had set strongly against the accused man from the start, then turned in his favour, and as the result of much popular agitation the question was begged in the usual British fashion—how we love a compromise!—the extreme penalty was remitted, and the convict was sent to Spike Island for life. All of which pleased nobody and left the subject in dispute precisely where it was before.

Personally, in the matter of alleged judicial errors I am rather sceptical. Miscarriages of justice have, of course, from time to time occurred, owing to the fallibility of the human agents, but this danger is now discounted by the opportunity provided for review by a competent tribunal. It may be that a Court of Criminal Appeal, had such been available, might on the merits have reversed the jury’s finding. Certainly, it was a narrow case; the evidence was purely circumstantial and called for very nice and cautious estimation; had the trial happened to be held in Scotland, our national
via media
of Not Proven would probably have been followed. In hearing, reading, or writing about these cases I always feel how much there is behind the scenes that one ought to know in order to arrive at a fully informed judgment; how much that, by reason of sundry rules of the game played by counsel with the prisoner’s life for stake, is never allowed to come out in court. Thus in the present instance we know next to nothing of the personality of the man, upon which the solution of the problem so largely depends, or apart from the evidence of a single quarrel are we told anything of his usual relations with his wife. The second “Mrs Kirwan” is not produced, and on the important question as to the lawful wife’s knowledge of her rival’s claims, or even of her existence, we have no information beyond the opposed statements of the contending counsel. Relatives and family friends could have dispelled these doubts and also have settled the vital matter of the dead lady’s general health and habits: the Crown representing her as a perfectly sound, healthy woman; the defence, as an epileptic. Again, she is alleged at once to have been a strong and daring swimmer, and not to have been able to swim a stroke! Upon these and many other points the state of the proof is disappointingly nebulous. The medical evidence, too, is unsatisfactory and inconclusive. The conditions were plainly unfavourable, but surely nowadays science should be equal to giving a more decisive answer. What weighs most with me is the conduct of Mr Kirwan himself, in the brief glimpses we get of him on the island and after his return to Howth. And those dreadful screams, heard over the water by the five witnesses, re-echo across the years today in a very ugly and suggestive manner for such as have ears to hear.

A mile off the harbour of Howth, in County Dublin, lies the little island with the picturesque name: Ireland’s Eye. Visitors to that agreeable watering place are in the habit of taking a boat to the romantic and rocky isle, lying so invitingly in view out in the sea, for purposes “not unconnected”, as the newspapers say, with picnics. A ruined chapel of St Nessan, a Martello tower, a fine stretch of beach, a beautiful and extensive prospect: these form the chief attractions. Upon the seaward side a narrow creek or gully, called the Long Hole, will claim our special attention later. Altogether it is a pleasant spot in which to while away the hours of a summer day, and the last place one would associate with a treacherous and cruel crime.

At ten a.m. on Monday, 6th September, 1852, two persons embarked at the harbour in the boat of a local fisherman named Patrick Nangle. They had with them a bag and a hand-basket, their object being to spend the day upon the island, as they had already done on two or three former occasions. The stout, dark man of about five-and-thirty was Mr William Burke Kirwan, an artist; the handsome, well-made woman of thirty was his wife, Maria Louisa Kirwan; the bag contained the materials of his art, together with the bathing costume, cap, and bath sheet of his spouse, a constant and enthusiastic bather; the basket held provision for an exiguous al fresco meal. Married for twelve years and without a family, the Kirwans lived at No. 11 Upper Merrion Street, Dublin. They were then staying in summer lodging at Howth, where they had been for some six weeks; and as they were to return to Dublin on the morrow, this was their last excursion.

A commonplace couple enough, one would say; and yet Mr Kirwan’s domestic habits present on closer acquaintance certain singular features. Though then on holiday, it was his custom, in his landlady’s phrase, to “sleep out” three times a week, going on these occasions to Dublin and returning to Howth next day. Such periodic abstentions from the family bosom were not, as one might suppose, due to the exigencies of his profession as an anatomical draughtsman and furnisher of coloured maps in the city. No; during the whole period of his married life Mr Kirwan had been leading what is figuratively termed a double life. He kept a mistress, one Teresa Kenny, by whom he had no fewer than seven children, and he maintained his Hagar and her brood in a house in Sandymount, a suburb of Dublin, provided her with a servant, and endowed her with the style and title of “Mrs Kirwan”. To what extent his legitimate lady was aware of this redundant
ménage
, and if she knew of it, how she viewed the pluralistic peculiarities of her lord, there is no proof. Upon this point the prosecuting counsel thus addressed the jury:

“It so happened, or was so managed, that neither Maria Kirwan nor Teresa Kenny had either of them the least notion or idea of each other’s existence until a comparatively recent period . . . These facts, gentlemen, will appear in the evidence; nay, more, with such consummate art was this system of double deception carried on, that it was only within the last six months that either of these two women became aware of the fact that each had a rival in the prisoner’s affections.”

Not only did these facts
not
appear in the evidence, but counsel for the defence in his speech declared:

“The connection alluded to was not a new one; his wife knew of it and forgave it, and she and her husband were reconciled.”

Here, again, no evidence is produced in support of this statement, and we must choose between the
ipse dixit
of learned counsel on each side of the bar. Whether or not an attractive young wife would be likely to acquiesce in such an arrangement is for the reader to judge, according to his experience of human nature.

Despite the famous dictum of Mr Justice Stephen in the Maybrick case, adultery of itself is not necessarily an incitement to murder. If it were so, I am afraid our criminal courts would be sadly congested and the hangman would be worked to death. The domestic atmosphere of the Kirwan home, however, is unusually dense, and does need more light than the trial affords. As we shall find, the husband had been heard of late to beat and abuse his wife, and even to threaten her life, acts which exceed the customary amenities of the married state. But more of this later: we are keeping our pleasure-seekers waiting.

They landed below the Martello tower at the north-west corner of the isle, and the boatman was instructed to return for them at eight o’clock—a long day, and a late hour for the autumn season; the sun set that evening at six thirty-six. At noon Nangle’s boat came again to the island, bringing over another family party, who remained there till four o’clock. During the day these people saw the Kirwans, singly and together, at various times and places, but did not speak to them. When leaving in the afternoon for Howth one of the party, observing that the lady looked intently after the boat, called to her did she wish to go ashore; but she answered no, the men were to come back for her at eight. So for the next four hours this man and woman remained alone together upon the isle. What passed between them can never be known; no human eye could see how they employed their time, nor watch the act which certainly brought about the violent death of one of them. But human ears, by a strange chance, heard something of that un-witnessed tragedy. The shadows lengthened, the daylight waned, there was a heavy shower about six o’clock, and still silence brooded over the island, wrapped in the gathering dusk. At seven o’clock a fishing boat, making for Howth harbour, passed Ireland’s Eye to the west of the isle, within ten perches of the Martello tower. She was a hooker of thirty-eight tons, with a crew of nine men, of whom one only was then on deck: the steersman, Thomas Larkin. It was “between day and dark”. As the boat glided by before a light north-west breeze—the night was quiet and there was no sea—Larkin was startled by a loud scream, “a great screech”, from the direction of the Eye. No one was visible on the shore, though there was light enough in the sky for him to have seen anyone there. In five or six minutes, during which the boat increased her distance, he heard a second scream, but lower; and two minutes afterwards, more faintly, a third. The boat was by then half way to the harbour. The cries were like those of a person in distress; he mentioned the matter at the time to his mates, who being below heard nothing. Night had fallen when they reached Howth.

Other four people on the mainland severally heard these cries. Alicia Abernethy lived at Howth, near the harbour. Her house was directly opposite the Long Hole, a mile off across the water. That evening she called upon her next-door neighbour to ask the time, and was told it was five minutes past seven. She returned, and while leaning over her garden wall, looking towards the Long Hole on the Eye—“it was between the two lights” and she could just see the island—she heard “a dreadful screech, as of a person in agony and pain”. She then heard another, not so loud, and next a weaker one. The cries, she thought, were those of a woman. She told her family about them that night. Catherine Flood, employed in a house on the quay of Howth, was standing at the hall door at five or six minutes past seven, when she heard “great screams” from Ireland’s Eye. The first was the loudest—“a very wild scream”; the last was cut off in the middle. There was a minute or two between them. John Barrett, from the door of his house at the east pier, heard about seven o’clock “screeches abreast the harbour”. Going over to the pier, he heard two or three more; they declined in loudness and seemed to come from Ireland’s Eye. Hugh Campbell, “between day and dark”, was leaning over the quay wall, when he heard from the direction of the island three cries, “resembling the calling of a person for assistance”; some three minutes elapsed between the cries, which became successively weaker.
Half an hour later he saw Nangle’s boat leave the harbour and go over to the island.
²⁰
He had often before heard voices from the Eye.

These five persons were all reputable folk of the place, credible witnesses, whose testimony cross-examination failed to shake. So we have the fact clearly proved that about seven o’clock that night there rang out upon that little isle three lamentable screams of terror and distress, so piercing as to be audible a mile off upon the mainland. Yet Mr Kirwan, rendered deaf by anxiety for, or indifference to the fate of his vanished wife, or wholly engrossed with his sketch-book in making the most of the failing light, as appears, heard nothing.

At twenty minutes to eight o’clock Patrick Nangle, and his cousin Michael, accompanied by other two men, left Howth harbour as arranged to bring back the pleasure-seekers. The boat reached the island about eight o’clock, and landed close to the tower. It was then getting very dark and they saw nothing of their party; but on their calling out, the voice of Mr Kirwan replied: “Nangle, come up for the bag.” Patrick went ashore; he found Mr Kirwan standing by himself on the bank and received from him his bag and sketch-book. Patrick, taking these down to the boat, met Michael going up, who, seeing Mr Kirwan coming towards the boat and finding he was alone, at once exclaimed, “Where is the mistress?”