HS02 - Days of Atonement

by Michael Gregorio

  Frau Schmidt records that nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. Edith was her usual self. The nurse is renowned within the family for her good sense. Having eaten a late supper, and taken leave of the cook, she returned upstairs to the nursery. She at once took stock of the child, and swears that he was sleeping soundly. At that point, Nurse Edith undressed and washed herself. Having donned her nightgown and said her prayers, she put herself to bed in the same room. The child, she remembers, was gurgling lightly as he slept.

  During the night, Edith was disturbed on two occasions:

  a. On the first occasion, the nurse was able to say precisely what time the intrusion occurred. Having woken up shortly before for no reason that she could give, Edith says that she heard the estate clock strike two. That dock is situated directly above her head. Its chiming can be heard at distances of up to one mile, depending on the strength and the direction of the wind, as I verified on the morning following the event to establish the veracity of contradictory reports by diverse witnesses.

  Lady Dorothea-Ann entered the room shortly afterwards. She had dreamt, she told Edith, that the child was crying for his mother. The nurse reports, however, that the child had been sweetly sleeping, and did not wake up until his mother came in and made a fuss, lifting him up from his cot, and walking him round and round the room—rather quickly, according to the nurse—for almost an hour. Later, the Duchess of Albemarle left the nurse and the child alone again. The servant swears that the clock struck three within a brief space of time.

  b. On the second occasion, a footman came to the room. The man in question was Karlus Wettig, occasional second valet to the Duke. That night, as was always the custom in the Albermarle household, one of the menservants was required to sit up from dusk to dawn, patrolling the house to ensure against thieves, fire, or any other accident which might endanger the lives of the family and the Albemarle retinue. As personal tutor to the Duchess—counted, therefore, as one of the servants—I have myself kept the night watch on several occasions. The duty is not onerous and is rewarded by a free day and a half-day holiday the Saturday following. The guardian is required to sit on a comfortable chair in the entrance hall. He may read by candlelight, if he wishes, and I took advantage of the opportunity. Every half-hour, at the striking of the hour, or the half, by the English grandfather clock in the reception room, the nightguard must walk the length and breadth of the house, including the nursery where Georg-Albert sleeps with Edith Peckenthaal, checking that all doors are closed. In all, the survey of the house takes at least twelve minutes. On my nocturnal wanderings, I have rarely met any person with the exception of the Duke himself, who keeps late hours, and occasionally milady, Dorothea-Ann, who is a notoriously light sleeper.

  On the night in question, I was sleeping in my room, though I believe I may have heard Karlus Wettig passing in the corridor outside my room on two separate occasions, some ten or twelve minutes after the hour of eleven; some time later that night, I observed the flicker of candlelight beneath my door. My room is situated at the end of the servants’ corridor. Karlus Wettig had been in service with the family for almost twenty years, and was considered to be a trustworthy nightwatchman.

  At half past six o’clock on the morning of 2nd December, 1765, I was roused by a piercing scream from somewhere in the house, followed by a flurry of activity, most of the servants already being at their posts and engaged, preparing the house for the family ablutions and the breakfast, which was generally served in the dining room at 7.45. As I was informed in passing by Lucinda Boehmer, one of the lady’s maids, the child, Georg-Albert von Mandel, had been found dead in his cot.

  Later that day, I spoke to Edith Peckenthaal, who had been seen by the physician, Herr Doctor Fenikker. After verifying that the child was dead, he had been asked to give a reviving potion to the nurse who was in a state of swooning brought on by emotional hysteria. Though unusually drowsy—drugged, perhaps?—the young lady, a dependable unmarried person aged twenty-seven, told me that she had heard nothing during the night which might alarm her, and that the shock of finding the infant dead had ‘broken her heart’.

  I also managed to speak with the doctor.

  He reported that the child appeared to have been violently beaten to death. He counted as many as sixteen or seventeen blows with a heavy, blunt object—a murder weapon which has been neither identified, nor found. The violence of the attack and of the child’s reflex physiological response to it is indicated by the pattern of blood which was found in the room. The cot was soaked with blood, as were the two walls in the corner where the baby slept. Paths of bloodstains on the wall suggested that the first blow occasioned massive loss of blood, and that each subsequent blow lifted and sprayed blood over the surrounding area.

  Question: Why repeat the attack so often and with such ferocity when the first blow certainly provoked sufficient damage to silence the child and ensure his death?

  As the murder weapon was used again and again, the tracks of blood on the walls and the ceiling suggest that the angle of attack was modified with every single blow. In addition, a shower of minute bloodspots, probably caused by violent haemorrhaging of the child’s lungs, produced a finer cloud of minute blood-spots on the wall to the left of the cot. Doctor Fenikker, a general practitioner, a graduate of the medical school in Potsdam, and a veteran seagoing surgeon in the Prussian Navy, hypothesised, noting dilation of the pupils and the fact that the eyes were bloodshot, that the child may have struggled in panic before his demise—a matter of no more than one or two minutes. From the relative ease with which he was able to move and examine the tiny corpse, the doctor deduces that the infant had been dead no more than four hours when his lifeless body was discovered.

  Georg-Albert von Mandel was buried three days later, on 5th December in the churchyard of Svetloye, the country estate of the Duke of Albermarle, where the body had been removed the day before.

  My suggestion, made to the Duke himself, shortly after the physician left the house, that a post mortem examination be carried out by a qualified pathologist—I offered the name of an acquaintance, Doctor Ernst Plucker, ordinary of the Royal University of Königsberg—was rejected out of hand. Indeed, the violent terms in which my advice was rejected led me to proffer my immediate resignation, which the Duke of Albermarle accepted.

  NB: There was no acrimony involved in my retirement from my contract of service. The Duke settled the full account due to me, and apologised, [a] for the violence of his reaction, and [b] for the family tragedy in which I had been unwittingly caught up.

  PAGE 8 FF.: THE ACCUSED

  Accusation of child murder brought against Karlus Wettig—footman to the house of Albemarle, serf to the Duke of Albemarle

  Karlus Wettig asserts that he had ‘no motive whatsoever to murder the son of his master’.

  We will examine this statement, and draw our conclusions.

  Karlus Wettig, born in Königsberg in 1736, is the son of Marta Wettig, seamstress, father unknown. He was taken into service by the house of Albemarle, in the person of the father of the present Duke, in 1747, and was employed initially as a junior boot-boy. He showed ‘talent, respect, and restraint’, and for these qualities the present Duke decided to promote him on two separate occasions. From footservant he became under-valet ten years ago, then under-butler, a position conferred upon him three years before the events related above.

  Karlus Wettig is a reserved, taciturn man, who makes no secret of his misogyny. He is held in fear and respect, especially by the female servants, but also by the men under him. No previous spot has ever tarred his reputation or brought his good character into question. In the words of nurse Edith Peckenthaal: ‘Wettig keeps himself to himself,’ and is only known to show anger when lesser servants play upon the relaxed and good-natured manner of his master. He has never been accused of any crime, no matter how slight or inconsequential. He is known to be a devout Pietist, and a regular churchgoer, whenever his duties permit him to atten
d religious services. His pastor, the Reverend Astor-Johann Rosavic, commends him for his religious fervour, and the generosity of his charitable donations ‘within his limited means’. He also states that Karlus Wettig has a ‘sound knowledge of the Bible, and a deep and enduring sense of morals.’

  I myself have spoken to Wettig on numerous occasions, and I would recommend him to any man. Indeed, I have undertaken to write a character reference on his behalf when the mystery is revealed and the truth shines forth. If he is ever released, he will be sorely in need of friends and employment.

  The accusation is supported by no other evidence than the fact that he was on guard duty that night, and that he was observed to enter the room of Nurse Peckenthaal in pursuance of that duty. He states that he was passing along the corridor on the first floor where the family bedrooms are located, shortly after three o’clock (that is, within the time span which Doctor Fenikker posits as the likely moment of the child’s decease). He says that he ‘heard a noise and saw a shadow moving away from him down the hall, going in the direction of the adjoining master-bedrooms of the Duke and Her Ladyship’. Though unable to identify the person he believes that he saw, he ‘thinks it may have been the mistress, for she was wearing a flowing nightgown.’ The door to the nursery was ‘ajar’, he says, and he entered the room after knocking lightly, to ‘ensure that everything was in its place’. Challenged by Edith Peckenthaal, who called out from her bed, Karlus Wettig identified himself, then checked the windows which were secure, and ‘peeped into the crib, where the child appeared to be soundly sleeping’. He then continued on his rounds, returning some minutes later to the entrance hall and his chair, where he smoked his pipe, waiting for the clock to strike again. Before the awful discovery at 6.30 a.m., he toured the house six more times, and reports seeing no one, and hearing nothing which might have provoked his suspicions. When the nurse began to scream, he was the third person to enter the nursery, following hard upon the heels of the Duke and Lady Albemarle. No accusations were made against him at that time, though later in the day, when Procurator Reimarus of the Königsberg Inspectorate was called, Lady Dorothea-Ann Lundstadt, the Duchess of Albemarle, remarked to the investigator that she ‘had never trusted that man’.

  On the basis of her doubts alone, notwithstanding the faith expressed in his regard by his master, the Duke of Albemarle, in the absence of any other suspect, Karlus Wettig was arrested the very next day and held without trial for eight months in the dungeon of the Castle of Königsberg.

  Throughout the trial, Karlus Wettig always protested his innocence. No material evidence suggesting the contrary was ever brought to the attention of the judge, and all references to the good character and the reputable standing of the accused were struck from the register.

  Sentence is expected within the month, and all opinion seems to be—in the light of the man’s inability to demonstrate his innocence—that he will be executed.

  Conclusions:

  a. There is not one objective scrap of proof that Karlus Wettig murdered the infant, Georg-Albert von Mandel, son and heir to the Duke of Albemarle, during the night or the early hours of the morning of 2nd December, 1765.

  b. In faith, I believe that legal judgement must be suspended until a better candidate for the hangman can be identified.

  PAGE II FF.: OBSERVATIONS

  The Albemarle households in Svetloye and in Königsberg, and what I know of both those houses

  The Albermarle family, originally from Svetloye in the canton of Königsberg, owns the Albemarle estate in Svetloye, and a town house located in the Strandstrasse suburb of Königsberg. I was employed in late August, 1765, for a six-month period, starting on 1st September, to instruct Her Ladyship, Duchess Dorothea-Ann, with whom I would be required to spend a minimum of three hours per day.

  On numerous occasions, especially on the Svetloye estate, the whole of my day was spent in the company of Her Ladyship and the Duke of Albemarle, both of whom were kind and considerate in their attentions to me.

  My employment began in the country house in Svetloye. Every morning from Monday to Friday, I would attend upon my mistress, Dorothea-Ann Lundstadt, Duchess of Albemarle, in the Library between the hours of nine and twelve o’clock. My specific duties were didactic in nature, but in such intimate circumstances, I believe I am correct in asserting that I grew to know the mistress as well as her own maid. Her Ladyship is gifted in music—proficient in the flute and the harpsichord—and in sewing, both of which formed the greater parts of her youthful education, but her knowledge is more defective in questions relating to geography, economy, politics, and the sciences, particularly mathematics. My task was to pursue a general course of education within these blank areas, and I found my Lady to be a diligent, if distracted, student.

  The great problem from my point of view was concentration on her studies.

  Lady Dorothea-Ann, a recent mother, and the mistress to a large estate, is beset by a number of preoccupations which are not conducive to prolonged study. There was not a single morning, according to my register-book, in which she was not called away to attend to some urgent business, relating either to the minding of the young child, or the general administration of the household. On every one of those occasions, I could not help but notice that her mood on returning to the Library had taken a turn for the worse. My concerns, I soon realised, were secondary to her own. On one occasion in particular, I recall that it was necessary to suspend the lesson. Her Ladyship was greatly upset by the loss of a blue bonnet. This cap had been knitted by hand for the infant Georg-Albert by his maternal grandmother, who was expected that afternoon on a week’s visit. Lady Dorothea-Ann was so upset by the loss that she fainted, and had to be revived with smelling salt. The local doctor, a man of no great science, was called, then sent away again, his further attendance being judged unnecessary. Shortly after lunch, the bonnet was found in the box where it had always been kept, and the crisis was resolved. The mother was always overly concerned that the child’s head should be protected from chills and the cold, even on the warmest day.

  On other occasions, from a more strictly scholastic perspective, I discovered the attention of the Duchess to be strongly emotive and even sentimental in nature. In the matter of geography, she would happily follow my exposition of the physical nature of the major European countries, but with two distinct exceptions, any mention of which made her exceedingly testy, viz. volcanic explosions, and anything which concerned the Czardom of Russia. On one occasion, when I happened to speak in passing of the ancient civilisation of Pompeii, and its reduction to nothing by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius, she broke feverishly into tears and was clearly upset. ‘How can something solid just explode?’ she asked. I attempted to explain the nature of explosions, but soon gave it up. The more she learnt, the more distraught she became. Inadvertent mention of the black sands of the shores of the volcanic Mediterranean island of Stromboli some days later produced a similar hysterical outbreak. ‘Did they come bursting out, too?’ she cried.

  Russia, in any of its forms, whether political, social, geographical, or historical, provoked angry insolent silence. The only explanation Lady Dorothea-Ann could offer for her aversion to the Russians was the manner in which they treat imbeciles, drenching them in cold water and tying them up, but I was unable and unwilling to explore this vein of thought to any real extent. It was too distressing.

  As a private tutor of some experience, I was induced to avoid certain subjects of interest and conversation, and ignore their implications, to the detriment of my general plan of instruction, for the sake of tranquillity in the classroom.

  On 1st October, the household moved to Königsberg for the winter season, and I went with them to the Albemarle house in Strandstrasse, where the murder took place. By 15th November, I must report unwillingly that my lessons had deteriorated to a sort of one-sided conversation. That is, I introduced the topic for the morning, then talked to myself about it until lunchtime. Lady Dorothea-Ann,
while still protesting her interest, and expressing her great desire to learn, was sinking into a fit of depression. I mention that date, because I asked for an interview with the Duke, and confessed my misgivings to him about the method of instruction which I had chosen and the Socratic means that I had used to implement it. Corrective conversation between master and pupil was clearly not paying dividends. I informed the Duke of an incident that had marred the lesson that very morning. While speaking of mathematics and geometrical forms, I happened to mention the differences between a perfect circle and an oblate spheroid. While circles were much to my Lady’s taste, compressed spheres appeared to terrify the life out of her and she began to weep. I had to suspend teaching for half an hour, while my pupil went to see that the baby was quite well. The Duke thanked me for my concerns, and prayed me to continue, suggesting that the heavier obligations on his Lady’s time, provoked by the growing child and the busy social programme which their elevated position in local society obligated them to maintain, were the probable causes of the negligence. He would be, he said, most grateful if I would keep to my side of the contracted bargain. He would look out for an opportunity to mention my misgivings to his wife. He also suggested that less conversation, no mathematics, and more reading of literature and, perhaps, some poetry-writing would probably yield greater benefits for his Lady’s health. This I undertook to do in the following weeks. However, I noticed with increasing frequency that while I was reading, the Duchess was looking out of the window, and that my requests for poems describing clouds and other ‘nebulous’ objects which caught her attention were met with an endless string of excuses. In every case, as the Duke had hinted to me, the well-being of their son, or the necessity for dressing and hairdressing in preparation for some unavoidable social gathering that afternoon or evening was the invariable, and probably justifiable excuse which Lady Dorothea-Ann offered for work not done.