It was not alleged that he had committed the murder himself. No blood had been found on any of his clothes, although there were scratches on his person. A shirt much stained with blood had been discovered in the loft, but it did not fit Le Brun, nor was it like any he owned. Nor did the scrap of coarse lace correspond with any of his cravats; on the contrary, a maid-servant stated that she thought she recognised it as belonging to one she had washed for Berry, once a footman in the house. The supposition was that Le Brun had let some accomplice into the house, who had escaped after effecting his purpose. This was borne out by the state of the doors, which showed no signs of having been forced, and by the discovery of Le Brun’s false key.
Le Brun was a man of exemplary character, who had served the family faithfully for twenty-nine years, and was “esteemed a good husband, a good father, and a good servant,” yet the prosecution seemed satisfied he was guilty and put him to the torture. In the absence of real proofs it was hoped, after the cruel custom of the time, to force self-condemnatory admissions from the accused. The “question extraordinary” was applied, and the wretched man died on the rack, protesting his innocence to the last.
A month later the real culprit was discovered. The police of Sens had arrested a horse-dealer named Berry, the man who had been in Lady Mazel’s service as a lackey, but had been discharged. In his possession was a gold watch proved presently to have belonged to the murdered woman. He was carried to Paris, where he was recognised by someone who had seen him leaving Lady Mazel’s house on the night she was murdered, and a barber who shaved him next morning deposed to having seen that his hands were much scratched. Berry said that he had been killing a cat. Put to the torture prior to being broken on the wheel, he made full confession. At first he implicated the son and daughter-in-law of Lady Mazel, but when at the point of death he retracted the charge, and said that he had returned to the house with the full intention of committing the murder. He had crept in unperceived on the Friday evening, had gained the loft on the fourth floor, and had lain there concealed until Sunday morning, subsisting the while on apples and bread. When he knew the mistress had gone to mass he stole down into her bedroom, where he tried to conceal himself under the bed. It was too low, and he returned to the garret and slipped off his coat and waistcoat, and found now that he could creep under the bed. His hat was in his way, so he made a cap of the napkin. He lay hidden till night, then came out, and having secured the bell ropes, he roused the lady and demanded her money. She resisted bravely, and he stabbed her repeatedly until she was dead. Then he took the key of the strong box, opened it, and stole all the gold he could find; after which, using the bedroom key which lay on the chair by the door, he let himself out, resumed his clothes in the loft, and walked downstairs. As the street-door was only bolted he easily opened it, leaving it open behind him. He had meant to escape by a rope ladder which he had brought for the purpose of letting himself down from the first floor, but it was unnecessary.
It may be remarked that this confession was not inconsistent with Le Brun’s complicity. But it is to be presumed that Berry would have brought in Le Brun had he been a confederate, even although it could not have lessened his own guilt or punishment.
WILLIAM SHAW.
In Britain the list of judicial blunders includes the case of William Shaw, convicted of the murder of his daughter in Edinburgh simply on the ground of her own outcry against his ill-usage. They were on bad terms, the daughter having encouraged the addresses of a man whom he strongly disliked as a profligate and a debauchee. One evening there was a fresh quarrel between father and daughter, and bitter words passed which were overheard by a neighbour. The Shaws occupied one of the tenement houses still to be seen in Edinburgh, and their flat, the prototype of a modern popular form of residence in Paris and London, adjoined that of a man named Morrison.
The words used by Catherine Shaw startled and shocked Morrison. He heard her repeat several times, “Cruel father, thou art the cause of my death!” These were followed by awful groans. Shaw had been heard to go out, and the neighbours ran to his door demanding admittance. As no one opened and all was now silent within, a constable was called to force an entrance, and the girl was found weltering in her blood, with a knife by her side. She was questioned as to the words overheard, was asked if her father had killed her, and she was just able to nod her head in the affirmative, as it seemed.
Now William Shaw returned. All eyes were upon him; he turned pale at meeting the police and others in his apartment, then trembled violently as he saw his daughter’s dead body. Such manifest signs of guilt fully corroborated the deceased’s incriminating words. Last of all, it was noticed with horror that there was blood on his hands and on his shirt. He was taken before a magistrate at once, and committed for trial. The circumstances were all against him. He admitted in his defence the quarrel, and gave the reason, but declared that he had gone out that evening leaving his daughter unharmed, and that her death could only be attributed to suicide. He explained the bloodstains by showing that he had been bled some days before and that the bandage had become untied. The prosecution rested on the plain facts, mainly on the girl’s words, “Cruel father, thou art the cause of my death!” and her implied accusation in her last moments.
Shaw was duly convicted, sentenced, and executed at Leith Walk in November, 1721, with the full approval of public opinion. Yet the innocence which he still maintained on the scaffold came out clearly the following year. The tenant who came into occupation of Shaw’s flat found there a paper which had slipped down an opening near the chimney. It was a letter written by Catherine Shaw, as was positively affirmed by experts in handwriting, and it was addressed to her father, upbraiding him for his barbarity. She was so hopeless of marrying him whom she loved, so determined not to accept the man her father would have forced upon her, that she had decided to put an end to the existence which had become a burden to her. “My death,” she went on, “I lay to your charge. When you read this, consider yourself as the inhuman wretch that plunged the knife into the bosom of the unhappy Catherine Shaw!”