The History and Romance of Crime 20

The History and Romance of Crime 20

On the morning of the twentieth of September, 1869, at an early hour a

workman, in crossing the plain of Pantin beyond the Buttes-Chaumont, to

the northeast of Paris, noticed the traces of much blood spilt upon the

ground, and near them a blood-stained handkerchief. Further on he saw

protruding above the ground a human arm imperfectly buried, and using a

spade he dug up, first one body and afterwards five more,--the body of

a woman and those of five children. Some of the clothes carried buttons

with the address of a tailor in Roubaix, who recognised them as having

been ordered by a fellow townsman, by name Jean Kinck. This Kinck was

absent from home. He had summoned his wife and children to join him in

Paris on the nineteenth of September. They had duly arrived and taken

rooms at a hotel near the Northern Railway Station, where the husband

was already staying, having registered himself the week before under

the name, Jean Kinck of Roubaix. He did not meet his wife on arrival,

and she seemed much upset, but went out almost immediately with all her

children, and never returned. Next morning, however, Jean Kinck came

in, went up to his room, changed his clothes and again left, but before

the discovery of the corpses was generally known.

 

Suspicion was soon drawn to this supposed Kinck, and it was found that

some one like him had bought a pick and shovel at a toolmaker’s shop,

which, later in the evening, he had carried off in the direction of

Pantin. No doubt he was bent on digging the graves of his victims. Full

details of his appearance, his condition and ways of life presently

arrived from Roubaix. He was fifty years of age, gray haired, short

of stature and well built, an industrious, enterprising brush maker,

anxious to extend his business; for which purpose he had left Roubaix

five weeks previously for Alsace, where he already owned a house. He

meant to sell it and buy a larger one, in which he could live, and, at

the same time, carry on his trade. Madame Kinck, a native of Turcoing,

did not favor this project. She did not want to move to Germany, as

she did not speak the language, and differences had arisen between the

pair, supplying some motive for the murder. Three days passed before

any satisfactory information came to hand. Nothing had been heard of

the father, Jean Kinck, nothing of the son, but the father had left

Roubaix in the beginning of September, the son Gustav eight or ten

days later: it was generally believed that the Kinck who appeared at

the hotel of the Northern Railway Station was Gustav, as the personal

description tallied with him better than with the father.

 

Now, as so often happens in mysterious criminal cases, a bolt came

from the blue. Jean Kinck, or some one passing for him, was suddenly

arrested at Havre. Chance had strangely intervened in the interests of

justice, and detection followed in an entirely unexpected manner. News

was telegraphed to Paris that Jean Kinck had been arrested at Havre

under peculiar circumstances. On the morning of the twenty-third of

September a young man entered a café on the sea front at Havre, and

became engaged in conversation with a sailor, whom he met there. He was

anxious to know what steps to take to secure a passage for America.

“Your papers must be in order,” was the first answer he received, and

it came, not from his friend, but from an officious gendarme, who

was loafing about the place, and inspired by the restless spirit of

interference which so constantly disturbs the official mind. “You have

your papers of course?” He received a negative reply. “No? Then you

must come with me to the police office.” There was nothing for it but

to obey, and they started off together, chatting pleasantly, but the

stranger was manifestly uneasy, and when there was a sudden stoppage

in the traffic he slipped aside and ran towards one of the basins of

the dock. The gendarme followed close in his tracks, shouting, “Stop

him, stop him! He is a murderer,” and there was little hope for the

fugitive amidst the gathering crowd. But with one bound he sprang into

the water, caught a floating buoy, and hung on there between life

and death until he was fished out by some of the sailors with ropes

and boat-hooks, and brought to shore half drowned. He was carried

to the hospital, where he was put to bed and interviewed at once by

the Commissary, to whom he would make no reply. He was a young man

of about twenty, short, dark, with black eyes, a long beaky nose and

close cut hair, a description which answered in many respects, save

that of youth, to the missing Jean Kinck. His identity was established,

however, beyond all doubt by the papers found on him. All of them

were documents connected with the Kinck family. There was a contract

for the sale of a house in Roubaix; notes of hand signed by Kinck in

favor of people of the town; the contract of a house from another

proprietor, and a number of private papers and letters in a pocketbook

with a morocco purse, trimmed with copper, containing several coins; a

silk handkerchief and some five-franc pieces; a valuable gold watch, a

second watch, a small ring, a medallion and a pocket knife. Doubts were

still expressed as to the identity of Jean Kinck, and it was generally

supposed that he was Gustav. But then other letters were found in his

possession, addressed to a certain Troppmann, and eventually it was

proved that this was really his name.

 

The police paid an immediate visit to Roubaix to make further

inquiries, and found that this Troppmann was a personal friend of Jean

Kinck. In the house were a number of letters purporting to be from

the husband, but, as was explained in one of them, written by another

hand because Kinck had injured his wrist. These were the letters that

had persuaded Madame Kinck to come to Paris. When the judges undertook

the interrogation it was proved beyond doubt that these were from a

mechanical engineer, an Alsacian by birth, who had long been intimate

with Kinck, and constantly visited him at the drinking shop of the

“Re-union of Friends,” of which Kinck was proprietor. Troppmann, when

questioned, freely admitted these facts, and it was soon plainly seen

that he bore the marks of a recent struggle with some enraged female.

His cheeks were torn and scratched with many wounds; there were marks

of nails that had gone deep into his flesh. Troppmann, who was brought

without delay to Paris and confronted with the corpses in the Morgue,

made no difficulty of recognising and identifying them; and he went so

far as to confess that the murder had been organised by the Kincks,

father and son, with his knowledge, although he had taken no active

part in it. He refused to throw any light upon the whereabouts of the

Kincks. As the inquiry proceeded, witnesses came forward who recognised

Troppmann as the person who had bought the pick and shovel at the

tool shop, and all that was now needed was to prove a motive for the

crime. His possession of Kinck’s watch and valuables was _prima facie_

evidence, and there were those who spoke as to the close relations

that had existed between them. Troppmann was greedy for money, and was

continually proposing schemes, promising great profit to Kinck if he

would go into them. He was for ever begging him to advance capital, but

Kinck was cautious, and would not risk a sou. Not less did Troppmann

devise plans, by which he might bleed Jean Kinck, and the last seemed

likely to succeed. He declared that he had discovered in the Alsacian

mountains a plentiful supply of precious metals, gold, silver and

mercury in large quantities, ready to be extracted by any enterprising

hand.

 

Jean Kinck’s movements were at last traced. He had left Roubaix on

the twenty-fourth of August, three or four weeks before the discovery

of the bodies at Pantin, saying he would return in a few days. He

went into Alsace, and was met by Troppmann, with whom he travelled by

diligence to Soultz. This was the last heard of him, although letters

not in his own hand reached Madame Kinck at Roubaix. A search had been

made, however, in the neighborhood where he had last been seen, and

his body was at last found, not far from Wattwiller, in a forest at

the foot of the ruins of the ancient stronghold of Henenflung. It had

been buried beneath a heap of stones raised high above the grave. The

cause of death was not immediately apparent, but doctors presently

reported that he had been poisoned with Prussic acid administered

probably from a flask. No doubt he had been inveigled to this spot by

fictitious reports of the presence of gold. Thus the last victim was

accounted for, Gustav Kinck, the eldest son, having been disinterred

some days before at no great distance from the other bodies in the

plain of Pantin. The chain of damning evidence was complete. Link by

link it wound round the accused, and definitely secured conviction upon

trial. But every point had first been elicited beyond all doubt by

the “instructing” or interrogating judge at Mazas, although Troppmann

long took refuge in persistent denial of every fact or in obstinate

silence. At last came the confrontation. The prisoner, who was examined

throughout at Mazas in a large cell in the infirmary, was taken down

to the Morgue, and suddenly brought into the presence of the corpse

of Gustav Kinck, but then just discovered. He was seized with violent

emotion, hid his face in a handkerchief, and refused to look at his

murderous handiwork. “Come now,” insisted the magistrate, “confess that

you struck the blow.” “No, no, it wasn’t I.” And he repeatedly asserted

that the elder Kinck had taken his son’s life. This was his line of

defence in court, greatly elaborated by his counsel, Maitre Lachaud,

perhaps the most famous and eloquent advocate who has practised at

the French bar; but he also asserted that Troppmann had accomplices,

who should have been arraigned with him, and he insisted that it was

wickedly unfair to allow one culprit to bear the whole brunt of the

crime. The jury, however, remained unmoved by his impassioned appeal,

and almost immediately found Troppmann guilty on all counts, on

which the judge, never having accepted the theory of accomplices and

satisfied that the law had laid its hand upon the real perpetrator of

the crime, sentenced him to death. He was sent to the Conciergerie to

await removal to the Grand Roquette.

 

Troppmann spent his last hours in a vain combat with the authorities,

but after maintaining it for some days he fell into a state of

prostration, and, when he came out to die, was already a broken-down,

worn-out, old man of fifty, more than double his years. When they came

to warn him for execution, he essayed to appear unconcerned, and,

throughout the remainder of the painful scene, fought hard, but of

course fruitlessly, for his life. Although subjected to the “toilette”

and secured by straps and cords, he managed to break loose when on the

scaffold, and strenuously resisted as they led him to the block. When

his neck was laid under the axe of the guillotine, he pushed it so far

forward that the axe on falling would have struck his shoulder, but the

executioner held him in his place and deftly touched the spring which

released the knife, and all was over. But the dying man in his frantic

resistance had managed to get the executioner’s hand into his mouth and

bit it fiercely.

 

The trial of Troppmann was in its way a public scandal. The court was

crammed with curious spectators, whose morbid minds drew them to stare

at the hero of this horrible tragedy as though he were a wild beast

in a menagerie, about to be subjected to physical torture. People of

the highest rank and fashion demeaned themselves to gain places in the

audience by any means; by social intrigues, by using private influence

with the judges and officers of the court. Troppmann was the centre

of attraction, the cynosure of every eye. His features and demeanor

were closely scanned, his dress was commented upon critically. It was

noted, also, that he was clean shaved. This was on the demand of his

counsel, who hoped that his small, youthful face, which when smooth

and hairless looked like that of a lad of fifteen, would impress the

jury with the idea that he could not possess the strength to handle a

knife with such deadly effect as had been exhibited in the cruel wounds

of his victims. Before the barber, however, was permitted to use the

razor, Troppmann was put into a strait-waistcoat (_camisole de force_);

he was tied down in a chair, with one warder on either hand, ready to

seize him and check any attempt at self-destruction. Troppmann laughed

at these precautions, and plainly hinted that he had means of suicide

at his disposal, of which they had no idea. It was known that Troppmann

had himself manufactured the prussic acid he gave to Kinck. But he

disdained to use them or to bring discredit on his family, a rather

far-fetched nicety in a miscreant who had been guilty of such crimes.

 

They were not all murderers who passed through Mazas, although some

were top-sawyers in the criminal business, such as Shaw, the Englishman

who stole the Duke of Brunswick’s diamonds. It will be remembered that

one of the most marked features in the eccentric character of the

late Duke of Brunswick was his passion for precious stones. He long

made Paris his principal home, and resided in a quaint old mansion in

the Beaujour quarter, a house with red walls, massive gateways and

innumerable bolts and bars. The Duke, a worn-out voluptuary, a faded

old beau, who, on the rare occasions when he showed himself in public,

came out painted, made up and bewigged, lived here quite secluded among

his treasures, which he kept in an enormous iron safe. These jewels

were valued at £600,000, a splendid collection, accumulated at great

cost, and carried off by him when he fled from his principality. They

served no purpose but to gratify his greedy passion for possession.