Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
“It is necessary,” Willcox said, “to weight the different parts of the remains where it is supposed that [an] alkaloid might possibly be. Those are mixed up quite fine, and then placed in rectified spirits of wine. The spirits of wine is drawn off after twenty-four hours, and then what is left of the mixed up flesh is placed in another lot of spirits, which again is drawn off after another twenty-four hours, and so on as long as the liquid which comes away is coloured—about five times. When the liquid ceases to get coloured we stop.”
He found that an alkaloid of some sort was indeed present, then applied a well-known process, the Stas extraction method, to pull the alkaloid from the spirit solution in pure form. He weighed each amount. This was precise work. He found, for example, that his sample of intestines contained one-seventh of a grain of the alkaloid, the stomach only one-thirtieth.
Now came an important, yet startlingly simple, test that would if successful rule out a whole class of alkaloid poisons and greatly simplify Willcox’s investigation. For this he needed a cat.
ABOARD THE LAURENTIC CHIEF Inspector Dew refined his plan. His ship was by now well ahead of the Montrose, as the world knew. Like all large ships, it would stop at Father Point in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, near the village of Rimouski, to pick up a pilot who would guide the ship along the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City, a route notorious for its sudden obliterating spells of fog.
He realized he would need clearance to disembark without first going through the quarantine station at Quebec, and now by wireless made the necessary arrangements.
Almost immediately each of the fifty reporters gathered at Father Point also knew the plan.
IN HIS LABORATORY at St. Mary’s Hospital, Dr. Willcox mixed a bit of his alkaloid extract into a solution and, with the help of an assistant, placed a couple of droplets into the cat’s eye. Moments later the cat’s pupil expanded to many times its ordinary size. This was an important clue, for it meant the substance he had isolated was “mydriatic,” that is, it had the power to dilate pupils. He knew of only four alkaloidal poisons with that power: cocaine, atropine, and two derivatives of henbane, hyoscyamine and hyoscine.
He shined a bright light directly into the cat’s eyes and found that the pupil held its new diameter. This allowed him to rule out cocaine, because its mydriatic powers were less pronounced. When exposed to a powerful light, a pupil dilated by cocaine will still contract.
Willcox prepared for the next and most exacting series of tests with which he would narrow the identity to one of the three remaining possible alkaloids.
He dismissed the cat. His laboratory associates immediately named it Crippen. Adopted by a medical student, it would live for several years and bear a litter of kittens, before meeting its end in the jaws of a dog.
WHISPERS
ON FRIDAY, JULY 29, as the Montrose entered the vast Gulf of St. Lawrence, Captain Kendall sent a new message, stating that Crippen and Le Neve still had no idea that they were under surveillance.
At one point, Kendall reported, Crippen had spent about ten minutes at the door of the Marconi cabin listening as Llewellyn Jones transmitted a dispatch. Fascinated by the spark and thunder, Crippen asked who the recipient might be.
Jones proved himself an agile liar. Without expression he told Crippen it was a message to another liner, the Royal George, asking if her captain had spotted any ice in the vicinity of Belle Isle.
Crippen returned to his walk.
THE INSPECTOR ARRIVES
THE LAURENTIC SLOWED TO A STOP off Father Point at about three o’clock on Friday afternoon, July 29. As Chief Inspector Dew emerged from a portal in the immense black hull and climbed gingerly down to the pilot boat, Eureka, he saw that its decks were crammed with reporters who shouted and waved. He was appalled and gauged it a display of unruly behavior unlike anything he had experienced in London, yet he confessed he also was relieved to see it because until this moment, despite assurances from the captain of the Laurentic, he had not quite believed that he truly had beaten the Montrose to Father Point. If the reporters were still here, he knew, the other ship had yet to arrive. In fact, he held a lead of about a day and a half.
Cameras were thrust in his face, questions shouted. “I was importuned to say something, but I need hardly say that I refused.”
This did not sit well with the reporters, most of whom seemed to be Americans who clearly expected a higher level of police cooperation. They shouted and jostled, and when Dew refused to speak, they had the audacity actually to grow angry. Dew wrote, “I cannot refrain from saying that the whole affair was disgraceful and should and could have been avoided, and I was fearful lest this should in any way mar the success of my mission.”
On shore Dew was met by two inspectors from the Quebec City police, who escorted him to a temporary lodging in one of the few structures—“shacks,” Dew called them—near the Father Point lighthouse. Dew found Father Point to be a “lonely little place…with scarcely more than a dozen cottages and a Marconi station on it.”
A fog had risen, adding to the desolation, but Dew himself was anything but lonely. The gentlemen of the press gathered in the other cottages and raised a clamor, shouting and joking and apparently singing, in short behaving as reporters throughout time have behaved when collected together in small places on the eve of an important event. Dew wrote, “The lighthouse foghorn combined with the vocal and musical efforts of my friends the reporters made sleep impossible.”
The following evening, Saturday, one reporter gave Dew a tip that was profoundly unsettling. Reporters for one newspaper—an American paper, of course—were planning to construct a raft and sail it down the St. Lawrence posing as shipwrecked sailors, with the intent of being “rescued” by the Montrose and thus scooping everyone else. “Now I don’t pretend to know whether there ever was any serious intention to carry out this ambitious scheme,” Dew wrote, “but from what I had seen of the American newspaper men I did not put it beyond them.”
He called all the reporters together and asked them to be patient. If indeed the passengers proved to be Crippen and Le Neve, he would ask Captain Kendall to blow the ship’s whistle three times, at which point the reporters would be free to come out to the ship. He learned that most of the reporters, possibly all, had a legal right to board the ship—they had bought tickets for the twelve-hour voyage from Father Point to Quebec.
The reporters did not like being constrained but agreed all the same.
Dew still had doubts as to whether the passengers on the Montrose really were the fugitives. He spent a restless night wondering if under the gaze of the entire world he had just spent eleven days on a false hunt of historic dimension.
IN LONDON SUPERINTENDENT FROEST of the Murder Squad remained skeptical. Already there had been one initially persuasive report that Crippen and Le Neve had been spotted aboard a ship. For a time the world had been convinced that they were passengers on the Sardinian, the same ship that a decade earlier had brought Marconi to Newfoundland for his first transatlantic experiment. The Sardinian’s captain ordered his crew to conduct a search. Suspense mounted until at last the captain sent a wireless message to Scotland Yard stating that his men had found no one resembling Crippen or Le Neve.
Now Dew was off chasing a different ship across the Atlantic on the strength of another captain’s suspicions. It too could prove a false trail—but if so, the consequences for the reputation of Scotland Yard would be grave. Every day the newspapers of London charted the positions of the two ships. Even the home secretary, Winston Churchill, had become caught up in the drama. His confidential clerk had called to notify Scotland Yard that Churchill wished to be informed immediately at his office of any new developments in the case.
So Froest kept the Murder Squad working at the same intensity as before Dew’s departure. In Dew’s absence he placed Sergeant Mitchell in direct charge. The squad hunted Crippen but also sought to fill in elements of the overall story and to better understand the characters invol
They learned, for example, that Le Neve had been seen often at two public houses in Hampstead, the Stag and the Coach and Horses, accompanied by a young man whom at least one witness believed to be her “sweetheart.” The CID’s Sgt. William Hayman tracked him down and identified him as John William Stonehouse.
In a formal statement Stonehouse revealed that until the preceding October he too had been a roomer in Emily Jackson’s house on Constantine Road and had come to be friends with Ethel Le Neve. Just friends, he was careful to note. Through Stonehouse, Sergeant Hayman discovered that after Ethel’s first move from the boardinghouse she had taken a room in a building on Store Street. One day Stonehouse had walked her home. He said, “I accompanied her to the door and in conversation I understood that she was uncomfortable.”
He added, “There was never any undue familiarity between us.”
A room on Store Street—the same street where Crippen and his wife once had lived, and so very near Albion House. It did not take a detective to infer the use to which this nearby residence was put.
CHURCHILL’S CONFIDENTIAL CLERK telephoned again. The home secretary was now at his home, 33 Eccleston Square, and wished to have news of the Crippen case sent directly there.
Later the clerk called to say that Churchill was now at the Heath Golf Club, Walton. The news should go there.
A BOAT IN THE MIST
ON SATURDAY NIGHT FOG SETTLED over the St. Lawrence and forced Captain Kendall to slow the Montrose. The blue spark of the ship’s wireless lit the suspended droplets and made the Marconi cabin seem as if it truly were a magician’s cavern. Even with the door now shut against the weather, the crack of the spark generator was audible on the deck outside.
Fog during a voyage was never pleasant, but in so heavily traveled a channel as the St. Lawrence, it was especially unnerving. “The last night was dreary and anxious, the sound of our foghorn every few minutes adding to the monotony,” Kendall wrote. “The hours dragged on as I paced the bridge; now and then I could see Mr. Robinson strolling about the deck.”
Kendall told Robinson that he ought to consider getting up early so that he could be on deck in time to watch the pilots come aboard from Father Point. The captain suggested he might find the experience interesting.
At four-thirty the next morning, Sunday, Kendall blew the Montrose’s whistle to alert Father Point of the ship’s imminent arrival.
CRIPPEN FOLLOWED KENDALL’S suggestion and rose early. He and Ethel had breakfast, then returned to their cabin, where Ethel snuggled up with her latest book, Audrey’s Recompense by Mrs. Georgie Sheldon, the pen name of Sarah Elizabeth Forbush Downs. Crippen urged her to come up on deck. “I don’t think I will,” she told him. “It’s very wretched up there, and I would rather stay down here and finish this book before lunch.”
Crippen left “quietly,” Ethel recalled, and went up alone. On deck he began to walk. Inside the lining of his vest he had sewn four diamond rings, a pin in the shape of a butterfly, and a gold brooch studded with diamonds that evoked a rising sun.
THE SHIP’S SURGEON, Dr. C. H. Stewart, also came up on deck early. He knew of the trap about to be sprung and wanted to see the whole thing unfold. At around eight o’clock he encountered Mr. Robinson, and the two began to chat. They stood together at the rail on the ship’s port side. The fog had thinned to mist, and now rain began to fall.
Robinson seemed nervous. Stewart noticed, too, that Robinson had clipped off his new beard and had cut his upper lip, apparently while shaving. What most struck Stewart, however, was that Robinson looked nothing like the man in the photographs published in the Daily Mail.
A boat emerged from the pewter mist and gained definition.
“What a lot of men in that small boat,” Robinson said. He turned to Dr. Stewart. “Why so many?”
Stewart shrugged. “There is only one pilot for the ship,” he said. “Perhaps the others are his friends, who are going to take a little excursion as far as Quebec.”
Robinson asked if the men might be medical officers. Dr. Stewart said he did not think that was the case.
They continued to watch.
KENDALL WENT TO HIS CABIN and found his revolver. As a precaution he placed it in his pocket. He returned to the bridge.
TREACHEROUS WATERS
EARLY THAT MORNING DEW AND THE REPORTERS had gotten up well before dawn. At four-thirty amid the bleating of the foghorn, they heard a ship’s whistle. The reporters raced to board the pilot boat, Eureka, and civilian spectators climbed into a flotilla of small boats. The police kept the crowd from shoving off.
Dew realized he would have to change his plan. He had intended to ride the Eureka to the ship, but now he saw that all those reporters jamming its decks would give the trap away long before he reached the Montrose. There was still a chance the Robinsons were not in fact Crippen and Le Neve. It would be best, he reasoned, if he could board the Montrose wearing some kind of disguise, so that he could get a look at Crippen without being detected. A disguise might also prevent the fugitive from panicking and doing something unexpected, like leaping into the river or drawing a gun. Dew and Mitchell had found one revolver at Hilldrop Crescent; Crippen might be carrying another.
Dew asked the chief pilot if he might borrow his uniform and cap. The chief agreed. Dew then arranged to go out to the ship in the company of the regular pilot but not aboard the Eureka. Instead they would take a large rowboat. The two Quebec inspectors would come along.
They launched the boat from a location well away from the reporters. Four sailors did the rowing. Soon the liner came into view, its long black hull barely visible in the mist and rain. Dew pulled the visor of his pilot’s cap low over his face.
Crewmen on the deck high above threw over a ladder, which jolted to a rest just above the waterline. The real pilot climbed first. Dew followed, as did the Quebec detectives. All went directly to the bridge, where Dew introduced himself to Kendall. They shook hands and exchanged greetings. At that moment on the deck below a man of slight stature emerged from behind the ship’s funnel. Dew watched him.
Kendall watched Dew. The captain looked for some sign that Dew recognized the passenger below. The inspector said nothing. Kendall led the party to his cabin and sent for Mr. Robinson. A few moments later the man appeared, looking unconcerned and cheerful.
Kendall stood. Discreetly he put his hand in his pocket and gripped the revolver. He said, “Let me introduce you.”
Dew stepped up, still in his cap. The passenger smiled and held out his hand. Dew took it and with his free hand pulled off his cap. He said quietly, “Good morning, Dr. Crippen.”
The expression on the passenger’s face changed rapidly, Dew wrote. First came surprise, then puzzlement, then recognition. Finally, in a voice Dew described as being “calm and quiet,” Crippen now said, “Good morning, Mr. Dew.”
Once the details became public knowledge, all of Britain seemed to agree that the understated drama of this encounter had been equaled only once before, when Stanley caught up with Livingstone.
Now Dew told Crippen, “You will be arrested for the murder and mutilation of your wife, Cora Crippen, in London, on or about February last.”
DEW’S GAMBLE HAD PAID OFF. “During my long career as a detective I have experienced many big moments,” he wrote, “but at no other time have I felt such a sense of triumph and achievement.” But he also felt what he described as a “pang of pity” for the little doctor. Crippen, he wrote, “had been caught on the threshold of freedom. Only twelve hours more and he would have been safely at Quebec.”
The Canadian police handcuffed Crippen and led him to a vacant cabin. Now Kendall led Dew to cabin number five, which Crippen and Le Neve had occupied during the voyage.
Dew tapped lightly on the door, then entered. To his great satisfaction, he saw that Ethel was indeed wearing a suit of boy’s clothing.
She looked up from her book.
He said, “I am Chief Inspector Dew.”
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THE TABLE OF DROPS
TWO DAYS AFTER THE ARREST detectives learned for the first time of Crippen’s January purchase of five grains of hyoscine hydrobromide. Soon afterward Dr. Willcox, at St. Mary’s Hospital, confirmed that the alkaloid he had isolated was indeed hyoscine. He was able to extract two-fifths of a grain from the available remains but knew that if he had been able to analyze all of the body, the amount would have been far greater. Just a quarter grain could have been lethal. “If the fatal dose were given,” he said, “it would perhaps produce a little delirium and excitement at first; the pupils of the eyes would be paralyzed; the mouth and the throat would be dry, and then quickly the patient would become drowsy and unconscious and completely paralyzed, and death would result in a few hours.”
By now Willcox and colleagues were confident the remains were those of a woman, though this conclusion was based entirely on circumstantial evidence, namely the curlers, the bleached hair, and the fragments of a woman’s underclothing found in the excavation. The question of identity remained daunting until Dr. Pepper happened to reexamine the pieces of skin still held at the Islington Mortuary Chapel of Ease. One piece—the fragment measuring six by seven inches—had a mark on it about four inches long. Having learned from Chief Inspector Dew that Belle once underwent an abdominal operation, Pepper now took a closer look. It was possible, he decided, that the mark was a scar. He gave it to Willcox, who passed it on to the youngest member of the Home Office’s elite forensic group, Dr. Bernard Spilsbury, an expert on scars.