Thunderstruck - Erik Larson [113]
He countered Fleming’s charge of hooliganism by asking, “If this be described as ‘scientific hooliganism’ and the like, what epithets must we apply to the action of those who, having publicly made certain specific claims, resent being taken at their word?
“We have been led to believe that Marconi messages are proof against interference. The recent Marconi ‘triumphs’ have all been in that direction. Professor Fleming himself has vouched for the reliability and efficacy of the Marconi syntony. The object of the lecture was to demonstrate this.” He wrote that he and Manders merely had put Fleming’s claims to the test. “If all we had heard were true, he would never have known what was going on. Efforts at interference would have been effort wasted. But when we come to actual fact, we find that a simple untuned radiator upsets the ‘tuned’ Marconi receivers—”
Here he twisted the knife.
“—and Professor Fleming’s letter proves it.”
Immediately the press leaped into the fray. If Fleming simply had kept the cap on his inkwell, the whole matter likely would have remained dormant. As the Morning Leader of June 15, 1903, noted, “Nothing would have been heard of it had not Professor Fleming sent his indignant letter to the ‘Times’ denouncing the ‘scientific hooligans’ who upset him. That was just what Mr. Maskelyne hoped for; and now he is chuckling at his success in ‘drawing the badger.’” In an interview in the Saturday, June 13, edition of the St. James Gazette, Maskelyne noted that he himself had composed the “diddling” verse. Now he added another, deeper dimension to his attack. “The Professor called up the name of Faraday in condemning us for what we did. Supposing Faraday had been alive, whom would he have accused of disgracing the Royal Institution—those who were endeavouring to ascertain the truth or those who were using it for trade purposes?”
He accused Fleming of giving two lectures that afternoon. “The first was by Professor Fleming the scientist, and was everything that a scientific lecture ought to be; the second was by Professor Fleming, the expert adviser to the Marconi Company.”
THAT DECEMBER MARCONI declined to renew Fleming’s contract.
AH
CHIEF INSPECTOR DEW BEGAN HIS INQUIRY by paying a visit to the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild at Albion House, accompanied by an assistant, Det. Sgt. Arthur Mitchell. They were careful to keep their presence from being discovered by Crippen, whose office—“curiously enough”—was in the same building.
Over the next six days the detectives interviewed Melinda May, the Burroughses, and the Martinettis and talked again with John Nash and his wife, Lil. Dew heard about the rising sun brooch, and examined the correspondence that had taken place between Crippen and various members of the guild in the months since Belle’s alleged disappearance. He learned that Belle had been “a great favorite with all whom she came in contact with.” He collected details about her relationship with Crippen. Maud Burroughs described Belle “as always having her own way with her husband and going about just as she liked, which he apparently was content to submit to.”
Dew wrote a sixteen-page report on his findings and turned it in to Froest on July 6, 1910. Dew had doubts about whether further inquiry would turn up anything criminal. On the first page he wrote, “The story told by Mr. and Mrs. Nash and others is a somewhat singular one, although having regard to the Bohemian character of the persons concerned, is capable of explanation.”
Still, the story did contain contradictions that Dew considered “most