Thunderstruck - Erik Larson [126]
He instructed Vyvyan at Nova Scotia to simulate that kind of directional antenna by disconnecting portions of the umbrella array, then learned that his hunch was correct. Transmission and reception improved.
He realized now that Poldhu was not merely obsolete—the site would have to be abandoned entirely and another location found that had enough land to allow him to stretch a horizontal antenna up to one mile long. The new Nova Scotia station too would have to be replaced and its power-generation equipment enlarged to produce ten times more power.
The expense would be staggering, but Marconi saw no other path.
HE RETURNED TO NOVA SCOTIA, and to Beatrice. He was appalled at her condition. Her jaundice was jarringly apparent. He promised to take her back to England.
Beatrice assumed this would mean a return to London, and friends and family, and city life. It had been nearly half a year since she had seen a hansom cab or felt the rumble of a subterranean locomotive racing through the darkness under her feet.
But Marconi, her keeper, had a different plan in mind.
LIBERATION
ON SATURDAY MORNING, JULY 9, 1910, Crippen left Hilldrop Crescent at his usual hour and went to his office at Albion House. At around ten he approached his assistant, William Long, and asked him to go to a nearby men’s shop, Charles Baker, and buy a few articles of clothing. Crippen gave him a list of things to acquire that included a brown suit cut for a boy, two collars, a tie, two shirts, a pair of suspenders, and a brown felt hat. He was to buy a pair of boots as well, from a shop on Tottenham Court Road. Crippen gave him the necessary money.
Ethel meanwhile took a taximeter cab to the home of her sister Nina and arrived there at about eleven. She asked the driver to wait.
Nina came to the door and exclaimed with delight at this surprise visit from her sister, but her joy quickly changed to concern. Ethel looked “rather troubled,” Nina said, and asked hurriedly if anyone else was at home. She was pale, agitated. When Nina stepped close to put her arms around her sister, she found that she was trembling.
Ethel said, “I had two detectives call to see me yesterday morning about quarter past eight, soon after Harvey had gone.”
(Harvey—not Peter. It raised the possibility that Peter was a name appended at Belle’s whim; that she had not only dressed Crippen but named him as well.)
Ethel said, “Belle Elmore’s friends don’t seem to think she is dead.” Her voice wavered. “Who am I?” she cried. “Everyone will think I am a bad woman of the streets.” She broke down. Nina tightened her embrace.
After a few moments Ethel calmed. “I can’t stop long with you,” she said, “but I could not go without coming and saying goodbye.”
This startled Nina. She asked where Ethel was going.
“I don’t know,” Ethel said. Crippen hadn’t told her. She promised that once settled she would send Nina her address.
But Nina could not understand why Ethel had to leave.
“What good is it for me to stop without means, and my character gone?” Ethel said.
And there was another reason, she said. Crippen had told her he wanted to find the person who had sent the cable about Belle’s death and, in so doing, perhaps locate his wife. Only by finding her, Ethel said, could he end this scrutiny by Scotland Yard. “For all I know she may not have gone to America at all,” Ethel told Nina, “she may still be in London and have got somebody across the water to send a bogus telegram informing of her death.” Ethel feared a conspiracy by Belle—that out of pure malice she might simply be hiding somewhere, waiting until Ethel and Crippen got married, and then, as Ethel put it, “confront us with bigamy.”
Ethel and Nina hugged again. Ethel said good-bye and stepped back into the taxi. She told the driver to head for Bloomsbury, to Albion House.
THAT MORNING AT NEW Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Dew considered what to do next regarding the disappearance