Thunderstruck - Erik Larson [139]
And indeed, sightings now poured in from around the globe. One caller swore she saw Crippen and Le Neve strolling along the Seine arm in arm. Another spotted them on a ship in the Bosporus. They were in Spain—and Switzerland.
Mrs. Isabel Ginnette, the president of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild, happened to be in New York City and volunteered her services to the police. Accompanied by detectives, she visited the wharves as liners arrived and watched closely for any sign of Crippen and the typist. Mrs. Ginnette and the police boarded one of the newest and most celebrated ships, Cunard’s Lusitania, the first of the great liners to cross the Atlantic in under five days, but she recognized no one. Over the next few days she and her police escorts monitored the arrivals of the Lorraine from Le Havre, the St. Paul from Southampton—the ship Marconi had made famous—and the Cedric from Liverpool. In a letter to the guild’s secretary, Melinda May, Mrs. Ginnette wrote, “Up till today we have met, and searched every passenger of five boats from England and France.” She added, “May we soon catch him!”
On July 20 New York police arrested a passenger who had arrived aboard the Kroonland of the Red Star Line, believing him to be Crippen. He was, in fact, the Rev. William Laird, rector of an Episcopal church in Delaware. Mrs. Ginnette expressed dismay that the police had not taken her on that inspection as well. She told a reporter, “The reverend gentleman looked about as much like Crippen as I do.”
The lack of forward motion in the investigation was discouraging and a source of mounting anxiety for Dew. There had been one recent bit of progress, however. It had come two days earlier, by chance, just after the close of the first coroner’s inquest on the remains.
The proceeding itself had buoyed Dew’s spirits, for the coroner in his opening remarks had praised the chief inspector. “Many a man might have gone into that cellar and made no discovery. It remained for a detective with a genius for his work to go a step further.”
Afterward, in the hall outside, Dew happened to be standing near a group of women, one of them Clara Martinetti, and overheard her say something about Belle having once had a serious operation.
He took her aside and asked if he had heard correctly.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Martinetti said. “Belle had an operation years ago in America. She had quite a big scar on the lower part of her body. I have seen it.”
Dew recognized that this could be a vital clue. If evidence of that operation could be found among the remains now stored at the Islington Mortuary Chapel of Ease, it would greatly support Dew’s presumption that the victim was Belle Elmore. He relayed the information to Dr. Pepper.
Nonetheless, as of Wednesday, July 20, Dew was keenly aware that his investigation, the biggest and most scrutinized of the new century, had stalled. He knew also that not everyone shared the coroner’s appreciation of his investigative genius. At least one newspaper, the Daily Mail, asked why Scotland Yard had not kept Crippen under surveillance during its initial inquiry into the disappearance of Belle Elmore. A member of Parliament asked Home Secretary Churchill if he would be so kind as to state for the record “who is responsible for allowing Dr. Crippen to get out of their hands.” Churchill declined to answer.
TESTAMENT
IN THE SPRING OF 1910, Marconi was again at sea when Beatrice gave birth to a son, Giulio. By this point Marconi had traveled so much and so far that Bea had no idea what ship he was aboard, only that he was somewhere in the Atlantic. That he would sail so near the time when his wife was expected to give birth was not