Thunderstruck - Erik Larson [144]
The Laurentic departed at 6:30 P.M., on schedule. Dew knew the race would be a close one. The Montrose required eleven days to reach Quebec, the Laurentic only seven, but by now the Montrose had been under way for three days. If all went well, that is, perfectly, Dew’s ship would beat Crippen’s by a day. Given the vicissitudes of long-distance sea travel—fog, storms, mechanical failure—a single day was almost no margin at all.
Dew spent hours in the Laurentic’s wireless cabin as the ship’s Marconi operator sent off message after message to Kendall. He heard nothing to indicate receipt. “It was hopeless,” he wrote. “The answering signals simply would not come.”
MACNAGHTEN ARRIVED AT SCOTLAND Yard early Saturday morning. “I assumed an air of nonchalance which I was very far from feeling,” he wrote. He met with Superintendent Froest, Dew’s immediate boss, and asked him for his candid appraisal of the night’s decision to send Dew across the sea in pursuit. Froest thought it foolhardy, as did the other inspectors in the Murder Squad. They all had talked it over, Macnaghten wrote, “and had come to the conclusion that the probabilities were all against the very sanguine view that I had taken as to the correctness of the news conveyed in the marconigram.”
Macnaghten’s anxiety increased when a telegram arrived from Antwerp describing the father and son who had booked passage on the Montrose. These descriptions, Macnaghten wrote, “in no wise corresponded with those of Dr. Crippen and Miss Le Neve.”
Detectives continued to explore fresh leads. New York police boarded more ships. A French rail guard swore he had seen the couple on a train. A traveler on an English train was convinced he had shared a compartment with Crippen.
In Brussels a Scotland Yard detective named Guy Workman went to the Hotel des Ardennes and photographed the registration entry of two travelers identified in the book as father and son. He learned that the innkeepers had not been fooled by the boy’s clothes and had concocted a romantic explanation for why an older man would travel with a lovely young woman in disguise. The innkeeper’s wife dubbed the girl “Titine” and nicknamed the man “Old Quebec” because he often spoke of the city. To her it was clear the girl had fallen in love with a teacher, and now the two were on the run.
Such passion, such adventure. It was impossible not to wish the couple well.
AT SEA THE LAURENTIC CLOSED ON THE MONTROSE at a rate of about four nautical miles each hour.
Despite the frustration of being unable to reach Kendall by wireless, Dew began to enjoy his voyage. When he needed to relax, he could walk the deck. The captain treated him with generosity and respect, and the ship was lovely and comfortable.
He believed his identity and purpose remained a complete secret.
AN INTERCEPTED SIGNAL
FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS KENDALL heard nothing to indicate that Scotland Yard had received his message. He and his officers maintained their watch on the Robinsons and became more confident than ever that the two were indeed the fugitives Crippen and Le Neve—though none of them could quite imagine Crippen doing what the police claimed. He was polite and gentle and always solicitous of the needs of his companion.
Kendall