Thunderstruck - Erik Larson [153]
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,