Thunderstruck - Erik Larson [78]
The doctor and Mrs. Jackson questioned Ethel “closely” for the name of the father, but she would not reveal his name.
Ethel became ill and Mrs. Jackson tended to her as if she were her daughter. Two or three days later Crippen came to the house and asked to see Ethel, giving Mrs. Jackson his card. He stayed only a few minutes. A week later he returned, but this visit was just as brief as the last. Mrs. Jackson said of him later, “I thought him quite the nicest man I had ever met.”
Ethel remained in bed about two weeks, then returned to work.
CRIPPEN RETAINED A VAGUE connection to Munyon but threw most of his energy into founding a new business, a dental practice, with a New Zealand dentist named Gilbert Mervin Rylance. They called their new venture the Yale Tooth Specialists. “He was the financier,” Rylance said, “and I was the dental partner.” Crippen managed the company and produced the necessary anesthetics. They agreed to split all profits evenly. The practice occupied an office in the building where Crippen already had been working, Albion House on New Oxford Street, and where the Ladies’ Guild maintained its headquarters. Crippen continued to concoct and sell medicines of his own design, including a treatment for deafness called Horsorl.
The miscarriage changed the tenor of Ethel’s relationship with Crippen. Where once the affair had been carefree and daring, especially given the proximity of the Ladies’ Guild, now there was loss and along with it a realization on Ethel’s part that her love for Crippen had grown deeper. She found it increasingly difficult to endure the fact that each night he returned to his home and to his wife, she to a single room in Hampstead, alone.
THE MUSIC HALL LADIES’ GADIES’ continued its good works. Its members grew fond of Belle Elmore and her energy, and Belle returned their affection. Though she herself was not performing, she daily encountered those who were, and at least for the time being this seemed to be enough. The one stubbornly dreary part of her life was her husband. She assured him time and again that there were many men who would have her in a heartbeat. With increasing frequency she reiterated her threat to leave.
She appeared not to realize, however, that her threat had lost a good deal of its power. Crippen was in love with Ethel Le Neve and promised her that one day he would make her his legal wife. She was, he believed, the woman who should have shared his bed all along. Belle’s departure would be a blessing, for desertion was one of the very few grounds that British law accepted as cause for divorce.
In turn, Crippen did not realize that Belle had become increasingly serious about her threat and had begun planning ahead. Their savings account at Charing Cross Bank in the Strand now contained £600 (more than $60,000 today). Under bank rules, Belle and Crippen each had the right to withdraw money, without need of the other’s signature. There was a catch, however. Only the interest could be withdrawn on demand. Closing the account or withdrawing any of the principal required advance notice of one full year.
On December 15, 1909, the bank received a notice of intent to withdraw the entire amount. It was signed by Belle alone.
BELLE WAS GENEROUS with her new friends at the guild. On Friday, January 7, she and Crippen went together to the guild offices, and there Belle gave a birthday gift, a coral necklace, to her friend and fellow member Louie Davis. Belle was troubled by something that had happened the night before, and now, as she handed the present to Davis, she said, “I didn’t think I should be able to come to give it to you as I woke up in