Thunderstruck - Erik Larson [83]
“Don’t you think he is asking rather a lot of you?” Mrs. Jackson asked. “At your age it seems to me to be most unfair. Tell him what you have told me, as regards feeling your position. Tell him that you have told me.”
Ethel remained in her room the rest of the day. The next day, however, she returned to work and spoke to Crippen just as Mrs. Jackson had advised. Crippen assured her that he had every intention of marrying her someday.
That night Ethel told Mrs. Jackson how thankful she was that she had confessed her troubles. From then on her mood improved. Said Mrs. Jackson, “she seemed very much more cheerful.” Their evening conversations resumed, though now a new and compelling topic had been added to the palette already available for discussion.
DESPITE THEIR ADDRESS in the northern reaches of London, the Crippens took full advantage of the city’s gleaming nightlife. Electric trams, motorized buses, and a rapid shift from steam to electric locomotives in the subterranean railways had made travel within the city a fluid, easy thing. Starting in about 1907 a new term had entered the language, taximeter, for a device invented in Germany that allowed cab drivers to know at a glance how much to charge their customers. In short order the term was reduced to taxi and applied to any kind of cab, be it growler, a hansom, or one of the new motorized variety.
The Crippens also often invited friends to their home, typically for casual dinners followed by whist, though occasionally Belle threw parties of a more boisterous nature to which she invited some of London’s most prominent variety performers. For Crippen, these occasions became ordeals of labor and hectoring, for the house invariably was a shambles and had to be cleaned and neatened while Belle prepared the food.
Two friends were regular visitors to the house, Paul and Clara Martinetti, who lived in a flat on Shaftesbury Avenue, an easy walk from Crippen’s office. Paul had once been a prominent variety performer, a pantomime sketch artist, but he had retired from the stage and lately had been in poor health from a chronic illness that required weekly visits to a physician. The Martinettis first encountered the Crippens at a party at the home of Pony Moore, the minstrel director. At Belle’s suggestion, Clara joined the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild and became a member of its executive committee. They saw each other every Wednesday at guild meetings and became friends. Soon the couples began visiting each other’s homes and, as a foursome, going to the theater and then out to dinner in Piccadilly and Bloomsbury. The Martinettis were unaware of the tensions that suffused their friends’ marriage. “I would describe Dr. Crippen as an amiable kind-hearted man,” Clara said, “and it always looked to me as if he and his wife were on the best of terms.” Belle, she said, “always appeared to be very happy and jolly and to get on very well with Dr. Crippen.”
Late in the afternoon of January 31, 1910, a Monday, Crippen left his office at Yale Tooth and walked to the Martinettis’ flat to invite them to Hilldrop Crescent that evening for supper and cards. Clara at first demurred. Paul was at his doctor’s office, and she knew from past experience that when he returned, he would be tired and feeling poorly.
“Oh make him,” Crippen said, “we’ll cheer him up, and after dinner we’ll have a game of whist.”
Crippen left.
Paul returned from his appointment at about six o’clock. Soon afterward Crippen also returned and, exhibiting an unusual degree of insistence, repeated his invitation directly to Paul. His friend looked tired and pale and told Crippen, “I feel rather queer.” Nonetheless Paul agreed to come. He and his wife said they could be at the Crippens’ house by seven o’clock.
Despite the ease of transportation, the journey proved something of an ordeal. The Martinettis encountered an age-old problem—they could not find a taxi. They walked instead to Tottenham Court Road, where they caught one of the new