Thunderstruck - Erik Larson [88]
Crippen shook his head. “No,” he said, “I don’t.”
On this score Ethel needed reassurance: “Did she take any luggage with her?”
“I don’t know what luggage she had, because I did not see her go. I daresay she took what she wanted. She always said that the things I gave her were not good enough, so I suppose she thinks she can get better elsewhere.”
Though Crippen seemed downcast, Ethel offered neither condolence nor sympathy. “I could not pretend to commiserate with him,” she wrote. “He had led me into the secret of his unhappy married life, and now that his wife had disappeared it seemed to me best for him, perhaps also best for her.”
Now Crippen surprised her. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of jewels that Belle had left behind. “Look here,” he said. “You had better have those.” He held them out. “These are good, and I should like to know you had some good jewelry. They will be useful when we are dining out, and you will please me if you will accept them.”
“If you really wish it,” Ethel said, “I will have one or two. Pick out what you like. You know my tastes.”
He chose several diamond rings; a more elaborate ring with four diamonds and a ruby; and a brooch in a pattern that evoked a rising sun, with a diamond at its center and pearls radiating outward in zigzag fashion.
The jewels were lovely, and Ethel believed them to be of the finest quality, for Crippen, as she put it, “was a real expert in diamonds.” Previously he had shown her how to judge a diamond by color and clarity, and how to tell at a glance whether a diamond had been set in New York or London.
She suggested he pawn the remaining jewels—a dozen rings and a large brooch inlaid with rows of diamonds in the shape of a tiara. The idea of doing so had not struck Crippen, but now he told Ethel it was a good plan. He walked to a pawnshop on the same street as his office, Mssrs. Jay & Attenborough.
He showed a clerk named Ernest Stuart three diamond rings. After examining them closely, Stuart agreed to lend Crippen £80. Crippen returned a few days later with the rest of the jewels, and got another £115 pounds, for a total of £195—nearly $20,000 today.
That night Ethel Le Neve slept in Crippen’s bed at Hilldrop Crescent for the first time.
FOR THE LADIES of the guild, the news was equally amazing. The packet delivered to the guild office that morning contained two letters—one for Melinda May, and one for the guild’s executive committee. It also contained the guild’s ledger and checkbook, which Belle in her role as treasurer had kept at home.
The letters were dated that same day, February 2, and were from Belle Elmore. A notation after the closing of May’s letter indicated it had been prepared by Crippen at Belle’s request.
“Dear Miss May,” it began, “Illness of a near relative has called me to America on only a few hours’ notice, so I must ask you to bring my resignation as treasurer before the meeting to-day, so that a new treasurer can be elected at once. You will appreciate my haste when I tell you that I have not been to bed all night packing, and getting ready to go. I shall hope to see you again a few months later, but I cannot spare a moment to call on you before I go. I wish you everything nice till I return to London again.”
The letter to the executive committee repeated the news and noted the enclosure of the checkbook and ledger. It urged the committee to suspend the usual rules and appoint a new treasurer immediately. “I hope some months later to be with you again, and in meantime wish the Guild every success and ask my good friends and pals to accept my sincere and loving wishes for their own personal welfare.”
The news of Belle’s departure and the selection of her replacement consumed most of that day’s meeting, though no one thought to walk the short distance to Crippen’s office to ask for a fuller explanation.
A FEW DAYS LATER—MOST LIKELY it was Saturday, February 5—Ethel and Crippen arranged to spend an evening together at the theater. “He thought it would cheer us both up,” Ethel said, though