'Don't they in London? They're so awfully polite.'
When a man is last seen in the company of detectives, his future movements grow in interest. On the Saturday afternoon, Eliot strolled to Hilldrop Crescent with a notion of the tкte-а-tкte denied them at the Holborn Restaurant. Valentine opened the door, in her brown dress without the apron. She seemed distressed. The doctor and madam had gone out, she explained in French, leaving her a letter to deliver. The envelope she took from her skirt pocket Eliot saw was addressed to Wm Long Esq., The Yale Tooth Specialists, Albion House, London W, with _By Hand Urgent_ underscored on the top. Valentine deplored she knew nothing of London, having ventured barely past Regent's Park. Eliot felt the envelope. It contained a door key. He was curious. He comforted the girl that he would take it by cab himself.
Long was the only one in the office.
'I'm worried about Dr Crippen,' he said at once. 'He was here when I arrived at nine-most unusual for him. When I asked what was up, he said, 'Only a little scandal.' We had police officers here yesterday-' He started opening the envelope. 'But only to find if Mrs Crippen had any estate to pay taxes on.'
'Who told you that?' Eliot asked sharply.
Long looked surprised. 'Why, the doctor. Then this morning, he sent me out with a list of clothes to buy.' His voice grew puzzled. 'A brown tweed suit, a brown felt hat, a couple of shirts and collars, tie and boots. And braces. All boy's size. I put them in the back room, No 91. When I came back from my lunch they'd gone. Instead, there was the hat which Miss Le Neve was wearing. I haven't seen either of them since.' He gave a whistle, reading the letter. 'Looks like the doctor's done a bunk.'
Eliot took the closely written page of Yale Tooth Specialists' paper.
_Dear Mr Long,
Will you do me the very great favour of winding up as best you can my household affairs? There is Ј12.10s due to my landlord for the past quarter's rent, and there will also be this quarter's rent, a total due to him of Ј25, in lieu of which he can seize the contents of the house. I cannot manage about the girl. She will have to get back to France, but should have sufficient saved to do this.
After the girl leaves, kindly send the key with a note explaining to the landlord c/o Messrs Lown and Sons. Thanking you in anticipation of fulfilling my wishes. I am, with best wishes for your future success and happiness, yours faithfully,
H H Crippen._
'There's another addressed to Dr Rylance.' Long continued looking startled. 'Do you suppose it's all right to read it?'
Eliot glanced at the second letter, which started, _I now find that in order to escape trouble I shall be obliged to absent myself for a time…_ The other dozen lines were on business, and ended with Crippen's kind wishes for his continuing success.
'What's the game?' asked Long nervously.
'Mrs Crippen is not dead.'
'Cor!'
'She ran off to a lover in America. Dr Crippen put about the story of her death to save scandal, but it stirred up more scandal than ever.'
Long stood open-mouthed, trying to steady himself in the social earthquake. 'Where's he gone?'
'Perhaps to America, too. He could make a fresh start.'
'But why the boy's clothes?'
'Miss Le Neve's obviously gone with him. It may not be thought entirely proper for a doctor to travel with a lady not his wife.'
Long's face brightened. 'Come to think of it, Miss Le Neve was a bit of a tomboy. There were times she'd put on one of the doctor's suits, and go out in the street for a lark.'
On Sunday, Eliot had promised Nancy an excursion to Canterbury. Monday, July 11, was bright and hot, promising a 'scorcher' to Londoners tramping in their bowlers and boaters to work. Concerned about Valentine, Eliot rang the bell at Hilldrop Crescent on his way to the surgery.
The girl received him conspiratorially. _'Voilа, docteur-'_
He stared through the back window. There were the two Scotland Yard men from the Holborn Restaurant. Both had their jackets off, and were digging the garden.
On Thursday, 'The North London Cellar Murder' was created. The newspapers proclaimed that human remains had been found at No 39 Hilldrop Crescent, below loose bricks under the coal. MYSTERIOUS PURCHASE OF SUBTLE DRUG BEFORE TRAGEDY, read the headline of the _Daily Chronicle,_ facing its editor with contempt of court. By Saturday, every London police station bore a poster headed MURDER AND MUTILATION, followed by descriptions, photographs, handwriting specimens of Crippen and Ethel, for whom was offered Ј250 reward each.
'So much for your innocent little doctor,' said Nancy over the breakfast table.
'But he is. I'm sure of it,' Eliot insisted. 'He was giving his wife hyoscine, to dampen her sexual demands. He told me as much. He was so appallingly ignorant, he probably gave her a lethal dose by mistake.'
'Then why did he cut his patient up and bury her in the cellar?'
'He'd still face a manslaughter charge over the hyoscine. Which would have kept him away from the tender Ethel a good few years, if not for the rest of his natural life. Think of the scandal! He's as sensitive towards that as Mrs Keppel. And maybe he had some dark, primitive idea that Belle should silently vanish from the face of the earth, as she so often threatened.'
'It seems a rather drastic way of achieving it.'
'Perhaps he enjoyed it? There's no knowing what strange bats flit in the dark corners of the human belfry. Perhaps he just panicked. It makes human beings do the most wildly illogical things, you know. More die in fires from trying to get through the exit all at once than roast to death.'
'So if he'd rushed out of the house and confessed to the first policeman in sight, everyone would be saying this morning, poor man, how tragic to have slain his own dear wife in error? Rather than calling him the biggest monster since Jack the Ripper.'
'You're perfectly right. And cutting her up wouldn't signify much to him, anyway. You mentioned once at Champette how a doctor sees the body as a watchmaker a watch. He was simply taking a timepiece to bits.'
'You're just making excuses, because you liked him,' Nancy objected.
'But look how perfectly the scheme worked,' Eliot persevered. 'If he hadn't decamped with Ethel, Belle would have lain in rest until they demolished the house. If the police hadn't believed his story, they'd have arrested him over the cheese and biscuits at the Holborn Restaurant.'
'Supposing we had moved into the house, Eliot?' Nancy shuddered. 'Supposing we'd found the body?'
'Oh, we'd have invited the Martinettis-'Come to dinner, we think we can dig up Belle Elmore'.'
Nancy sighed. 'You never take anything outrageous seriously, thank God. Even blowing up the Kaiser.'
17
Crippen was everywhere. At Vernet-les-Bains in the eastern Pyrenees with a youth. At Llangranog in west Wales with a young lady. At Stonebridge in Sussex, he was arrested. Seeking lodgings with his companion at Willesden in London, he needed rescuing from a fierce crowd by the police.
A young female found drowned at Bourges in central France, and many others elsewhere in Europe, were weightily announced by the police forces as not being Miss Le Neve. The Battersea Flat Crime, the Slough Murder, the Train Murder were outshone in the newspapers. _The Times_ gave Crippen four columns and invariably called him 'Dr' in inverted commas, which infuriated Eliot. The William Atherstone who comforted Belle after her disaster at the Metropolitan shot himself in Battersea. The coroner relished the coincidence, and the next day dropped dead himself.
In the North Atlantic, shortly after midday on Friday, July 22, Captain Henry Kendall of the 5,000-ton Canadian Pacific Line's Montrose, sent his white-jacketed 'tiger' to present his compliments to Dr Stewart and invite him for a peg before lunch.
A ship's captain's life is as lonely as Diogenes'. He intrudes among his officers like a headmaster amid his boys. The passengers who are not wearisome provoke jealousy among the others from invitations to his cabin. Engineers prefer their own company, and he can no more sit with his purser than a lord with his butler. His only irreproachable companion is the ship's doctor, trusted confidant of everyone on board.