A more humble, unassuming little man I have never met, and to me it seems unthinkable that he would have committed so dastardly a crime.
In my judgement he was a smart man and a wonderful organizer, very exact, with fine business methods; in fact, one could not have desired a straighter representative.
Of late, I had observed that he looked worried. He had, of course, his bright moments, but generally he appeared to be distressed and perturbed by something or other, and I came to the conclusion that it was due to financial troubles.
His wife was a woman of charming manners. I frequently saw her here. What passes my understanding is how Crippen could have thrown her over in favour of his typist. It was a strange infatuation. She had little to recommend her so far as I noticed. The typist was a delicate woman. She was always ailing, and was jocularly known in this building as the woman who always answered inquiries with the same remark, ‘Not very well, thank you.’5
Miss Gillatt, a neighbour, who lived at 40 Hilldrop Crescent, revealed:
We first missed Mrs. Crippen some time last February. My sister met Mr. Crippen about that time, and he told her she had gone to America and that he intended to give up the house.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Crippen used to spend a great part of their time in the garden. He always seemed exceedingly fond of her, and used to follow her round in quite an adoring way.6
Another acquaintance stated that Crippen’s devotion to Cora ‘was remarkable’.7 But Dew had already learned that, after seventeen years of marriage, ‘[q]uarrels between them … were not infrequent’. These rows had been going on for some time. A Mr Richards had stayed at 39 Hilldrop Crescent during a period when the Crippens were taking in lodgers. He had witnessed ‘several domestic eruptions of rather a one-sided nature. Mrs. Crippen, excitable and irritable, chiding her husband; Crippen, pale, quiet, imperturbable.’
There was immediate concern that Crippen and Le Neve may have fled the country. Cablegrams were quickly sent out to various countries. The one sent to Ottawa, Canada gave full physical descriptions of the pair:
Wanted for murder and mutilation of a woman Hawley Harvey Crippen alias Peter Crippen alias Francke, an American age fifty, 5 feet three or four, complexion fresh, hair light brown inclined sandy, thin bald on top, scanty straggling moustache, eyes grey, bridge of nose flat, false teeth, wears gold rim spectacles, may be wearing brown jacket suit marked Baker and Grey, round flat hat, Horne Bros. inside, wears hat back of head, rather slovenly appearance, throws his feet out when walking, slight American accent, very plausible and quiet spoken, speaks French and shows his teeth when speaking; and Ethel Clara Leneve [sic] travelling as his wife, age 27, height five feet five, complexion pale, hair light brown, large grey eyes, good teeth, good looking, medium build, pleasing appearance, quiet subdued manner, looks interested when in conversation, is reticent, walks slowly, probably dressed blue serge skirt, ditto three quarter jacket suit, large hat or may be dressed in boys dark brown jacket suit, grey hard felt hat, native of London, shorthand writer and typist.
The description of Le Neve was later amended when it was discovered that, far from having good teeth, Le Neve was the possessor of about twenty false teeth.8 Further descriptions of the wanted couple appeared in newspapers in Spain, Sweden and Grand Canary, where large numbers of British steamers called.
The descriptions also appeared in the British press, leading to numerous false sightings covering the length and breadth of England. Reports came in from London, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Manchester and Birmingham, to name but a few.9 Dew himself recalled one ‘humorous’ incident:
On two occasions a gentleman who was unfortunate enough to resemble Crippen facially, was brought to Scotland Yard on suspicion of being the wanted man. On the first occasion he took the experience in good part, but when the same thing happened a second time he was highly indignant, and said it was getting a habit.
Having ‘done everything possible to set the police forces of the whole world on the hunt for the missing couple’, Dew ‘took on the almost equally big task of searching for evidence that would satisfy a jury that the woman who had met her fate in that gloomy looking house in Hilldrop Crescent was indeed Crippen’s wife’. Dew was convinced that the remains were Cora Crippen, for she was missing, and her husband had lied about her disappearance, and had subsequently fled. On 16 July Dew appeared at Bow Street Police Court to apply for a warrant against:
HAWLEY HARVEY CRIPPEN and ETHEL CLARA LE NEVE, alias, NEAVE, for having on or about the 2nd day of February 1910, at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden Road, in the said County and district, wilfully murdered one CORA CRIPPEN otherwise BELLE ELMORE, supposed to be the wife of HAWLEY HARVEY CRIPPEN, and that they did mutilate and bury some of the remains in the coal cellar at the above address.
12
The Hunt
We sought him here, we sought him there, Detectives sought him everywhere. Is he in heaven, or hell, maybe, The dem’d elusive Dr. C.
Sir Melville Macnaghten
Dew sensed the enormity of the Crippen case. He set out to track down Dr Crippen with the same fervour he felt as a young detective hunting Jack the Ripper. He later recalled:
As the man in sole charge of the biggest murder mystery of the century, I felt that Dr. Crippen had thrown out a challenge. I was ready to accept it.
I gave every ounce of effort. For sixteen – sometimes more – hours out of every twenty-four, I was directing the police campaign to track Crippen down.
The first sitting of the coroner’s inquest on the remains found by Dew at 39 Hilldrop Crescent was held on 18 July at the Chapel of Ease, Holloway Road, Islington, but this location proved to be too small for such an event and resumed inquests were held at the Central Library in Holloway Road. Frequent heavy showers failed to deter large numbers of curious onlookers who lined the approach to the coroner’s court and mortuary. Amongst those attending the hearing were Ethel Le Neve’s mother and a number of actresses who were connected to the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild.
His Majesty’s Coroner for the district of Islington, Dr Danford Thomas, swore in a jury to investigate the cause of death of ‘some human remains now lying dead’, which they viewed through a glass screen. Dr Thomas explained that the remains were believed to be those of Cora Crippen, adding that an adjournment would be necessary as there was not a great deal of evidence to be put before them at this instance; but the police had the matter of finding Dr Crippen in hand, and the analysis of the remains was still in progress.
Walter Dew gave his evidence. He outlined the extent of his investigations, including the discovery of the remains. He ended by saying that the police ‘had not lost one minute, and search was being made everywhere for Crippen’. Dr Thomas heaped praise on Dew for making the find, saying, ‘Many a man might have gone into that cellar and made no discovery. It had to remain for a detective with a genius for his work to go a step further, and it is due to the keenness of the inspector that this ghastly affair is brought to light.’ Describing Dew as a genius was an overstatement. He certainly had been tenacious, and if the Nashes had visited their local police station, rather than Scotland Yard, the outcome of the investigation could have been different. There had been an element of luck in Dew’s discovery. If Crippen had not aroused suspicion by fleeing, or if he had filled the cellar with coal, Dew may not have been so diligent in his search. Things may also have been different if Crippen had left Hilldrop Crescent on 24 June, as he had originally agreed with his landlord.
Dr Marshall detailed the preliminary findings of the medical analysis. He thought that the remains were female, but could not at this point prove it because ‘the perpetrator of the outrage had tried to obliterate not only all evidences of identity but all traces of sex’. Marshall thought that the cadaver was dissected in the cellar where it was found, ‘and whoever did it must have taken his time about it, for it was a most deliberate and long process’.
As he promised, Dr Thomas adjourned the inquest until Mond
ay 15 August. The main difficulty faced at this stage was establishing that the pile of flesh was in fact Cora Crippen. Here Dew had a lucky break. Outside the inquest he overheard Clara Martinetti say that Cora had undergone a serious operation, and had quite a large scar on the lower part of her body, which she had seen. Amongst the remains there was a piece of skin bearing the mark of what could have been an operation scar.
Dew thought it was ‘more than probable’ that sooner or later Le Neve would try to communicate with her parents, who also lived in Camden Town, or her sister in Tottenham. He considered that Crippen might try to write to his employee William Long, who, Dew had discovered, had withheld the information from him for three days that he had bought a suit
of boy’s clothes at Crippen’s request.1 With this in mind he asked the Home Office to direct the postal authorities to look out for letters going to their addresses, and forward them on to him under a Home Office warrant, later adding telegrams to his request. Scotland Yard had by now offered a reward of £250 for information leading to the arrest of Crippen and Le Neve.
It was at this time that Dew’s conduct in the case so far was brought into question for the first time. A question was put to the Home Secretary, Winston Churchill, by another Member of Parliament, who wanted to know ‘[i]f he can state who is responsible for allowing Dr. Crippen to get out of the hands of the police … [and whether] it was in consequence of the pressing inquiries that caused Dr. Crippen to vanish’.2 Scotland Yard gave their answer, saying that until the discovery of the remains it had simply been a missing person case, of the sort which numbered around 100 a week in London alone. It was not until there was evidence of foul play that the house could be searched more thoroughly.3
Dew later responded angrily to the criticism:
I came in for criticism. Certain people with no knowledge of police procedure and less of the law blamed me for allowing Crippen to go. I ought to have arrested him, they said. Ridiculous!
There was up to this time no shred of evidence against Crippen upon which he could have been arrested or even detained. Futile to talk of arresting a man until you know there has been a crime.
It was not until a fortnight later that Churchill responded to the question, which he dismissed as unfair, Dew being engaged on special duty at the time and therefore unable to defend himself.4
Now the events at Hilldrop Crescent were publicly known, rumours spread like wildfire. When a German named John Evert committed suicide at a Finsbury boarding house, word spread that he was fact been Dr Crippen.5 When a young woman committed suicide at Bourges on 13 July, a theory emerged from Paris that she was Ethel Le Neve.6 Furthermore, several American newspapers reported that Scotland Yard were investigating the death of Crippen’s first wife, but nothing seemed to come of this. The Crippen case dominated the newspapers. Melville Macnaghten recalled that ‘no case has ever fascinated the British public, and, indeed, engaged the attention of the whole world, in quite the same way the case of Dr. Crippen did’.7 Dew agreed:
There has never been a hue and cry like that which went up throughout the country for Crippen and Miss Le Neve. The newspapers were full of the case. It was the one big topic of conversation. On the trains and buses one heard members of the public speculating and theorizing as to where they were likely to be.
All the elements to fire the public imagination were present. They were intrigued by the relationship between the doctor and his former secretary; repelled by the gruesome find in the coal cellar, and mystified as to how the victim had met her death. Every day that passed increased the fevered interest in the hunt.
The Times referred to Crippen as ‘Dr’ Crippen – rather than Dr Crippen – in their coverage. There was some doubt as to the validity of Crippen’s medical qualifications. Dew referred to Crippen as a doctor because he had found a diploma at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, which had been issued ten years to the day that Dew interviewed Crippen, and read:
Presented and Registered in the Office of the Clerk of the County of King’s by Hawley H. Crippen, as his authority to practice physic and surgery, this 8th day of July 1900. This will certify that the within diploma is from a reputable Medical College, legally chartered under the laws of the State of Ohio.
This was good enough for Dew, who pointed out that the diploma proved Crippen ‘was not drawing on his imagination in describing himself as a doctor, at any rate, so far as the U.S.A. was concerned’. Crippen’s American qualification would not, however, allow him to practise as a doctor in England.8
More sightings of the fugitives came pouring in from all over the country, and also the continent. Remembering that, to his annoyance, his superiors had not asked for press help during the Whitechapel murders, Dew determined to follow his instincts and do the opposite. Dew made an appeal to the French newspaper Le Matin for ‘the Press to give us its assistance’.9
More false sightings were reported. Mr Newton, a costumier with premises at Great Portland Street, reported that a man answering Dr Crippen’s description had entered his shop ‘and said he wanted to purchase a lady’s costume and under clothes which he said was for himself’. A man fitting Crippen’s description had been spotted in the south of France before crossing the frontier to Spain (provisional arrest and extradition orders had already been issued in France, Spain and Portugal).
He was also ‘seen’ in Cardiganshire and Willesden.10 Perhaps the strangest ‘sighting’ was of the couple in a small town on the south coast getting into a hot air balloon.11
All the reports of the public’s sightings were in vain. In 1910 it was not necessary to have a passport to travel to much of the world, and Crippen and Le Neve were in Europe by 10 July. On that day they had booked into the Hôtel des Ardennes in the Rue de Brabant in Brussels, Belgium. Later enquiries ascertained that they had arrived around lunchtime and stayed there until 18 July. Crippen signed the visitor’s register ‘John Robinson, age 55 Merchant born in Quebec Canada last place of residence, Vienna’. The hotel’s proprietress signed the book on behalf of Le Neve under the name of ‘John Robinson Junior’, for the typist was now masquerading as a boy. The only luggage they brought with them was a small basketwork trunk. To the staff at the hotel they appeared to be two people travelling for pleasure. They spent most of their time in their room, only leaving it for about two hours a day.
The story Crippen told the hotel staff was that he was a merchant travelling with his sick son, and that his wife had died two months previously. Le Neve spoke only in whispers, which Crippen explained by saying that ‘he’ was deaf and suffering from an affliction of the throat. He added that they had come from Quebec and planned to go to The Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, and spend a few days in the Cambre Forest before returning to Quebec. Other enquiries elicited that Crippen had said he was going to go to Vilvorde, near Brussels, for the benefit of his son’s health.
On 13 July – the day Dew discovered the remains at Hilldrop Crescent – Crippen called in at the office of M. Baur, an agent of the Red Star shipping line. He asked for a second-class cabin in a ship bound for Canada. The only one that carried second-class passengers was the steamer Montrose, which was due to leave Antwerp on 3 August. Crippen (still using the name ‘Robinson’) did not book it there and then, but returned the next day. Then he was told that he could get an earlier berth by booking a ship that went via England to Canada, but he declined and booked a cabin on the Montrose, a 5,000-ton steamship that travelled at a speed of 13 knots.
Crippen made another visit to Baur on 15 July. He was then informed that the Montrose was now sailing early, on 20 July. Crippen collected his two tickets for cabin no. 5, which cost 275 francs each (a total of around £22). Crippen paid with English gold. He then asked Baur if he could recommend someone in Brussels who might lend him some money, but Baur declined to give him that information.
The Montrose arrived at Antwerp on 15 July, where it moored at the CPR wharf on the riverfront. The vessel had first been launched in 1897, and was initially u
sed to transport troops to the Boer War. By 1910 the Montrose had the reputation of being a modest and reliable ship. Its captain, Henry George Kendall, had sailed from the Millwall Docks in London the day before. He had been given a full description of Dr Crippen by the Thames Police, which also included the detail that Le Neve may be dressed as a boy.
The passengers for the Montrose (all second and third class) boarded the ship on 20 July between 8.30 and 10.00 a.m. There were in all 20 second-class passengers, 246 third-class, and a crew of 107, making a total of 373 souls on board. Kendall did not notice anything untoward about any of the passengers; that was until he went ashore and bought a continental edition of the Daily Mail that contained photographs and descriptions of Dr Crippen and Ethel Le Neve.
Kendall’s suspicions were aroused within three hours of the start of the voyage, when he saw Mr and Master ‘Robinson’. Crippen had signed the manifest ‘John Philo Robinson, age 55, Merchant, American, of Detroit, Michigan U.S.A.’ Le Neve was described as ‘John George Robinson, age 16, single, Student’. ‘Mr Robinson’ was clean-shaven, but had several days of growth on his chin. When the captain ‘saw the boy squeeze the man’s hand I thought it strange and unnatural, and it occurred to me at once that they might be Crippen and Le Neve’. Kendall wished them the time of day, and observed them keenly. Already he felt ‘quite confident’ that they were the fugitives, but he did not do anything else at that point as he wanted to make sure he hadn’t made a mistake.
The following day Captain Kendall shared his suspicions, in strict confidence, with his chief officer, Alfred Henry Sergent, and instructed him to join him in collecting any English newspapers on the ship which mentioned the North London cellar murder. On 22 July Kendall engaged Crippen in conversation on the subject of sea-sickness amongst passengers and the remedies used for curing it. Crippen’s answer included some medical terms for certain remedies. This convinced Kendall that ‘Robinson’ was a medical man.
Walter Dew: The Man Who Caught Crippen Page 11
