Walter Dew: The Man Who Caught Crippen

by Connell, Nicholas

  Le Neve did cause Dew a few problems on the return voyage. He told Cecil Mercer that, while Crippen was pining for Le Neve in his cabin on the opposite side of the ship, she was enjoying herself, joking and flirting with the ship’s crew. In the end Dew had to move Le Neve to a less accessible

  cabin.21

  Le Neve would later reveal that Dew became sea-sick as well during the rough weather near Ireland. She found Dew’s manner to be very paternal, and she and Crippen referred to him affectionately as ‘father’. Le Neve also said that Dew had a curious way of saying ‘Ah’, which he often did ‘as though he knew so much more than I did’.22

  On 24 August Dew took a handcuffed Crippen on to the deck to allow him some exercise. The prisoner asked Dew for ‘a favour but I will leave it for Friday’. Dew told Crippen that he could give an answer then and there as well as he could on Friday, so Crippen explained his request. ‘When you took me off the ship I did not see Miss Le Neve. I don’t know how things will go, they may go all right or they may go all wrong with me. I may never see her again and I want to ask you if you will let me see her – but I won’t speak to her. She has been my only comfort for the last 3 years.’ Dew considered the request to be a ‘delicate matter’, but did allow him to see but not talk to her, on a train from Liverpool to London after the boat had docked.

  As the Megantic approached the Liverpool landing stage, the waiting crowds spotted Dew on the deck smoking a cigar and chatting with Inspector Duckworth of the Liverpool Police, who had gone out in a boat to meet Dew. The sight of Dew indicated that Crippen and Le Neve were still aboard, and that they had not been surreptitiously landed already. The crowd thought that Dew would not emerge with his prisoners until late in the afternoon, but when a military and civic reception began to welcome the disembarking Canadian passengers and members of the Queen’s Own Rifles, Dew rushed Crippen and Le Neve down the gangway surrounded by police officers. One newspaper described it as ‘a very neatly contrived manoeuvre’.23 The representative of the Liverpool Courier managed to get close enough to observe Crippen’s pale, thin face and the stubbly growth of a sandy moustache.24

  Dew was ‘in the best of spirits’ upon his return to England. Not only had he dramatically captured Crippen and Le Neve; he had left behind the American journalists and was reunited with the English media, who reported:

  His [Dew’s] comments on the methods of the American journalists with whom he came in contact were highly amusing, and there was no little feeling in his tone when he remarked, ‘It is quite a pleasure to meet English Pressmen, for they are gentlemen.’25

  14

  Magistrates and Coroners

  … when she thought of the dreadful wickedness of that little American doctor who dismembered his wife the tears actually came into her eyes.

  George Orwell, Coming up for Air

  The train carrying Dew, Crippen and Le Neve from Liverpool arrived at London’s Euston Station, where Crippen was greeted by boos and jeers from a waiting crowd who clearly loathed him as much as the Canadian public had. He and Le Neve were whisked off to Bow Street Police Court for two nights, until the Monday sitting of the court, when they were to appear before Mr Marsham, whom Dew described as ‘a giant of a man with a ruddy face and an old-fashioned style of dress which gave him the appearance of a prosperous farmer. One of the finest gentlemen I have ever met.’

  An anonymous Bow Street gaoler later recalled Crippen’s time there:

  [Crippen] looked tired and jaded, completely worn out, but conscious of the great ordeal which he knew he must face once he was in the grip of the police.

  I spoke to him about his journey, and he told me how glad he was in one way to have all the anxiety ended. But he never complained through all the monotony of the police-court proceedings, which lasted for many weeks. He was very keen to know what kind of treatment he might expect in Brixton Prison, and afterwards during his various visits to Bow Street he never once complained of the routine or the food or sleeping accommodation. In fact, he declared that the governor and warders did everything possible for his comfort and convenience. He had a great partiality for tea, and he always looked forward to this each afternoon of the Magisterial hearing.1

  Dew breathed a sigh of relief after handing the prisoners over. He had achieved his goal of capturing the fugitive Dr Crippen and Ethel Le Neve. While his ‘personal responsibility was over’, he knew that his connection with the case was far from ended. However, there was a brief period of celebration as Dew received a letter of congratulation from Chief Constable Bigham, and was enthusiastically received by Sir Melville Macnaghten. Dew’s ‘best welcome of all’ came from his family, whom he rushed home to see.

  Crippen’s solicitor, Arthur Newton, was a well known figure in legal circles. Travers Humphreys described him as ‘a public school boy, very good-looking, with a charming manner and considerable gifts of advocacy based upon an extensive knowledge of the world rather than a knowledge

  of law’.2 He added that Newton possessed a ‘scheming brain’, and usually got what he wanted ‘by fair means or otherwise’.3

  Newton had been avidly following the story of the North London murder in the newspapers, when he realised the missing suspect was a former client of his. Crippen had failed to make much of an impression on Newton back in 1906, when he had represented him in a trivial matter. Newton remembered Crippen as a ‘short, insignificant figure, with weak, goggly eyes, protected by gold-rimmed glasses, and a rather hesitating manner’.4

  Newton was reunited with Crippen at Bow Street. As a lawyer, Newton was naturally familiar with the Bow Street Police Court, but being a somewhat unscrupulous character, he also had a more intimate knowledge of that establishment than most, for in 1890 he had been tried there on charges of conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice. Newton had attempted to prevent three telegraph boys from testifying that Lord Arthur Somerset had committed acts of gross indecency with them at a male brothel in Cleveland Street, London. He was ultimately sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment.5

  His client had aged markedly. The first words Crippen said were, ‘I want you thoroughly to understand, Mr Newton, that my first anxiety is for Miss Le Neve. She is dearer to me than anything in the world, and, if it becomes necessary, I would sacrifice myself to save her. She knew nothing whatever about the matter.’ Newton replied, ‘I am assuming, Dr. Crippen, that you are quite innocent.’ Crippen responded ‘Certainly. But don’t forget, whatever happens, your first thought is to be for Miss Le Neve.’ Newton went to see Le Neve, whose appearance came as something of a disappointment, for ‘[s]he was not a beautiful woman, and I could see nothing in her to account for her strong hold on the affections of Crippen. She completely convinced me that she knew nothing, and that she believed that Belle Elmore had gone to America, as Crippen had told her.’6

  A crowd numbering hundreds had gathered outside the court, many of them women and young girls. Only a handful managed to gain entrance, for the court was a small one that lacked a public gallery. The spectators had to stand behind a barrier at the back of the court. Dew was amazed at the crowds the case attracted everywhere, commenting, ‘No other murderer’s personality had been quite so magnetic as that of Dr. Crippen.’ It was a puzzle to Dew why people should wait for hours for the merest glimpse of a prisoner or the chance of a scant scrap of information. Dew had ‘never been able to understand the mentality of such people’, and personally ‘detested the atmosphere and surroundings of criminal courts, and always made a point of getting away at the first possible moment’.

  This initial hearing was a formality, in order to have Crippen and Le Neve remanded until a later date. Travers Humphreys, representing the Director of Public Prosecutions, asked Mr Marsham if he would adjourn the hearing for eight days, to which he readily consented. Humphreys also pointed out that the likelihood was that Ethel Le Neve would only be charged as accessory after the fact. Walter Dew, sporting a healthy sun-tan from his ocean voyage, gave evidence concerning h
is arrest of Crippen and Le Neve, and their return voyage aboard the Megantic. He entered the witness box and ‘proceeded to open his Gladstone bag and produce a notebook and documents. He gave his evidence in so quiet a tone as to be almost inaudible at times in some parts of the court.’7

  After the hearing the waiting crowds surged forward, towards the public door, desperate to hear of what had happened, while more than one cinematograph camera recorded the events. The prisoners were hastily removed from the court by a side door, to be taken away by taxicab. Crippen’s destination was Brixton Prison, while Le Neve was taken to Holloway Prison.8

  The amazing interest the case was attracting, both at home and abroad, was partly explained in a Times editorial:

  It is due in part to the fact that Scotland Yard took the whole world into its confidence with unprecedented thoroughness. It enlisted not only the services of the official police of other countries, but also the formidable though unofficial detective service supplied by the extensive publicity afforded by the Press.

  The other reason for the keen interest with which this chase has been followed is the unprecedentedly large part played in the capture by wireless telegraphy. The ordinary telegraph has enormously increased the difficulties of fugitives from justice. It has frequently confronted an escaping criminal with a detective and a warrant just when he thought that he had baffled pursuit. But it could never have accomplished what has been done in this case by wireless telegraphy.9

  Filson Young, who edited Trial of Hawley Harvey Crippen for the Notable British Trials series, published in 1920, proffered another explanation of the appeal of the case. This was the paradox of Crippen’s character. On the one hand, he was utterly devoted to Ethel Le Neve, and regarded as a most kindly and mild-mannered man by those who knew him. On the other hand, he had just been arrested for a cold-blooded murder that was leaving the newspaper-reading public aghast. Young observed, ‘There are two sides to the story – the physical, which is sordid, dreadful, and revolting, and the spiritual, which is good and heroic.’ Furthermore, it was the newspaper ‘silly season’. Summer was traditionally a quiet period for the press, so they used the Crippen story to fill their pages, allowing their readers to know everything about the hunt for Crippen, while Crippen and Le Neve were blissfully unaware of what was happening.

  Dew had his own theory to explain the unusual interest the case was attracting:

  Think of the circumstances! The callous way in which the Doctor killed his actress wife, and the mutilation of her remains; the part played by Miss Ethel Le Neve, the ‘other woman’ in the case; the flight of the couple with the girl dressed as a boy, and their dramatic arrest on the other side of the Atlantic.

  While Dew had been chasing Crippen and Le Neve across the Atlantic, investigations into the events at Hilldrop Crescent continued unabated. The drains and sewers of No. 39 were checked for human remains, but none were found. The building, now under the constant supervision of a plain-clothes officer, had become something of a tourist attraction, with scores of people filing past all day, while those with cameras took commemorative snapshots.

  A statement was made at the end of July by metal-worker Frederick Evans, who lived in Brecknock Road, Camden Town. Evans was ‘fairly sure’ that it was on the night of 4 February that he was returning home from the Orange Tree public house in the Euston Road. At around 1.20 a.m. he heard ‘a terrible screech which terminated with a long dragging whine’, which emanated from the direction of Hilldrop Crescent. Evans’ first thought was of the Whitechapel murders, despite the fact that it was over two decades since the case that had caused Dew such misery. Evans’ back garden was some 3 to 4 yards away from that of the Crippens, and they frequently used to hear Cora singing. The Sunday after he had heard the screams Evans smelled burning from the garden of No. 39, which continued for several days.

  Crippen had certainly been busy burning something. Islington dustman William Curtis recalled that, for three weeks from mid-February, he had to remove an unusually large amount of rubbish from 39 Hilldrop Crescent. The first week it consisted of burnt paper and women’s clothing. In later weeks he removed quantities of a light white ash that was not paper ash, nor was it from a fire grate. Curtis was given a 3d tip by a woman he thought might have been Ethel Le Neve.

  A similar story emerged from the Crippens’ neighbour at 36 Hilldrop Crescent, Franziska Hachenberger. She was ‘certain that when I heard the screams at the back of Hilldrop Crescent, [it] was either on the early morning of the 1st or 2nd of February last … It was an awful scream, it was not easily forgotten.’ Her father had also heard the scream, which he thought had happened at around 2 a.m.

  Other people in the neighbourhood reported strange goings on. Lena Lyons and her lodger May Pole lived at 46 Brecknock Road, which overlooked 39 Hilldrop Crescent. They both thought they heard two gunshots around seven o’clock one morning, either at the end of January or the beginning of February.

  The re-adjourned magistrates’ court hearing took place on 6 September. Dew arrived wearing a long grey overcoat and carrying a brown leather bag.

  The court was so crowded that he had to search for a vacant seat.10 Detailed medical evidence was put forward, firstly by Dr Pepper, who thought that the remains found at Hilldrop Crescent were those of a human female in the prime of life and stout of build. The remains, he said, bore signs of an operation in the form of a scar.

  Dr William Willcox, senior Home Office scientific analyst, told the court that he had detected traces of an alkaloid poison in all of the organs he had been given to examine. He determined through his tests that the

  poison was hyoscine, amounting to just under one-third of a grain.11 Hyoscine was usually given in doses of one one-hundredth or one two-hundredth of a grain as a last resort to quieten someone who was delirious, suffering from delirium tremens or acute forms of insanity. Willcox thought that whoever had given the victim the fatal dose of hyoscine must have administered a very large dose for so much to have remained in the body after such a long period.

  It had been ascertained that on 19 January 1910 Dr Crippen had purchased five grains of hydrobromide of hyoscine at Messrs. Lewis and Burroughs chemists, in New Oxford Street, saying it was for 500 individual doses. This was a vast quantity, and there was no reason why someone in Crippen’s position would require it under normal circumstances. The poison was virtually tasteless, and could easily be put into food. Once consumed in a large dose the poison would almost instantly put a person into a stupor, and possibly make them delirious. They would then become paralysed and comatose, before death followed within hours.

  Dew briefly appeared and gave more evidence, and produced some jewellery he had found on Crippen’s person, before the case was adjourned until the next day. The large crowd outside the court booed and shouted at the prisoners when they left.12

  The next day Walter Dew took to the witness box once again to tell the court about his initial enquiries and interviews with Crippen and Le Neve at Albion House. His evidence was interrupted for over an hour when children’s cases were being held in the second court. The Juvenile Offenders’ Act provided that when the Children’s Court was sitting no charge against an adult could be heard in the same court.13

  Between magistrates’ hearings the coroner’s inquest was resumed at the Central Library in Holloway Road. However, this new, larger venue made it difficult for everyone present to hear the evidence being given. Evidence was heard from several members of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild before a further adjournment of one week was given.14

  Amongst those watching the proceedings at the next sitting of the magistrates’ court on 14 September was actor H.B. Irving, the son of the late Sir Henry Irving.15 At the hearing the evidence was of a more gruesome nature, as Dr Pepper gave a detailed description of what Dew called ‘those terrible remains’:

  At the examination on July 15 he found one portion of skin 11in. by 9in., with some subcutaneous fat. The lower portion of the piece of skin w
as in his opinion from the upper portion of the abdominal wall, and the upper portion from the chest. There was also a piece consisting of the covering of the lower part of the back and buttocks, a large piece from the upper part of the back, and a further piece measuring 7in. by 6in., which was from the lower part of the abdominal wall, and upon the skin of which there was a mark. There was also a piece of skin 15in. long, with fat and muscle attached, from the hip, and another piece of skin, with fat and muscle, from the thigh. There were several other smaller pieces. There was nothing except the hair which could be identified as coming from the scalp, or from the forearms, from the leg below the knee, from the hands, or from the feet. There was no trace either of the genital organs or of bone. There was one large mass, which comprised the liver, the stomach, the gullet, the lower 2½in. of the windpipe, two lungs, the heart intact, the diaphragm, the kidneys, the pancreas, the spleen, all the small and the greater part of the large intestines. All this mass was removed in one piece.

  Pepper was asked whether he thought the mutilations could have been done by someone without anatomical knowledge or training. Pepper was sure that ‘he must have had real anatomical knowledge or have been accustomed to the process of evisceration of animals’.16

  The penultimate hearing took place two days later. Crippen’s lawyer Arthur Newton questioned Dew about his intention to arrest Crippen. Dew explained that at their first meeting at Albion House he had no intention of arresting him. If he had he would not have put a number of questions to Crippen, which he did.

  Newton Did the question of whether you arrested him or not depend on the answers he gave to your questions?

  Dew The question of arresting him did not enter my mind. I went there for information.