Home » Sources Index
Introduction to The Trial Of H. H. Crippen
By Filson Young
(First published 1920)
Dedicated to
Sir Basil Home Thomson, C.B.
In respect for his work and in friendship for himself
I
Most of the interest and part of the terror of great crime are due not to what is abnormal, but to what is normal in it; what we have in common with the criminal, rather than that subtle insanity which differentiates him from us, is what makes us view with so lively an interest a fellow-being who has wandered into these tragic and fatal fields. A mean crime, like that of the brute who knocks an old woman on the head for the sake of the few shillings in her store, has a mean motive; a great crime, like that of the man who murders his wife and little children and commits suicide because he can see only starvation and misery before them, gathers desperately into itself in one wild protest against destiny what is left of nobility and greatness in the man's nature. It is not that his crime has any more legal justification than that of the murdering robber; it has not. On the contrary, it is more of an outrage upon life, and far more damaging in its results upon the community. Yet we do not hate or execrate the author; we profoundly, pity him; it is even possible sometimes to recognise a certain terrible beauty in the motive that made him thus make a complete sweep of his little world when it could no longer cope with the great world. There are, at the least, reasons for a great crime; for a mean one there are, at the most, excuses. The region of human morality is not a flat plain; there are hills and valleys in it, deep levels and high levels; there are also certain wild, isolated crags, terrible in their desolation, wrapped in storms and glooms, upon which, nevertheless, a slant of sunshine will sometimes fall, and reveal the wild flowers and jewelled mosses that hide in their awful clefts. Somewhere between these extremes, far below the highest, but far above the lowest, lies the case of Dr. Crippen, who killed his wife in order to give his life to the woman he loved. His was that rare thing in, English annals, a crime passionel. True, the author of it was an American, and the victim a German-Russian-Polish-American, but the theatre and setting were those of the most commonplace and humdrum region of London life, and all the circumstances that contributed to its interest were such as are witnessed by thousands of people every day. The trial that followed it is in no sense remarkable from a legal point of view, except possibly with regard to the medical evidence; its chief interest lies in the story itself, in the characters of the people concerned, and in the dramatic flight and arrest at sea of Crippen and his mistress.
II
In the year 1900 there came to London an entirely unremarkable little man, describing himself as an American doctor, to find some place in that large industry that lies on the borderland between genuine healing and the commercial exploitation of the modern human passion for swallowing medicine. This was Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, a native of Coldwater, Michigan, where he had been born in the year 1862, his father being a dry goods merchant of that place. It was not his first visit to England; he had previously been here in the year 1883, when at the age of twenty-one he had come to pick up some medical training. His education had followed the ordinary course of studies for the medical profession in America. After receiving a general education at the California University, Michigan, he proceeded to the Hospital College of Cleveland, Ohio. After a little desultory attendance at various London hospitals in 1883, Dr. Crippen had returned to New York, where in 1885 he took a diploma as an ear and eye specialist at the Ophthalmic Hospital there. He afterwards practised at Detroit for two years, at Santiago for two years, at Salt Lake City, at New York, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Toronto. These movements covered twelve years, from 1885 to 1896.
In 1887 he had married at Santiago [? Other sources = New York] his first wife, Charlotte Bell; the following year was born a son, Otto Hawley Crippen, who at the time of the trial was living at Los Angeles. In the year 1890 or 1891 his wife died at Salt Lake City; and from there he returned to New York, where two years later he made the acquaintance of a girl of seventeen, whom he knew as Cora Turner. He fell in love with her, and although at the time he met her she was living as the mistress of another man, he married her and took her with him to St. Louis, where he had an appointment as consulting physician to an optician. He had found out that his wife's real name had not been Cora Turner at all, but Kunigunde Mackamotzki, and that her father was a Russian Pole and her mother a German.
Mrs. Crippen was the possessor of a singing voice, small but of a clear quality, her friends' appreciation of which led her to entertain ambitions with regard to it which afterwards did not turn out to have been justified. Crippen, however, who was nothing if not an indulgent husband, allowed her to have it trained, This was in the year 1899, when they were living in Philadelphia; but Crippen allowed his wife to stay in New York for the purpose of having lessons, for which, of course, he paid, her ambition being that she should be trained for grand opera. She was still there when in 1900 Dr. Crippen came to London as manager for Munyon's advertising business in patent medicines, the offices of which were at that time in Shaftesbury Avenue. About four months later he was joined by his wife, who had given up her lessons in blow York and abandoned the idea of going into grand opera. Her ambitions now lay in the direction of the music hall stage, and she probably regarded England as a promising field for the development of her talents in that direction.
This part of the story may be very briefly dismissed. Although she came over with a sketch of her own design, and many obliging music hall agents undertook to float her in this country, nothing ever came of it save profit to the agents. Her musical sketch turned out to be a thing of which the music and the words both remained yet to be written, and competent artists were hired by the obliging agents to fill these omissions. Mr. Crippen, who was assiduous in fulfilling all the external conditions of he proposed career, took a stage name of " Belle Elmore," and provided herself with a quantity of dazzling dresses - all, of course, at her good-nature husband's expense. But in fact the only attributes of the music hall artist to which she ever attained were the stage name and the dresses. From star appearances in a first-rate London music hall her ambitions dwindled down to appearances of any kind at any music hall; and even these, when it came to the point, proved beyond the powers of the agents to secure One or two feeble appearances were made at very minor music halls; but Mrs. Crippen's talents were so inadequate, and the failure was so obvious that even these attempts (for which, of course, Dr. Crippen had to pay were abandoned. The truth was that Mrs. Crippen never had any talent whatever for the stage - not even the very moderate kind that will suffice to make the performance of an attractive young woman with a voice, wearing pretty clothes, and with some financial backing, acceptable to a music ha audience. Poor Mrs. Crippen had to content herself with frequenting music hall circles, reading the Era, retaining her "stage" name of Belle Elmore and adding to her already, large stock of theatrical garments. Here was, indeed, a small tragedy. If the poor woman had had any kind of talent and had really been the music hall favourite that she loved to imagine herself, both she and her husband would probably be living now, each happy in a different sphere; but apparently she had nothing but vanity, no scrap of the ability or industry necessary even for her small purposes The humblest English music hall has its standards; and " Belle Elmore, in spite of her personal attractions and her pretty clothes, could not attain to them.
III
People who met the Crippens at this time describe them as cultivating acquaintances among the Bohemian world of music hall performers who meet in small restaurants and are always ready to welcome to their social circle those who are lively company and have money to spend. Her friends describe Belle Elmore at this period as being of an exceptional liveliness. A loud, clear voice with a strong New York twang would have called attention to her presence wherever she was; but her whole appearance corresponded with the vivacity of her character. She is described as good looking, with large dark eyes, raven black hair, always elaborately dressed and in the brightest colours. Her appearance was likened by one enthusiast to that of a " bird of paradise." Strange paradise, indeed, from which this poor painted bird had flown, or whither she was flying!
Crippen was then the insignificant-looking little man he always remained, small and short and slight in stature, with a sandy moustache, prominent eyes that looked at you through gold-rimmed spectacles, and a large domed forehead. His role in the social life was that of a spectator. He was the silent member of the gay little companies that were entertained by him and the bird of paradise. He was always courteous, always hospitable; apparently contented to look on at and enjoy his wife's little social triumphs among her friends. Her clothes and her jewels were the recipients of a great deal of admiration, and Crippen, who paid for everything, was content to find his share of the enjoyment in the attention and applause which they excited. He often would give her money or a piece of jewellery in the presence of her friends; and was regarded, not surely without justification, as an ideal husband worthy of the good fortune that had befallen him in becoming the proprietor and companion of the bird of paradise.
He was undoubtedly at this time still very fond of his wife, very kind to her, very patient with her extravagancies and the interminable calls which she made upon his time and his means. I do not mean that such things are sacrifices when they are given as Crippen gave them. His attitude to women was peculiar. He was not the type of man that likes to dominate women; he was of the type that loves to be dominated by them; and in his love for showering prints upon his wife in public, and in spending a quite ridiculous proportion of his income in the adorning of her plump little person, he exhibited the symptoms of the psychopathic type to which undoubtedly he belonged.
IV
It is not my intention to trace in detail the lives of these people further than is necessary to discover their characters. The relations which existed between them at the time of which I have been writing did not continue. The inordinate vanity of the wife demanded more than a husband's admiration, and Crippen's affection for her, which had never been of a very spiritual type, died the natural death of all such passions. It is distasteful to speak of Mrs. Crippen's relations with other men, but it is obvious that the avenue to her affections was not very narrow or difficult of access. This also had its effect on the relations of husband and wife. After two years in England Crippen had to pay a short visit to America., and when he came home he found that she had contracted a friendship with a Mr. Bruce Miller, whose evidence will be found in the course of the trial. Crippen's own written statement is that "she told me that this man visited her, had taken her about, and was very fond of her, also she was very fond of him. It is quite four years since she ever went out to sing, and although we apparently lived happily together, as a matter of fact there were frequent occasions when she got into most violent tempers, and even threatened she would leave me, saying she had a man she could go to, and she would end it all. "Is that a true or an untrue statement? As we cannot tell, we have to ask ourselves is it likely or unlikely? Even a very moderate experience of the world would, I imagine, be enough to convince a student of this case that it is probably a very accurate description of the state to which affairs had drifted after several years of the life which I have been trying to indicate.
V
In the year 1903 the Crippens left the rooms in Store Street, Bloomsbury, where they had been living, and established themselves in 39 Hilldrop Crescent - a small semi-detached house in a quiet, leafy crescent off the Camden Road. There had been recently a rather unpleasant trial in connection with the Drouet Institute, and Crippen had severed his connection with it, and returned to the management of Munyon's, where Ethel Le Neve was now engaged as book-keeper and secretary.
The life at Hilldrop Crescent, externally commonplace, reveals on a closer examination some peculiar characteristics. From a friend of the Crippens who lived near them, knew them well, and saw them constantly, we are able to get some interesting sidelights on the life of the household. Mrs. Crippen's florid taste was reflected, so far as their means permitted, in the furniture and decorations. Having seen a green wallpaper in the drawing-room of her friend's house, Mrs. Crippen expressed herself shocked, and said, "Gee I you have got a hoodoo here. Green paper! You'll have bad luck as sure as fate. When I have a house I won't have green in the house. It shall be pink right away through for luck." And apparently nearly all the rooms in Hilldrop Crescent were decorated in this propitious colour.
I cannot do better than quote some notes of Mrs. Harrison's on the life at Hilldrop Crescent. It is possible that some of her views are coloured by after events, but they are so interesting that they should be told in her own words.
"Mrs. Crippen was strictly economical in small matters in connection with their private home living.. In fact, to such an extent did she carry it that it suggested parsimony. She would search out the cheapest shops for meat, and go to the Caledonian Market and buy cheap fowls. She was always trying to save the pence, but scattering the pounds. It was a peculiar trait in her character. It was shortly after they took up their residence at Hilldrop Crescent (which was in the September of 1905) that the doctor was converted by his wife to Roman Catholicism. She, who had neglected her religion, so far as going to early Mass was concerned, started regularly attending the Roman Catholic church in Kentish Town.
"One Sunday morning they both called early, after Mass, to invite us to a little supper party on the same evening, and it was then the doctor informed us that his wife had made him a Catholic. He always appeared subservient to her wishes. I seemed to think at that time that she appeared more contented and settled down now she had a home to interest her and look after. He was delighted with the air up at Camden Road, and he chuckled with delight when he told us his clothes were becoming too small for him, and that he was getting quite fat. Within a few months he put on flesh, and appeared quite jolly and lively. They were about a great deal together, and their garden and the embellishment of their house seemed a source of great interest. He was a man with no apparent surface vices, or even the usual weaknesses or foibles of the ordinary man. Restraint was the one and only evidence of firmness in his character. He was unable to smoke; it made him ill. He refrained from the consumption of alcoholic liquor in the form of wines and spirits, as it affected his heart and digestion. He drank light ale and stout, and that only sparingly. He was not a man's man. No man had ever known him to join in a convivial bout; he was always back to time, and never came home with a meaningless grin on his face at two o'clock in the morning attended by pals from a neighbouring club. He never paid compliments to women, or flirted even in a jocular spirit. His eccentric taste in the matter of neckties and dress generally may be attributed to the fact that it represented feminine taste. His wife purchased his ties, and decided on the pattern of his clothing. She would discuss the colour of his trousers with the tailor, while he stood aside looking on, without venturing to give an opinion. The novelty of the new house employed her thoughts for a time. Her next little harmless whim took the form of desiring to receive paying guests for company. So she set to work to obtain some, and advertised in the Daily Telegraph. Several German young men, attracted by the newly furnished house and fascinating little hostess, engaged rooms. Four young men took up their residence with them. Still objecting to domestic servants, Mrs. Crippen undertook the domestic work, with the occasional assistance of a woman to do the cleaning. The doctor had to do his part. He had to rise at six o'clock in the morning to clean the boarders' boots, shovel up the coal, lay the breakfast, and help generally. He was always at his office before eight. It was a trying time. and quite unnecessary exertion for both, as Crippen was earning well, and gave his wife an ample supply of money; in fact, she had the strings of the family purse, which will be revealed as this strange story unfolds itself. She annexed the extra money from the boarders for personal adornment, and he continued to pay the household bills.
"A Mr. Richards, who was a member of their household for a time, wrote from Paris to the effect that during his sojourn under their roof he witnessed several domestic eruptions of rather a one-sided nature. Mrs. Crippen, excitable and irritable, chiding her husband; Crippen, pale, quiet, imperturbable.
"Ethel Le Neve, the quiet, ladylike, unassuming typewriter, always to time, neat in appearance, methodical, obedient, was interesting the man who employed her. Quietly, imperceptibly she was creeping into his heart and dulling the affection for his wife. Crippen's home life, which could have been made happy with the means at their command, was not restful. Their Sunday was a strenuous day of unrest for a hardworking business man. Early morning Mass, boarders' breakfast to be prepared on their return, boots to clean, beds to make, crockery to wash, dinner for mid-day to be cooked and served, and all this to be done without domestic assistance. After dinner they played cards with their boarders, gave them tea at five o'clock and supper at nine. The novelty of the boarders' society, which entailed so much drudgery, soon wore off. Dr. Crippen hinted that he objected to it. They left shortly afterwards, and the Crippens returned to their strange solitary mode of living. There was no system in the household. Mrs. Crippen disliked fresh air and open windows. There was no regular house cleaning. It was done in spasms. The windows in all the rooms, including the basement, were rarely opened. They had two cats, which were never permitted to roam for fear they should fall victims to the shafts of illicit love. At his wife's desire Crippen built a cage in the garden for them to take the air. Only when they received, were lights shown in the hall or living rooms. They lived practically in the kitchen, which was generally in a state of dirt and disorder. The basement, owing to want of ventilation, smelt earthy and unpleasant. A strange 'creepy' feeling always came over me when I descended-it was so dark and dreary, although it was on a level with the back garden.
"I followed her into the kitchen one morning when she was busy. It was a warm, humid day, and the grimy windows were all tightly closed. On the dresser was a heterogeneous mass, consisting of dirty crockery, edibles, collars of the doctor's, false curls of her own, hairpins, brushes, letters, a gold jewelled purse, and other articles. It reminded one of the contents of Mrs. Jellyby's cupboard in Dickens' Bleak House, when the cleaning operations were started for her daughter's wedding. The kitchener and gas stove were brown with rust and cooking stains. The table was littered with packages, saucepans, dirty knives, plates, flat irons, a washing basin, and a coffee pot. Thrown carelessly across a chair was a lovely white chiffon gown embroidered with silk flowers and mounted over white glacé. The little lady cat, who was a prisoner, was scratching wildly at a window in a vain attempt to attract the attention of a passing Don Juan."
VI
It was at this period that Mrs. Crippen made the acquaintance of several well-known people in the music hall world, and became a member of the Music Hall Ladies' Guild - a society doing quiet, charitable work among the more unfortunate members of the profession. Mrs. Crippen's enthusiasm for the work of this Guild was perhaps the best thing one knows of her. It had the double attraction of appealing to the impulsive kindness of heart which is characteristic of people of her type, and also of bringing her into a more interesting kind of society than would otherwise have been open to her. Mrs. Martinetti, Mrs. Ginnett, Mrs. Eugene Stratton, Lil Hawthorne, and Mrs. Harrison were among those with whom she was thus brought into intimate association. And in this, so to speak, posthumous way she was able to appear herself as a member of the great profession, call herself "Belle Elmore", and appear to be enjoying the aftermath of those brilliant successes which, in fact, she had never enjoyed. She became honorary treasurer of the Guild, which she induced to rent one of the rooms of Dr. Crippen's suite in Albion House, New Oxford Street. It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good; and the music hall strike gave her an opportunity during the famine of actually appearing on the stage, although even in these propitious circumstances fate was against her. She was engaged for a week at the Bedford and Euston Palace, but on her appearance at the Euston (after an agitated week turning over all her most expensive gowns) the audience refused to listen to her, evidently regarding her as a " blackleg," and she was hissed off the stage. The poor creature suffered great distress from this, and was only consoled by Crippen's sympathy and kindness. On this occasion. there was an odd and sinister coincidence. An actor, named Weldon Atherstone, who appeared on the same evening, and had a similar reception, was able to sympathise with the weeping " Belle Elmore." Three years later, in July, 1910, in the same week in which London was, ringing with the discovery of the remains at Hilldrop Crescent, Atherstone was found shot in the garden of his flat in Battersea. The coincidence was commented upon by Dr. Danford Thomas, the coroner, who a week later was himself dead. In all this time the Crippens were keeping up a considerable appearance, spending money on entertaining at restaurants and little parties, while in private they were living the somewhat squalid existence described by Mrs. Harrison. Also Crippen's affection for Le Neve was developing. For this quiet, reserved, attractive girl the quiet and reserved Crippen was nourishing a genuine passion. From the strain and storm of existence at home he was finding something like repose and true companionship in his association with Miss Le Neve. His resources were further strained by his efforts to adorn her in the way he had adorned his wife - so much so that the doctor connected with Munyon's establishment objected to her too smart appearance, and requested her to return to a more sober habit of dress.
In short, the causes were now all assembled which were to produce such tragic results, and only some powerful agent was required to precipitate the tragedy from these ingredients. There was the life at home, sordid and quarrelsome. There was the outward appearance of affluence and display, coupled with the laboriously kept-up appearance of matrimonial felicity. There were the business interests and anxieties, and there was the secret growing passion for Miss Le Neve.
VII
Here, then, was Crippen living, although not on affectionate, at any rate on endurable terms with his wife. That the relationship would, and indeed must somehow at some time come to an end, was probably in both their minds. They had no children to complicate the relationship, and Mrs. Crippen's former manner of life and her popularity with a certain class of man must have familiarised her with ways in which she could be easily independent of her husband. But that the situation in January had become so intolerable that either thought of murdering the other I do not believe. Murder is, to say the least of it, an extreme step to take, even in marital disagreements; it is an extreme stage to which to carry them; it is an extreme method of solving them. There are thousands of men and women who daily carry the burden that Crippen was carrying, who wake up every morning to another day of a relationship of which bickering and distaste are the elements; who see stretching hopelessly before them a long and dreary vista of such days. But they do not resort to murder as an escape. Except to a maniac, or to a person beside himself with rage, jealousy, hatred, fear, or despair, the deliberate killing of a human companion is a difficult, disagreeable, and indeed abhorrent business. It is also highly dangerous, and (thanks to the law and to the machinery of justice) is almost certain to bring the offender into a situation in comparison with which the unhappiest married life would seem as charming as the memory of Eden must have been to our fallen parents. In such circumstances, tolerated for so long, and therefore tolerable for a little longer, something very acute, sudden, or final, must occur to precipitate such an action. And something of the same character must have occurred in the Crippen household to make the doctor decide that he must not only escape from his wife but murder her. What was it? There are four theories, and only four, which can serve even approximately as a solution of the problem. Let us examine them.
VIII
The first theory, which may be called the official theory of the prosecution, is that Crippen murdered his wife simply that he might indulge his guilty passion for Ethel Le Neve. This is the kind of motive which is always good enough for a jury, especially when the facts of the murder are proved; but it will not stand intelligent examination. It is not reasonably in accordance either with the facts or with the characters of the people concerned. As for the guilty passion, Crippen had not only enjoyed it for a considerable time, but he obviously did not feel particularly guilty about it; it is even obvious that he took no more trouble to hide it than the dictates of elementary discretion and common sense demanded. It is pretty certain that all his friends and the people connected with him in business knew all about it, and had become so accustomed to it as to take it for granted. Ethel Le Neve was the companion of his business life and of his days; his wife was not even the companion of his nights; and much as he no doubt wished that he was married to Ethel Le Neve and not to Cora Crippen, that in itself could not have been a sufficient motive for him to commit murder. It was always possible for him simply to leave or desert his wife, and live openly with Le Neve. But if he had been going to do that, he would have done it before. When a man is in love with a woman who is not his wife, the time at which he is most likely to desert the wife for the mistress is at the beginning of the new relationship; not when it has been going on for years and become, as it were, regularised. And if that is true of more desertion, how much more true is it of murder, which requires so much stronger a motive, so much more impulsive a passion. If this theory as to motive were sound, Crippen would surely have committed the crime several years earlier, and not after he had settled down into a routine of existence which was, as I have suggested, if not happy, at any rate full of varied interests and had its private alleviations.
IX
Another and most ingenious attempt to account for the sudden abolition of Mrs. Crippen is, I think, the invention of Sir Edward Marshall Hall, who developed it at some length in a discussion before a private society in London. This was the theory upon which. if he had defended Crippen, his defence would have been founded; and it was because another line of defence had been opened at the Police Court before the brief was offered to him that he ultimately declined it. The theory is that, far from Crippen having ceased to cohabit with his wife, he was in fact something of a victim to her exigencies in that respect; that Mrs. Crippen had an abnormal amative appetite - abnormal, that is to say, not in the nature but in the extent of the appetite; that her husband, devoted as he was to his mistress, found himself the victim of a double demand to which the poor little man's frail physique and advancing years rendered him unequal; and that he sought in the pharmacopoeia a remedy for this distressing state of affairs. That having known, from his former experience in lunatic asylums, that hyoscin is sometimes used as a sexual depressant in cases of acute nymphomania, he conceived the idea of administering a few doses of this drug in order to keep his wife quiet. That although he knew the drug was used he did not know what the dose was, and innocently went out and bought 5 grains, the whole of which he administered to his wife in a cup of coffee. And that when, instead of falling quietly asleep, Mrs. Crippen, to the horror and surprise of her husband, incontinently died, he was so frightened at what he had done and foresaw such difficulty in explaining it that he cut up, burned, and otherwise disposed of the remains, and gave his friends the explanation of Mrs. Crippen's disappearance which in fact he did give. That, in short, if when she died he had run out and told a policeman of his dreadful mistake, he would have been an object of sympathy rather than of legal vengeance. The ingenuity of this theory cannot be denied; and there is a touch of true comedy in it, in spite of the grim facts, which makes one regret that it had not the chance of being fully developed in a criminal Court. Sir Edward Marshall Hall is not only convinced that he could have satisfied the jury and got the charge reduced to one of manslaughter, but (a much more extreme belief) he even thinks this to be the true explanation of the facts. But I am afraid that it will not do either. There is the fact that, having occupied a common room and bed in their former homes, the Crippens had separate rooms at Hilldrop Crescent. It is all very well to represent Crippen as the victim of the inordinate concupiscence of his wife as well as of his own passion for his mistress; but these are two fires between which a man in his situation cannot really be forced to remain. Although Courts of law continue to make orders for the restitution of conjugal rights, no method of enforcing them has so far been discovered; and relief from such a situation as this theory of the case presumes could be found in a purely negative line of conduct. Moreover (and here is the greatest weakness of this theory) it is almost unthinkable that a medical man who knew the properties of hydra bromide of hyoscin could be totally ignorant of the amount of the dose. It is quite possible that he would not know the minute variations of the dose for different cases; but that he should make such a wild mistake as lies in the difference between half a grain and 5 grains is unthinkable. That Crippen administered 5 grains is to be inferred not only from the amount discovered in the remains, but also from the fact that no residue of the drug was discovered in his possession; and it would have been of vital importance to him to produce such residue, in view of his own explanation as to his reason for purchasing hyoscin. So that this theory, ingenious as it is and profoundly interesting as its development would have been as a legal defence, must in my view be dismissed, not so much because it is unreasonable as because it is discordant with the revealed facts of the case.
X.
There is a third theory to which, after full consideration of all the mysterious elements in the problem, I am. driven as the most reasonable explanation of this extreme and violent act on the part of a man whose characteristics, as revealed to his associates through a number of years, were patience, kindness, and amiability. It is that the more or less sudden act which precipitated the tragedy came from Mrs. Crippen herself, in the form of a definite decision to leave her husband and take with her the whole available capital of the family, including the money in the bank and the jewellery.
In regard to this there is a very important fact which did not and could not come out at the trial, but goes far to explain what is otherwise almost inexplicable. It is known that Mrs. Crippen had more than once in the month of January told one of her friends that if Crippen did not give up his association with Miss Le Neve she intended to leave him, and to take her money with her. It will be observed that she spoke of it as "her" money, and it is clear that she so regarded it. What view Crippen himself took of this scheme I do not know, but it is at least strange that the bulk of their money was held in a, joint account. It is not in accordance with the orderly and business-like character of Crippen that he should have placed all his own resources, on which he depended not only for his household expenses, but also for the conduct of the various little businesses in which he from time to time engaged, at the mercy of a woman like his wife. He knew her character perfectly well-no one better; he must have known that, whatever qualities she possessed, she was not the sort of woman in whose hands it would be desirable to place the control of one's finances. In regard to the £600 on deposit in the Charing Cross Bank, some of this had been. deposited in the joint names of husband and wife, and some in the name of Belle Elmore. Now, Mrs. Crippen had no means of getting money unless it was given to her by her husband or some one else. She never earned any money during the five years which are the crucial period in this case. Crippen was, even on the admission of her own friends, liberal to her when he had money, and gave her whatever she required in accordance with his means. But the kind of salaries that Crippen earned did not entirely account for the sums of money that were from time to time in the possession of these two people, jointly or severally. It is true that in some of his businesses, although on a small salary (£3 or £4 a week), he was entitled to commission; but latterly, at any rate, that commission could not have amounted to anything considerable. In 1905, when he was manager of the Sovereign Remedy Company, it failed. From there he went as physician to the Drouet Company, and it failed; next he went to the Aural Clinic Company, and in six months it also failed. Then he returned to Munyon's as manager, and after some two years took it over as an agency - which seems to mean that the proprietors did not consider the branch sufficiently profitable to justify his salary, and allowed him to run it on an agent's commission. In November, 1909, he had ceased to be manager of the agency, and was simply remaining on commission; and even this arrangement was to terminate on the 31st of January, 1910. Undoubtedly he had various side lines of activity in the patent medicine business, but they were only side lines; and probably at the time of the murder his chief source of income was the partnership in a dental business which he had with Dr. Rylance at Albion House, New Oxford Street. But in all these affairs, having regard to the fact that he had a house to keep up and a wife to support who, for her station in life, was notoriously extravagant, there does not seem much room for the laying by of money and the purchase of expensive jewellery. Where, then, did the money come from? And how far was Mrs. Crippen justified in her claim to it as her own. property?
We must remember what she had been and what she was. Undoubtedly she occasionally received "presents" from various men; and whether these took the form of money or jewellery, or both, one can understand that she would regard them as entirely her own property and at her own disposal. What Crippen knew of their origin I cannot tell. The veil of mystery which surrounds so much of the character of this quiet and reserved man is not lifted to show any light on this aspect of the case. He was indifferent to his wife who, by her vanity, her extravagance, her shrewishness, had long worn out. the affection in which he had formerly held her and his pride in the kind of attention that she attracted. Crippen was not a robust man physically; his vitality was of a nervous sort. She, on the other hand, was robust and animal. Her vitality was of that loud, aggressive, and physical kind that seems to exhaust the atmosphere round it, and is undoubtedly exhausting to live with. In all probability, therefore, he did not ultimately care what she did, where she went, or whom she saw, as long as his life was allowed to go on without interruption. Of course, there were quarrels; "Belle Elmore," who could be so pleasant and attractive to her music hall friends, was not the sort of woman to withhold her words on provocation, or to take a philosophic view of her husband's liaison. It is true that she had ceased to care for him, and spared him neither in public nor in private before her friends; but in the mean of soul, vanity takes the place of nobler passions, and though she did not want Crippen for herself, it was not in accordance with her vanity that he should enjoy the love of any other woman. She was probably getting bored with the Hilldrop Crescent existence; unless there was plenty of money to gild it, that was too dingy a life for the kind of woman she conceived herself to be. Also she had reached that age - thirty-five years - when a woman of her race begins to realise that her youth is over, and that the time in which her attractions can still pass current in the world of men is growing short. She had any amount of clothes, plenty of jewellery, some money. Why not pick a quarrel with Crippen, and in the disguise of a virtuous and ill-used wife fly to the protection of some man who was, or whom she 'believed to be, ready to receive her?
I believe that somewhere about the middle of January, 1910, she made this threat to Crippen, and perhaps began to look: about her for the means to carry it out. I believe that he was worried, both on account of money and his business affairs, and possibly also through his love for Ethel Le Neve. It is possible that she, as well as Mrs. Crippen, was discontented with the existing situation; it would be remarkable if she were not. Although she had given herself entirely to Crippen, and knew herself to be the object of his very real devotion, she was still working as an ordinary typist at Munyon's; and the contrast between her situation and that of the woman who had the official position of Crippen's wife and the spending of the money, the wearing of the clothes and jewellery, and the treasurership of the Music Hall Ladies' Guild, and all the rest of it, must have been increasingly disagreeable. There is no evidence that she put any pressure of this nature on Crippen; it would not be fair to suggest that she did. But perhaps all the more for that reason would Crippen desire to give to the woman be loved what was at present being wasted on the woman he did not love. If his wife were to go away, as she threatened, and take all her possessions with her, the situation would be worse instead of better. There would be a scandal in their little world; there would be no money just at the time when it was most needed; there would be none of the jewellery which Crippen longed to see adorning the person of his mistress. Remember Crippen's attitude to jewellery. Undoubtedly he had bought, and his wife possessed, jewellery of a value quite unusual for people in their circumstances; and there is no doubt that at the time when he was in love with his wife he found, as other men have found, an actual stimulus to his passion in seeing her hung about with precious and dazzling things. He greatly desired, now that his passion was centred on Ethel Le Neve, to give it some indulgence in the same way. If Mrs. Crippen went away and took everything with her there was an end to these hopes. But what if she were to die?
XI
Here came the turning point in Crippen's life, when, from being a much-tried and much-enduring man, encoiled by circumstances and the consequences of his own actions, he became a criminal. It is a deep and unfathomable chasm that divides the two conditions, but it may be a very narrow one. Upon what plank he crossed or what exasperating word or deed goaded him to make the leap, I do not know or expect ever to learn. But from that moment he never wavered. He went and bought the hyoscin-always considerate, you see, even in the weapon he used to kill his wife. He had decided that it would be better that she should cease to exist; and his ingenuity and consideration combined hit upon what was at once the most merciful and the safest poison he could have used. From the 19th of January, when the hyoscin came into his possession, he was probably considering the means and opportunity of using it. It is impossible to say whether its employment on the night of the 31st of January, when the Martinettis dined with them, was accidental or premeditated. It may have been in his mind to do it after an apparently amicable evening in the presence of friends, when he and his wife could be seen in an atmosphere of matrimonial amity. If so, that scheme was rather frustrated by the fact that Mrs. Crippen rated him soundly in the presence of the Martinettis for allowing Mr. Martinetti to go upstairs to the lavatory by himself, instead of escorted by his host. The matters into which one descends here are minute indeed, but who can say what bearing they may not have had on the destinies of those present? Mrs. Crippen may have been anxious to have a word alone with Mrs. Martinetti, and have been enraged with Crippen for not giving her the opportunity. Otherwise, seeing that Mr. Martinetti knew the house well, and that they were in the habit of dining there at least once a week, Mrs. Crippen's annoyance with her husband seems to have been excessive. However, it may have been enough; it may have been the spark that fired the train, and what is certain is that Mrs. Crippen was never seen alive after that evening, and that her remains, containing traces of what had been a large dose of hydrobromide of hyoscin, were subsequently discovered beneath the floor of the coal cellar below the steps. The only other theory with which the facts may be brought into accordance is one which would involve the collusion of an accomplice, and for obvious reasons cannot be discussed. But taking the third theory as the one which is the most reasonable of those that are open to us, Crippen's subsequent conduct is all of a piece, and throws a profoundly interesting light on his character. Across the chasm which separates the ordinary citizen from the criminal, he had taken the fatal and decisive step; but having done so, instead of going off, like so many murderers, to wander in the wilderness as an outlaw, he resumed his ordinary course of life; he kept straight on; only now he walked on the far side of the narrow abyss. If the course of his life were to be marked on a chart one would not see it, as is usual in the case of criminals, turning suddenly at a right angle and continuing in that direction; it would appear as a straight course with one little step aside in the middle of it, and then continuing as before. It is certain that he showed no disturbance, remorse or fright for the horrid deed that he had committed; and I believe that he did not feel any. In some obscure way he justified to himself what he had done without violating his conscience, because, as far as one can judge, his life was now happier than it had been before. But on the assumption that he committed this crime out of love for his mistress, his subsequent conduct was perfectly consistent. He took all the necessary steps, and took them with great skill and coolness, to conceal all traces of the crime. The bones, limbs, and head, as well as certain characteristic organs, had all been removed from the discovered remains, and the evidence was that they had been removed by a hand skilled in dissection. No one knows how they were disposed of; but it must have been a work of days. One theory is that it was done in the bath, and the bones and limbs burned in the kitchen grate, while the head was got rid of during Crippen's subsequent trip to Dieppe - dropped overboard in a handbag. But whatever the method, it must have involved labours, physically exhausting, and of a nature horrible to contemplate.
He invented a story to account for his wife's disappearance. With a certain completeness of artistic circumstances he developed death in far-away California; and he devoted himself to the girl for whose affections he was to pay such a price. It is characteristic of the inconsistency of human prejudice that half the indignation and horror aroused against him was because of the fact that he cut up his wife's remains, and that he wrote hypocritical letters to the music hall ladies about her death in California. How absurd is such an attitude. The crime was in murdering his wife; it was a crime of such magnitude that nothing he could do afterwards could possibly aggravate it, unless it had involved cruelty or betrayal of some one who was alive. On the contrary, granting the crime and granting its enormity, what he did afterwards was technically admirable. It was his business to abolish all trace of it, and that he very nearly succeeded in doing. If he were going to tell a lie about his wife's death in California, he had better do it well than badly; and, in fact, he did it extremely well. If he had murdered his wife in order to be happy with Le Neve, the least he could do was to devote himself to her; and from that moment until the morning he was hanged in Pentonville Prison he had no other thought but of her welfare, no other object but to secure her safety and happiness, no other fear but that any consequence of his action should recoil upon her.
XIII
But human vanity, which is woven like a gaudy, thread through the dark fabric of this story, was to prove his undoing. His wife gone, her disappearance explained and her death announced, with circumstantial details, including memorial cards and announcements in the Era - matters which occupied a couple of months - Crippen took Miss Le Neve more or less openly to live with him in Hilldrop Crescent (12th March). My theory as to the crime is supported by the fact that on 2nd and 9th February Crippen pawned jewellery to the value of £195. He had now command of money; Miss Le Neve was living with him, and he could begin to enjoy the fruits of his dreadful action. They became bolder and more open in the enjoyment of the situation. She was seen at a charity dinner and dance on 20th February, wearing some of the jewellery which had been Mrs. Crippen's. This seems to have been too much for some of the lady friends of Mrs. Crippen. Perhaps some of them felt that had she made a will she would have divided her treasured possessions among them. They knew that the last person whom she would have wished to enjoy them was Miss Le Neve. They talked, they wondered, they became suspicious; and on 30th June Mr. Nash went to Scotland Yard and raised the whole question of Mrs. Crippen's disappearance.
A week later Inspector Dew and Sergeant Mitchell began their inquiries, visiting Crippen at his office. He then told them that the whole story of Mrs. Crippen's death was untrue, that she had left him, he knew not with whom, and that to avoid scandal he had invented the story of her journey to California, her illness, and death. He gave a signed statement which will be found in its place in the evidence, and showed every desire to give them what assistance he could in discovering the whereabouts of his wife. This statement was given to Inspector Dew in Crippen's office, in the intervals between medical consultations and tooth-pulling; he would dictate a little of it, go out and extract a tooth, and return and dictate some more. It occupied the greater part of the day, and Crippen and Inspector Dew went out and had lunch together at the Holborn Restaurant in the middle of it. Crippen took the officers to Hilldrop Crescent, assisting them to examine everything. They went all over the house from attic to cellar, and found nothing whatever inconsistent with his story. Inspector Dew has told me that on this day, 8th July, having been almost continually with Crippen and having gone over the whole house, he had found nothing whatever to lead him to suppose that there was anything in the case other than what Crippen had told him. The investigation was to all intents and purposes finished.
XIV
And then something broke down. It was not the nerve of Crippen; but it was not improbably the nerve of Miss Le Neve. It is impossible to be sure whether or not she knew the truth; it is quite possible, as both she and Crippen swore, that she did not. If she did, there would be little wonder that the situation had become too much for her. But even if she did not, she may have become uneasy and suspicious, and Crippen may have felt, now that there was an investigation afoot, that in some way her nerve would give way and her manner awake suspicion, and that the strain of further examination would prove altogether too much for her. He resolved on instant flight. Some very powerful influence must have been at work to induce Miss Le Neve to submit to the daring scheme of sudden flight disguised as a boy. If they had only known it, the worst was over; the probability is that if they had not gone away the matter would have been dropped, and Mrs. Crippen's disappearance ranked among the many unsolved mysteries of London life. But they did not know it; and Crippen with masterly coolness arranged the details of the flight. He left his affairs in order; found time, even in this hurried hour of preparation, to write letters characterised by his usual courtesy which would enable his business associates to suffer the least possible embarrassment through his departure. Unsuspected and uninterrupted, they got away to Rotterdam and to Antwerp, where in the names of Mr. and Master Robinson they took passage for Quebec on the s.s. "Montrose," sailing on 20th July.
XV
But in the meantime something had happened in London which renewed in a powerful and fatal form the almost extinct current of official suspicion. Inspector Dew, for no particular reason, decided to return on Monday, 11th July, to Albion House, Crippen's office, to ask some supplementary questions. There he heard that Crippen had gone away. His suspicions now thoroughly awakened, he returned to Hilldrop Crescent, and made a further search of the house, taking up portions of the garden, examining the coal cellar, testing the bricks with his foot; but found nothing. With a fortunate pertinacity which won him his distinction in this case, he returned to the search on the next day, and again on the following day, the 13th, when, probing the bricks of the cellar floor with a poker, he discovered that one of them could be raised. Having got a few more out by the same process, he got a spade and began to dig, and a few inches down came upon a compact mass of animal remains which, on expert investigation, proved to be the greater part of the contents of a human body from which the head, limbs, and bones were missing, as were also those particular organs which would have determined the sex of the body. On the 16th July a warrant was issued for the arrest of Crippen and Miss Le Neve but, as has been seen, they had successfully escaped, and were then, and during the four following days, waiting for the " Montrose " to sail from Antwerp.
The tragic chapters of the story succeeded one another with dramatic, rapidity. There had been time for the sensational discovery at Hilldrop Crescent to be circularised, and the description of the two fugitives reached Antwerp before the ship sailed. The captain had read them, and he had not been at sea two days before he thought he had identified in Mr. and Master Robinson the two people who were wanted by the police, and for information as to whom the Daily Mail had offered a reward of £100. Wireless telegraphy, then in its early commercial stages, was used for the first time in the science of criminal detection. Captain Kendall sent on the 22nd a long wireless message (which will be found as an Appendix) relating his discovery, and for nine days he kept his victims all unsuspicious of the dreadful part in their lives which the crackling discharge of the wireless played, coaxing them to talk and laugh, and luring them on to the exposure of their not very successful disguise. On the 23rd July Dew and Mitchell sailed from Liverpool, and on the 31st Crippen and Miss Le Neve were arrested when the ship was off Father Point, Dew coming on board disguised as a pilot; and, after extradition proceedings at Quebec, were brought back to London for trial.
XVI
The way in which, by the accidental inclusion of part of a pyjama jacket among the remains, the date at which they were buried - otherwise unascertainable -- was absolutely fixed within certain limits; the brilliant and laborious analysis which proved that these few pieces of flesh and skin had been part of a body which had contained a fatal dose of hyoscin; the extraordinary contradiction and breakdown of the experts engaged for the defence - these may all be discovered in the report of the trial. Mr. Muir (now Sir Richard) was never in all his long career as a criminal prosecutor more formidable and unflinching than in his masterly weaving together of the web which bound Crippen to his ultimate fate. But the most amazing feature of the trial was the absolute coolness and imperturbability of Crippen in the long and terrible cross-examination which will be read in its place. The hideous moment in which the pieces of his dead wife's skin were handed round in a soup plate for inspection left him, alone of all the people in that crowded Court, quite unmoved. He peered at them with an intelligent curiosity as though they had been mere museum specimens. Not by one word or tremor did this frail little man betray any sign of his terrible position, to which, nevertheless, as we know from other evidence, he was acutely and tragically sensitive. This behaviour characterised him up to his very last moments of life. And just as the Crown, with all its resources, had not been able to produce a single person who could say otherwise than that in every relationship of life Crippen had always behaved with kindness, consideration, and unselfishness, so every one who came in contact with him from his trial to his death-and some of them were fairly hardened prison officials - looked upon him not only with respect, but with something like affection.
He never gave any trouble, showed any concern or asked for any benefit for himself; all his concern and all his requests were for the woman he loved. I have seen the tragic little book in which it was the duty of the warders who sat and watched with him day and night in the condemned cell to record his conduct from hour to hour, and although I do not feel myself free to quote from it, there is nothing in that record that shows any preoccupation whatever except anxiety on behalf of another. The only time he broke down was when, late on the night before his execution, the Governor of Pentonville prison brought him a telegram of farewell from .Miss Le Neve, and his one request, when the Governor at this same midnight interview asked him if there was anything he could possibly do for him, was that the one or two letters that he had received from her, and her photograph, should be buried in the prison grave with him on the morrow. This promise was given and kept.
XVIl
No one will pretend to read in these pages any apology or justification for a proved murder. They are an attempt to trace the threads of motive throughout what is a very remarkable instance of good and bad influences acting on human conduct. Rightly read and understood this is an admonishing, sobering and instructive story. We may consider Crippen a hateful man; but nobody who came in contact with him was able to say so. From those who, whether in business relations or as friends of his wife, had no reason to like or praise him, to the officials of the prison in which he was executed as a condemned murderer, there is but one chorus of testimony to his character as tested by daily intercourse with his fellowmen; even in regard to the very circumstances surrounding his crime, or at any rate following it, there is the same extraordinary feature; the very crime itself brought out in him high human qualities.
There are two sides to the story - the physical, which is sordid, dreadful, and revolting, and the spiritual, which is good and heroic; to the extent that most honest men, finding themselves in the situation in which he ultimately found himself, for whatever reason, and tried by the tests by which he was tried, would be glad to come out of them half so well. Such a story can only be understood by the aid of the imagination; and it should remind us, in the judgments that we pass on our fellow-men, never to forget the dual nature of human character and the mystery in virtue of which acts of great moral obliquity may march with conduct above the ordinary standards - conduct which, if we wish to be just, as we hope for justice to ourselves, should be remembered and recorded no less than the crime.