by John Boyne
‘No, certainly not,’ Hawley said with a laugh. ‘She was a performer. A singer in a music hall. And in the world of the stage she called herself Bella Elmore. So it is possible she used that name in California. Or even her maiden name, Cora Turner. Or there again, it is entirely possible that her passport had her listed as Kunigunde Mackamotski.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Kunigunde Mackamotski,’ he repeated. ‘Her birth name. She was of Russian-Polish descent, you see. She changed her name to Cora Turner when she was about sixteen as she felt that such an ethnic name would hinder her chances in life. Perhaps she was right, I don’t know. But it’s perfectly possible that that was the name on her passport, since it would have necessarily been the name on her birth certificate. Unfortunately, I never saw the document so I can’t be sure. But there we are, you see. She could have been using any of those names over there. To tell the truth, Cora Crippen is one of the less likely.’
Dew nodded and closed his notebook. ‘I believe that was the only name which was looked for,’ he said, satisfied with Hawley’s answer. ‘I think that’s probably all I needed to know, so I’ll take my leave of you. I’m sorry to have disturbed you and had to ask you such personal questions. I’m sure you’re still in mourning for Mrs Crippen.’
‘It was no trouble at all, Inspector,’ Hawley said, standing up and ignoring the second part of Walter Dew’s comment.
‘And my condolences too, of course, on the death of your wife.’
Hawley acknowledged this with a handshake. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘But can I ask you a question?’ Dew nodded. ‘What brought you around here to ask me these questions in the first place? How had Scotland Yard heard about Cora’s death?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t go into that, Doctor,’ he replied. ‘All I can say is that a certain party or parties were worried that Mrs Crippen might have come to harm. But rest assured, I will be speaking to the parties concerned later today and I doubt if we will be taking the matter any further.’
They walked to the door and Hawley opened it, amazed that it had been as easy as this.
‘Just one last thing before I go,’ said Dew, before stepping outside.
‘Inspector?’
‘The wire.’
Hawley stared at him. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The wire from the Californian authorities. Informing you of your poor wife’s death. I just need to take that with me for the file, to prove there was no funny business. You understand.’
‘The wire,’ Hawley repeated, his face growing a little paler as he licked his lips and thought about it. ‘I’m not sure if—’
‘Oh come, come, Dr Crippen,’ Inspector Dew said in a friendly tone of voice. ‘I can understand your disposing of your wife’s wire from New York informing you that she had got there safely. But surely you would have held on to such an important document as this.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose I would.’
‘Then if you could just get it for me,’ he said, closing the door again so that they were standing in the darkness of the hallway again. For the first time, Dew realized that there might be more to this than met the eye. They stood there together for a moment before Hawley raised his eyes from the carpet and looked the inspector in the face.
‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘I had better tell you the truth.’
‘Yes, Doctor,’ he replied, a frisson of surprise running through his body. ‘I think you’d better.’
‘You’ve caught me in a lie, you see.’
‘Perhaps we should go back inside,’ suggested Dew, his interest picking up somewhat now. Had she really come to mischief? Was there to be a sudden and unexpected confession?
They went back into the living room and sat down. Hawley had never thought through his fiction up to this point before, but, sitting there now, an idea sprang into his head and he scrambled through the implications in his mind to make sure it made sense before saying anything. For his part, Inspector Dew was watching him with some sympathy. Although he had only been in his company a short time, he had already appraised the doctor in his mind. He seemed a harmless, polite and mild-mannered fellow, far removed from the degenerates whom he had to deal with on a daily basis. He doubted that this man would be capable of what Mrs Louise Smythson and Mrs Margaret Nash had suggested.
‘My wife,’ Hawley began, taking a deep breath before continuing. ‘You see, Inspector, my wife is not dead at all.’
Dew raised an eyebrow and took his notebook out of his pocket again. ‘Not dead,’ he said in a flat voice.
‘No. In fact, she is very much alive.’
‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Dr Crippen,’ said Dew. ‘But weren’t you the one who told her friends that she had died?’
‘Just so.’
‘Perhaps you can explain, then?’
‘Cora has indeed gone to America,’ he said. ‘Although whether she is in California or not, I do not know. If I had to make a prediction, I would be inclined to think Florida, but that’s pure guesswork on my part.’
‘Florida? Why on earth Florida?’
‘Because that’s where he was from, you see.’
‘He?’
Hawley bit his lip and looked away, shaking his head sadly. ‘It’s scandalous, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Which is why I didn’t want anyone to know.’
‘Please, Doctor, if you could just tell me the truth, it would make things a lot easier.’
‘She left me for another man, you see. As I told you, my wife was a music-hall singer and she met this fellow at a show one evening. He was a wealthy American and had been travelling the world. England was his last stop before going home. Anyway, she betrayed me with him and fell pregnant.’
‘I see.’
‘And then she told me that she was in love with the fellow and that he was taking her back to America with him. Naturally I was devastated. I loved my wife very much, Inspector. Truly I did. Although I think she found my lifestyle not as exciting as the one she craved. She often accused me of holding her back. This other fellow offered her something more, I expect. Money, glamour, a new life in America. I said I would forgive her and bring up the child as my own, but she wasn’t interested. One evening she was here, Inspector, and the next morning she was packing her bags and left London entirely. I didn’t know what to do. If the news broke, there would be a scandal. I am a doctor and need my patients in order to make a living. If they heard about this, well, my practice would disintegrate overnight. And . . .’ Here he wiped a tear from his eye as he looked more and more bereft. ‘If I am to be truly honest with you, I will admit that I was embarrassed. I felt it made me look like only half a man. I couldn’t bear it, Inspector. To be cuckolded by a man from my own country. It was more than I could deal with.’
Inspector Dew reached across and patted Hawley on the elbow; the last thing he wanted was to be drying the man’s tears, but he could see how sorrowful this fellow was, and he was not immune to another’s suffering.
‘I’m sorry, Dr Crippen,’ he said. ‘I can see this is painful for you.’
‘No, it is I who am sorry,’ he replied, shaking his head quickly. ‘I should never have come up with such an elaborate story in the first place. It was wrong of me. I think that in the back of my mind I actually wished she had died rather than left me. Does that sound a terrible thing to say?’
‘Completely understandable, I think,’ said Dew. ‘No, it’s unforgivable. Perhaps I didn’t make her happy.’
‘You can’t blame yourself.’
‘But I do, Inspector. And now look at the trouble I’ve caused. I have Scotland Yard interrogating me, and now the truth is bound to come out. Everyone will find out. I’ll be pitied and despised in equal parts. And I have only myself to blame.’
‘I’m afraid the truth always outs, Doctor,’ Dew admitted. ‘But the fact is that some of your wife’s friends have not entirely believed your story anyway. Perhaps it would be best if you told them yourself? Remember, you
are the injured party here, not the victim. Perhaps they will show you sympathy.’ He scarcely believed his own words but thought they had to be said. He glanced at his watch. It was almost one o’clock. ‘I was planning on having a little lunch before returning to the office,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’d care to join me?’
‘Really?’ Hawley asked, surprised at the inspector’s friendliness. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Certainly. I don’t care for cases like this, if I’m to be honest with you. Prying into another fellow’s domestic arrangements. Makes me feel shabby.’
Hawley thought about it. Given the choice, he would have preferred for Inspector Dew to leave Hilldrop Crescent immediately and never return, but that didn’t seem to be an option. The only way out of this mess appeared to be by seeing his deception through to the end.
‘I don’t like leaving you in this condition either,’ said Dew, real concern showing in his voice.
‘All right, Inspector,’ he said finally. ‘Thank you, I’d be delighted. I’ll fetch my coat.’
He left the room and Dew stood by the window, looking out into the street. The children had disappeared now, and so had the lame dog, and he wondered whether he should have intervened earlier in their game of torture. The poor creature was probably dead by now. His stomach grumbled a little and he glanced around to see where his companion was. The poor man, he thought. Having to reveal all that to a total stranger. He thought about Mrs Louise Smythson and Mrs Margaret Nash and despised them a little; if they had simply kept their noses out of Dr Crippen’s business, he thought, then this innocent would not have had to reveal such personal information. It was too bad. He wished for a moment that he could charge them for wasting police time, but he knew that such a thing was impossible.
‘Are you ready, Inspector?’ Hawley asked, opening the front door.
‘Ready,’ he said, following the man out of Hilldrop Crescent and into the street, the darkness and silence within guarding the secrets that the house contained.
They dined at a small restaurant not far from Hawley’s Camden home and quickly discovered that they had a great deal in common. For one thing, Inspector Dew—who was only a year older than Dr Crippen—had struggled to join the police force in much the same way as he had struggled to become a doctor.
‘My parents were the problem,’ Dew told him, cheerfully eating a piece of rare steak with mushrooms and fried potatoes, sweeping the whole thing up with a slice of bread and leaving white portions of plate visible beneath. ‘Well, my mother in particular. She was convinced that it was not a suitable job for a respectable young man. She wanted me to go into the law as a barrister or join the clergy, neither of which appealed to me. Didn’t like the outfits, you see. Wigs for one, skirts for the other. I didn’t think so. So I stood by my guns, and here I am today. Inspector Dew of the Yard, if you please. She never fully approved, though. Even when I started to get promoted through the ranks, she was still disappointed in me.’
‘My mother was much the same,’ Hawley admitted. ‘But she considered the medical profession an insult to God. She thought anyone who attempted to cure a disease was tampering with His will. “God’s glorious work,” she called it. She never took any medicine herself, wouldn’t even stem a cut with a bandage. She used to burn my copies of Scientific American, you know.’
‘Good Lord. But she must have been proud of you when you graduated, surely? It’s not every man has the brain power to become a doctor.’
He thought about it. ‘I don’t believe she was,’ he replied, ignoring the rather obvious fact that he had never actually graduated as a doctor. (This was, however, something he had long ago convinced himself had actually happened. If he tried hard enough, he could even remember scenes from the day. Collecting his degree. Shaking hands with the head of the university. They were all there in his imagination, feigning reality.) ‘Actually, we haven’t spoken in many years.’
‘You shouldn’t let that be the case,’ said Dew. ‘I mean, I still have lingering resentment towards my mother for putting so many obstacles in my path along the way, but by God I wouldn’t be without her.’
‘She’s still alive then?’
‘Oh yes. Eighty-four years old and the constitution of an ox. I have dinner with her once a week and she still acts as if she could put me over her knee if I don’t finish my vegetables.’ He smiled a little and shook his head. ‘And I never did much care for them, either. Still, I wouldn’t have her any other way,’ he said.
‘I expect mine is still in Michigan,’ Hawley said, unmoved by the memory. ‘At least, I haven’t heard anything to the contrary.’
‘And aren’t you interested at all? Don’t you want to stay in touch?’
‘It seems to me, Inspector, that most of the people in whom I have ever put any trust in life have let me down. Particularly the women. If I am to be honest with you, I believe that my own character has been formed by these people and certain incidents associated with them, and my character is not one that I am always proud of.’
Dew frowned, intrigued by what the other had said. ‘How so?’ he asked.
‘I think I am a weak man,’ Hawley admitted, amazed that he could speak so openly to the inspector, but sensing in him a kindred spirit. ‘I find it difficult to stand up for myself in difficult situations. My first wife was a kind soul, but had she lived—’
‘Your first wife?’ Dew asked, surprised. ‘I was not aware you had been married before.’
‘Oh yes. Back in America. Many years ago now, when I was a young man. Charlotte Bell was her name. A pretty girl and perfectly pleasant. We were only married a few years, however, when she was taken from me. A traffic accident. It was quite tragic really.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. It’s a long time ago and I have no lingering feeling. I mention her merely to point out the fact that, had she lived, I believe she would have dominated me very much. She was very different from Cora, but she would have made certain . . . demands, I think. I don’t know what would have happened between us in the end, but I’ve often thought it might well have ended badly.’
‘As it did between you and Cora?’
‘Indeed,’ Hawley said, finishing his meal and pushing the plate away. ‘Although I should, of course, have expected it. Can I tell you something, Inspector? Something just between you and me?’
Dew nodded. He forgot, for a moment, that he had originally met Dr Crippen with his professional hat on and he felt that during this short afternoon they had become something close to friends. ‘Of course, Hawley,’ he said, employing his Christian name for the first time. ‘You can trust me entirely.’
‘This American fellow she ran off with,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t the first one, you see. I know of at least three other people that Cora had enjoyed affairs with. An Italian music teacher for one. An actor she met once at a party. A boy not yet twenty who lodged with us for a time. And I’m sure there were others too. She had an active social life. She worked at the music hall, you see.’
‘Yes, you mentioned that.’
‘I think she used the stage name Bella Elmore because Cora Crippen wasn’t good enough for her. She had to sound grand. She always had to be someone she wasn’t. That was her problem, you see. She couldn’t stand for a moment to think that she might be just a regular, common human being. No frills. No adornments. Nothing special. Just a run-of-the-mill person whose dreams get shattered and crushed in the gutter like everyone else’s.’ His tone had changed to one of bitterness and Inspector Dew noticed it, but he felt only sympathy for him, not suspicion.
‘You’ve been very honest with me, Dr Crippen,’ he said. ‘I appreciate that.’
‘I apologize if I’m embarrassing you. It’s just that, having told so many people that she had died, it’s something of a weight off my mind to tell the truth for once. It’s remarkably liberating.’
‘You haven’t embarrassed me at all. Quite the contrary.’
Hawley smiled. He wondered f
or a moment whether he should consider a career in fiction writing; not only had he managed to invent a credible story on the spot, one which could fool a successful inspector from Scotland Yard, but he seemed to have gained a friend out of it too.
‘Actually,’ Dew said, considering the matter, ‘and I’m sorry to go on about it, but there is just one other thing I need.’
‘Yes?’
‘The name of the fellow she ran off with. And where he was staying in London. Just to close the file, you understand. I’m sorry, but my superiors can be terrible sticklers about these things.’
Hawley blinked. Had he fooled Dew, or had Dew fooled him with his friendly air? He considered the matter quickly; there was no way out of it.
‘Well, I don’t have it on me, of course,’ he said.
‘Naturally, naturally, but at home?’
‘I think so,’ Hawley said hesitantly. ‘Yes, I believe I might have it written down somewhere for emergencies.’
‘Then if you could just give that to me, we can let the matter drop.’
‘Yes,’ he replied, nodding, barely listening to the inspector as he thought the matter through. He thought about the house, about the letter. He looked at Dew and wondered what he would say when the policeman realized how much he had embellished the story once again, and how much he had invented. ‘Shall we go then?’
‘Certainly.’
The two men rose and Inspector Dew paid the bill at the counter, refusing Hawley’s offer to share the expense. They stepped out of the restaurant, and it had started to rain. Neither man had an umbrella with him and Dew cursed under his breath suddenly as he looked at his watch. He spotted a hansom cab approaching and hailed it immediately. ‘I’m sorry, I’d forgotten I have an appointment at three,’ he explained. ‘And in this weather I think I’d better take a cab or risk being late. Can I call around in a day or so and collect those details?’
‘Certainly, Inspector,’ Hawley said, relieved, stretching out his hand. ‘In the evening preferably. After work.’
‘Of course. Well, I’ll see you then. And again, Dr Crippen—’