Crippen: A Novel of Murder

by John Boyne

  ‘I keep the smelling salts by my side throughout the day,’ Mrs Louise Smythson said to her husband Nicholas and her friends, the Nashes, as they sat, having tea in the Savoy, a few days later. ‘Every time I think of it, I feel quite faint. When I remember how we all sat there in that house, eating dinner. Why, he could have killed us all.’

  ‘Louise, don’t,’ Margaret Nash begged.

  ‘I can’t help but wonder what he put in the food,’ Nicholas Smythson said. ‘Do you think it might be some slow-acting poison, and we’ll all wake up one morning dead?’

  ‘Oh, Nicholas!’

  ‘Well, it’s hard not to think about it,’ he protested. ‘What if he’d killed other people and buried them somewhere too? What if he was making soup from their bones? What if that’s what he had in store for all of us?’

  ‘Cream of Smythson,’ said Andrew Nash with a guffaw. ‘Not for me, thanks. I’ll stick to the consommé.’

  ‘I shall be sick,’ said Louise. ‘Nicholas, if you don’t stop that kind of talk this instant, I shall be sick.’

  ‘My dear,’ Margaret said, leaning across and patting her hand. ‘The strain on you has been terrible. And all those awful reporters.’

  ‘They plague me,’ she admitted with delight. ‘Every time I open my door there’s another one standing there.’

  ‘Did you see that letter in The Times yesterday, Andrew?’ Nicholas asked, laughing, as he looked across at his friend. ‘Some fellow writes in and says isn’t it about time we let the ladies join the constabulary. And while we’re about it, why not make Louise Smythson an inspector at Scotland Yard! Seems as if she’s more than a match for the ones they have.’ He nearly choked with laughter at the absurdity of it.

  ‘I say, that’s rather good,’ said Margaret Nash. ‘Inspector Smythson. Can you see it, Louise?’

  ‘What, and go around London discovering headless bodies in cellars?’ she asked, shivering. ‘I don’t think so.’ In truth she was extremely proud of her actions and was loving every moment of the publicity which was being heaped on her. She was being hailed a hero by everyone, from her local grocery shop owner to the Princess of Wales, who had made some off-the-record comments praising her and which had been duly reported in a newspaper.

  ‘Still, he struck me as a very pleasant, very affable fellow,’ said Inspector Dew.

  ‘Pleasant?’ Captain Taylor said incredulously. ‘A man who chops his wife up into little bits and eats her? What on earth would you call rude?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t know at the time that he’d done that, did I?’ Dew replied defensively. ‘He seemed quite meek really. And he didn’t eat her.’

  ‘It’s always the quiet ones you have to look out for.’

  ‘Actually, it rarely is,’ said Dew. ‘It’s not easy for a man to disguise his personality to that extent. I believe he just snapped one night, that’s all. He’d had enough of her tormenting ways.’

  ‘If he just snapped, Inspector, then he would hardly have bought the poison in advance, would he? Doesn’t that smack of premeditation? I mean, that’s what the papers say. That he bought a bottle of hydro something or other from a chemist in Oxford Street.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Dew admitted. ‘I just think she pushed him too far, that’s all. He couldn’t find a way out. And it was hydro bromide of hyoscine, one of the most effective and quickest-acting poisons available.’

  ‘You sound almost sympathetic towards him.’

  ‘Do I?’ he asked, surprised. ‘No, I don’t mean to, really I don’t. What he did was a terrible thing. But still, I can’t help wondering what’s going through his mind now. Whether he regrets it at all. Whether he’s having difficulty sleeping. It can’t be easy to do a thing like that and then simply forget about it. To kill someone and dispose of them like that. It’s terrible.’

  Dew himself had been unable to think of anything else for the previous three weeks. He had scarcely slept for days after discovering Cora’s remains and had been racked with a mixture of self-doubt and unhappiness ever since. The doubt came from his realization that he might not be the expert sleuth he believed himself to be. Never in his entire career had he felt so duped by anyone, so entirely deceived. And yet the misery came from knowing that Dr Crippen had in fact done this terrible thing. He tried to believe that he hadn’t, that it was all a mistake, but there was no denying the truth. And a man with whom he had hoped for a friendship, a man with whom he had felt such a human connection was now somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, unaware that someone who had respected him until recently was not far behind, chasing him, desiring nothing more than to bring him back to London and see him dangle at the end of a hangman’s rope. What kind of a man did this make him?

  ‘I think,’ said Margaret Nash, finishing her pastry, ‘that the only people in the world right now who are not discussing the infamous Dr Crippen are those who are closest to him, and it’s them I pity the most. The first-class passengers on board the Montrose. God only knows when he’ll strike next. The man has a taste for blood now. And he’ll never give up,’ she added dramatically, her eyes flaring, a trail of spittle hanging off her scarlet rouged lips.

  The two messages came through on the Marconi telegraph within fifteen minutes of each other. Ever since that afternoon a few days earlier when Captain Kendall had brought him to the radio room to tell him what he had deduced about Mr Robinson and his supposed son, from the moment he had asked him to send the message to Scotland Yard informing them of his suspicions, Billy Carter had spent more and more of his working day in the wireless room, and not a small portion of his free time as well. The captain had made it clear in the intervening days that no one else was to be told what was going on, not even the other officers. And so at any given moment of the day, either the first officer or the captain was to be found in this cabin, crouched in front of the Marconi, waiting for it to hiss into life and begin its bleeping signal. Their continual presence there confused the other members of the crew, but they were too well trained to ask any questions.

  As things turned out, Billy Carter found that he quite liked the wireless room. It was peaceful and private, warm without being stuffy, unlike his own cabin, which was poky and without a porthole, Captain Kendall having refused to allow him to use Mr Sorenson’s regular berth. He could sit in the wireless room for hours at a time, his feet up on the desk, drinking a mug of coffee, reading a book or daydreaming about life back home and how things would change once the little one arrived. Privately, he was grateful to Mr Robinson for chopping up his wife. It meant that there would be no delay whatsoever since the Montrose and the Laurentic were scheduled to meet before the end of the month as they both approached Canada; the importance of sticking to this schedule meant that he could catch the 3rd of August ship back to Europe and family life.

  The first message came through at 6:15 p.m. and was a reply to the message Captain Kendall had sent, late the previous evening. Carter received it and scribbled it on a pad of paper, frowning and wondering how to break the news to the old man. He paced the floor, running a hand through his curls as he considered the likely reaction, and he was about to set off for his cabin to inform him when the captain himself opened the door of the wireless room and stepped inside.

  ‘Mr Carter,’ he boomed. ‘Sans cap again. I believe I told you—’

  ‘Not when I’m in here, surely,’ the younger man protested. ‘It’s not as if there are any passengers here to notice.’

  Kendall raised an eyebrow. They were all the same, these young people. They always had a flippant remark, an easy comeback. They never simply did as you told them; that would be too easy. ‘As you were,’ he sighed, unwilling to pursue the point.

  ‘Actually, Captain, I was on the point of coming to see you,’ Carter said, biting his lip nervously.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘A message came through a few moments ago.’

  ‘Well, what of it?’ he asked, eyeing his first officer suspiciously. What was the
matter with the man? He was bouncing from foot to foot like a constipated kangaroo. ‘What does it say? Do they want us to lock him up?’

  ‘Lock who up?’

  ‘Who? Who? Are you stupid, man? Who do you think? Jimmy the cabin boy? Crippen, of course! They said not to do anything for now in order not to cause a panic, but what’s happened? Have they changed their minds?’

  Carter shook his head, realizing that the captain had got hold of the wrong end of the stick. ‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing to do with Mr Robinson, sir. It’s to do with Mr Sorenson.’

  Kendall gasped and froze in his tracks. He looked startled, like a great actor whose lines have suddenly been taken away and he finds he has nothing left to say. ‘Mr Sorenson?’ he asked breathlessly. ‘What of him?’

  ‘It’s a reply,’ he said, ‘to the message you sent last night. Enquiring after his health.’

  ‘Just read it, man,’ Kendall hissed, barely able to contain himself.

  Billy Carter looked down at the pad of paper and read it aloud, exactly as it had come across the Marconi. ‘Sorenson critical,’ he said. ‘Unexpected complications. Next few days vital for recovery. Comatose at present but doctors hopeful.’

  He looked up at the captain nervously.

  ‘Go on,’ Kendall said sharply. ‘That’s it, sir,’ he replied.

  ‘That’s the lot.’

  ‘That’s it?’ the captain asked, ripping the pad out of the man’s hands and staring at the words, willing them to change, to expand, to give him more information, anything that might set his mind at ease. ‘This is all they’ve said?’

  ‘Sir, you know they have to keep the telegraphs short.’

  ‘Short? Short!’ he shouted. ‘An important member of this crew is dying and they keep their messages short! This is outrageous.’ He turned away and read it again, afterwards putting his thumb and forefinger to his eyes and pressing them there tightly. Mr Sorenson in a coma, and here he was, his closest friend, thousands of miles away, stuck on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with an idiot for a first officer and a murderer and his transvestite companion on board for added company. Captain Bligh never had to suffer this, he thought.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Carter. ‘I know he’s a good friend of yours, but—’

  ‘Friend?’ he barked. ‘I’m his superior officer, Carter, and that’s all there is to it. There’s no question of friendships in the mercantile marine.’

  ‘But you’re obviously upset.’

  Kendall leaned closer, his face grown so red that it contrasted vividly with the whiteness of his beard. ‘I am not at all upset,’ he said. ‘I simply like to be kept informed as to which crew members I can expect to see in the future, that’s all. This is not my last voyage, you know, Mr Carter. Even if it might be yours.’

  Billy Carter stared at him in amazement. He had never seen anyone grow so close to hysteria in such a short time, and he wondered exactly what the relationship between Captain Kendall and First Officer Sorenson was. Could they perhaps be related in some way? Had they gone to school together, perhaps? He was about to ask such a question when a squeal from behind alerted them to another incoming message, and both men spun around quickly.

  ‘It’s them!’ Kendall shouted, launching himself forward towards the receiver. ‘He’s dead. I can tell. He’s succumbed without a friend in the world by his side.’

  ‘Captain, please,’ Carter begged, trying to wrestle the receiver from him. ‘Let me take the message. I’ll give it to you instantly.’

  Kendall relented and slumped on the small sofa which ran along one wall, burying his face in his hands as the first officer scribbled away again on the pad directly below the message which had come through earlier. The captain’s mind filled with images of his and Mr Sorenson’s time together on board the Montrose. How they ate together, talked together, played chess of an evening. The nights they would sit on deck near the wheelhouse and watch the stars, each one telling the other how the sea and only the sea could be their mistress, for neither had ever met the woman who could steal him away from her. Were those nights gone forever? Was this the untimely end of their friendship? He watched Billy Carter through a haze of tears and waited for the dreadful news.

  ‘Steady on, sir,’ said Carter, turning around and looking at him, a little embarrassed by how emotional he was growing. ‘It’s not from the hospital.’

  ‘It’s not?’

  ‘No, it’s from the Laurentic.’

  ‘The what?’ His mind was elsewhere now and he had little time for new business.

  ‘The Laurentic. The ship carrying Inspector Dew.’

  Kendall nodded slowly, remembering. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Of course. Well, what of it? What does this one say?’

  Carter read through it again as if he did not already know what it contained, but this time he paraphrased, rather than reading it out verbatim. ‘It says they’ve picked up speed and should pass us by the twenty-seventh. They might send Dew over then or they may wait a while. In the meantime we’re to sit tight and continue at the rate we’re going. Give nothing away. Keep mum, he says again.’

  ‘Keep mum,’ Kendall said, disgusted. ‘That’s the second message he’s sent saying that. Well, what the bloody hell does he think we have been doing for the past few days? We’ve been keeping so much mum we could open a home for elderly widows.’

  Carter stared at him, wondering whether there were any more theatrics to come.

  Kendall stood up and pulled himself together, wiping his eyes and tugging on his jacket, straightening out the creases. ‘All right, Carter,’ he said, coughing a little and unable to catch his eye. ‘Very well, carry on. If there are any more messages, you may bring them to my cabin. Immediately.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘Don’t worry about the hour.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I stay up late, you see.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’

  ‘Probably be reading a book,’ he muttered, opening the door. ‘Or writing in my journal. Either way, I’ll be awake.’

  ‘At the first sign of news I will come to you directly.’

  Kendall nodded and closed the door behind him, leaving his first officer to lean back in his chair and shake his head in amazement. Then he burst into laughter for a moment, before stopping himself and simply shaking his head, baffled.

  Something on the sofa caught his eye and he looked towards the door but it was firmly closed now, the captain gone.

  ‘Here,’ he said out loud, to no one in particular, ‘you forgot your cap.’

  ‘You wanted to see me, Captain?’ Mr John Robinson stood beside the wheelhouse of the Montrose and peered inside to see a worried-looking Captain Kendall standing there, clutching a pair of binoculars in his hands. Kendall himself was lost in thought over his sick friend but he drifted back to the present when he saw the man he believed to be the infamous Hawley Harvey Crippen standing before him.

  ‘See you?’ he asked, a little dazed for a moment.

  ‘One of your crew came to my cabin. He said you needed a word.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ he replied, inviting him in. ‘I do apologize. I was daydreaming.’

  Mr Robinson smiled. He had been a little surprised when the crewman had passed on the message, and he began to worry immediately. Had they discovered the truth? Was the captain about to confront him? He trembled slightly as the older man approached him.

  ‘Hello?’ A voice from behind made them both turn around and they saw Mrs Drake bustling towards them. ‘Mr Robinson,’ she said. ‘I saw you coming up here and thought I’d follow. I hope you don’t mind.’ She turned to the captain, whose face betrayed a wan smile.

  ‘Of course not, Mrs Drake,’ said Kendall. ‘I had just invited Mr Robinson to take a look at the helm. I thought it might interest him.’

  ‘Oh, how delightful,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘You thought it might interest me?’ the passenger asked, a little surpris
ed.

  ‘Yes. You’re a man’s man, aren’t you? Show me a fellow who isn’t interested in the way machinery and engines work and I’ll show you one who’s looking for a horsewhipping, that’s what I always say. Not that we administer horsewhippings in the navy any more, of course,’ he added. ‘More’s the pity.’

  ‘But, Captain, this isn’t the navy anyway,’ Mrs Drake interjected. ‘It’s a commercial vessel.’

  ‘Indeed it is. Good of you to point that out, Mrs Drake.’

  His intention in inviting Mr John Robinson to the wheelhouse of the Montrose had been twofold: first, he wanted to get his own mind away from the events taking place back in Antwerp where, for all he knew, priests were administering the last rites to Mr Sorenson and the undertaker was measuring him for his coffin; secondly, he hoped to prove the truth about Robinson in his own mind by trapping him in a number of lies. Ever since the second wire had come across via the Marconi telegraph from the Laurentic, it had occurred to him that he had based his theory on some very simple clues that could easily be misinterpreted: Edmund Robinson’s hidden nature . . . the passionate embrace between father and son . . . the fact that the physical description he had read in the newspaper was roughly similar to that of Mr Robinson. If, however, it turned out that he had made a mistake and there was some more innocent explanation for their ruse—but where could innocence lie in such a thing, he asked himself—if this was the case, however, he would be humiliated and perhaps arrested by Inspector Dew for wasting police time. What if the man refuses to return to Scotland Yard without a prisoner? he thought. Any prisoner? He would never get back to Antwerp if that were the case. Anyway, he was here now and he would ask his questions, regardless of Mrs Drake’s presence.