“Would it be possible for me to meet Tucker?”
“Why, certainly.”
(Remember that I had never been in the Faithfull home before, never met one member of the family before.)
She led me back through a dark little passageway to the room the two girls had shared until the week before. Tucker was propped up in bed reading a book—not the newspapers—and she was very steady in the nerves.
“What can I do about these?” she began, and threw a handful of telegrams out upon the pink counterpane. The telegrams were from Broadway, from agents and movie scouts, from nightclub owners and vaudeville people. All of them begged for luncheon appointments, and all of them talked of wonderful contracts that were waiting to be signed. Tucker did not wait for my answer.
“I can’t take any of them,” she said. “It’s terrible I can’t take any of them up, because I’d do almost anything for that much money. I haven’t got a dime.”
Mrs Faithfull laughed gaily. “And we are the family of blackmailers the papers are talking about! They’ve told us in the papers how shabbily we live, how much rent we pay, how many bills are in the mailbox downstairs, and that we can’t even afford a telephone. Not very competent blackmailers, I would say—wouldn’t you?”
With the utmost coolness, Tucker began to talk about the newspapers. “Why is it, really, that they print all of that stuff? One of them said today that we were pals with Legs Diamond. I never heard of the man except in headlines, and neither have any of us. Do they really make up stuff like that? And half the things they print about Starr are perfectly ridiculous.”
I said, “Mr Faithfull talks too much to the newspapers. You ought to have a lawyer who could protect you a little.”
Tucker said, “We couldn’t pay a lawyer.”
Feet tramped on the stairs, and Tucker said wearily, “Well, I guess those police are coming after all.” But it was only a new detachment of reporters, who settled around Faithfull in the living room, and puffed pipes, and discussed his theories with him.
I stayed there in the back room for an hour, chatting with them. And our talk drifted far from the mystery and the dead girl who was the center of it—about books, about Europe and travel in general, finally about the theater. They were very fond of the theater.
“How did you like Wonder Bar?” Mrs Faithfull asked.
I confessed that I had found it dull.
“Well, now!” she exclaimed brightly. “Isn’t that an interesting reaction? It was the last show Starr saw, and we loved it but she thought just as you do. She said it was dull, too.”
Tucker asked, “What’s going to happen to all of us when the excitement dies down? Will they let us alone? Will we take up living again just like we lived before?”
Mrs Faithfull said, “There’s one thing you can say for all the excitement. It keeps you so worked up you don’t have much time to think that Starr is really gone, and isn’t coming back.”
Tucker looked up with a peculiar expression.
“Starr!” she said. And she did not smile.
The apartment was suddenly cleared of all such intruders as myself. A dapper young newspaper reporter arrived, and he was a very special visitor who required privacy within the family circle. He had been engaged to write Mr Faithfull’s own personal narrative for a press association—a literary undertaking in which Faithfull declined to share the profits.
As its chapters began to appear, the confusing character and actions of Starr Faithfull were clearly explained at last. She had been seduced at the age of eleven by a middle-aged Bostonian of wealth and prominence, with whose children she was accustomed to play at the beach and in the parks. Her seduction had been accomplished by the use of ether, and thereafter she had become something of an ether addict. The relationship with this man had persisted for a number of years and it had obviously had a profound effect upon her. She went through periods of “queerness” which her family could not understand at all—periods when she refused to go swimming because she would not expose herself in a bathing suit, indeed insisting upon ankle-length skirts and even upon boys’ clothes—periods when she would not associate with any of her young friends and spent days at a time alone in her room.
At last, after two nights in a New York hotel with this man, when she was still in her teens, she told her mother all about it.
The villain of the piece was identified by Faithful in his story as “Mr X.” But it did not take long for those who had read the girl’s diary to associate this individual with the “AJP” so often referred to in its pages. And, almost as quickly, a man was located whose name fitted the initials. He was Andrew J. Peters, former Congressman, former Mayor of Boston, and a distant relative of Mrs Faithfull’s.
It was certainly true that Starr had played with his children, that the two families had seen a good deal of each other, and that he had been alone with Starr on many occasions. Next it developed that the Faithfull family had been paid a considerable sum of money for signing a formal release to some unnamed individual, quitting him in lengthy terms of all liabilities for damage done to Starr. Faithfull said that the sum was $20,000, and that all of it was spent on medical and psychiatric care for the girl. Other reports indicated that the sum was about $80,000, and that it had been the source of the Faithfull family’s income for years. The firm of Boston lawyers which negotiated the payment and release had only one comment: “If Faithfull wants to say that it was only $20,000, then we’re satisfied to let it rest at that.”
No official representations were ever made to Peters. His only comment was a formal denial, issued to the press, that he had ever in dulged in improper relations with Starr Faithfull.
While these matters were occupying the public attention, the family received permission to cremate the body. Frank Wyman, the girl’s real father, had now appeared on the scene, and with the three Faithfulls he attended the funeral service. The four were kneeling before the candlelit bier in a Long Island mortuary when men from the office of District Attorney Edwards rushed in.
“Stop the funeral!” they cried. “The DA has ordered another postmortem examination. New evidence!”
Volunteers from the gathering of newspapermen lifted the coffin into a wagon and the body was taken off for a new hour or two of scrutiny.
The next day, Edwards made his announcement: “I know the identity of the two men who killed Starr Faithfull. One of them is a prominent New York politician. They took her to Long Beach, drugged her, and held her head under the water until she was drowned. I will arrest both of them within thirty-six hours.”
That was the last of that.
Nobody was paying much attention to Edwards anyway, by now.
On 23 June, Dr Jameson-Carr returned from England. He had been in Belgium on vacation when news of the girl’s death reached him, and he had made his way to New York, voluntarily of course, with all dispatch. He was a pleasant fellow, cast in a difficult and highly embarrassing role. It would have been altogether impossible for him to be involved in the girl’s actual death. But English sense of propriety being what it is, the Cunard Line was annoyed with him for getting his name into the papers at all. Privately (and a little ruefully) he confessed that they had taken him off pay for his trip to New York—a trip which he thought would certainly clear up the whole mystery, for he brought with him the three letters he had received from Starr.
The first one, written on 30 May (the day after she had been put ashore from his outbound ship), was on hotel stationery. The envelope was marked for the Berengaria, and the letter began without saluation:
I am going (definitely now—I’ve been thinking of it for a long time) to end my worthless, disorderly bore of an existence— before I ruin anyone else’s life as well. I certainly have made a sordid, futureless mess of it all. I am dead, dead sick of it. It is no one’s fault but my own—I hate everything so—life is horrible. Being a sane person you may not understand—I take dope to forget and drink to try and like people, but it is of
no use.
I am mad and insane over you. I hold my breath to try to stand it—take allonal in the hope of waking happier, but that homesick feeling never leaves me. I have, strangely enough, more of a feeling of peace or whatever you call it now that I know it will soon be over. The half hour before I die will, I imagine, be quite blissful.
You promised to come to see me. I realize absolutely that it will be the one and only time. There is no earthly reason why you should come. If you do it will be what I call an act of marvelous generosity and kindness. What I did yesterday was very horrible, although I don’t see how you could lose your job, as it must have been clearly seen what a nuisance you thought me.
If I don’t see you again—goodbye. Sorry to so lose all sense of humor, but I am suffering so that all I want is to have it over with. It’s become such a hell as I couldn’t have imagined.
If you come to see me when you are in this time you will be a sport—you are assured by this letter of no more bother from me. My dear—
Starr
The second letter, that of 2 June was simply a formal note of apology, obviously written for the record or for him to show to his employers if the occasion arose. It was addressed stiffly to “Dr George Jameson-Carr, Dear Sir,” and said that she regretted her conduct on the ship, that he had not invited her to come aboard or served her any refreshment—she had brought her own liquor and drunk it too hastily. It gave formal assurance that she would never embarrass him again, and was signed, “Yours very sincerely, Starr Faithfull.”
The third letter was written on 4 June, the day she disappeared from home. It was posted at 4.30 p.m., written on the stationery of a department-store writing room, and addressed to Dr Jameson-Carr, and marked “Via USS Olympic”:
Hello, Bill, Old Thing:
It’s all up with me now. This is something I am going to put through. The only thing that bothers me about it—the only thing I dread—is being outwitted and prevented from doing this, which is the only possible thing for me to do. If one wants to get away with murder one has to jolly well keep one’s wits about one. It’s the same way with suicide. If I don’t watch out I will wake up in a psychopathic ward, but I intend to watch out and accomplish my end this time. No ether, allonal, or window jumping. I don’t want to be maimed. I want oblivion. If there is an after life it would be a dirty trick—but I am sure fifty million priests are wrong. That is one of those things one knows.
Nothing makes any difference now. I love to eat and can have one delicious meal with no worry over gaining. I adore music and am going to hear some good music. I believe I love music more than anything: I am going to drink slowly, keeping aware every second. Also I am going to enjoy my last cigarettes. I won’t worry because men flirt with me in the streets—I shall encourage them—I don’t care who they are. I’m afraid I’ve always been a rotten “sleeper”; it’s the preliminaries that count with me. It doesn’t matter, though.
It’s a great life when one has twenty-four hours to live. I can be rude to people. I can tell them they are too fat or that I don’t like their clothes, and I don’t have to dread being a lonely old woman, or poverty, obscurity, or boredom. I don’t have to dread living on without ever seeing you, or hearing rumors such as “the women all fall for him” and “be entertains charmingly.” Why in hell shouldn’t you! But it’s more than I can cope with—this feeling I have for you. I have tried to pose as clever and intellectual, thereby to attract you, but it was not successful, and I couldn’t go on writing those long, studied letters. I don’t have to worry, because there are no words in which to describe this feeling I have for you. The words love, adore, worship have become meaningless. There is nothing I can do but what I am going to do. I shall never see you again. That is extraordinary. Although I can’t comprehend it any more than I can comprehend the words “always”—or “time.” They produce a very merciful numbness.
Starr
District Attorney Edwards was quietly nonplussed as his murder theory evaporated. Stanley Faithfull promptly cried to the press that the letters were forgeries, trembling with indignation as he talked to the reporters. But half a dozen handwriting experts said there was no doubt at all that the hand which wrote the diary also wrote the letters.
There can certainly be no doubt that Starr Faithfull intended to commit suicide. But there may be more than a fragment of doubt that she succeeded in her purpose. Two or three things pique the curiosity:
She had her last big meal, yes. It was one of the few things about the autopsy that everybody agreed upon.
But the autopsy surgeons agreed upon something else, too: There were no traces of alcohol in her system, though she had written, “I am going to drink slowly, keeping aware every second.”
She had made her secret plans, and specified in her last letter, “no allonal,” yet allonal or veronal—they are both barbiturates and very similar chemically—was found in her body.
More provocative, perhaps, are several other things she dropped into her last letter, written about twenty-four hours before she died. You will observe that she says two things which might very well be taken in conjunction: she will not worry about flirts, indeed will encourage them; and she can be rude to people, tell them exactly what she thinks of them. Furthermore, she confesses that she is a “rotten sleeper.”
Now let us remember back for a moment to her adventure with Mr Joseph Collins. Is it too far-fetched to suggest in connection with that episode: That Mr Collins (however he fell in with her) found himself in a room with a beautiful and naked girl; that her poor qualities as a “sleeper,” her insistence upon those “preliminaries” which counted so greatly with her, made her appear to him as simply a tease; that his anger and frustration drove his emotions out of control, and he gave her the beating which neighbors and the police stopped before it went too far.
Perhaps, then, it is not too fantastic to suggest that on the final day of her life she allowed herself to be picked up by an attractive stranger that she agreed to his suggestion that they go to Long Beach. (Long Beach was by the sea, was it not? You could see the liners sailing out from there, could you not?—all brilliantly lit and crowded with gay people escaping from the humdrum. She had seen Long Beach from the outbound ships, but never the ships from Long Beach.)
They had a good dinner and she decided not to drink after all. Here, at the very end, she could be more certain of enjoying every moment if she remained quite sober. Every moment of what? Of putting a panting male in his place—a male who lay eternally in her mind as the male who had hurt and frightened her and savagely disillusioned her, so long ago in Boston. She would get him excited. That was easy. And then she could ridicule his excitement, laugh unrestrained in her contempt for him.
The veronal comes in here somewhere. I shall not dare to imagine where, but I think she always had it with her. It is to be remembered that drugs, preferably ether but one of the barbiturates if ether was not handy, were essential to her whenever she approached the realm of sex. They were the signal element in that first, haunting experience, the element from which she could never thereafter escape.
I think they did not go to a room, but found a lonely spot on that almost endless stretch of shadowed sand. The Ile de France would make her way past soon. She discarded all her clothing except the thin silk dress—her coat and shoes and underclothing. And then, I think, she teased this unknown man beyond endurance. He mauled her, perhaps into unconsciousness. Then he was frightened because he had mauled her, and decided that she would never tell of it. So he took her down to the water’s edge and held her head under for a while.
And so, reading over all the old documents in the perspective of time, I think that Starr Faithfull was foiled of her final purpose as she had been foiled of everything else in life. She was not even able to accomplish her own end, which she had been so determined to do. That quantity of sand, heavy in her lungs, tells rather plainly that she did not go over the rail of a ship in the open sea. She was a good swimmer, it
is true; but what swimmer, even an expert, full of veronal, could dive fifty feet into the swells from the deck of a liner and swim five miles through surf to reach the sand-filled water close inshore, still alive and breathing?
No single item of her clothing ever was found. It may easily be argued that even had she stripped herself down on the Ile de France or any other ship, the owners would not be very eager about producing the clothes she left behind. Public-relations officers are jealous of the good names of their charges. But such matters are rather hard to keep secret. And it is rather more difficult than you might think to go off the deck of a well-ordered ship, rather early in the evening, without being seen.
Again, you may ask, “If this unpremeditated murder were accomplished on Friday night, why was the body not seen by the crowds which swarmed the beach over the hot weekend?” The answer to that is the movement of the tides. It has happened often enough that the bodies of bathers, drowned close inshore, have drifted out and not been cast ashore again for days.
It is even possible that District Attorney Edwards had somewhere in his thoughts an approximation of this theory of mine. At any rate, he had the Coast Guard make an elaborate study of the tides and currents at Long Beach. He never published the result of his findings, however. And at last the sounds of his voice subsided. Within a month of that June weekend, the tale was done. Detectives turned to other misfeasances of the human race. And city editors, looking a little sourly at the suicide notes, decided that the story was about over.
THE MAN WHO CONTRACTED OUT OF HUMANITY
(Stanley Setty, 1949)
Rebecca West
In 1949, Donald Hume, misfit and psychopath, stabbed Stanley Setty to death, sliced up the body and ditched it (rolled up in a carpet) from the air over the Essex marshes. That, at least, is the official version: indeed Hume himself eventually made a confession, paid for by a newspaper. But some observers remained sceptical, among them the writer and historian Rebecca West, who attended Hume’s trial and wrote an extensive study of the case. Perhaps the real story of how Stanley Setty met his death has never been told.
The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes Page 74