Walter Dew: The Man Who Caught Crippen

by Connell, Nicholas

  I was impressed by the man’s demeanour. It was impossible to be otherwise. Much can sometimes be learned by an experienced police officer during the making of such a statement.

  From Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen’s manner on this, our first meeting, I learned nothing at all.

  With hindsight, Dew thought that Crippen must have been expecting a call from the police at some time and that he had thought out his story in advance of that eventuality. Dew considered Crippen’s statement had been ‘an ingenious story. Half of it was true and half of it was false.’ Contradicting himself slightly, Dew admitted that he had in fact learnt one thing about Crippen: he was an ‘accomplished liar’, as his statement had been so different to the story he had told Cora’s friends. But as Dew pointed out, ‘you can’t charge a man with being a liar. My job was to find out if he was telling the truth now. Somehow I did not think he was.’

  Dew also asked Le Neve for a statement, and she readily agreed to give one. Like Crippen, there was nothing suspicious about her manner at the time, although she was slightly embarrassed about admitting the nature of her relationship with Crippen:

  I am a single woman, twenty-seven years of age, and am a shorthand typist. Since the latter end of February I have been living at 39 Hilldrop Crescent with Dr. Crippen as his wife, I have been on intimate terms with Dr. Crippen for two or three years.

  In the early part of February I received a note from Dr. Crippen, saying Mrs. Crippen had gone to America. I know Mrs. Crippen. She treated me as a friend.

  About a week after he had told me she had gone to America I went to Hilldrop Crescent to put the place straight, as there were no servants kept; but at night I went to my lodgings. I did this daily for about a fortnight. The place appeared to be quite all right and quite as usual. He took me to the Benevolent Fund Dinner, and leant [sic] me a brooch to wear. Later on, he told me I could keep it.

  Afterwards he told me his wife was dead. I was very much astonished, but I do not think I said anything to him about it. He gave me some furs of his wife’s to wear, and I have been living with him ever since as his wife. My father and mother do not know what I am doing, and think I am a housekeeper at Hilldrop Crescent.

  There was possibly a greater element of suspicion in Dew’s mind after taking Le Neve’s statement, for he observed that ‘Miss Le Neve has not told me she thoroughly believed what Dr Crippen has told her.’ Nevertheless, Dew was sure she knew nothing herself, for ‘there was nothing in Miss Le Neve’s manner which gave rise to anything in the nature of suspicion’.

  Dr Crippen was absent when the interview with Le Neve took place. Dew stated that he did not see Crippen again until 6.00 or 6.30, so the Le Neve interview took place prior to that time. The manageress of Munyon’s Remedies, Marion Louisa Curnow, stated that on that day Crippen called in on her at around 4.30 with regard to two envelopes he had asked her to store in her safe at the beginning of March. They were marked ‘Dr. Crippen’ and ‘Dr. Crippen, personal’. Crippen said to Curnow, ‘If any one should ask you, know nothing,’ or ‘say nothing’, adding ‘and if anything happens to me please give what you have there to Miss Le Neve’. Curnow replied, ‘all right’. One of the envelopes later proved to contain deposit notes with the Charing Cross Bank for £600 and insurance receipts worth £300. In the other envelope was a watch and brooch.

  Dew wanted to make a search of 39 Hilldrop Crescent, ‘to see if we could find any papers which would throw any light on her movements’. Crippen consented to the request, saying that Dew was welcome to search the house any time he liked. There was no time like the present, so all four of them went to Hilldrop Crescent, and on the way there Dew had much to contemplate:

  I was trying to get the hang of a case which was becoming more difficult at every turn.

  I certainly had no suspicion of murder. You don’t jump to the conclusion that murder has been committed merely because a wife has disappeared and a husband has told lies about it.

  But he had lied. I couldn’t get this fact out of my mind, and I was determined, if humanly possible, to find out why he had gone to such lengths to throw dust into the eyes of Belle Elmore’s friends.

  Dew was accompanied by Crippen, who was being ‘absolutely courteous and polite’, as his house was being searched. They went through all the rooms in the house, many of which were still adorned by pictures of Cora. Dew observed that ‘[t]he rooms were in good order as a dwelling house would be … there was nothing in the house to attract attention’. They then went out to the garden, and finally the coal cellar, whose evenly laid brick floor was covered with dust that did not appear to have been disturbed for years. Mitchell searched through the rafters of the house, but found nothing. Everything appeared to be in perfect order except for some rolled up carpets and packed boxes; but these could be explained, as Crippen had given notice that he was going to move anyway.

  Dew had no particular reason for looking in the cellar at that time, other than wanting to make an examination of the whole house. It was reached from a passage which led from the kitchen to the back door. Crippen and Le Neve stood watching in the doorway while Dew and Mitchell poked around.

  After searching the house, Crippen and Dew went to the breakfast room. Dew asked about the jewellery Cora had left behind, and Crippen produced three rings and a rising sun brooch. Crippen was apparently being very helpful, and asked what he could do to help find Cora. Would advertising be a good idea? Dew thought it would, and Crippen said he would place adverts in several American papers. He took a piece of paper and, with Dew’s help, composed the following message:

  ‘Mackamotzki’

  Will Belle Elmore communicate with H.H.C. or

  Authorities at once.

  Serious trouble through your absence. $25 reward

  Anyone communicating whereabouts to —

  Dew and Mitchell finally left Hilldrop Crescent at 8.00, after the inspector told Crippen, ‘Of course I shall have to find Mrs. Crippen to clear this matter up.’ It was the last time Dew was to see Dr Crippen and Ethel Le Neve for some months.

  11

  The Remains

  How dull the murders are getting nowadays. Not a patch on the old domestic poisoning dramas, Crippen, Seddon, Mrs Maybrick; the truth being, I suppose, that you can’t do a good murder unless you believe you’re going to roast in hell for it.

  George Orwell, Coming up for Air

  Despite having just finished a long and gruelling day’s investigation, Dew was unable to sleep:

  I was dog tired, yet sleep I could not. My mind refused to rest. The events of the day kept cropping up.

  What was behind it all? There was something, I now felt sure. Crippen had a secret which he was cunningly trying to hide. There would be no rest for me until I had found out.

  The day after interviewing Crippen, Dew circulated a description of Cora Crippen as a missing person throughout the Metropolitan Police district, and continued with his enquiries. On Monday 11 July Dew and Mitchell returned to Albion House again to see Crippen, but neither he nor Le Neve was there.

  Dew and Mitchell then went to 39 Hilldrop Crescent and were let in by the French maid and Mrs Long, the wife of one of Crippen’s employees. The detectives searched the property again but this time they made some startling discoveries. In the wardrobe of the first-floor bedroom Dew found a fully loaded revolver, while Mitchell found a box containing forty-five cartridges that fitted the revolver. Dew did not know how long Crippen had possessed the gun, but it did not appear to be new. According to Dew the revolver had not been there during his initial search when Crippen was present. He came to the dramatic conclusion that Crippen had the gun in his pocket at the time, and would have used it had the detectives discovered anything. Dew, who was a keen gardener while off duty, then dug up the garden and re-examined every room in the house and the coal cellar, but found nothing suspicious.

  Dew ascertained that the day after he had interviewed him, Crippen had left Hilldrop Crescent at around 8.30 a
.m., followed by Le Neve about an hour afterwards. They had both gone to Albion House as usual. Neither of them had any luggage besides Le Neve’s reticule bag. Later in the morning Crippen sent one of his employees, William Long, out of the office to purchase a suit of boy’s clothes, boots and hats. Crippen had visited a neighbouring office and exchanged a cheque for gold to the value of £37. At about 1 p.m. Crippen and Le Neve left the office unseen, leaving behind them Crippen’s suit of clothes and Le Neve’s hat. Long had asked Crippen if he was in any trouble. ‘Only a little scandal’, was Crippen’s reply.

  Crippen’s disappearance suggested only one thing to Dew:

  My quarry had gone, but the manner of his going pointed to guilt.

  My view was that a completely innocent man with nothing to fear would have seen the thing through. A man of Crippen’s calibre would certainly have done so. I had already seen enough of him to know that he was not the type to do anything foolishly rash.

  Here was the real clue.

  His decision was a sudden one. Of that I felt convinced. A fair deduction seemed to be that he had been scared by the events of Friday.

  Crippen’s maid, who had only been employed at Hilldrop Crescent for about a month, had received a letter from Crippen telling her not to be alarmed, and that he and Le Neve had gone to the theatre. The maid had no friends in London, and was sent back to France the next day. She was later interviewed by the French paper Le Matin, whom she told that she had believed that Crippen and Le Neve were man and wife.

  Dew circulated descriptions of Crippen and Le Neve to domestic and foreign ports, requesting that they keep a look-out for the pair but not arrest them. He then sent out enquiries throughout London to find out if any cabmen or carmen had removed boxes or packages from 39 Hilldrop Crescent since 31 January. The following day Dew and Mitchell carried out a further search of 39 Hilldrop Crescent, but again without result.

  On 13 July came a discovery which turned Dew’s investigation from one of trying to establish the fate of Cora Crippen to what would turn out to be one of the most sensational criminal cases of the twentieth century. With Crippen absent, Dew now had the opportunity to search 39 Hilldrop Crescent without ‘Crippen at my elbow to hamper me and perhaps throw me off the scent’. Dew was now beginning to consider the possibility that Cora had been murdered, but the house had yet to yield any clues other than the discovery of the advertisement Crippen had written on 8 July, but had not sent to any newspaper.

  Dew was again suffering from the same exhaustion he had experienced twenty-two years earlier, while hunting Jack the Ripper. Both he and Mitchell were ‘completely fagged out’ after making inquiries around Camden Town. He wanted to go home and sleep for twenty-four hours, but could not give up the search for Cora Crippen until the case was resolved. The day began, once again, with Dew searching 39 Hilldrop Crescent, examining the floors and digging up more of the garden. He also decided to make a more thorough search of the cellar. The cellar held a ‘peculiar fascination’ for Dew. ‘Maybe it was my sixth sense’, was the only explanation he could offer. Dew takes up the tale:

  I got a small poker with a sharp point and Sergt Mitchell and I probed all over the cellar. We found that between some of the bricks of the cellar floor the poker went in pretty easily. We then removed several bricks and found a flat surface of clay. I got a spade and, after digging 2 or 3 spadefuls, I dug up what appeared to be some human remains. I had to desist on account of the terrible smell for a time.

  Despite the hideous stench, Dew ‘was now as excited as I ever allowed myself to be. I knew that I was on the eve of a great discovery.’ Dew and Mitchell fortified themselves with brandy and returned to their grim task:

  The remains which I found there were not in an advanced state of decomposition, some portion of them were decomposed, some were quite firm. They were of a brownish colour, but when cut they were quite fresh.

  The remains were covered in a large quantity of lime, some of which was coarsely granular while some had set in hard lumps like concrete. Whoever had put the remains there had made a simple blunder. The lime, mixed with water, had acted as a preservative rather than a destroyer of the flesh.

  Dr Crippen’s disappearance was now explained. Amongst the remains were a lady’s hair-curling pin with light and dark dyed hair attached, portions of ladies’ undergarments, a portion of a man’s pyjama shirt, and a piece of coarse string. It was that which was not found that made the discovery all the more shocking. The head, hands, feet, bones and teeth were missing. To Dew’s mind the remains had ‘every appearance of a calculated plot to destroy all signs of identity’. Dew had ‘that strange hunch … that what we had found represented all that remained of the once charming and vivacious Belle Elmore’.

  Dew immediately sent for the local divisional police surgeon, Dr Thomas Marshall, and informed Sir Melville Macnaghten, who was now the Assistant Commissioner of the CID, of the find. Macnaghten filled his pockets with cigars, grabbed Superintendent Froest, jumped into a car and sped to Hilldrop Crescent, where he handed the cigars out to the officers. ‘I thought they might be needed by the officers – and they were!’1 (Dew was a smoker). Dr Marshall arrived at around 5.40 p.m., when the remains were partly exposed. He thought they were human but did not make a proper examination that day. He merely returned at 9 p.m., when the remains were uncovered, and just touched the surface of them. Dew ordered the photographing of the remains, and then covered them up.

  Macnaghten and Froest had a look around the house. Macnaghten was surprised to see on the dining room sideboard bottles of whisky, claret, sherry and chartreuse. He observed that Crippen’s chair at the head of the table was only some fifteen or twenty yards away from where the remains lay, and later commented, ‘How, for five long months, good digestion could have waited upon appetite in such circumstances has always been a marvel to me!’2 The house was locked up for the night and guarded by the police, but the outside world was beginning to hear about what had transpired. The following morning The Times reported:

  Some persons who were passing the house last night were attracted by several slight explosions, and it then became known that the police were taking flashlight photographs of a body which is said to have been in the cellar for some months.

  As the crowds began to gather the local newspaper sent their reporter to investigate ‘The Green Crescent of the Crime’, which he thus described:

  Hilldrop-crescent is a quiet suburban place although in the inner ring of the Metropolis; and, reasoning superficially, it would be the last spot one would have dreamt of for the stage of a sordid murder. The exterior aspect of the quiet residential streets speaks of respectability: and in the placid atmosphere of well-to-do Suburbia the tokens of the grim deed seized the heart with a greater shock than they would have done in the denser and darker neighbourhood that lies not far away.

  For this secluded crescent is situated just off the bustle and roar of several busy thoroughfares, and a stone thrown in any direction would fall in the thick of clustering human hives. It is no more than five minutes from Holloway-road with its ceaseless traffic; it is close to Caledonian-road with its constant goings-to-and-fro; on the other side the huge glass palaces rattle on their way to Tottenham Court-road. In a word, it nestles serenely in a back-wash of the whirling waters of the modern Babylon.

  It is this strange contrast of peacefulness and quietude with the hurrying stretch of main thoroughfares that bound it and the network of mean and squalid streets that surround it, that seems to intensify the horror of the crime committed in its smug and snug precincts.

  The crescent, then, is hidden away in the district which abounds in leafiness, and although not far off is a very different world of bricks and mortar, so cosily shut in is the essentially middle-class part that one can almost forget the grime and the encircling gloom.

  Here it was – in this unlikely quarter – that the corpse of a beautiful woman was dug up.

  Here it was that last night, as indeed a
ll through the day, a knot of people stood shuddering, and conversing almost in whispers.

  Here it was, in this green and salubrious road, that a garden gate was guarded by two stalwart men in blue – the guardians of a terrible interior that no prying eyes were permitted to look upon.

  Here it was that detectives silently came and went; here came eminent professors and official photographers; and here came a coffin to bear away a woman’s mangled remains.

  It stands up, does that ill-fated house, behind large, spreading trees that almost conceal its frontage. In the sunshine of a summer day the green foliage gave almost a gay appearance to the scene.3

  The remains were removed the next day under the supervision of Dr Marshall and Dr Augustus Pepper, a consultant surgeon from St Mary’s Hospital. They were placed in a coffin and taken to the mortuary. Two local police constables, Frederick Martin and Daniel Gooch4 of Y Division, Highgate, had helped Dew unearth the remains and place them in the coffin. In recognition of their conduct during this unpleasant task, Dew spoke to Macnaghten, who promised them a 10s bonus.

  Dew made a further discovery that would later prove to be vital. In a box under the bed in the first-floor bedroom there were two suits of pyjamas and one odd pair of pyjama trousers. The jackets bore the label of ‘Shirt-makers, James Brothers (Holloway), Limited, Holloway, N’. The house and its key were then placed into the possession of the coroner’s officer.

  Dew had noticed a raised heap at the end of Crippen’s garden that was covered with garden litter and flower pots. He started digging and found a layer of clay similar to that which he had found when digging up the cellar. Dew thought he had discovered the clay that had been excavated from the cellar in order to hide the remains, but upon further examination he found that the clay was a normal feature of the garden and could be found throughout.

  The news of the discovery of the remains was met with disbelief by the Crippens’ friends and neighbours, who perceived Hawley and Cora to be a most devoted couple. Crippen had told Dr Rylance the story that Cora had gone to America on family business, and that she had later died. On 9 July Rylance had received a letter from Crippen which read, ‘I now find that in order to escape trouble I shall be obliged to absent myself for a time.’ Once the remains had been discovered the press interviewed Rylance, who told them: