drop them into the bin at Albion House, unnoticeable among the day's crop.
Osteotomy forceps, like a stout pair of nail-clippers, severed the ribs. As though pulling apart the picked carcass of a chicken to boil for soup, he tugged the severed gullet and windpipe from the hollow of the corpse. He cut the flat muscle of the diaphragm which separated chest from belly. He slit the guts from the filmy, blood-gorged, fatty mesentry, which secured them to the trunk like a string of sausages in a paper bag. He had blood to the elbows, and leaning over the bath was backbreaking. He freed the sloppy, brownish, gleaming liver, the kidneys dangling from their springy arteries, the spleen like a huge red mushroom, the bag of Belle's stomach still containing her roast pork, her potatoes in their jackets and her blancmange, the brandy stinking like an uncorked bottle.
He severed the top of the rectum, where it joined the big pipe of the gut. Gripping the joined organs by the gullet and windpipe, he pulled them with a glug and a squelch from the husk. He wondered what to do with them. He dropped them between Belle's legs. He rinsed hands and forearms under the cold tap. From the hook on the door hung his green-striped flannel pyjama jacket, forgotten that morning after shaving. He wrapped it round the organs like pastry round the meat of a Cornish pastie. He remembered Belle's womb. It would never do, leaving
He clutched it in the basin of her pelvis. Her bladder squirted the last of the urine between her legs. With one cut, he had her womb and most of her vagina. Her ovaries had gone to another knife, seventeen years before. The clocks chimed four. Completing the job could wait until tomorrow. It was cold, Belle would not go 'off' any sooner than a joint freshly bought from the butcher's. Would the neighbours be curious over the bathroom light? They were familiar with the gas burning in the smallest room next door. He had forgotten the wedding-ring on her third finger. Reaching for the scalpel, he adroitly severed the finger through the little joint at its base, pulled off the ring and tossed the digit into the empty body.
14
No. 39 Hilldrop Crescent was equidistant from the church in Oseney Crescent across Brecknock Road, and another at the angle of Camden and Caledonian Road. With the laziness of London clocks, each chimed in succession, not synchrony. Crippen woke as usual while they were announcing seven. He was so late to bed, he had set the double-belled American alarm clock for seven-thirty, and he fumbled to press off the switch.
It was over a half-hour till sunrise. He felt for a vesta and lit the bedside candle. He was in clean pyjamas, one of the three identical green-striped pairs Belle had bought at the winter sale of Jones Brothers, Shirtmakers, Holloway. He lay still on the narrow brass bed in the cold small room with pink dog-roses twining up the wall-paper. Was it a dream?
He reached for his round, gold-rimmed glasses, stood up, stretched, crossed the lino to the bathroom. He lit the gas. It was clearly not a dream. Belle's clipped head stared at him from between her feet, the pile of entrails peeped glisteningly from the wrapping of pyjama jacket. His problem was where to shave. He collected his razor, turned off the gas, and descended to the kitchen.
By seven-thirty he was dressed, his steaming cup of Camp coffee wedged among last night's dirty crockery on the kitchen table. He felt Belle was as usual asleep under the bright pink coverlet of her bed with pink bows on the corners. As far as the world would know, she was. By his usual homecoming time she would be going to America. It was fascinating, living her life for her.
He bolted the tradesman's entrance and locked the front door behind him. No one would call. Mrs. Harrison visited only when invited. As they used condensed milk the milkman knocked only on Sunday, the baker left a loaf on the side step Wednesdays and Saturdays. He took his usual way to Caledonian Road Underground station, skirting the Cattle Market. He arrived before nine at Aural Remedies at Craven House in Kingsway. Miss Ena Balham, thirtyish, in black serge, with pince-nez and a faint moustache, was behind her big, square black typewriter.
'Did you say 'White rabbits'?' Crippen looked mystified. 'It's February the first,' she chided him.
He took her inch-thick sheaf of newly opened letters. Aural Remedies was a correspondence clinic. People with bad ears responded to advertisements in
'You quite well this morning, doctor?' she asked kindly.
'Perfectly.'
She gave a slight laugh. 'You seem so quiet. Not your usual self.'
'I've some urgent business at the Tooth Specialists.'
He hurried towards Oxford Street. A few minutes, and he would be seeing Ethel. Now they were really hub and wifie. They could live under the same roof. The future shone like a summer sunrise.
The shiny black leatherette cover stood on her machine. 'Where's Ethel?' he asked explosively.
The office contained only Miss Marion Curnow, the middle-aged manageress, in white blouse and check skirt. She looked surprised. 'She just phoned from Constantine Road. She's a little poorly this morning.'
Ethel was often poorly. They called her behind her back, 'Not Very Well, Thank You.'
'Well, doctor, it's an important day in your life.'
Crippen started. 'Why?'
'You're freed from slavery to Munyon's.'
Crippen nodded distractedly. He had drawn dwindling commission as an agent since Munyon's office in Oxford Circus failed.
'You don't take it hard, doctor, my continuing as Munyon's London manageress?' Miss Curnow accepted his manner as pique.
'No, not at all. The money was hardly a king's ransom.' He paused. All four who worked in his office knew that Crippen had been short of funds since Christmas. His wife's dresses alone…Miss Curnow had thought severely. 'I'm expecting quite a considerable sum coming in from America.'
Crippen went to his room.
He left before noon. 'Tell Dr Ryland I shan't be back today,' he instructed Miss Curnow.
The head would be a difficulty. It needed cutting into fairly small bits, and he had not the luxury of time. Perhaps some other approach would suggest itself. The limbs should sever easily at the joints, with assistance from the
'How's Paul?' he asked Clara at the door.
'He's just gone into a nice sleep. If you don't mind I shan't waken him. How's Belle?'
'Oh, she's all right.'
'Give her my love.'
'Yes, I will.'
The next day was Wednesday, and the weekly meeting of the Music Hall Ladies' Guild. The morning was bitter and overcast, gas flaring in the shop windows as Crippen made his way to work. He went directly to the Tooth Specialists. Miss Curnow was unpinning her hat. He set a packet on Ethel's typewriter, and left immediately for Aural Remedies round the corner.
Ethel arrived ten minutes later. She wore under her overcoat a blue serge costume trimmed with black braid. She sat at her typewriter, unhurriedly opening the packet. Inside was an envelope addressed to her. 'Well I never!' she exclaimed. 'She's gone to America.'
'Who has?'
'Mrs. Crippen.'
'Hasn't she been threatening to for years?'
Crippen's note asked her to pass an enclosed package to Miss Melina May, secretary of the Music Hall Ladies' Guild on the floor below. He would look in later. They could have a pleasant little evening.
The errand seemed unurgent. Ethel passed over the package at ten to one, on her way to lunch. 'Mrs Martinetti's just telephoned,' remarked Miss May, at her desk with her typewriter and wire baskets of correspondence. 'She can't come to the meeting, her husband's still poorly.'
Miss May opened the packet. She was dark, pale, pretty, once broke her leg, developed a limp, had to renounce
