A QUESTION OF GUILT

as she so often threatened.'

'It seems a rather drastic way of achieving it.'

'Perhaps he enjoyed it? There's no knowing what strange bats flit in the dark corners of the human belfry. Perhaps he just panicked. It makes human beings do the most wildly illogical things, you know. More die in fires from trying to get through the exit all at once than roast to death.'

'So if he'd rushed out of the house and confessed to the first policeman in sight, everyone would be saying this morning, poor man, how tragic to have slain his own dear wife in error? Rather than calling him the biggest monster since Jack the Ripper.'

'You're perfectly right. And cutting her up wouldn't signify much to him, anyway. You mentioned once at Champette how a doctor sees the body as a watchmaker a watch. He was simply taking a timepiece to bits.'

'You're just making excuses, because you liked him,' Nancy objected.

'But look how perfectly the scheme worked,' Eliot persevered. 'If he hadn't decamped with Ethel, Belle would have lain in rest until they demolished the house. If the police hadn't believed his story, they'd have arrested him over the cheese and biscuits at the Holborn Restaurant.'

'Supposing we had moved into the house, Eliot?' Nancy shuddered. 'Supposing we'd found the body?'

'Oh, we'd have invited the Martinettis-'Come to dinner, we think we can dig up Belle Elmore'.'

Nancy sighed. 'You never take anything outrageous seriously, thank God. Even blowing up the Kaiser.'

17

Crippen was everywhere. At Vernet-les-Bains in the eastern Pyrenees with a youth. At Llangranog in west Wales with a young lady. At Stonebridge in Sussex, he was arrested. Seeking lodgings with his companion at Willesden in London, he needed rescuing from a fierce crowd by the police.

A young female found drowned at Bourges in central France, and many others elsewhere in Europe, were weightily announced by the police forces as not being Miss Le Neve. The Battersea Flat Crime, the Slough Murder, the Train Murder were outshone in the newspapers. _The Times_ gave Crippen four columns and invariably called him 'Dr' in inverted commas, which infuriated Eliot. The William Atherstone who comforted Belle after her disaster at the Metropolitan shot himself in Battersea. The coroner relished the coincidence, and the next day dropped dead himself.

In the North Atlantic, shortly after midday on Friday, July 22, Captain Henry Kendall of the 5,000-ton Canadian Pacific Line's Montrose, sent his white-jacketed 'tiger' to present his compliments to Dr Stewart and invite him for a peg before lunch.

A ship's captain's life is as lonely as Diogenes'. He intrudes among his officers like a headmaster amid his boys. The passengers who are not wearisome provoke jealousy among the others from invitations to his cabin. Engineers prefer their own company, and he can no more sit with his purser than a lord with his butler. His only irreproachable companion is the ship's doctor, trusted confidant of everyone on board.

The captain's quarters in the Montrose shone with teak, brass and leather, in the style of supreme marine comfort. The ship was ten years old, 250 steerage passengers segregated by sex with bunks in her converted hold, twenty saloon class with cabins and meals at the officers' tables. She had sailed two days before, from Antwerp for Quebec.

'Mr John Robinson and Master Robinson.' Captain Kendall swivelled in his leather chair. He was middle-aged, square-jawed with a long mouth and protuberant ears. 'Have you noticed anything about them?'

'The son is a wee bit overweight,' observed the doctor over his whisky. 'I saw a couple of safety-pins holding his trousers together at the back. He's going to California for his health. I haven't been invited to inspect his chest.'

'I should think not!' exclaimed the captain. 'They booked through our Brussels' agents, just before sailing. Their luggage consists of a handbag bought in Belgium. Their clothes, the brown suits and canvas shoes they stand up in. I examined their hats while they were at lunch yesterday,' he continued significantly. 'The rim of the boy's is packed with paper.'

The doctor thought it odd that the captain should go about spying on passengers' hats.

'My suspicions were aroused before we left the Scheldt. I saw the boy squeezing the father's hand immoderately upon the boat deck. Unnatural for two males.'

'Unnatural, but not unknown.'

The captain leaned towards the doctor, who sat on a leather bench against the bulkhead. 'When I spoke to Robinson just now, he said they'd laughed all night over the comic ditty at the smoking-concert, _We All Walked Into the Shop.'_

Smiling, the doctor recollected in song, _'One night while out with several pals, 'Twos raining hard outside, we saw a card in a milkshop window, Families Supplied…_ How's the chorus go…? _We ordered a couple of kids apiece, Then we all walked out again…We all walked into the butcher's where The Meat was hung on pegs, The fat old butcher kept shouting out, I've got some lovely legs-'_

'I told Robinson a funny story,' the captain interrupted. 'To make him laugh,' he explained. The doctor looked lost. 'To see if he had false teeth. And he had,' said the captain triumphantly. 'He has no moustache, but is growing a beard. It makes him look more like a farmer every day. His nose has marks. Yet he wears so spectacles. Well, doctor? What do you make of that?'

'I can't make anything of it, sir.'

'I make of it that Master Robinson is a girl.' The captain folded his arms. The doctor said nothing. Like many captains, his was a spasmodic eccentric.

'A girl,' Captain Kendall repeated, delighted with the mystification. Insatiable with detective stories, he revelled in playing the detective. As a junior officer, he was scourge of the ship's card-sharpers. 'Haven't you seen the 'boy's' hands? Soft and white. Nails carefully manicured. And how refined and modest he is, how under his father's thumb. And his endearing smile?'

'Well, I noticed the father cracks nuts for him.'

'This morning I called, 'Mr Robinson!' on deck. He paid no heed, till the boy had the presence of mind to make him turn.'

Captain Kendall tapped the pile of crumpled newspapers Dr Stewart had observed on his desk. 'Why do you suppose I had the chief officer collect every English and Belgian newspaper on board? They must not suspect their deeds are discovered-they might do something rash. They must not suspect what I suspect. That the Robinsons are _Dr Crippen and Miss Le Neve.'_

'Good God,' exclaimed the doctor. 'Shall you put them in irons?'

'On the other hand, they may not be,' the captain admitted lamely. 'Which could land me in all sorts of trouble with head office. So I prepared this for the Marconi operator.'

The doctor read the pencilled form from the captain's desk drawer.

PIERS LIVERPOOL HAVE STRONG SUSPICIONS THAT CRIPPEN LONDON CELLAR MURDERER AND ACCOMPLICE ARE AMONG SALOON PASSENGERS MOUSTACHE TAKEN OFF GROWING BEARD ACCOMPLICE DRESSED AS BOY VOICE MANNER AND BUILD UNDOUBTEDLY A GIRL BOTH TRAVELLING MR AND MASTER ROBINSON KENDALL.

'This very morning,' Captain Kendall continued impressively, 'Robinson-Crippen-sat looking aloft at the wireless aerial, with the crackling electric spark of the messages, and said, 'What a wonderful invention it is!' But time is running short. Our wireless has a range of 150 miles. We are already 130 miles west of the Lizard. Should I send it?'

'Undoubtedly,' urged the doctor. 'Now you mention it, I have noticed how the girl's under his hypnotic influence, how she follows him everywhere. Though from her lack of distress, she must surely be utterly ignorant of the horrible crime committed?'

'Do you know what he's reading?' The captain grinned. 'A shocker by Edgar Wallace, _The Four Just Men._ It's about blowing up Parliament. The villains have Ј1000 on their heads-two-hundred and fifty apiece, the same as our friends the Robinsons. Another peg?'