When mentioning the name of Dr Crippen to people during the writing of this book, I found myself time and again excusing his actions with the rather odd comment that he ‘only’ killed one person, his wife Cora. Common perception seemed to have placed him as a vicious serial killer, with his eternal tenancy of the Chamber of Horrors assured. Obviously the Hawley Crippen presented in the novel is a different one from that whom we have been encouraged to accept over the years. But then my Crippen is a fiction, and the events of the night on which Cora Crippen met her bloody end are entirely a supposition on my part.
While many of the characters and situations in the book are taken from the facts of the case—Inspector Dew really did chase ‘Mr Robinson’ and ‘Edmund’ across the ocean; Louise Smythson really was the first person to suspect foul play; Captain Kendall really did discover the truth about the ‘father’ and ‘son’ by chance and use the newly installed Marconi telegraph to alert Scotland Yard—many others were created to serve the plot.
However, readers may be interested to know that when Ethel LeNeve was acquitted of Cora’s murder, she left England for a new life and finally settled in Toronto. She changed her name, found work as a secretary, married, became a mother and never again referred to the events which led her to Munyon’s Homoeopathic Medicines, the Montrose, or Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen. She died in 1967, at the age of 84.
Dr Crippen’s last request of his executioners was that a photograph of his lover be buried with him; in her will, Ethel left instructions that a picture of Crippen also be placed in her hands before her coffin was sealed. Both requests were granted.