Thunderstruck

“WERE YOU HER LOVER, SIR?”

IN TIME THE PRECISE CHARACTER of the relationship between Bruce Miller and Crippen’s wife would become a subject of interest to Scotland Yard and lead eventually to an interrogation by a barrister named Alfred A. Tobin, one of London’s small cadre of impossibly articulate and learned lawyers who conducted the in-court portions of civil and criminal cases. Sometimes barristers served as prosecutors, assigned to trials by the director of public prosecutions; the rest of their cases came to them through a second tier of attorneys known as solicitors. The location of Miller’s interrogation was the Old Bailey, London’s Central Criminal Court. The subject: his letters to Belle Elmore.

“Were you writing to her as a lover?”

Miller: “No.”

“Were you fond of her?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever tell her that you loved her?”

“Well, I do not know that I ever put it in that way.”

“Did you indicate to her that you did love her?”

“She always understood it that way, I suppose.”

“Then you did love her, I presume?”

“I do not mean to say that. I did not exactly love her; I thought a great deal of her as far as friendship was concerned. She was a married lady, and we will let it end at that. It was a platonic friendship….”

“Do you know the difference between friendship and love?”

“Yes.”

“Were you more than a friend?”

“I could not be more than a friend. She was a married lady and I was a married man.”

“Were you more than a friend, sir?”

“I could not be more than a friend—I was not.”

The presiding judge, Lord Chief Justice Alverstone, now joined in: “Answer the question whether you were or were not?”

“I was not more than a friend.”

“Were there any improper relations between you?”

“No.”

Now Tobin again:

“Did you ever write love letters to her?”

“I have written to her very nice letters perhaps.”

“You know what a love letter is. Did you ever write a love letter to her?”

“Well, I do not remember that I ever put it just in that way. I often wrote to her very friendly letters; I might say they were affectionate letters.”

“Then you wrote affectionate letters to her. Did you write love letters to her?”

“Affectionate letters.”

“Ending ‘Love and kisses to Brown Eyes’?”

“I have done so.”

“Now, sir, do you think those are proper letters to write to a married woman?”

“Under the circumstances, yes….”

“Do you agree now that those letters were most important letters to write to a married woman during her husband’s absence?”

“I do not think they were, under the circumstances.”

“Were you her lover, sir?”

“I was not.”

“Have you been to any house in London with her for the purpose of illicit relationship?”

“I have not.”

“Bloomsbury Street?”

“No place.”

“Have you ever kissed her?”

“I have.”

“Never done anything more than kiss her?”

“That is all.”

“Why did you stop at that?”

“Because I always treated her as a gentleman, and never went any further.”

The interrogation did nothing to clarify the relationship.