Chapter 10
Bacigalupi had captured Mrs. Lewis’ confidence to the extent of controlling her most intimate and private affairs. He himself confesses that he opened the letters found in her iron box. They were written by her in the private office of his Espaderos warehouse two days before her death. He knows that the little key found inside one of them corresponds to one of her suitcases. He describes the cheerful character that she had, through which he could discover a little bitterness in her soul that influenced her mental faculties.
So extensive was that trust that on several occasions she had made him confidant of her premonitions of coming death, informing him of the existence of life insurance and making a kind of verbal testamentary declaration in which she left the insurance policy to her children in California.
This trust explains why Bacigalupi was convinced that Mrs. Lewis had committed suicide by drinking prussic acid, a conviction that Taylor and Dockendorff had shared.
Although Dockendorff had been restless since her death, avoiding any conversation that might refer to her, expressing marked displeasure to his partner Hayball at the Suchiman estate, whenever he spoke to him about their love or even reminded him of Isabel’s name.
Bacigalupi had also captured the confidence of Captain Lewis, which he continued to enjoy after the events. The Captain had said to his San Francisco lawyer Mahomy, “Bacigalupi knows us well; he is our best friend in Lima and am sure he will do everything humanly possible to obtain the data required for the death certificate that will be used by the Union Central Life Insurance Company domiciled in Cincinnati, Ohio, to obtain the value of the insurance.
The form used by this company, with slight variations depending on the cases and special circumstances, is as follows:
City of ________
Republic of _________
Doctor _________ under oath states that on the day of
________ he was called by ________ to examine a person of
nationality ____________ (male or female) who died of
_________ found ____________.
(date)
(signature)
Although the insurance companies have these requirements for all the cases of death of their insured, they usually ask for greater guarantees to make the payment, usually in accordance with the express stipulations in the insurance contract. Only the Equitativa and some others that we do not remember for the moment make the payment whatever the cause of death, without more precautions than the authentic proof of the death.
The Union Central Insurance Company must have received notice from some of those agents that these companies have all over the world that Mrs. Lewis’ death was surrounded by abnormal circumstances. It is probable that it was brought to their attention that there was a crime involved that needed to be clarified in order to expedite the right of heirs and to correct the Company’s obligation to make payment.
In fact, before the publication of the first discoveries made by the Chief of Police of Lima in the newspapers of this city, or perhaps coinciding with those first revelations of the press, the Company requested reports.
They asked for the conditions of Mrs. Lewis’ brain, stomach, and heart. According to the instruction of the Company physician, these organs would be affected by the action of a poison. This insinuated that an autopsy had to be performed, and, since October 1892, when these instructions were given from the United States, this operation had not yet been performed, nor had the clarifications that began in Lima the following month of November been initiated, it must be assumed that Union Central was aware of it.
Did this one come from the same hand that wrote the anonymous letter addressed to the police authority? What is certain is that the Company refused the request by the Captain, waiting until after the medical examination noted in their instructions was clarified.
What could bring them to refuse other than a notice detailing perhaps the event hidden since January from the authorities and public who had the false knowledge given by the misinformed newspapers and perhaps deliberately to mislead them?
To examine the entrails and the organs that were indicated was impossible if the autopsy of the corpse was not done. An express order from a competent authority was required for the autopsy to be carried out. This could not be issued without a request justifying the procedure. The exhumation of a corpse can be accessed in order to carry out an autopsy. The people in charge of doing it had to express the purpose, and this could not be other than to know if a crime had occurred.
We discovered that the inquisitions began at the same time in Peru and the United States. The mystery in which the anonymous crime would have to be deciphered so our intuition, which is winning over logic, will trust the judicial process to take its course.
The lawyer of Union Central was not satisfied with the proof of death presented to his client. Pretending that there had been a medical-legal examination, he induced the company to demand proof peremptorily and obtain for everything the approval of the American Embassy in Lima.
The Company did not limit itself to asking for information to corroborate its presumptions. They were unaware of Mrs. Lewis’ letters, written on the eve of her death, because they were not mailed and remained in Bacigalupi’s iron box where they were found. So their efforts date back to the end of January 1892, a few months after acquiring the insurance. By calculating time, Mrs. Lewis had acquired this insurance after her return trip to California on the George W. Elder, in August 1891. The process will thus have to consider these facts, which must come from the justices of the United States.
We must look for what interest there could be to the individual who wrote the anonymous letter that he himself transmitted to the Union Central Insurance Company giving notice of Mrs. Lewis’ death with suspicious circumstances of a concealed crime. This point is very delicate and whatever solution it may have, it will not induce the Judge until he is in possession of reliable evidence about the identity of the anonymous writer. It is necessary to judge according to that legal criterion with which the most secret acts are clarified and observable.
Who can be the Union Central’s advisor? An agent of theirs, or another individual who was rushing to give them news that only they could be interested in? It is unlikely that it was a traveling agent since in Lima there are no branches of Union Central. But the way in which it has proceeded in Lima destroys any presumption about the origin of the denunciation on the part of a special agent of the insurance company. If there is one in Lima, he has limited himself to giving notice to his superior so that in observance of his statutes he denies the payment of insurance until the condition of Mrs. Lewis’ death is at least proven: if there is a homicide, the Company will not be able to maintain its refusal; but if there is a suicide, it will be perfectly justified since when the insured commits suicide, he/she loses the right to the amount designated in the respective policy.
Can the denouncer be an individual not associated with the company?
In this hypothesis, he must have proceeded out of interest: revenge is not acceptable in this case since it would have to refer to Dockendorff or Bacigalupi or Taylor. In such a case they would have been named and the denunciation would not have been limited to the mere fact of the crime. It would have to be someone else who had something to gain by turning in information. Perhaps a reward from Union Central. After 10 months, with no reward he proceeded to notify the local police of a homicide.
It is possible, then, that the informer who transmitted the criminal circumstances of death to the United States at the time of the burial, would have been the same one who brought it to the attention of the Police eleven months later. The methods he used have not yet been ascertained, whether it was by cable or post that the mail was delivered; however, what is more suited to facts is that he did it by correspondence. If it had been by cable, Union Central would not have waited until January 20 to send its first letter of enquiry.