Chapter 12
The lively interest of the public that they have in this process, and the impatience of those who are involved in it, supports the public’s wishes, although for different reasons.
The operation in question is among those that demand more detail and has to be subject to fixed rules adopted for toxicology in poisoning cases. These rules can be classified into two sections that correspond to different acts: one concerning the exhumation, autopsy and removal of the viscera of the body, done wrongly by the police doctors of Callao,; and the other is entrusted to the Faculty of Medicine.
We have already explained how erroneous and punishable the first was. Now we must anticipate the second to justify the apparent delay in defining it. The latter, in turn, contains three orders of operations:
- Analysis of toxic substances
- Determination of the kind to which the poison corresponds
- Instruments of the operation, i.e. appropriate laboratory.
We dispense the scientific rigor in the classification, because our intention is to indicate to all kinds of readers the seriousness of the work of the experts who will give their opinion in this process. The Judge must determine the force and legal value and the full or conclusive proof.
Of course, a chemical laboratory in Lima is missing, and the elements that can replace it are so scarce that only through unheard-of efforts will the experts be able to satisfactorily fill their ministry and find the poison.
Under this last assumption, the analysis of the toxic substances that can be found in the extracted viscera already requires mechanical, physical and chemical operations and the use of reagents to discover the physical and chemical characteristics of the poison.
And finally, the determination of the corresponding compound, which will lead to giving the Judge an exact notion about which of the poisons found was the one that poisoned Mrs. Lewis, demands thorough work to distinguish the prussic acid that was found in Mrs. Lewis’ room, from the “chlorodine”, and from the other poison analyzed by the municipal chemist by order of the Chief during the course of his investigations.
Before moving forward, we must further clarify some details that have been modified because, although they have not altered the substantial facts and the development of the process still unfinished, the accuracy that we must follow in this study requires us to make clarifications.
The reader will remember that in the first declarations taken by the Chief, steward Miguel Aguirre of the Hotel Maury appears, serving Mrs. Isabel the cup of coffee that she requested in the first hours of the morning and of which she took a sufficient amount. He disappeared from the hotel because of a trip that he had to make to the province of Pallasca on the days when the Chief untied the knot of this anonymous crime.
That name, in effect, was the one that was told to the Chief by one of the witnesses. The Judge took the process in his hands, at a time when that servant was on his way back and continued to work in the service of the hotel, and identified him. His name was corrected to the name of Juan López.
If there was malice in the name change with the purpose of disorienting the police so that they would not obtain the important statement that was given to the Judge about the individual who rushed down the hotel stairs in the extreme moments when the death occurred, it has been ineffective.
This revelation, confronted with the presence of the individual who appeared behind the stained glass window frightened and restless, may result in them not being two persons but one and the same, which will not be impossible to prove in the trial.
The name of Mrs. Martin also appears as a French surname and later that of Mártin in the proceedings of the Judge. Certainly, the first one was given to the Chief, perhaps with the same purpose that the one of the steward López was changed. He was made to understand that this lady lived in the town of Miraflores, when Colonel Muñíz personally he found no nformation about this lady. The information had been false and the surname had been adulterated.
It follows that there has been interest in diverting the first investigations, making them fruitless. Other facts deserve to be established with greater accuracy because subsequent efforts have given them greater significance than they had at the beginning.
Dr. Vera Tudela was not directly requested the second time by Mr. Peter Bacigalupi to issue the second certificate that would serve him to obtain the payment of the policy from the Insurance Company. Bacigalupi called him by telephone for a medical consultation which he had to make and, in effect, having occurred at the doctor’s own home, he made him aware that he was suffering from a slight ailment. The consultation was justified in this way, and he then explained to him that he wished to obtain a different certificate from the one he had previously given him on the death of Mrs. Lewis.
Mr. Gepp, a citizen of North America as the main characters in this process are, and who, at the time of death, was manager of the Dockendorff warehouse already seized by his creditors, also testifies to the events. He was addressed by the artist Taylor, who entered the warehouse “very frightened and with haste”.
Although Mr. Benigno Tizón, an employee of the house, Mr. Melchor Caballero and Mr. Francisco Zegarra were present, none of them could know the words that Taylor said because he spoke in English with Gepp and they do not understand that language.
Moments later, a “frightened” Dockendorff appeared and gave him the announcement with these phrases, “Terrible what has happened. Mrs. Lewis poisoned herself!”
Why does his arrival at the warehouse and his terrible news coincide with those of his friend, the artist Taylor?
Although another declaration only states that Dockendorff had suspicions and not certainty of the poisoning, as appears from the assertive phrases of Mr. Gepp soon noted down, one must ask of course: Where did Dockendorff come from? Where did he find himself at that time to be so impressed and so aware of the event?
We have referred to the encounter he had in front of the Judge with Mrs. Mártin, in which Mrs. Mártin told him, without him observing a single word in contradiction, that he was not present with Bacigalupi and Taylor, the only ones surrounding the corpse. Was he the individual hiding in the bedroom? Or the one who left the hotel going down the stairs to reach the street hiding from the eyes of the steward Lopez, who could only distinguish from behind the one who fled without being able to see his face?
These suppositions naturally stem from his presence and attitude, which are the same as those of the artist Taylor, at Baciagalupi’s warehouse. But Mrs. Mártin and the steward claim to have not seen him during the time which the death occurred.
Dockendorff speaks of letters that Lewis had written from California before her return to Peru, addressed to Gepp asking for information about him, letters that wanted to express her love for Dockendorff, and that Gepp replied that she should not write to him again. But Gepp assures that he only met Lewis once in Bacigalupi’s warehouse, and this very superficial relationship was not enough for her to make him a confidant of secrets of such importance for a married woman, all the more so when she had other more obvious people to carry out that task.
Mr. José Drew, who accompanied other guests at the meal that the Lewis spouses gave on board the George W. Elder, said Bacigalupi’s cashier, Mr. Key, told him after the death of Mrs. Lewis that Dockendorff had a watch owned by the deceased. Key himself, when invited to the funeral, replied to the person inviting him: “I’m not going because that event is not very clear.”
Gepp himself told the Chief that he knew that Bacigalupi and Taylor were present when Mrs. Lewis died at the Maury Hotel. And Dockendorff?
The forensic defense, as opposed to legal judgment, will have to argue in favor of the alibi and prove it in such a convincing way that it produces certainty. Otherwise, everyone who knows these facts will have to see it already glimpsing, already dodging the glances in Lewis’s bedroom, or disappearing like a winged being to look for the fresh air of the street, as it is done by those who are under the influence of a great emotion…
But that same alibi stumbles upon a real and proven fact that Dockendorff slept in the same hotel during the night that preceded the morning in which this tragedy took place. Indeed, he had taken the room immediately next to Lewis, and since, as Drew says, referring to Dockendorff’s own account, he “maintained relations with her”, it is logical to presume that nothing would have separated them, nothing that was not natural and easily surmountable to be together during the night, and hide from the astonished looks of those who suddenly saw the corpse of a beautiful woman who a few hours before was full of life and seductive qualities.
The defense will have to make a great effort to separate him from that location because we have already seen in the sketch of Isabel’s room, and make him appear far, far away from the sad scene that was there. Even supposing that the evidence produced authenticates the explanation, the criterion will be revealed opposed to that evidence, because it is stronger in this case than the legal allegations. And it will not be able to detach from Dockendorff’s soul the feelings that led him to remain with Isabel at the end of her life, nor those deep emotions that were expressed in his attitude, his disturbed facial expression and in his words that were so noticeable when he gave the announcement to Mr. Gepp…