Chapter 13
We have now reached a point at which, leaving the reader deduce from the events we have written about while we have intentionally not wanted to formulate conclusions, we must raise the curtain of the stage that you attend with us, raising it sufficiently so that what has happened can be seen.
As we indicated in the previous chapter, there have been attempts to change names, give inaccurate signs, etc. It has gone beyond the reasonable, for example, the true age of Mrs. Lewis, who was initially set at 23 years for some and 24 for others, when at that age it was impossible that she would have had children who are 16 years old, and very difficult that she would have been married three times. The purpose was to prevent a proper investigation from occurring, to distract from the object of the crime, and perhaps to divert the judgment about the personal identity.
The statements have been changed, some of which were modified and given to the Chief. They were later summarized by the Judge of the Court. The most blatant contradictions about the cause of death have occurred. This is what happens with the news that Bacigalupi gives to the Spaniard Sánchez, merchant of Callao and consignee of the cargo that the George W. Elder brought to that port, to whom he said that Mrs. Lewis died of a violent heart attack when he had announced her death due to poisoning. Dockendorff incurs similar contradictions.
All the money is lost without the knowledge of those who did not abandon Mrs. Lewis for a moment. Even the leather bag that contained some coins and that Mr. Lecaros personally gave to Mrs. Lewis, for she had given it to him to keep as travelers do with valuable objects. The bag inside it is presumably the one that her jewelry was found. It is open and empty in the confusion and disorder of objects that Mrs. Mártin discovered when she entered the room.
The true motive of the death is hidden from the authority. The responsibility following a criminal attack that the laws condemn is faced but it is pursued in such a way to conceal it with the legal and regulatory forms, demanding of the doctors the legal medical certificate so they sanction a false fact. Thus the crime appears to be an act of nature. And in order to speed up the cover-up maneuver even more, the municipal regulations are violated.
By burying the body at nine o’clock in the evening of the same day that is, nine hours after the presumed death without waiting until the following day as strictly and rigorously prescribed by the Regulations, in accordance with the medical rules. Why these actions that runs counter to everything and in which it seems the autopsy is to be avoided at all costs?
Those who moved those mortal remains to bury them as they did in the Protestant cemetery of Bellavista, could only believe that the death was produced by 1) natural disease or 2) the accidental use of a poison, which is what they all said in the first moments.
Under the first belief it was very unusual to shorten the time to verify the burial, and not only unusual, but is suspicious in itself. If they harbored the second belief, they denounce with deeds what they could not do with words. If for them there was already poisoning, and they thought they were innocent; why did they adopt the procedure of the guilty?
When we are in the presence of a crime, we do not hide evidence nor do we hinder it to the point of sterilizing the investigation. On the contrary, we proceed by removing the dirt that has covered the trail of blood that leads us to find the body of the crime that was intended to be hidden in order to obtain impunity. This tendency is instinctive.
Looking at this objectively, the Judge may not find in it the external proof; but the legal analysis sees it slipping into the commission of a crime.
The current stage of the process is the summary stage. The statements in it reveal the entire history of the crime and only require the verification of certain facts that will allow the crime to be declared with certainty.
But before this happens, the same summary proceedings cannot move forward without the existence of the crime being defined by the legal medical opinion using the usual language of our Courts. The proceedings entrusted to the United States Justices that are still pending, by virtue of the exhortations issued by the Peruvian Judge, are not an impediment that delays the summary once the means or instrument of the crime has been presented by the medical experts.
In the meantime, the main characters that appear in this process are scattered in different places:
Hewner in Philadelphia
Dockendorff left Lima about a month ago and took a steamboat abroad
Captain Lewis sailing the high seas
Taylor, the artist, in one of the republics of South America
Only Bacigalupi, center of those friends of Mrs. Lewis, remains under judicial consideration, in the prison of Guadalupe where he was put because of the fire occurred in his warehouse in the street of Espaderos.
Disseminated, dispersed one from another in different parts of the world, they have left here a judicial drama that will occupy more work towards justice for some time.