Chapter 3
Shortly after that fire, Police Chief Colonel Muñíz received a well-drafted anonymous letter identifying some people who had information about the death of an American lady in December.
Who was the author? What interest could he/she have in making this denunciation, after ten months of the utmost silence? Was it a resentful or repentant accomplice, who, free from justice, sent that notice from abroad under the cover of a confidant who was in on the secret of what had happened? Or some covert enemy, who sought anonymous revenge on his enemy? The date in December did not correspond to the event we are narrating. Had another such event been covered up? Or was it slander?
These anonymous letters are frequent and they are usually true, produced by duty of conscience, or a desire to contribute to justice against the wicked who conceal their acts in mystery because they have the means to do so and are favored by the circumstances.
In these cases, the police must use discernment to take such a letter seriously, and to proceed discreetly so as not to harm the honor of those accused. They must take care not to fall into the net of someone who has fabricated the denunciation so as to make a fool of the police or harm the accused.
The Chief thought of all these extremes and, although time had elapsed and there was a lack of data, and scarcely a trace that had remained of the event. No relatives or interested persons could help him by giving him the slightest insight. He had that creative inspiration that moves men of good will to do the works that lead to the desired success.
Immediately Colonel Muñíz took a car, got into it and ordered the driver to direct him to X Street. He had just walked a few blocks when he saw the person he was looking for. He had the car stopped by calling the person. He told the person, without giving him any news of the anonymous letter that they were to go to his house. Colonel Muñíz asked the person harshly about the events that had taken place with Mrs. Lewis. Once the person was touching the door of the car, “I know all about it”, said Colonel Muñíz, accentuating the phrase, ”as you well know it.”
The first revelations obtained from an unsworn witness by police are usually effective, if the facts, names, dates and places designated are accurate and lead straight to discovery of a solution. But if there is an error, because of the narrator’s lack of memory, or because of fear, nervous excitement or some other cause, the most insignificant erroneous fact can spoil the result obtained by the element of surprise. The person certainly gave some signals to Colonel Muñíz and some names, among them that of Mrs. Martin.
Before thinking of addressing this person, whom he did not know, he deduced who could provide him with information from among one of the other people who had come to the room occupied by Mrs. Lewis in Hotel Maury. The Chief had no reason to believe this person was aware of the details that occurred on the occasion of Mrs. Lewis’ death. The Chief managed to succeed recognizing this person, who opened the doors of the unknown, facilitating his investigations, and, with what was revealed to him, he could proceed to other suspects in the same manner that he had proceeded to reach this person.
Referring to Mrs. Mártin, whose statements are undoubtedly the most interesting, the person told him that this lady lived in Miraflores. The Chief appeared personally in Miraflores, but he did not find her there, nor could anyone give news of her whereabouts because she had never been to that place, at least not that the neighbors knew
That’s where the thread of the inquiry got lost again. Mrs. Mártin, as you may remember, is from Payta. The person who communicated with the Chief could not remember her name. The Chief found it out later by searching the entries of the books where the names of the guests of the Maury hotel are registered. Nobody, after so many months, knew anything about her residence.
Bertrand Lesbats, administrator of the Maury Hotel, reported to the Chief, that the steward who served Mrs. Lewis and had delivered the cup of coffee found in the room was called Miguel Aguirre and had left the hotel. The information that he might have could be very useful for the clarification of the facts, but unfortunately he was not in Lima. After extensive investigations it became known that he had gone to the province of Pallasca. Thus the thread was lost again, or at least delayed.
The untiring diligence of the Chief finally got the desired result. He discovered that Mrs. Mártin occupied room number 36 in the Hotel Francia e Inglaterra. He ordered a police officer go to her lodging and take a statement. The Chief began to understand details of events ignored until then by all the public, with the exception, of course, of the actors themselves who had kept them hidden with the most scrupulous reserve.
Nevertheless, the statements taken by the Chief did not lead to the solution of a crime, and haste in making the known facts public could prevent and warn those who were, in fact, guilty.
Something more concrete, something more fundamental was missing that could serve as a basis for an arrest and, although the information obtained presented a very interesting picture, there was no other presumption or sinister nuance that could prove it but the anonymous letter.
But this letter could encourage one of those passionate dramas of revenge or jealousy against someone that could easily get out of control. So natural were these conjectures that they were made in the first moments that the newspapers referred to the death of Mrs. Lewis and the inquiries of the police, until the names of Bacigalupi, Taylor and Dockendorff were mixed among them.
When the Espaderos warehouse was set on fire on the night of September 17, nothing was yet known about what had happened to Mrs. Lewis, and the police were in the same ignorance as the public. The criminal judge that opened the case for the discovery of that catastrophe’s cause took possession of an iron box and of the papers and objects that it contained.
Among these objects were two glass jars and two letters written in English which had been opened despite being addressed to San Francisco in California, one marked with the number 1 to Mis Kate Mc Andreu and the other with the number 2 for Hayward and Gray. One of these letters contained a small key. Colonel Muñíz asked the Judge of the fire case for those objects.
In those moments when the Chief’s investigations seemed to fade, he recalled that one of the flasks contained a substance that gave off such a pronounced acrid smell of bitter almond made him presume that it contained prussic acid..
One of letters, among other things, said:
Lima, Peru, December 31, 1891.
Dear and sweet friend:
At last I arrived here with tranquility as it relates to the mystery, as much as it is possible for someone who has been as unhappy as I have to enjoy tranquility. My dear friend had gone bankrupt in his business, everything had been lost and he himself was desperate. He had gone to the estate and returned a few days before I had. He was surprised, but I think I deserved the welcoming, although it will be a struggle to fix things. He was absent when the telegram arrived.
Dear friend Kate, how much I miss you, how much I need you, how much I love you. Every thought of mine found the U answer!
God knows that I have done what I could to get the best for everyone, in order to improve a bad business as much as possible.
If the girls are well, the rest does not matter to me. I haven’t heard from him and I can barely wait for the mail to arrive to see how things are going.
…
I can see Louis and he presents himself to me as a vision. I’m glad I came but I’m sorry for my dear friend. He appreciates what he calls the “sacrifice” I’ve made, and I think there’s still some peace left for me.
In a few days I will write to him again and then letters every week.
Goodbye
Most affectionate
Isabella
I wish I were in better health and could then write more interesting letters.”
The letter gave him the impression there is in Mrs. Lewis, in truth, a non-vulgar feeling for a person who dragged her in a fatal way to come to Lima and be close to her, as if she were easily persuaded; but at the same time there is another question: What mystery did Mrs. Isabel speak of?
This letter could not explain the content of the other letter found inside the iron box, which says:
Lima, December 31, 1891.
Gentlemen Hayward and Gray.
My good sirs:
Please sell lots number 36 and 38 on Park Avenue and remit the funds according to arrangement. Sell the lot on Height Street if any reasonable offer is made.
Send registered package to
Isabella Lewis
Under the care of Peter Bacigalupi.
From the tenor of this letter it could be deduced that Mrs. Lewis wanted to raise money, as much as possible, while she was in Lima. The mystery could not refer to this; it had come with her on her return journey on the steamboat trip from Panama to Callao. Was it perhaps locked in her suitcase? Was it the opium referred to by Captain Lewis in his letter of January 20? Where was that suitcase after her death? Bacigalupi had collected all her things and kept them in his possession.
* * *
These letters allowed the Chief to glimpse more clearly the previous facts but not sufficiently. They could not shed light on the methods of the crime. It was then that the Chief decided to do a chemical analysis of the vials found. His suspicion had been on the intentionally-made scratch on the label that covered one of them. Only these fragments of the inscription:
in p Rma
ncisco
M
The results of the analysis showed that one of these vials contained the following substances:
Ethyl alcohol – regular quantity
Distilled water – almost all of it
Hydrochloric acid – remarkable quantity
Hydrogen cyanide – remarkable quantity
Chloroform – remnants
Essence of mint – remnants
Morphine – remnants
This composition is the same as that of a North American medicine known as “chlorodine” (Ed note: chlorodyne is a medication for the treatment of cholera).
The other bottle contained ten cubic centimeters of liquid, and emitted a pronounced cyanic smell of an acid reaction like the liquid in the previous bottle. The municipal chemist discovered two substances: hydrocyanic acid dissolved in distilled water (Ed. Note same a hydrogen cyanide or prussic acid). This circumstance persuaded the analyzer to find the dosage of these components and obtained the following result from the operation:
Hydrocyanic acid -2.595 milligrams- dissolved in one hundred cubic centimeters of water.
This represents the most concentrated composition of all prussic acid solutions ordinarily used in medicine. The liquid was completely transparent and colorless and the chemist inferred that it was prepared and acquired in some drugstore recently. According to the principles of the science about substances of this kind, light decomposes the hydrocyanic acid producing a black precipitate in the bottom of the container, which was not observed.
The Chief understood by this analysis that two toxic substances were involved and that the scratched bottles could be coincidental, but could also be deliberate in order to make the address of the pharmacy that had sold the poison disappear. Although the scratches of the brands had made the letters indicating the origin disappear, it could be read in another different one of the little bottles the words
Pharmacy
San Francisco
The chemical analysis shines a light that begins to illuminate the darkness surrounding this event. Everything leads to the conclusion that there was a poisoning and that the solution will be in the hand that delivered the poison.
The relationship must be sought between the existence of the poisons in the iron box of Bacigalupi, with all the circumstances that surround it, and the event itself. There is, of course, a way to form an a priori judgment (Ed. Note: deduced rather than observed), and it is Bacigalupi himself, who kept all the objects belonging to Mrs. Lewis. But judgment must be reserved, even though appearances are suggestive, because it is not yet known whether those liquids were taken by Mrs. Lewis, or if one of the bottles was the same as the one found in her room.
For the police inquiries, caution must be exercised and hasty conclusions avoided. Even more accurate could be the fact of death itself, about which there was no middle ground in this dilemma. If Mrs. Lewis died of poison, the symptoms could not be hidden from the police doctor who made the examination of the corpse, and the certificate he issued had to express the true cause. If, on the other hand, he recognized an illness, there was no longer any question, and any conclusions of the legal medical certification were useless. Of course, this last conclusion was more logical. Because in order to verify the first one, it would have been necessary that an autopsy had been performed on the corpse, but that was not done by the doctor commissioned, Doctor Matto.
The Chief was beginning to unravel the plot of this mysterious crime. We know how this physician excuses his responsibility, referring to Dr. Agnoli, whose certificate is conceived in these terms:
Lima, January 4, 1892.
The undersigned certifies that on December 31st, Mrs. Isabel
Lewis presented herself, accompanied by Mr. Peter Bacigalupi, who served as interpreter in the consultation, assuming she didn’t understand Spanish. The lady complained of pain to the heart and symptoms of altered cardiac function. The examination resulted in a diagnosis of a probable slight mitral insufficiency. Later, the undersigned learned (from reports of Doctor Matto, a police doctor who examined the body) that the lady had died suddenly. It thus seems probable that the death was the effect of cardiac paralysis caused by this valve injury.
Doctor M. Agnoli.
Thus, in view of a doubtful certificate such as this, a burial license should not have been granted. It was impossible to draw a definite conclusion as to the cause of death. Uncertainty remained. More data needed to be obtained to conclude the case, or decide to hand over all the information to the Crime Judge and make the complaint in legal form.