patent medicine company, the Sovereign Remedy Co., on nearby Newman Street. At about this time, he and Cora moved back to Bloomsbury, this time to Store Street, where a century earlier Mary Wollstonecraft had lived. The Crippens’ new apartment was only half a block away from their old home on South Crescent and a brief walk to Crippen’s new office.
Crippen learned to his displeasure that while he was in America Cora had begun singing again, at “smoking concerts for payment.” She told him, moreover, that she intended to try once more to establish herself as a variety performer and had adopted a new stage name, Belle Elmore. And she had become even more ill tempered. “She was always finding fault with me,” he complained, “and every night she took some opportunity of quarrelling with me, so that we went to bed in rather a temper with each other. A little later on, after I found that this continued and she apparently did not wish to be familiar with me, I asked her what the matter was.”
And Cora—now Belle—told him. She revealed that during her husband’s absence she had met a man named Bruce Miller and, Crippen said, “that this man visited her, had taken her about, and was very fond of her, and also she was fond of him.”
T HE G ERMAN S PY
K AISER W ILHELM II HAD INDEED taken notice of Marconi’s achievements. He long had resented Britain’s self-proclaimed superiority, despite the fact that he himself happened to be a nephew of Edward, the Prince of Wales, who would succeed Queen Victoria upon her death. He made no secret of his intention to build Germany into an imperial power and to hone his army and navy with the latest advances in science, including, if merited, wireless communication.
In the midst of a new series of tests at Salisbury Plain, during which Marconi set a new distance record of 6.8 miles, a German named Gilbert Kapp wrote to Preece to ask a favor. He was doing so, he stated, on behalf of a friend, whom he identified as “Privy Councillor Slaby.” This was Adolf Slaby, a professor in Berlin’s Technical High School. Kapp described him as “the private scientific adviser to the Emperor,” and wrote: “Any new invention or discovery interests the Emperor and he always asks Slaby to explain it [to] him. Lately the Emperor has read of your and Marconi’s experiments…and he wants Slaby to report on this invention.”
Kapp had two questions:
“1) Is there anything in Marconi’s invention?
“2) If yes, could you arrange for Slaby and myself to see the apparatus and witness experiments if we come over to London toward the end of next week?”
He added: “Please treat this letter as confidential and say nothing to Marconi about the Emperor.”
Even though by now Marconi’s fear of prying eyes was more acute than ever, Preece invited Slaby to come and observe a round of experiments set for mid-May 1897, during which Marconi would attempt for the first time to send signals across a body of water.
I N THE MEANTIME M ARCONI contemplated a surprise of his own, for Preece.
Until now Marconi had considered that a contract with the post office might be the best way to profit from his invention and at the same time gain the resources to develop it into a practical means of telegraphy. But ever aware of each moment lost, Marconi had grown uneasy about the pace at which the post office made decisions. He told his father, “As far as the Government is concerned, I do not believe that they will decide very soon whether to acquire my rights or not. I also believe that they will not pay a great deal for them.”
In the wake of Preece’s lectures, investors had begun approaching Marconi with offers. Two Americans offered £10,000—equivalent to just over $1 million today—for his United States patent. Marconi evaluated this and other early proposals with the cold acuity of a lawyer and found none compelling enough to accept. In April, however, his cousin Henry Jameson Davis came
Crippen learned to his displeasure that while he was in America Cora had begun singing again, at “smoking concerts for payment.” She told him, moreover, that she intended to try once more to establish herself as a variety performer and had adopted a new stage name, Belle Elmore. And she had become even more ill tempered. “She was always finding fault with me,” he complained, “and every night she took some opportunity of quarrelling with me, so that we went to bed in rather a temper with each other. A little later on, after I found that this continued and she apparently did not wish to be familiar with me, I asked her what the matter was.”
And Cora—now Belle—told him. She revealed that during her husband’s absence she had met a man named Bruce Miller and, Crippen said, “that this man visited her, had taken her about, and was very fond of her, and also she was fond of him.”
T HE G ERMAN S PY
K AISER W ILHELM II HAD INDEED taken notice of Marconi’s achievements. He long had resented Britain’s self-proclaimed superiority, despite the fact that he himself happened to be a nephew of Edward, the Prince of Wales, who would succeed Queen Victoria upon her death. He made no secret of his intention to build Germany into an imperial power and to hone his army and navy with the latest advances in science, including, if merited, wireless communication.
In the midst of a new series of tests at Salisbury Plain, during which Marconi set a new distance record of 6.8 miles, a German named Gilbert Kapp wrote to Preece to ask a favor. He was doing so, he stated, on behalf of a friend, whom he identified as “Privy Councillor Slaby.” This was Adolf Slaby, a professor in Berlin’s Technical High School. Kapp described him as “the private scientific adviser to the Emperor,” and wrote: “Any new invention or discovery interests the Emperor and he always asks Slaby to explain it [to] him. Lately the Emperor has read of your and Marconi’s experiments…and he wants Slaby to report on this invention.”
Kapp had two questions:
“1) Is there anything in Marconi’s invention?
“2) If yes, could you arrange for Slaby and myself to see the apparatus and witness experiments if we come over to London toward the end of next week?”
He added: “Please treat this letter as confidential and say nothing to Marconi about the Emperor.”
Even though by now Marconi’s fear of prying eyes was more acute than ever, Preece invited Slaby to come and observe a round of experiments set for mid-May 1897, during which Marconi would attempt for the first time to send signals across a body of water.
I N THE MEANTIME M ARCONI contemplated a surprise of his own, for Preece.
Until now Marconi had considered that a contract with the post office might be the best way to profit from his invention and at the same time gain the resources to develop it into a practical means of telegraphy. But ever aware of each moment lost, Marconi had grown uneasy about the pace at which the post office made decisions. He told his father, “As far as the Government is concerned, I do not believe that they will decide very soon whether to acquire my rights or not. I also believe that they will not pay a great deal for them.”
In the wake of Preece’s lectures, investors had begun approaching Marconi with offers. Two Americans offered £10,000—equivalent to just over $1 million today—for his United States patent. Marconi evaluated this and other early proposals with the cold acuity of a lawyer and found none compelling enough to accept. In April, however, his cousin Henry Jameson Davis came
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