OCTOBER 11, 1913
There was something in the water.
Crew members of the Dutch pilot steamer Coertzen approached the object that had caught their attention. There, near the mouth of the Scheldt River along the eastern edge of the English Channel, in the rippling black, the men on the small vessel realized what they’d seen.
It was a body.
Though the decomposition was ghastly, the sailors noticed the fine quality of the clothing that still wrapped the body. Pulling the remains alongside the boat, they plucked four items from the pockets of the deceased before releasing the rotting corpse back into the waves: a coin purse, a penknife, an eyeglass case, and an enameled pillbox. The steamer then made its scheduled call to the Dutch port city of Vlissingen, where the crew reported the discovery and turned over the items.
Harbor officials immediately wondered if the report from the could be connected to the missing person case that had been in the headlines of newspapers in every major city in Europe and America. Officials sent word to the missing man’s son, who arrived in Vlissingen from
