On trial for the murder of his wife Belle, recalls their life in north London: her affairs with other men, the way she treated him little better than a servant, their reconciliations, her insistent and abhorrent sexual claims on him. At the same time Crippen remembers his love affair with his typist, Ethel Le Neve, which develops as Belle's drunkenness and hysteria worsen. Offering her one of his assorted quack remedies, Crippen later finds Belle dead. Panicked, he dismembers her body and buries her in the basement of their house before setting sail to the continent with his lover. DR. CRIPPEN begs the question Britain has been asking for decades: was Belle's death murder, or a horrible accident?