Editing Harry Crosby (section)

===Scandal follows===
The next day, the headlines revealed all: ''Tragedy and Disgrace.'' There was no suicide note, and newspapers ran sensational articles for many days about the murder or suicide pact—they could not decide which.<ref name=wolff/> ''The New York Times'' front page blared, "COUPLE SHOT DEAD IN ARTISTS' HOTEL; Suicide Compact Is Indicated Between Henry Grew Crosby and Harvard Man's Wife. BUT MOTIVE IS UNKNOWN. He Was Socially Prominent in Boston—Bodies Found in Friend's Suite."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1929/12/11/archives/couple-shot-dead-in-artists-hotel-suicide-compact-is-indicated.html?sq=harry%2520crosby&scp=7&st=cse|title=COUPLE SHOT DEAD IN ARTISTS' HOTEL; Suicide Compact Is Indicated Between Henry Grew Crosby and Harvard Man's Wife. BUT MOTIVE IS UNKNOWN He Was Socially Prominent in Boston--Bodies Found in Friend's Suite.|pages=1|access-date=February 14, 2023|newspaper=The New York Times|url-status=live|date=December 11, 1929|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605134243/http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60613FF3F5D117A93C3A81789D95F4D8285F9&scp=7&sq=harry%20crosby&st=cse|archive-date=5 June 2011}}</ref> The New York newspapers decided it was a murder-suicide.<ref name=Slosberg/>

Gretchen Powell had lunch with Crosby the day of his death. Her memory of the luncheon supported the notion that Josephine was one of Crosby's many passing fancies. She related that Crosby had told her, "the Rotch girl was pestering him; he was exasperated; she had threatened to kill herself in the lobby of the Savoy-Plaza if he didn't meet her at once."<ref name=wolff/>{{rp|11}}

The deaths polarized the several prominent families affected. The Rotch family considered Josephine's death to be murder. Josephine's erstwhile husband Albert Bigelow blamed Crosby for "seducing his wife and murdering her because he couldn't have her."<ref name=Slosberg/>

Crosby's poetry possibly gave the best clue to his motives. Death was "the hand that opens the door to our cage the home we instinctively fly to."<ref name=wolff/>{{rp|12}} His death mortified proper society. Crosby's biographer Geoffrey Wolff wrote, "He had meant to do it; it was no mistake; it was not a joke. If anything of Harry Crosby commands respect, perhaps even awe, it was the unswerving character of his intention." Crosby's death, given the macabre circumstances under which it occurred, scandalized Boston's Back Bay society.<ref name="poem" />