Page G
THE CHINA MAIL,
SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 1956.
A KILLER WALKS AMONG YOU!
MURDER AMONG THE TOMBSTONES
I
N the bedroom of the
nurses' hostel
11
short, prim - looking woman of 40 stared
into a speckling mirror.
"You're getting old," she murmured. "You begun to live yet."
haven't
She snatched
desh- off her coloured spectacles and smooth- ed at the web of wrinkles round An- her eyes. With desperate gera, she tried to curl the wisps of greying hair.
Suddenly, ale turned and olared beyond the window pane where spring was pupling all the trees.
"They say he begins at 40," she said slowly. "I'll start liv. ing today it it kills me"
Olive Bennet might just as well have signed her death Wartani,
That day's decision led surely to her death one April night five years inter on the anniver
deuth. of Shakespeare's sary
the tombs where Among the
poel lies buried.
A 'REGULAR'
EVERY year, the sedate, half-
timbered life of Stratford- on Avon moves slowly to the climax
The uf
Shakespeare Festival
The day had broken One that Friday, April 23. 1954-ku 338th anniversary of Stratford's greatest citizen.
Fifteen thousand people had crammed into the town. Now darkness had fallen. The red. blue. and yellow fairy lights glimmered on the River Avoti.
<ume
In the town the sidewalks overflowed. From The gally lighted Red Horse Hotel the noise of conversation and laughter. In the middle of this gatoly crisis approached unseen for one in the saloon bar-the last crisis of death.
The time was 8.15.
She rat in a corner by the windowy. Most evenings for the last six weeks she had sat there quietly, almost sombrely
A Startling Real Life Story
By VALENTINE DYALL
She wore an old brown tweed coat and an old-fashioned felt hat pulled down to hide her grey hairs.
She sipped primly, but quick- ly, at
brown sherry a awert Often she carried the curved Klans emply to the bar
All The Lime she pulcel quickly at a chain of cigarettes, like
Icurning to amoke.
Someone
HESITATED
THE drinkers were looking at ΤΗΣ
the clock now--the clock which moved nlowly downrds 10. "Time, gentlemen, please." With laughter and last-minute fun the bar emptied,
The barnuld noticed that the woman had not moved Usually she left at the stroke of 10.
This night she hesitated as if she realised dimly what awaited her outside. Then, getting slow ly to her teet, she passed <! last into the night beyond. The time was 1010 p.m.
Later her dumpy little figure Wis scen standing alone by the white Georgian columns of the Red Horse Hotel-for the lust time. The time was 11.45
Few remained on the streets Three hundred yards down river the spired Holy Trinity Church slood in near darkness,
The fairy lights shone over The quiet river and silhouetted The dark yew trees of the churebyard
ww
A tired waiter hesitated.
a couple standing churchyard locked embrace.
in
He
In the u close
of
bruising
and drum gross helpless feet on the sword. And he was in the panting grip
of murder. Mrhad joined the must terrible company society
knows.
At that moment, the lights in the town went out.
In the darkness there was a scrunching sound as if two life- less fret were dragged UCTOS the gravel poth. Then an echo- ing splash... n pause..a muttered curse and a moment's groaning exertion, followed by a dull thud and another splash. church
Silence fell in the yard, except for the moun of the weir below,
:
A freshening wind rippled the river. The body bumped gently against the stone wall. rolled slightly, and white bands. tightly clamped across the breakt, could be seen beneath the water. Olive Bennet had paid the price of her late-found "life."
The clocks of Stratford hoď struck 12.30. The church- darkness. yard was filled with It was also filled with intent, burly figures. Two stood apart.
Detective They were
Super-
trom Interdent John Capstick, Scotland Yard, and Detective Superintendent Spooner, head of the Warwickshire County CID.
MACABRE PLAY
THEY
HEY wore watching a macabro play. Two figures were embracing. They were a police- man and a local typist who had volunteered to weur the dead woman's clothes for this grisly at play.
By the side of the Avon Holy Trinity Church, George Anderson, the gardener, leaned For the big man in the bowler easily on his turf-cutter, Pre- hat they
were Oliver Bennet sently his eye followed a fuf
and the man he wanted--the of swan's down floating towards murderer, still unknown after the river bank. Then he saw it, Ave days of intensive search. half-submerged under the to stone wall at the churchyard.
end of the
A dead sheep" An old suck? Suddenly, he felt cold in the warm sun It was a body.
IN THE RIVER
JE ran to the end of the stone wall. He saw the sodden tweed coal and something under the water which looked like a matted head. Nearby floated on old felt hat,
As he ran towards the tele- phone box he paused. Lying on the grass between two ranks of Tombstones lay a brown shoc, a pair of flesh-coloured spectacles, i denture plate, and one brown pigskin glove. Then he noticed that a tombstone was missing.
af He ran on. The lettering the missing tombstone--and he knew them all-came to his mind: all
"Heigh-ho, that's life,"
The wailer. 12:30a.m.
the
time
sald
was
hud
Only one man rasping
Kis
heard the long. the scuffe of
In the churchyard,
"In many of Edward
been quiet as the torahstones. Adams. who died on July 15,
1875. aged 63-In the midst life we are in death."
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of
have been seen "Could they from the roid?" Capstick won- dered.
The mock-murder
proceeded. ifeels scraped on the gravel. The detective almost heard the splash.
"What of the tumbalone? Was it tied to the body to weigh it down? No...'
The g man in the bowler
...
hat saw the whole scene now. The murderer peering into the river: the white accusing face and ana clasped hands
still Беш the floating. He seemed to see це murderer wrench at the tomb- stone. throw 11 with mad violence ht the floating face. trying to sink it for ever trom human sight. that man now?
HER
DE
Where
WAS
Port
A Couple Was Seen Embracing In The Graveyard...
One of the
World's Strangest
Stories
By Mollie McGee
Charlie Miller's Wanton Will
will of
UST before Christmas, clause that expressed his well-
for contempt citizens 1926,
family uf known
limitation Toronto found, them- As time passed the kindly seves entrants-willy nilly editor of the Telegrum would -in a "Stork Derby" or take him to task. "That joke "Baby
Marathon"
yours might hold good, in-
Charlie, if you suddenly drop- augurated by a fantastic dead."
did. And will. After other prepos-
it was the Toronto Sabbath that killed terous legacies, about a million dollars had been left him. On Sunday lifts did
work. Charlie Millar, impatient for the woman who gave to get to his office, ran up three birth to most children fights of statis. A few minutes
within Toronto city limits later he was dead. during the ensuing ten
years.
Charles Millar aged 73 bacho- lor Lawyer and sportsman, who made the will, died on Novein- ber 1 of that year.
not
Hopes that a more “sensible" document might be hidden dway proved vain. The ten cinuses of The Million Dollar Millar Wil" were made public.
dealt
The first four clauses with small, personal bequests.
With clause five the fun He had como to town one autumn day in the early 1870s really started. To the Hon, W. Raney, former Attorney- Then
01 the matron
the Had she ani the murderer and
bt registered
Victoria E. Monroe Devis
Maternity walked by the high brick wall College. Methodist affiliation of General, and to Rev. Samuel D. former head of the one. Tiddingion, where Olive of Southern Lane? Or had they Toronto University. His plous, Methodist Church, both sworn
a mid- столич Clopton
hard-used little Bridge Bonnet had worked as wife: "Good worker
cheer- walked
the water determined her only son should enemies ful religious, a Bible and meadows first? If so, why be a minister,
said she
Toronto-bubbling with civic tracts by her bed
walk so far? For a mile there
obstre- had a boy friend"
would have been darkness and pride-was a growing. solitude enough for murder, perous down, Juli of political rivalry, religious bigotry and temperance zeal.
Boy friend? That waa the trouble. There were so many
erosis
and
Somebody inst huve seen them. Tile detective strode to that
the hnd
(loor and
began Issuing ordera....
Few had guessed what gruff, dour little woman got up to late at night. No one would have thought such an un- attractive WOMAN could And lovers.
MANY MEN
sighed and THE detective
read on. Taxi drivers and policemen nad seen her talking to men who hnd Arunk 100 much to be fussy.
Her little figure had been noticed walling #t Clopton Bridge. Some had heard her murmur to passing men: "Help please, me across the bridge, My sight is falling." And at the
The Inquiries which followed havo nover Leen equalled in police annals.
Оп two
who was
mother
was
of racing and betting. he left 1,500 dollar shares
In
Woodbine Jockey Club!
Famous Clause The sixth clauso bequeathed share each in another
ono
minister
Jockey club to every of a Christian Church in ctr- tain towns.
In was
Charlie Millar, fresh from the farm, had little use for any of t. He hated domination, loathed cant.
His particular confdant the son of a prominent Protes
handsome student tant, a rich,
Charlie, reading law. occasions Bridge miscast as a minister, decided to Surect, Strafford, was cordoned do llkowise. He paid for his law person shown a tuition with stud fees he earn- off and every pleture of Olive Bennet. "Have led with an old stallion he had doal. When he you
this woman?" they acquired in were asked.
passed with honours and found ail he could get was a three- dollar-a-week law Job he put on his Sunday suit and went to see the manager of the Queen's Hotel.
Scen
WIDE SEARCH
DOOR to door inquiry
was
Gambler at Heart
other end of the bridge, the D. trickle, while police probed can't afford to live here but I
strange
Uitle gure and the man who had helped her would sometimes
off. still to- wall into the dark water- meadows beside the road.
gethor, BIG SECRET
Superintendent ETECTIVE
John Capstick sat in the Stratford-on-Avon Police Sta tion turning the leaves of cheap diary.
Before him lay the poor of Olive Bennet's Ufe. secrets In her diary. which had been dredged from the River Avon, were the numes of many men.
Clues to the murderer were slender. There
tall, Live was broad man with bushy hair. He had bought a return ticket in Stratford at Shrubb Hill, Wor- oester. Olive Bennet had once worked there. Then there wis the man called "Harry." He had
made at every home in Strat-
"I want to make a deal with ford. The tock gates were closed and the River Avon reduced to you," he announced bluntly. "I afford to live elsewhere. can't mud by the churchyard
you'll trust me till I can far As Inquiries went
pay you, I'll keep a room hore Riviera and for the rest of my life
the
wall abroad America.
FR
the
Yot
when the inquest held three months later one
verdict could be returned "Murder
inst
a person ur persons unknown."
1
Clause seven gave one share huge Catholic-owned brewery to evory Protestant minister in Toronto,
three
were
Protestant milliner-
The wanton will of Charlie Millar bequeathed his Jamaica winter home jointly, to prominent lawyers who
Then not on speaking terine. sed little clause only old frienda understood left 100 dollars for Mosses to be said for the soul
hto handsome of rival for the little "because he would need them!" But the berth clause was the most famous, or infamous... After ten years the residue was to go to the mother who han, since my death, givén birth in Toronto to the greatest mum- ber of children as shown by the Registrations under Statistics Act."
Distant relatives of whom Charlie Millar had never heard
Manager McGaw a gambler was at heart finally stuck out his only hand. "It's a deal” he said.
In those days anyone
who was Anyone in Canada bassed Ithrough the old Queen's-anan- Olive Bennet lies burled in clers, speculators, sportsmen. Alveston churchyard three miles Charile, as much a fixture from Stratford. Police inquiries the Turkey carpet and the ribald ghost, haunted
mahogany panelling, picked up are still going on, but the man quite a lot of business. who killed her is still getting
ON
the Vital
fought the will. It came up be- fore the Ontario Legislature. Psychiatrists who called in bit Charlie's sane, sardonic mile still lingered in the minds of the judges and the lawyers, and won him his lost case.
Then his memory, like 矗 for ton smugly respectable
written from Carmarthen to
Probably he was happler then city in which he had lived and
died. her. There away with murder. He may be than at any other time in his
Reporters kept daily vigil at make a date with was a sailor with a scar on his
he had the Records Office. One or two security hand He too had known Olive
and he had a girl shameless mammas armounced
French Catholic that they Bennet, But
pretty little 50 had
many
wero out to win; milliner, But he grew suspicious dozens more tried to keep their more....
out returned from a short trip
names out of print after, a handsome
"happy event." in the
He reached for a pile of state- ments, The respectable couple from Edinburgh-Bennet's father and mother-had said: “A good The detective frowned. Why
only one giri
had no one boy friend we told her to give him walking from the Red Horse to
the church?
up
...
seen this women
recating this now,
NEXT
(COPYRIGHT)
SATURDAY: The
life.
He had friends,
Woman Who Was Brutally of town to find his
Murdared AN Her
Firesido.
A NEW FOOL-PROOF
SLIMMING PILL
By CHAPMAN PINCHER
law student friend Own milliner's room.
years
the
Tense Years
At last the ten tense years
From then on (to quote a close friend of Charlie Millar's) ended. After considerable de- ("I wouldn't say he became $
woman hator,
but
Mr Justice Middleton definitely that clause not against public
ho incor- bating porated women into his bellef settled
everyone had a price and ion was he never cared to spend much and that reproduction of the
that
money."
home
at Balmy Beach.
London The new drug la called But the Government considersing, racing, gambling,
N entirely new kind of phenylmethyl- letrahydro- this
A slimming tablet, be oxazine hydrochloride,
worth while 40
politicni repercussions like those Not Impressed
lieved to be so safe that It was first tested by a team which followed the U.S. test, even people with weak led by Dr M. Rostalski at a when Japanese 4shermen were
laboratory near Mainz. It is showered with radioactive dust. hearta can take it, is being
being marketed in Britain by prescribed by doctors under of tho leading
A search for a suitable island the Health Service.
pharmaceutical firms.
one
U.S.
ac-
#
policy. "I cannot," ho ruled,
human race 19 morals."
contrary to
Four women-each with nine children born within the time limit-received 175,000 dollars
Toronto wpa spreading up wards (Arst skyscraper 1910) and out. Lawyer Millar quired a sizablo real-estate development, houzecs and
But each. They were Mirs Timleck, Toronto, growing bigger, grew Mrs Nagle, wife of an unem wife of a waterworks employer. worthier. Tub-thumping
Mrs Smith, formers were out to stop drinicployed carpenter;
a freman; also all whose husband was
and Mrs Maclean, wife of a avoid amusement on the Sabbath,
Highways Department clerk.
women - Mrs. Pearl Clarke (who had dve children Charlle Miller was not im- by her husband, five after she pressed. While his mother left him) and Mrs Kenny (who placidly read her Bible upstairs trad eleven; several unregister he invited friendly horse- ed)-were each given 12,500 breeders. track owners and dollars, voted by the winners where the huge explosion could their kind to play poker and to avoid further litigation. be safely staged has failed. The drink and argue all day Sun-
When it was all over, Bachelor A representative of the firm Australian Government has for-day in his living-room.
Millar had more
then said: "Hospital
have bidden
the use of the Monte Anything but retiring when healthy, legitimate heirs. satisfied our medical advisors Bello or Woomera ranges for his purse was hit, Charlie Muling that the drug is safe enough to the purpose.
developed a particular hatred molive, at least so far as clause
ten was concerned, bo sold
OVET the chemist's Large numbers of the tablets counter, though we recommend
for a sewage disposal plant the honest one. He bad often re- Hope that the U.S. Govern city fathers had set on are already being prescribed. that it should be taken under a ment will lend
They contain a drug that ects doctor's supervision.”
not foolishly ground at. Entwetok Atoll in the affected the value of his Balmy spent," and certainly Mesdames their testing doorstep. It stank, he said, and marked to his cronies, "Money
hard-earned is on the "appestat"--the appetite-
has been almost Beach lots and houses. control centre in the brain--but
Timieck, Nagle, Smith and Mec¬ "Sanctimonious hypocrites!"
lean did not earn their for have no other mental effects,
ho would mutter, "paying good tubes easily. family doctors have been told.
city money for improvements And the money was Druga
PLAN to explode Britain's regular shipping routes in the tha to pravkusly used
people buying foolishly prevent control appetite,
also acted as A bomb high in the air over area of the Southern Indian homes and having families, for families bought houses, Invest "pep pil
raised the blood the icy sea between Australia Ocean being considered. The pressure.
take place probably | ang them into cramped apa red in farms, prospered and were
ments where there's no room to Two tablets daily of the new sidered by the Defence Chiefs, between April and December raise children. This town oceds happy. So Charlle Millar provod drug are sold to be enough to
his point-and won his groentent people,... ll bench ... them!". ennine regular loss of weight by
gamble. We And he added another cinuse to "breaking the overeating
(COPYRIGHT) a very remarkable will habit,"
It was discovered by German scientists and quietly introduced to British doctors about six weeks ago.
trinis
H-BOMB SITE
Pacille
abandoned.
There аге no islands
and the Antaretle is being con- test would
after the whaling
(COPYRIGHT)
Such П test would create enormous technical dificulties for left the area. mensuring the weapon's power.
MANDRAKE THE MACICIAN :
THE CLAY CAMEL CAN'T BE FAR AHEAD OF ME --HE TOOK OFF THIS COAT
WHY!
| Buff)-MANDRAKE'S-GAINING
"ON ME** CAN HEAR HIS FOOTSTEPS BEHIND ME--
ALL I NEED IS ANOTHER MINUTE PUES)--TO FINISH THE CHANGE
30
floots have
By Lou Falk and Phil Davis
--AND HIS HAT HE'S NOT EAR AHEAD, WHAT'S HE UPTO Y
his
spent.
TALKÉ
ABOUT MAGI
50
WAS, BI
..not
The winning
Admir