COLLETT-DOBSON COMPANY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 260, 9 November 1897, Page 5

COLLETT-DOBSON COMPANY.

At the Opera House to-night the ColwtTtobson Company will produce,a sen'Sdrama entitled « The Wellesley9tr aiurder."- Briefly the plot may L Hted as follows :— Wilfred Hilton, an Kopt in the New Zealand Shipping ComV isengaoed to Miss Nellie Cautley, X Auckland lady whose parents reside at the North Shore. She is also loved by nne Arthur Palmer, a most unmitigated scoundrel, who in order to try and break ff the engagement writes to England and induces a lady named Lola Navarro, who is in his power, to come to this country and represent herself as Hilton's wife. Tjjg scheme is successful at first and Hilton is forbidden Mr Cautley's house, but Palmer's plans are frustrated by the lady herself becoming enamoured of Hilton and betraying palmer's villainy. She meets Hilton secretly at the Public Library and agrees to confess all openly, but Palmer overhearing this in a moment of passion murders her, durinf what time Hilton has left her to go to Queen-stree.t to call a cab. On his return he finds her murdered ; but is himself accused of the crime, and he, being the only person who could have any motive apparently for her removal, is on circumstantial evidence condemned to death. Through the instrumentality of a ne'er-do-well, Jack Shearer, he, however, escapes from Mount Eden gaol, and after a series of hail-breadth escapes is concealed in Cautley's house. Jack Shearer is in the meantime courting a young housemaid named Cherry and to this girl's sister Palmer is secretly married. By a coincidence she saw Palmer commit tlie murder and urged by Shearer tells all she knows at the moment when Hilton is recaptured.