"LOVE PENSION LIST."

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 236, 2 October 1920, Page 19

"LOVE PENSION LIST."

TELL-TALK CHEQUES. Did Joseph Elwell, the turf man and "whist wizard," the circumstances of whose murder taxed the authorities for a month \n discover, maintain a "love pension list" for women he had entertained and then discarded ? This is the question the New York county prosecutor hopes an examination of the murdered man's cheque payments may I reveal, writes a correspondent of the London "Weekly Dispatch." An investigation so far has shown that TSlwcll sent considerable sums of money at regular intervals to a score or more women. Did these women have some claim on him which may have enabled them to exact this money against his will ? Did his refusal to T>ay more result directly in his death? Or did the fact that he was paying anything to some ■oman cause a jealous husband or n 'brother suitor to shoot the gambler as he sat In the false security of his own home opening his early morning mnil? ! These are the questions the prosecutor hopes to hear answered from the lips of the women whose names appear on Elwell's cheques. Half a dozen banks with which Elwell carried accounts have delivered to the prosecutor cancelled cheques of the dead man. These have supplied the names of a number of women with whom he at one time or another appears to have been on intimate terms. THEORY OF THREATS. The belief Is that Elwell maintained * "love pension list," this being based on the story of Mrs. Josephine Wilmerding, the divorced wife of Mr. Cuthbert M. Wllmer'dlng, who was prominent in the social world that knew Elwell, and who has been summoned by the prosecutor to give evidence. "The women Elwell was Interested in were many," she said, "but one thins should be said in his favour. Joe EJwell i did not treat the women with whom he had his affairs badly. Nevertheless Judge Swarm, the prosecutor, feels he would be better satisfied after talking with these women. He wants an explanation as to how they came to receive Many of these payments, It is said, were made when Elwell's bank balances were exceptionally low, when he had been known Ito have lost considerable sums on horse rae^s. Regardless of this, however, the pa>ments to "love pensioners" appear to have been made at regular intervals, which led to the theory that Elwell was paying 'under a threat rather than in compliance I with a peculiar code of honour. I Elwell's methods of fascinating the , women he admired (the prosecutor has I been told) reflect a carefully worked-out system. Whenever lie saw a woman whose (■barms appealed to him it was his custom I apparently to hold himself aloof without 'even seeking an introduction. But he was ; careful to tell her friends about his ad- : mlratioD. I These compliments in the circles Elwell frequented eventually found their way back until the woman In question herself sought an introduction to the " whist king."