"TARZAN" MALTBY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 59, 10 March 1923, Page 19

"TARZAN" MALTBY.

DEVOID OF FINER. FEELINGS. POWER OVER WOMEN. Queer facta came to light about Cecil Maltby, who was Judged hy a coroner's Jury to have killed Mrs. Mlddleton and then committed suicide In what became known as the "barricaded house," Regents Park. A correspondent of a London paper said he heard in more than one of Maltby s haunts stories of drinking, bragging, and quarrelsomeness. In one well-known licensed house In Marylebone Maltby went by the nickname cf "Red Tarzan." "That his nature was such that few people could tolerate him for long Is borne out by the fact that he was asked to resign from the Marylebone Bifle Club, In which club he had become a crack rifle shot," says the correspondent. " First and last, opinion on Cecil Maltby was unanimous. He seems to have been a man devoid of the finer feelings ; a man to whom life was but an unlimited opportunity for the gratification of •his baser passions. "What was the secret of his power over women I do not pretend to know. But that he had a fascination for the other sex in no way destroys the plcturo of him as a man which I have endeavoured to draw from the several sources at my command. "Many criminals have possessed this secret. The French murderer, Landru, a man, like Maltby, without physical attractions, moulded woman after woman to Ms evil will; Crlppen, an Insignificant creature, without a single physical grace, possessed a like subtle power; George Smith, the fiend incarnate, who murdered his wives In their baths, was a coarse-mouthed Illiterate brute. "To this list of men, who had certain characteristics In common—lust, brutality, and vanity—must be added the name of Cecil Maltby. He lived as he died—lgnobly, horribly. "Sho was always out for s good time," said one who knew Mrs. Mlddleton daring her stay at West Hampstead, "and 1 fancy she found life in the quiet surroundings of Yale Court Just a trifle too dull for her taste." "We knew very little about her," said a lady who occupies a flat In the same court some doors away. "Still." the lady said, "we couldn't help noticing the motor car which came for her pretty ofen, and that she seemed to be pleased by what looked like a Joy-ride." "Mrs. Mlddleton was a very attractive woman," said another neighbour, "especially for a woman of thirty-eight. She had grey eyes set In a rounded face, framed with brown hair. Her figure was full and rounded, but well-proportioned to her height, which was a little above the average. "When Mrs. Mlddleton decided to quit she said she couldn't endure tbe dull life there any longer. She had been going out a good deal both In the day and at night to dinners at hotels and the theatre afterwards, and It was not a surprise to us when she made np 4ier mind to move. "She let the flat as It stood, nicely furnished, and came afterwards at intervals just to look In, but we had no Idea where she was living or that she was stayingwith anybody.*'" Mrs. Mlddleton, It waa added, waa th* last woman In the world who would he likely to take her own life. , "As for her taking np with any man, that also seemed extremely nnllkely—at least, that was the conclusion we came to after seeing how happy she waa whenever her husband came homo from a voyage. The pair never had a wrong word while they were in the flat at Yale Court, seeming always to be on the best of terms."