WOMAN GAMBLER'S END.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 218, 13 September 1924, Page 24

WOMAN GAMBLER'S END.

SEQUEL TO MONTE CARLO LOSSES. VERONAL DEATH ON CLIFF. Wealth, a pleasant life in a Thames Valley village, travel, marriage, the gaming tables of Monte Carlo, poverty, and death sketch briefly the life story of a Mrs. liCvcson-Browne, who was found dying from the effects of veronaljioisoning on tho cliffs at Budleigh Salterton, Devonshire. After exhaustive inquiries by the police, her history was disclosed. When tho woman, elderly and shabbily dressed, was found on the cliffs there was nothing to indicate her identity. Then the police discovered a scrap of paper with the address "Blenheim, St. Margaret's." Upon that they were able to build up the story of the woman, who was found to be a relative of a peer. She was the widow of Mr. J. G. Browne, of Bombay, but at St. Margaret's, near Twickenham, she was better known as Miss C A. Lermlttc, the niece of a Mrs. Jennings, who died thirty yoars ago and left her all her fortune. Mrs. Jennings lived at Blenheim, St Margaret's, a large house standing in its own grounds not far from the Btali-n, and' Miss Lermitte, then an orphan of about 10, went to live there in the early '70s. Brief Wedded Life. She spent a-merry girlhood there and developed into an attractive woman. Then Mrs. Jennings died. There was no shortage of money, but Miss Lermitte seemed to grow tired of entertaining. About this time people associated with her noticed that she was strange at times, "just," said one who knew her intimately, "as if she had been taking drugs or drinking heavily. * "She joined a women's club in London, and spent a lot of her time there, sleeping at Blenheim only two or three nights a week. About five years ago she decided to travel and went out to India. She came back after about eighteen months as Mrs. Leveson-Browne, and told mc she had married in Bombay, but that her husband bad died after six mouths;. "She decided to sell Blenheim, and when she found a purchaser she brought three large trunks to mc and asked mc to take care of them while she went abroad. "I Am Ruined." "About five months _ago she came back to St. Margaret's and told mc: 'I am ruined. I want to get one or two things out of my boxes, so that I can raise money." She took some things away, including oldfashioned jewellery, which I understood were heirlooms she i had received from her great-aunt, a peeress. She also borrowed money, promising to repay it "A little later she turned up again more distressed than ever, and decided to sell her last lot of shares. These realised abont £60. She returned the money she had borrowed, and then said she was going away to Folkestone. The next I heard was that she was found dying in Devonshire."

A coroner's jury found that Mrs. Leve-son-Browne died from an overdose of -veronal, and returned a verdict accordingly.