DEAD BARONESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 102, 2 May 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

DEAD BARONESS.

POISON DRAMA IN CHINA. Sir Frederick Whyte, Adviser to the Nanking Government, ex-President of the Indian Legislative Assembly, and former Liberal M.P. for Perth, was mentioned prominently in Shanghai newspapers in connection with a remarkable tragedy briefly reported by cable. The Baroness Paulette de Pidoll, wife of Baron Charles de Pidoll, of Luxembourg, died in the Country Hospital, Shanghai, and at the inquest on the following day a verdict was returned of suicide by veronal poisoning. Her death was reported at the time in the following telegram from the Shanghai correspondent of the British United Press: —"A love tragedy is believed to lie behind the suicide of the Baroness Paulette de Pidoll, wife of the China representative of the Comptoir Metallurgique Luxembourgeois. While returning from Japan in the liner Nagasaki Maru the Baroness is reported to have taken poison, and she was rushed to hospital in a dying condition as soon as the liner docked. Baron Charles de Pidoll, husband of the dead woman, stated that he was estranged from his wife since last October." According to lteuter, the Baroness had been visiting Japan on a sight-seeing tour. In the Shanghai newspapers, her death is described as "the climax of Shanghai's greatest love triangle." Baron de Pidoll has been in China since 1929, and the Whytes and the de Pidolls were on terms of the greatest friendship until the estrangement took place between the Baron and the Baroness. This was on October 12 last. _ . The Baroness went to Japan, and it is stated that Sir Frederick Whyte, who also went to Japan, attempted to effect a reconciliation. He returned to Shanghai by the Nagasaki Maru, as the Baroness did, and when the vessel docked he summoned a physician, after which the Bai-oness was removed to the Country Hospital. ' Sir Frederick declined to make any statement for publication. Lady Whyte at the time was in San Francisco, whither she had gone in order.to arrange for her son's education, and it was believed that she was remaining there' to await Sir Frederick.