HID UNDER BED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 263, 5 November 1937, Page 8

HID UNDER BED.

LATER FOUND SHOT. REJECTED SWEETHEART. ALL HIS PLEAS IN VAIN. Gertie Woodliam and Charles Foster used to be sweethearts. They walked the lanes of Clavering (Essex) together. They were happy. Two years ago Gertie, then 23 and fond of gaiety, told Charles, 31, handsome but serious, that she could not marry him. From that moment Charles was a changed young man. He became moody. All his pleas to Gertie were in

vain. While hi* three brothers, prosperous flavoring farmers, finished their work one night, Charles washed and shaved and dressed with care. He walked across the fields to the home of Mrs. Florence Custersen, who was on holiday. Gertie had gone there to stay with her sister Maggie, Mrs. Custersen's maid. The girls, supper finished, went upstairs to bed. One of them had an intuition, looked under the bed—and there was Charles. He crawled out, doublebarrelled shotgun in hand. The girls screamed.

There was a struggle. A candle was knocked over. In the darkness tlie girls fled. Injured, they ran weeping to a neighbour, Mr. John Goffin. He took them to Saffron V.'alden Hospital. There Gertie and Maggie told their mother that as they ran from the house they heard a shot. Police, found Charles in the bedroom, shot dead.