WITNESS COLLAPSED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 267, 10 November 1937, Page 18

WITNESS COLLAPSED.

EVIDENCE AT INQUEST.

VERDICT OF SUICIDE. (Special.—By Air Mall.) LONDON', October 22. Lady Eves, the principal witness, collapsed after giving evidence at the inquest at Malvern. Worcs., on Commander Rhys Beynon Davies, who was found gassed in an hotel bedroom. Commander Davie*, who was a retired naval officer, was joint lessee with Lady Eves of the Royal Foley Hotel, Malvern. Lady Eves, who is the widow of Sir Charles Eves, the chartered accountant, who died last year, told the coroner that after disputes over a financial matter she took step* to dissolve the partnership. When Lady Eves collapsed, she had to be assisted from the courtroom. A verdict was returned of suicide by inhaling coal gas while the balance of his mind was disturbed. Da vies, who was 4(5, had posed as being a V.C. commander in the Royal Navy, A.D.C. to the Duke of Connaught, and a Sussex landowner. Actually he was none of these things, inquiries which had been made recently having revealed that the highest rank he had held in the Navy was that of flight lieutenant (temporary) in the R.N.A.S. A business acquaintance of Davies said that lie had never been on the staff of the Duke of Connaught, and that the estate he claimed as his in Sussex actually belonged to another man.