Secret of the Silent Man

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 247, 18 October 1941, Page 11

Secret of the Silent Man

A WOMAN is believed to. h«vt been concerned in the death of Harold Maatennan Haw, handsome 3 3-year-old English engineer, who attracted women—but ignored them. Haw was found dead in his gas-filled bedroom at Falloden Way, Hampstead Garden Suburb, by. his mother when she returned from holiday in Berkshire, states a Daily Mail (London) investigator. He had wounds over the right eye and on the bridge of his nose. Below in the kitchen Mrs. Haw found a flat Maori battle-stone, carved in the shape of a knife and an axe, lying on the floor. Sir Bernard Spilsbuiy has established that he died through <v>aifyi poisoning, that his Injuries alone could not have caused his death. Scotland Yard has discovered no finger-prints, no signs of a struggle and no attempt to make the bedroom airtight. And detectives found that Haw could have turned on the r l * tap with his foot as he lay on his bed. Piece by piece Scotland Yard has put together the life of "the man who never spoke to his neighbours." People who had seen hin» since a boy cannot remember a single occasion when Haw had returned their friendly greeting.

He may have had women friends, but not one of those neighbours, who say he was very attractive to women, ever saw him with a woman. Above all, this bright-eyed, goodlooking engineer was secretive. He never discussed the smallest affairs —even with his mother. Since boyhood days, when he had been bullied at school and crept home to the privacy of his bedroom; his life had been a succession of "petty concealments." Whenever, as he grew older, he was upseu he shut nimself In his bedroom. The habit stuck until his death. But out of the hundreds of people whom the police have questioned, not one can help Scotland Yard to find why Haw died in that bedroom which mh shared his lifetime secrets. One theory is that a woman was toe house a week ago, that she pulled the Maori stone from its place on the kitchen wall, hit Haw in the foe and left the house. Haw, it is believed, then struggled to his bedrocm and shut himself in. What happened after that Is not known. Recently he had been doing war work at Pert vale, and on the Friday before his death had Obtained weekend leave to go bom to an empty yymte. / * That is all that Scotland Yard knew when Chief Constable Hugh Young, Superintendent Yandell, Sir Bernard Spllsbury, Superintendem Cherrill, the finger-print expert, and Inspector O'Brien, photographic exto find the riddle of Haw's