VISCOUNT’S WIDOW

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 May 1937, Page 5

VISCOUNT’S WIDOW

A DEATH MYSTERY. LONDON, March 18. An open verdict that death was due to carbon monoxide poisoning caused' by fumes from her car, was recorded yesterday at: the inquest on Tempe Irena Viscountess' Mountmorres. The inquest was held at Farnham, Surrey. Lady Mountmorres, who was 27, was found' dead on Sunday—in a garage at her parents’ home at Lower Bourne, Farnham. Air C. F. Cross said' that when he went to bed on Saturday he left his' daughter in the drawing room knitting. He was awakened at 2.30 a.m , on Sunday by the barking of his 1 daughter’s dog and got up. “1 concluded. (hat my daughter had taken the dog out lor a walk. 1 wandered about and walked towards the garage. I heard the engine of the car running and opened the door, which was not locked. 1 found my daughter sitting at the wheel of the car. 1 caught hold' of her and pulled 1 her out into the open air." The Coroner (Air Wills Taylor): 1 understand some tubing was found? — That has been in the garage for a Tong time. It was no use as a hose, so we didn’t use it. Are you satisfied that it was not an accident?—l concluded it was an accident. I have always thought it was. The Coroner: Had she been suffering from sleeplessness?—Yes, that is why she went to bed so late.

SAWDUST MARK

P.c. Cox stated that immediately opposite the car he found’ an IS-inch , length of rubber tubing arid on the floor of the garage there was a quantity of sawdust, with an impression consistent with the tubing having been drawn through it. One end of the tn.be had been tied on to a tap and the other was covered with a sticky substance consistent with its having been placed in the exhaust of the car. Summing up, the Coroner said that apart, from Lady Mountmorres’ natural sorrow and suffering from insomnia there was no evidence of anything unusual, “f find it very difficult. to discover definite evidence of an accident in this case.” he went on. “I wish there were more direct evid- 1 indicating an accident. At the same time there is no direct evidence that she intended to take her life, t hough the circumstances in which she

was found might raise the presumption. But presumption is not evidence. The same logical reason applies to an accident.” Air Wills Taylor was silent, for a moment. Then, turning to Air Cross, he said: “With me it is a very definite and-strong point that it would be wrong for this court, on the evidence before it, to find that the last act of your daughter was to take her own life in anything resembling a criminal act ulnless the evidence is proved beyound all reasonable doubt. In this case tho evidence cannot be proved beyond all reasonable doubt, and in

those circumstances, I shall exclude suicide. At the same time 1 am unable k> find definite evidence that it was an accident.” Lady Alountmorres was' 27 and the only daughter of Mr and Mrs Charles Frederick Cross, of The Hermitage, Tolland Bay, Isle of Wight, with whom she had been living at Highways. a house which they took a short time ago. She was the second wife of Lord -Mountmorres, to whom she was married in 1934, when he was 62. He died three months ago. At the time of his death Lord Mountmorres, 'who had had a varied

career, was Rector of St. Paul’s, at Wokingham, Berks. Ordained in 1913, ho had previously held curacies and livings al Ryde, Swinton, and' South Farnborough, Hants. He had also been director of tropical research at Liverpool University, explorer, .commission and general ualist, general manager and . advertising agent of a periodical, lecturer, member of the L.C.C., serial writer, and motor salesman.

“She’s got a head like a doorknob.” “What do you mean?" “Any man can turn it.”