GIRL VIOLINIST’S DEATH.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXI, Issue 2341, 26 October 1926, Page 2

GIRL VIOLINIST’S DEATH.

“DEATH, A NECESSARY END.” VICTIM OF DELUSIONS: London, September 9. A verdict of suicide while of unsound mind was returned by the West London coroner, at the inquest at Hammersmith, on Miss Elaine Perring Castle-Smith, aged 31, the violinist, professionally known as Miss Jean Baptisti, who was found dead in her flat in Landsdowne Road, Holland Park. She had been dead about a months, and death was due to coal gas poisoning. Mr. John Sloane Anderson, a solicitor, said he was a brother-in-law of Miss Castle-Smith, who was single. She was a professional violinist, and had appeared in many places in London. He had been told she had had contracts up to £9O a week. She was very temperamental. Some acquaintances of the dead woman, Mr. and Mrs. Beasley, tenants in the same house, found a number of letters addressed to Miss Baptisti in the letter-box, one of which bore a postmark of a month ago. They at once communicated with Miss Baptisti’s solicitor, who suggested an inquiry at her bank., where it was learned that sire had •mot been seen since July 14, when she withdrew £4. Such a sum could not have been sufficient for her needs for so long a time, so the police were informed. Accompanied by her solicitor, the i police forced the door of the flat and found her dead. She was lying on the floor in her night attire with a shawl thrown over her head, and it was obvious that she had been dead for some time. Some letters in her handwriting were found. A friend of the dead woman said that on August 5 she telephoned to Miss Baptisti and asked her if she would come out with her and some friends.- Miss Baptisti replied: “I have pains in my side. Good-bye, good-bye.” The conversation was ended, and that was the last that was heard of the dead woman. Miss Baptisti had told this friend that she had toured Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and had played at the Coliseum and the Alhambra. She had often complained that people were saying things about her and imagined she was followed by a “jealous woman who wanted to kill her.” She told how about a year or so ago she was attacked by another woman and received a knock on the head from a stick. She had retaliated by breaking her violin over the head of her opponent. Miss Baptisti was described by her friend as being very highly strung. “You never knew which way to take her,” she said, “and when I telephoned her on August 5 I really thought when she said ‘good-bye good-bye,’ that it was one of her usual moods, and paid little attention to it.” NO FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES. Asked by the Coroner: Do you know of any hallucination to which she was subject? Mr .Anderson replied: She imagined people were saying things about her which were without foundation. Was she so successful that she had rivals to run her down? —I don’t think so. 1 don’t know of any. I think it was pure delusion. She went abroad a good deal and you did not correspond?-—No. She was rather curious in her attitude to her family. She would see them if and when she wished to see them. Was she in any financial difficulties?—Oh, no. She was left with a comfortable sum of money when her parents died. Before that she had an allowance from her parents, and her parents’ home was always open to her if she wished to use it. Her bedroom was there, :*nd no one ever used it.

When he was called to the flat he saw Miss Castle Smith lying on two cushions on the floor. Her body was in a very advanced state of decomposition/ The cushion on which her head was resting was on the hearth, and a-piece of flexible tubing detached from a portable gas fire was laid round to where her head was. The tubing was attached to a gas pipe, the tap of which was turned on. Over her head was a shawl. There was no gas escaping then, the meter having been exhausted. “THE NECESSARY END.” On the mantelpiece above her head was a slip torn from a Shakespeare quotation calendar, and it was dated July 25, a Sunday. The quotation was from “Julius Caesar”: — It seems to be most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come. Mr. Anderson added that he found a number of pleasantly normal letters which Miss Castle-Smith had written, one of which complained of trouble with her teeth. It seemed that she had run out of ink while writing these letters. Miss Sybil Duke, who had known Miss Castle-Smith for about six weeks, said that the dead girl had told her that she was once engaged, but that her fiance had died. The Coroner asked Mr. Anderson if he knew anything of this affair, and he replied that she had said that her fiance was killed in 1914 or 1915 during the war. She had no other affairs.

Mr. Oswald (to Miss Duke): Did she say anything about people being jealous of her ability in playing the violin? —One or twice she alluded to a rather unfortunate episode that happened a year or two ago. She said that some woman was jealous of her, and that this woman, through jealousy, gave her a hit on the head, and she was ill for six months. She alluded to this several times, and said it had ruined her career. Did she S“ay what the blow was struck with?—No. It affected her memory? —Yes.

Miss Duke said that Miss CastleSmith. used to imagine that people were telling lies about her, but no one was doing so. People thought she was eccentric and temperamental but they said nothing against her character.

Dr. K. W. Caldron, police divisional surgeon, said Miss Castle-Smith had been dead for' at least a month. The body was practically a skeleton, but it was clear that the cause of death was asphyxia from coal gas poisoning.