MOAT FARM MYSTERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12266, 9 May 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

MOAT FARM MYSTERY.

STRANGE STORY OF LADY'S DISAPPEARANCE.

SENSATIONAL CASE.

[The latest cable messages in respect to this case inform us that the body of Miss Holland had been found, and that a bullet had been extracted from the head. The corpse had been buried inside a ditch. Dougall has been charged with murder.] Miss Camille Holland, said to be a cousin of the late Mr. W. S. Caine, M.P., vanished suddenly in May, 1899. For weeks the strange disappearance was the talk of the district, and rumour was busy wiui theories as to where the lady had vanished. No trace was found of Miss Holland, and the interest in the matter died down. A few weeks ago, however, a remarkable series of incidents were brought to light, which have caused the whole case to be the subject of new and even more searching investigation. The story opens with the arrival in 1899 at Saffron Walden of Miss Holland and Samuel Herbert Dougall, a man who was arrested on March 18 in London at the Bank of England and charged the next day at Saffron VValden with forging and uttering a cheque in Miss Holland's name. The combined history ol Dougall and Miss Holland before they went to the district is obscure. Miss Holland was not a young woman, as popular rumour asserted. She "is described by one who knew her as being about sixty years o.d, but as a still very beautiful woman, of tine presence and with golden hair. She" is said to have met Dougall as the result of an advertisement circulated through a matrimonial agency. At any rate, early in the year 1899 thev came to live at Saffron Waldeu. At this time Miss Holland is said to have possessed between £5000 and £6000. They stayed in apartments in a house in the village for a few week?, at the end of which time Miss Holland, who had recently inherited a sum ot money from her aunt, bought the moated house. She is said to have paid something like £2000 for the property. At the end of March or in the first week of April they took up their residence there. Furniture of the most magnificent description was purchased, and they had the house re-decorated from top to bottom. WIFE AS DAUGHTER. Soon after they took possession Bengali's wife—lie was married, and had twice already been a widower—came to live with '•him and Miss Holland. Mis. Dougal! passed as his daughter. What immediately followed may best be told in the words of Mrs. Reade, who was in the house when the new owners came:—"The master." she said, "always made us call Miss Holland Mrs. Dougall. She knew nothing about riousekeepiug, and knew nothing whatever about Dougail's pasf. She told 'us always of things that he had told her of his life, never of things that she knew from her own experience. He had told her that he was a wonder, and that he had done wonderful things, such as sleeping under water and the like. I went away from the house for -some days after they came. My little daughter, however, went to the house frequently, and one day not.long afterwards I was surprised when she came home and said that Mrs. Dougall had gone away for her health. It did seem so strange to us all in the village. She had only just come, and here she was going away so soon, and summer time just coming on as well. This was in May, 1899. The village tilled with all sorts of chafe and rumours, of which no notice was taken." Until early in 1899 Miss Holland maintained frequent correspondence with her relatives and friends, but since March, 1899, nothing whatever has been heard of her by any of them. Since that date, however, it is alleged, her money has been withdrawn from the bank.

From the time of Miss Holland's disappearance letters have never ceased to arrive j for her. When, after a period of wonder, things quitted down, Mrs. Dougall his daughter, as she was known locally her husband and went to live in'lvent. After she had left him, Dougall, in August last, brought an action against his wife in the Divorce Court, ami he obtained a decree nisi, it being alleged" that Mrs. Dougall ran i away with a farm labourer in March, 1902. This should have become absolute on Monday, March 9, but a week or two before the decree nisi was quashed by the intervention of the King's Proctor. * The King's Proctor proved that prisoner had himself been guilty of misconduct, that he was on January 27 last summoned at Saffron Walden County Petty Sessions on an affiliation charge, brought by s, girl who was a domestic servant in his employ until the end of last year, and that the" magistrates, after hearing the evidence, had made an order on prisoner to pay 5s per week to support the child. This affiliation charge was vigorously defended by prisoner, and in crossexamination by Mr. Bryans Ackland, of Saffron Walden, the girl's solicitor, prisoner admitted that he had lost his army pension through being convicted of forgery, and that ha and Miss Holland had lived to- ' gether in apartments at Saffron Walden prior to their going to Clavering. The conviction referred to a case heard at the Old Bailey on December 9. 1895, when Dougall waswas imprisoned for twelve mouths with hard labour for forging the name of MajorGenera;! Viscount Frankfort, commanding the forces in Dublin, to a cheque for £35. Dougall was then a married man. Dougall was married on August 7. 1892, to Miss Sarah Henrietta White, at St. Paul's, Dublin. He described himself as a surveyor, the son of a civil engineer. His bride'was the daughter of a Dublin city missionary. He had served 21 years in. an Irish regiment, and had retired on a pension of £50 per annum, with the rank of QuartermasterSergeant. The news of the divorce proceedings caused a sensation in Clavering and the neighbourhood. Then, for the first time, it became known that Mrs. Dougall was not his daughter, but his wife. This matter and the revival of all the old rumours led to the whole case of Miss Holland's disappearance being taken up bv Superintendent Daniels and Sergeant Hewlett, of the Essex Constabulaiy. The result of the inquiries they made led to the case beingplaced in the hands of Detective-Inspector Harden, Sergeant Scott, and Sergeant Fell, , well-known Scotland Yard officers. The j Treasury was communicated with and a war- ! rant was issued.' The officers kept Dougall under observation, belli in Essex and in London, where lie was a frequent visitor. The result whs that Dougall was arrested at the Bank of England while attempting to change a cheque pin polling to lie signed by Miss Holland. He gave the name of Sidney Donnevill, of Upper Terrace, Bournemouth, but was identified by the officers, THE HATJXTKI) CiIIAXUK. Moat Farm gives an impressively realistic setting to this weird mystery. The spirit of tragedy seems to preside over the place. Apart from present associations its eeriness would move the least imaginative observer. The farmhouse around which so much interest centres stands in its own grounds, some hundreds of yards away from a winding lane, which, descends at a sharp incline. from Sickling Church. The lane is approached by a road which branches off the main London and Cambridge Road, about two miles from Newport Station, on the Great Eastern Railway. Around the old house local fancy has woven many a weird stoiy. It i*s said that the place was once the home of a notorious highwayman, and colour is lent to this belief by the fact that the moat was once crossed by means of a drawbridge. One access and one only to the house is possible from the rest of the estate; a path over a bridge sustained on two arches. On the pathway to the main entrance are the ruins of what was once a floral archway, now smothered in weeds and sapless twigs. This arch is flanked by two huge drainpipes placed on end. From the tiny lawn in front of the house tall fir trees rise upwards, their sombre branches swaying and moaning in the wind, and the remains of shrivelled rose trees catch the eye. On one side is a de- ; caying greenhouse. The marshy ground all round is thickly covered with the rankest kind of vegetation. The roofs of the nume- j rous outbuildings, with one exception, are covered with lichen, and dotted here and there are broken and rusty vehicles of vari,ous descriptions. No other habitation is within sight.

A FORMER SERVANT'S STORY. A representative of the Daily Express interviewed a servant who had some strange experiences at the Moat Farm, and, indeed, 1 was there on the very night Miss Holland is supposed to have disappeared. This young i woman, whose name then— is now marec i w 'as Florence Harvies, described how Miss Holland, or Mrs. Dougal as she thought her to bo, engaged her for general housework on May 8, 1899. She went on to allege that Mr. Dougal tried to kiss her, and attempted to force his way into her bedroom. She told the lady she must leave, but Miss Holland persuaded her to remain. Nevertheless she smuggled a letter away to her mother. This servant, in discussing Mrs. Dougal farther, said:—"When she was dressed she looked like a very young and attractive woman, but after I arrived <it the farm I fov.nd that she was really an elderly woman. But she was very nice and kind, and I liked her. She seemed lonely, and spent most of her time picking flowers, She never said anything against Mr. Dougal, and they never quarrelled. She did seem puzzled, however, at his having brought her to such a place. Once she said to me, 'It's odd that the postman is never allowed to come to the door. Mr. Dougal! gets up at halfpast, six in the morning and goes after his lei is.'" - a ciu;;:rJUL FRAME OF mind. In an interview Mr. Arthur Newton, Dougall's solicitor, wished to emphatically contradict the statements that his client was morose or ill. On the contrary, he was in unusual high spirits, and laughed heartily at the stories of the work of the police at Moat House Farm. He treated the subject of the search in a jocular spirit, and said the police could dig up the entire farm and pull the house to pieces if they pleased, but lie supposed someone would be responsible for the damage that was being done to the farm. Dougall indignantly asserted that the whole of the suspicions entertained towards him were unfounded. He stated that he could account for the money found on him, and gave his solicitor the names of persons from whom he had received substanial payments in the course of ordinary business transactions. Mr. Newton also denied the report that Dougall had made a statement to the police regarding Miss Holland. He had been approached on the matter, but, on the advice of his solicitor, he absolutely refused to say anything on the subject. Besides the money found on him at the time of his arrest, the police also took away jewellery to the value of £3150.