FALL FROM STEAMER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22540, 3 October 1936, Page 23

FALL FROM STEAMER

RICH YOUNG WOMAN'S FATE BODY FOUND ON BEACH [from our own correspondent] SYDNEY, Sept. 28 The finding of the body of Miss Constance McKae, aged 27 years, pretty and wealthy Melbourne woman, on the beach at Watson's Bay, on the harbour side of South Head, provided the circumstances of what appeared to be at first a baffling mystery. It is practically certain, however, that Miss McRae accidentally fell overboard from a steamer on which she was travelling from Sydney to Melbourne. She probably was surprised, while standing at the ship's rail, by a heavy roll as the vessel met the ocean swell as it passed through the Heads. Dressed in expensive clothes, including a luxurious fur coat, with a dia-mond-studded watcli on one wrist and a broken string of pearls tangled in bobbed platinum blonde hair, the bodv bore no mark of injury. An experienced traveller, she was returning from China on the Tanda, and had rejoined the ship after two days in Sydney. Happy and lighthcartcd, sho bade farewell to friends as the Tanda left Circular Quay late on Friday night. She was then in high spirits, and, as one of her friends said, " full of the joy of living." Apparently, shortly after the steamer reached the Heads, an hour or so later, her body was in tho water. It was washed up on the Watson's Bay Beach at daylight the next morning. Sydney friends described Miss McBae as a woman of emotional intensity. She had wealth, beauty and, apparently, everything to live for. Sho intended to go to England for the Coronation next year. She was born in a New South Wales country town. Her parents died when she was young, and she was adopted by a Melbourne woman, whose brother-in-law became her guardian until she inherited an estate from her mother two years ago.