A LONDON MYSTERY

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1651, 21 October 1903, Page 12

A LONDON MYSTERY

A LADY DOCTOR VANISHES. (From Our Special Correspondent.) London, September 4. An intelligent antipodean perusing London papers at this present moment might weljl imagine that the disappearance of a lady of mo particular eminence in society was a- most uncommon occurrence judging by the prolonged fuss that has been made over the, let us hope, temporary dematerialisation of Miss Hickman., a buxom young lady who is privileged to add the letters iM.D. to her name, and who for some time prior to her disappearance had been 'on the Medical Staff of the Royal Free Hospital in Gray’s Inn Road. As a matter of fact, Miss though undoubtedly a very clever young woman,, possessed of a magnificent physique, and by way of being a parental idol figures as a very minor unit in London’s lost legion. Year after year thousands of men and women, of all ages and professions in life, disappear mysteriously, some for a brief space l , some for months, some for years, and some for ever. In nine cases out of ten the world outside Scotland Yard knows nothing of their goings and comings and probably had Miss Hickman selected any other period of the year for her ‘‘availescentem,” it would have been a nine day’s wonder and nothing more to the majority of the public. The only facts we know concerning her disappearance can be summarised in a few lines. She turned up at the hospital on August 15, “clothed and (apparently) in her right mind,” and proceeded about her duties as usual. At 2 p.m. she was seen by a porter still, seemingly, attending to her work. | , rom that time we have no record of her movements. She disappeared and though London is posted o’er with bills fully descriptive of her personality and clothing and the more enterprising London papers have detailed members of

their staff to act as amateur detectives aud Scotland Yard has had a special posse of men to nose out the Hick in an trail, nothing in the way of definite in l * telligence as to her movements after she left the hospital or her present Whereabouts has been ascertained. The detectives, especially the am atom' section, have discovered clues galore leading to almost every part of London, from Saffron Hill to Rrixfcon. As. for reasons for her disappearance they have been given by the bushel aud spocujaction as to her fate has ranged from coldblooded brutal murder to mere incarceration in some Jesuitical Convent. Her mental powers have been reviewed “ad nauseam” by all sorts and conditions of people and tho deductions drawn differ 'very material) y, some averring that a woman cf such intellect was most unlikely to indulge in a fit of mental aberration wliilst others gave chapter and verso for their belief that people who have cultivated their brains in one particular groove are among the most likely to lose suddenly their mental balance. Miss Hickman’s father, in a. rampant epistle to the Press, lodged a definite accusation against the Jesuits- in regard to his daughter’s disappearance, but he has failed to produce the slradow of a proof in support of his suggestion. Other people allege that 'Miss Hackman had quarrels with her colleagues on* the hospital staff, and had wilfully disappeared in order to punish them. Others again volunteer the suggestion that she has been the victim of a trap set by some villain who bad conceived an illicit passion for her. Meanwhile the lady herself has been seen in almost every thoroughfare of importance, has been “discovered” by the “Daily News” in biding with a friend at Brixton, “found” by the “Sun” __ at Clapham, and caught buying spirit stoves and kettles in several places'. Lmewise she was seen in company with a man somewhere in the neighbourhood of Gray’s Inn Road, looking, according to a veracious witness, “as though she was under the influence of a drug.” In spite of all she has failed to materialise at the house of her distracted parents. If Miss Hickman is in the land of the living and in possession of her normal faculties and free from restraint she cannot fail to be aware* of the hue and cry concerning her. Even so, if she possesses a normal quantity of feminine vanity I can well understand her failure to respond to the appeals made to her to come forth, from her hiding place. Her description as billed by the police is not unflattering but hereto has been added by some newspapers a statement that she is fond of wearing thick boots and indulges in “Number tens!” thus making her pedal extremities a size larger than those of the immortal Clementine of whom it was written:— “Her boots were Number Nine, Herring boxes, without topses, Sandals were for Clementine.” That Miss Hickman will be found alnd well and very little the worse for her adventures during the pasn three weeks,, is the general impression. Meanwhile, I suppose, speculation as to her fat© will hold pride of place in our more sensational newspapers until Mr Chamberlain starts his Autumn Fiscal Campaign in earnest. According to the figures supplied by Scotland Yard 34,000 people were lost in London last year and much the sanie number in the proceeding year, making a total of close on 70,000 for the new century. These figures seem incredible, but they are certainly not exaggerated for they only refer to cases reported to the Police and relatives very often shrink from seeking the aid of “the Yard” in their search for their missing friends. The majority of these disappearances can, of course), he placed under the heading “of malice aforethought.” Hundreds of husbands annually manage by disappearing to get rid of inconvenient wives and encumbering families. Young men disappear by the dozen in order to evade matrimonial rocks ahead or by the process of sinking their identity to “wipe something off the slate” in the way of debts, and a "cod many people vanish from their usual haunts merely as a practical joke. Instances of this could bo cited by tire score, but one will suffice. Jerome K. Jerome, the well-known novelist was lost to aii his friends for a long month. He was sought for every where without avail and it was not „until his friends had given him up that he reappeared at his club and explained for the benefit of those interested that he had been playing the role of one man (“to say nothing of the dog”) in a house-boat a few mifes up the river. As a matter of fact if a man really desires to hide-himself he cannot do* better than stick to London where the coming of the new lodger to* Mrs Jones’ is not a matter for gossip amongst that good lady’s neighbours, as it is in the small outlying bamjets to which many men and women desirous of cutting old associations repair.