WIPE'S SACRIFICE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19826, 31 December 1938, Page 16

WIPE'S SACRIFICE

SELF-IMPOSED PRISON HUSBAND REMARRIES MISGUIDED DEVOTION AMAZING STORY Brick by brick, house-breakers in Phoenix, Arizona, are destroying a house which was the setting for the world's most amazing drama of a wife's devotion. Robert Napier married when he wa? 30. For several years he and his wife were happy together. They lived in a big house, the top floor of which was devoted to a small private museum which was Napier's chief hobby.

His wife was rich, and together they spent huge sums on adding specimens to the museum. On the surface they were an ideal couple. Then tragedy came. Mrs. Napier died. She was popular, and most of Phoenix turned out to her funeral in the: big family vault.

But peoole were a little shocked when Napier married again in less than six months. They would have been more shocked if they had seen the •agreement Napier compelled his second wife to sign. No Honeymoon She agreed that there should be no honeymoon, that her husband need never spend a night away from and that, if she took a holiday, she must take it alone.

-Mr. Napier had two children by his second wife. The little family was happy, but Napier refused to leave the house and grounds. Every day he spent a couple of hours in his museum, working behind locked doors, to which he alone had the key. He gave strict instructions that neither his wife ncr his servants were to approach the museum.

Eight years' after his second marriage a tornado swept over Phoenix One of the trees in the local churchyard crashed and split open the vault where the first Mrs. Napier was buried.

Wax Dummy

Next day workmen entered the vault. They stumbled as they were raising the coffin of the first Mrs. Napier. It was split open. Out rolled a wax dummy. The police were summoned. Their chief went to the Napier home.

"Can you explain the presence of a wax dummy in your wife's coffin?" he demanded.

Napier flushed crimson. He began to stammer an explanation. The police chief listened for a few moments.

"I shall have to book you on a charge of murder, Mr. Napier," he announced.

"Very well, gentlemen," said Napier. "Follow me." The Real Wife He led the little party up the stairs to the ton of the. house and halted before the door of his museum. He unlocked it. They went in. shouted Napier. "Ellen. come out, Ellen. It's all right." A door opened from a second room. Through it stepped a pale-faced, greyhaired woman. "This is the real Mrs. Napier," de- ' clared her husband. He had no need to tell them. The police-chief recognised her. ' Gently he led her to a chair and began to question her. Gradually the whole amazing story was told. "Robert grew tired of me. I still loved him, but I knew he wanted children and I could not give him them. I knew, too, he had grown to love another woman. Divorce was impossible. It would have meant scandal.

"S? I. suggested that I should 'die! We could have done nothing" without the help of our doctor. He signed the certificate; he helped us to substitute the dummy. Died in Prison "Since then I have lived here Robert has visited me every day. I have cooked my own meals on the gas-stove. Once I slipped out for a walk at night. But that was too dangerous. All my time> has been spent arranging specimens in the museum and in reading. I knew Robert was happy and that was all I cared."

The police chief turned to Napier. "Well, we book you for bigamy instead of murder," he said. Napier received a seven-year sentence, the doctor got five years. Mrs. Napier, prematurely eld, left for another state to live down the memory of., her eight years of self-imposed imprisonment.

But before she went she signed a cheque for the second Mrs. Napier as some compensation for her betrayal by her husband.