A Mystery of the Thames.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 4983, 16 April 1889, Page 2

A Mystery of the Thames.

About four o’clock on Sunday afternoon, February 24th, the police noticed a corpse floating up the river with the tide, opposite Wapping, and Inspector Lilley, who superintended the landing of the body, found it to be that of a well-dressed, elderly man. It was conveyed to the mortuary, and, on the clothing being searched a visiting card, a signed cheque, and various papers were discovered in the pockets, tending to show that deceased was Lieut. Colonel Clare, lately residing in apartments in Duke street, St. James’s. Subsequent inquhies confirmed this supposition. Colonel Clare had been for a long period in the Bengal Native Infantry, and was retired in September, 188 G. He had been unaccountably missing since the beginning of December. A circumstance that had caused his friends considerable alarm was the fact that his final departure was simultaneons with the removal of a carbine from the house. On January Bth such a weapon, containing an exploded cartridge, and believed to be identical with the missing one, was found in the Thames, near Waterloo Pier, and retained by the river police. Some carbine cartridges were found in one of tbe deceased’s pockets. To identify tbe features would be impossible ; they are almost effaced. The immediate circumstances of the death are involved in mystery. The disfigurement of the head renders the tracing of a possible bullet wound extremely difficult, and it has not been established whether tbe deceased died by shooting or by drowning.