A LOST BANKER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1113, 24 June 1913, Page 4

A LOST BANKER.

THK CASE OF MR. UDDER-

DALE

TWENTY-ONE YEARS OLD

MYSTERY

“I think the tacts are becoming clearer and clearer,” said Mr Justice Bargrave Deane recently, when the Lidderdale mystery came before the Probate Court for the seventh time.

For twenty-one years the solution of the mystery of Mr Lidderdale’s disappearance has been sought. Mr William Robertson Lidderdale, who was forty years of age, was manager of the Illminster branch of Stuckey’s Bank. On January Bth, 1892, a week before the date fixed for his marriage to Miss Elizabeth Chapman, the niece and adopted daughter of a jute manufacturer, he travelled from Illminster to London, having drawn from his banking account.

On the day after bis departure Miss Chapman, then a handsome woman of twenty-five, received a letter from London stating that the first person he met there was Miss Vining, a creole. Mr Lidderdale added that he had got rid of Miss Vining. A month later the following notice of death appeared in a London newspaper :

Lidderdaee. — On January 30th, on Miss B. A. H. Vining’s yacht Foresight, William Robertson Lidderdale’ of Illminster, result of accident on January Bth, alighting from carriage when in motion. From that day to this all effoits to trace Miss Vining, the yacht, Mr Lidderdale’s grave, or bis death certificates have utterly failed. STRANGE MESSAGE. Subsequently Miss Chapman received a registered letter, addressed in an unknown hand, and containing ,£SOO in notes, a Christmas card, a marked Jubilee coin, and some visiting cards of Miss Vining, of whom Mr Lidderdale had spoken to her. On one ot the visiting cards was written in Mr Lidderdale’s handwriting : “Was true to you.” “Miss Vining was a very eccentric and mysterious lady of forty,” counsel stated at a pievious hearing of the case. “She had no regular home, although apparently rich, for she bad horses, a carriage and pair, and a yacht, and travelled extensively. “She was an American, and was described as ‘very beautiful.’ The name of her yacht, the Foresight, is the motto of the ladderdale family." In the course of the investigations a book was discovered with the names of Miss Vining and Mr Lidderdale written in it. It was entitled, “Lost tor Love.” By his will Mr Lidderdale left all his property to Miss Chapman. He was insured for with two insurance companies, and these companies are opposing the presumption of his death for probate purposes. Mr Pridham Wippell stated that there were now fresh affidavits, which showed that when Mr Lidderdale left Illminster he intended to return home again after a short stay in London. “His ticket was a second-class return to London, but the return half had never been recovered. There is no reason why he should not have gone back to Illmihster, because he was engaged to be married to Miss Chapman a few days later, and it was a most desirable match in every way. * “Evidence regarding the existence of the yacht is contained in a letter of March, 1892, from the chief coastguardsman of Westgate-on-Sea. He said :

“ T have made inquiries, and I have been informed that the yacht Foresight, dandy-rigged, and from forty-five to fifty tons, was lying at anchor off Westgate in 1890.’ “That,” declares Mr Wippell, “clears up the mystery regarding the yacht.” “I have accepted the existence of the yacht and of Miss Vining,” remarked the judge, “and I couple the two together as a reason for his disappearance. I think the

facts are gradually becoming clearer and clearer as the case is being re-opened from time to time.”

“What occurs to me,” said his Lordship, “is that Mr Lidderdale met Miss Vining in London, that she inveigled him on her yacht, and that, without intending it, he may have been taken away by her.”

In the course of the evidence the judge discovered anew clue, which may lead to a full solution. The application to presume Mr Lidderdale’s death was adjourned for the seventh time in order that this might be followed up.

Miss Chapman, who was twenty-five years of age when her lover vanished, and who has never married, appeared in court for the first time and told what she knew of Miss Vining. “I knew Mr Lidderdale for five or six years before I became engaged to him,” she said, “and he told me of Miss Vining before we were engaged. I never saw her or her photograph.” “Did Mr Lidderdale . ever tell you bow he became acquainted with Miss Vining ?” inquired Mr Barnard, K.C., who represented two insurance companies.

“So far as I recollect, it was in a very simple way,” replied Miss Chapman. “He was out one day somewhere near Bath, when Miss Vining’s hat blew off, and be recovered it for her.”

In 1890, when you became engaged to Mr Lidderdale, did you understand then that he was still seeing Miss Vining from time to time?—l do not think so. I understood from him she would not interfere with us at all. He said there was nothing to, be afraid of.

Did he see her between the date of your engagement and the day he disappeared ? —Not to my knowledge. WOUED NOT MARRY MISS VINING. “You say in your affidavit,” stated Mr Barnard, “that ‘Mr Lidderdale informed me that this Miss Vining every now and again wanted him to marry her, but that nothing would induce him so to do, and that if he ever again met her he would let me know’ ?” “And I believed he would,” replied Miss Chapman. She added that she and Mr I*idderdale had exchanged Jubilee sixpences, and it was the sixpence she gave him that was returned to her by post with in notes and a Christmas card, and one of Miss Vining’s visiting cards inscribed in Mr Didderdale’s handwriting, “Was true to you.” TRUSTED IN MR. EIDDERDAEE. Miss Chapmau declared that she never had the curiosity to question Mr Didderdale about Miss Vining. “I trusted him,” she said, “and I asked very little about her.” “I should have thought,” said the judge, “that any young lady would have been curious about her coming husband’s friends. Did you not ask anything about her at all ?” —I don’t think so. But this lady had asked him several times to marry her. Did not that make you curious about her ? —He had no desire to marry her.

Yet you were not easy about her, because in his letter he tells you not to be anxious about it ? 1 don’t think I was particularly anxious.

“But ladies are very curious about this sort of thing,” persisted the judge. “Don’t you remember him telling you who Miss Vining was or where she iived?” “I remember I was told she had a very bad temper,” returned Miss Chapman. Mr Albeit Brookes, an executor of Mr Udderdale’s will, said he had also been told of Miss Vining. “For twenty-one years,” he declared, “I have followed up every clue.”

The judge said he thought further inquiries should be made. He also suggested that inquiries should be made in other countries about the yacht, and accordingly the case stood over.