TRAGEDY OF BEAUTY.

NZ Truth, Issue 138, 8 February 1908, Page 8

TRAGEDY OF BEAUTY.

o Real Life "Mrs. Tanqueray's " Terrible Fate. Flames to Hide Crime. A beautiful American woman's fear that her early history would be revealed caused her to shoot her husband as he lav m bed, to set fire to the house, and finally to kill herself with the same pistol with which she had murdered her husband. She was Mrs Nicholas Smith, v/ife of a Wealthy merchant, who was the son of a well-known banker m Balticmore. A policeman patrolling the streets of New Rochelle, the fashionable suburb of New York, noticed / flames issuing from their handsome villa, sounded the. alaum and roused the household, only to find that Mr and Mrs Smith were tying m bed m a pool of blood. Mr Smith, shot m the head, was already dead ; his wife, with A BULLET. IN HER BREAST, was still faintly breathing. The house was flooded with petroleum, and but for the intervention of the fire brigade would have been utterly destroyed, together with all the servants and the bodies of the master and the mistress. In order to ensure the destruction of the house Mrs Smith sprinkled paraffin everywhere, even to the night-clothes. An hour later Mrs Smith expired. A strange fate brought it about that she, the chief figure of the tragedy, should die m the home of a woman who herself was the central figure m a drama of crime three years ago, for the firemen carried the dying woman into the home of Mrs Caesar Young, wife ol the English bookmaker, who was killed three years ago while riding m a cab with Nan Patterson, the actress. TALE OF A FORTUNE. For 15 years Mrs Smith had masqueraded as the daughter of the late Lieutenant-Governor William H. Bulkeley, of Connecticut; Her husband believed her when she told him she was the daughter of the late Connecticut official, and he believed her When she told him that shortly she was to come into possession of onesixth of an estate of £250,000. Anticipation that this fortune would be realised- was acute with her husband. He believed that the fortune was to ' come to them within a few weeks, and it was this episode m a life of lies that caused Mrs Smith to bury her secret m murder and retain the love of her husband to the end. When the Coroner notified the Bulkeley family of the death he was astoni.shed to learn that the real Grace Bulkeley was alive and well at Hartford, where as the wife of Mr Van Shaak she . PLAYS A DISTINGUISHED PART m New England society. Within a few weeks the estate of the Connecticut official will be divided, and after that limit of time the woman could not have deceived her husband any longer. She had gone so far m her deceit as to obtain a copy of the will. It seemed properly certified, and after the tragedy, when the Coroner was searching the house for evidence, he found this copy of the will. He believed it to be genuine, and it was not until latex that the fact became known that the real daughter of LieutenantGovernor Bulkeley was alive m Hartford, and that Mrs Smith was an impostor. All agree that the dead couple lived on most affectionate terms. Mrs Smith left a letter saying, "Let the world misjudge as it may think fit. We have loved each other m life, and ih death we are undivided. 'I go to a tribunal which will judge