WHO WAS ANONYMOUS FRIEND?

NZ Truth, Issue 1237, 15 August 1929, Page 4

WHO WAS ANONYMOUS FRIEND?

Unsigned Letter To Husband Led To Break-up of Home

WIFE DECLARED SHE WAS NOT

SORRY

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Wellington Representative). Many a schoolboy has laboriously written: *'oh, what a tan-g-led web we weave, when first we practise *to deceive." Many a divorcee has danced, if uncomfortably, to the peculiar melody behind the phrase. The latest marionette on this stage of discomfort is a Wellington wife named Norah Lynch, who practised but did not deceive, as Mr. Justice MacGregor has decided that because of her association with Hugo Nyman, she must m future dance alone.

•TWO years before the war, Norah 1 Irene Elizabeth Rooney was mar- • ried to James Francis Lynch at St. A*nne's Church, South Wellington. The family team work during the first few years appears to have been fairly sound, but m later years the lady gave one or two recalcitrant tugs m the opposite direction. These tugs of hers shifted the load of domestic responsibility to one side — her husband's — and she would go out at night, returning m the early hours of the morning. The straying feet of Mrs. Lynch were markedly restive on the nights when her husband was working late. Lynch is a grocer, and finds himself particularly busy on Friday evenings. Mrs. Lynch was an opportunist with many an evening of idle, moments before her. ' An admirer, some empty hours to fill, her own restive feet, with Mischief

finding "work for idle hands to do," and before long she became a. source of anxiety to her husband. The treading of her footsteps commingling with the clink-clinking of hermetically-sealed milk bottles would arouse Lynch from his sleep, and Avhen he asked where she had been, he would be exhorted to mind his own 'business. As many a husband has received word shortly after dinner that he was wanted at the office, or wives received mythical letters from other towns, inviting them to spend a few days with friends, so also did Mrs. Lynch go to Palmerston North. On Sunday, March 3, she bade her husband "good-bye," and when she returned on the following Thursday told him she had stayed with someone at Bulls, a sister of Mrs. Jorgensen and a mutual friend of theirs. v On Easter Saturday, three weeks later, Lynch went to Wanganui for the week-end, and returned on the afternoon of Easter Monday. Shortly after midnight his faint suspicions of previous months Avere reinforced by happenings which indicated clearly the trend of his wife's night Hf6. In the dead of night a knock came at the door, a stealthy, yet insistent knocking that caused Lynch to awake with a start, and no doubt set his wife's heart leaping. Mrs. Lynch hurriedly scrambled out of her room. She returned a minute or so later, saying: "Mr. Ottison is outside. m His wife is ill and he wants me to go to her." Ottison is, or was, Nyman's employer. Lynch refused to allow his wife to go, and the man who had aroused the Lynch family m this somewhat startling fashion, went away. Some time later, he returned, repeating his- disturbing summons on the front door, presumably because "Mrs. Ottison" had become worse, possibly m the hope that his second visit would be attended with greater success than the first. Lynch answered the door. His angry gaze met the swaying vision of Nyman, obviously under the influence of liquor, and mumbling to himself. The co-respondent (as he subsequently became) had been introduced to Lynch about three years previously, but they remembered each other only vaguely, and when Lynch noted the condition of his nocturnal caller he curtly told him to go home. Next day he received an anonymous letter, one of those efforts m penmanship which maybe cravenly sinister as they are removed from the truth, or as anxiously truthful as the writer is to conceal his authorship, yet remaining as he signs himself — ''A friend." . It must have been a distinctly observant person who wrote the letter to Lynch, unless, of course, either Mrs. Lynch or her guilty partner had rashly confided certain adventures to the open ears of

I someone who knew the Lynch's fairly well. There wife much sound advice inr.cribed on the two sheets of , exercise book paper, too. "Keep her home," was written diagonally m the top right-hand corner of the first sheet. Then followed the information: "Dear Mr. Lynch, — Do you know that your wife is always about with a chap called Hugo Nimmo, quarryman m the Gasco brick works, Miramar? "They went to Palmerston North together, and he slept at your house on the Easter Saturday night; also called at your place on the Easter Monday night. "Found you home. And your clever wife's wit came to her and she called him Mr. Ottoson. His wife was ill. A good lie. "Mr. Ottoson was never out of his house that same day, and would not thank her for using him as a tool. "(A' friend)." A few days later Lynch went to Palmerston- North. ;His friends there were astonished to hear that Mrs. Lynch had stayed with them m March, and by the time he left Mrs. Jorgensen's his" mind was impressed with the strong conviction that his wife had misled him on more occasions than 'one. I "You mind your own business," she retorted when he taxed her with a number of things. Lynch thereupon spoke for some little time into the listening ears of Sam.' Free, private enquiry agent. Free interviewed Nyman, and asked him several questions concerning his movements on March 3. Nyman had to admit staying with Mrs. Lynch at the Commercial "Hotel m Palmerston North, where they were known as "Mr. and Mrs. Nyman." "What about the fourth, fifth and sixth of March, though?" queried Free. "Never mind about that — one occasion is sufficient for you," claimed Nyman. The divorce detective then asked Nyman whether ,he stayed at the Lynchs* house on Easter Saturdaj' night, and visited the house shortly after midnight on Easter Monday. "Say nothing about that — I'm a working man. I want to marry her, but it's no use going for ' damages as I' couldn't pay them, but I'll pay costs," came the reply. The "friend" who mailed that anonymous letter seems to have been distinctly well-informed! After his talk with the co-respond-ent, Free went by train to Palmerston North, where he soon received confirmation of what Nyman had told him. Mrs. Scott, proprietor of the Convmercial Hotel, had no difficulty m identifying the two people, whose photographs were placed before her, as Mr. and Mrs. Nyman, who had spent the night of March 3 at her house. The detective returned to Wellington, and apprised Mr. Percy J.ickson. Lynch's solicitor, as to the outcome, of his investigations. , "When Mrs. Lynch was served with the divorce petition she said: "It's a good job and I am not sorry. My married life has not been a happy one. . . ." So far from being at all perturbed,

Nyman seems to have been more than vaguely interested as to the extent of the success achieved by the divorce detective, interested more particularly to know whether Free had found he was telling the truth. "Well," greeted Nyman, "did you hnd my statement about the'■ Commercial Hotel was true?" ,"Oh,' yes," answered Frde, serving him with the necessary citations. Neither Mrs. Lynch nor her anxious lover deigned to answer the testimony given by Lynch and the private detective, but it would be somewhat intriguing to discover whether the anonymous "friend" sat !n the public enclosure of the court, observing the fruits' of his or her penmanship.