DAGGER IN SHOULDER

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 672, 26 October 1933, Page 7

DAGGER IN SHOULDER

DEAD MAN FOUND LYING BESIDE LONELY ROAD. THEORY OF VENDETTA. With a stiletto sticking out froan between the shouders, the body of James E. Grey, an English-born engineer who graduated at Oxford University, was found beside a lonely road at Euclid, a suburb of Cleveland (U.S.A.). The poliee' at first ascribed the death of Gray to the dagger wounds. A post-mortem showed, however, that the wounds were not severe enough to be fatal, and the actual cause of death was ia. dose of corrosive poison. Gray had travelled all over the world as an engineer, and it is thought that he may have been the victim of a vendetta. Near Gray's body was found a magazine devoted to 't'hrillers." It lay open, face downward, at a story describing a crinie of vengeance. There was a pair of horn rimmed spectacles beside the hook, suggesting that Gray had been seated by th'e wayside reading when some mysterious hand stabbed him twice in the back and slashed him across the neck with the stiletto. The police are acting on the theory that the stiletto attaek was an elaborate piece of stage management designed to throw them. off the true scent. It is regarded as significant that on the handle of the weapon ap1 peared fingerprints of two persons : carefully outlined in blood, as though inviting attention. On a grass spot near by was found Gray's wallet, empty exeept for the visiting card of his wife, Mrs. Katharine Gray, ahd his watch. Mrs. Gray told the police that her husband left home to visit Cleveland (Engineering Club, where he hoped to meet a friend wh'o had talked of taking him to Ashtabula to inquire about an lappointment. Gray, who had not held a job for a year, left home with about £32. It was in 1918 that the dead man : hecame a naturalised American. Although it is believed that he originally came from London, the records in the possession of t-he Cleveland police fail to show the birthplace. He had a ! nodding acquaintance with at least I seven languages.