LONG DEATH SECRET

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 82, 28 June 1927, Page 13

LONG DEATH SECRET

MEALS TO A DEAD MAN In a small cottage in the centre of Upper Belvedere the body of a man of 89 lay from December 15 last year until May 2, while two of his sons were living in the house. One son kept the knowledge of his father’s death from his brother, taking up tea and an egg each morning and chipped potatoes every evening to his father’s bedroom, and paying weekly insurance premiums. The sanitary inspector visited the house, and one son, John Holmes, aged 50, was found hanging from a beam in the stable of a nearby public-house. The other son, Charles, finding his brother absent on arriving home, ran upstairs to his father’s bedroom, which he had not visited for over six months. He thus discovered the grim secret. On a mantelpiece downstairs was a note, written in pencil: “Died December 15, 1926. Don’t blame poor old Charlie. —(Signed) Jack.” The old man was William Thomas Holmes, who was invalided from the Navy some 40 years ago, and there was no suggestion that he met his death through foul play. Both sons had been sleeping downstairs. To a neighbour on Monday John Holmes said: "Father is getting on all right and will be down this week.”