MISSING MILLIONS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 769, 16 September 1929, Page 14

MISSING MILLIONS

MYSTERY OF PRINCESS’S WILL SECRET INQUIRY HELD In secret and behind locked doors in a house in Harley Street, London, recently, the American ConsulGeneral opened an inquiry into the mystery of the missing millions and bequests of Princess Hatzfeldt. A friend of King Edward, and at one time one of the most lavish hostesses in England, Princess Hatzfeldt died in London last December. From her foster-father, Mr. Collis P. Huntington, an American railway magnate, she had inherited 30 years ago £15,000,000, yet after her death her estate was valued at only £400,000. Since then, however, it has been assessed at £1,000,000. She made some 60 bequests to English legatees but did not leave a penny to her nephew and sole surviving relative, Mr. Edward Whitman Prentice, a San Francisco business man. Mr. Prentice has filed a petition in New York alleging fraud and undue influence by some persons unknown, and declaring that he was on the best of terms with the Princess. "I cannot understand her will,” said Mr. Prentice when he was in London recently. “The whole thing is a mystery. The £400,000 the Princess left cannot constitute her whole fortune.” The inquiry in London is on behalf of the Surrogate’s Court of New York, Cross-examination was conducted by two leading American attorneys. Depositions, which it is anticipated will be of a sensational character, were taken and sent to New York as evidence at the Surrogate’s Court when it hears the objections to the will in October. The chief bequests made by the Princess are: £IOO,OOO to Commander Claude Philip Champion de Crespigny; £30,000 to Mr. Henry Beauchamp Harrison, her private secretary; £5,000 each to Mr. J. D. Redding, Mr. F. M. Guedalla, Mr. E. N. J. Jacobson and Aline Widmore, her personal servant. The daughter of a Sacramento merchant, Clara Prentice, who became the wife of Prince Hatzfeldt in 1889, was at that time one of the most beautiful women in England.