THE CHISWICK MYSTERY.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 451, 5 March 1890, Page 3

THE CHISWICK MYSTERY.

Suffocated on New Year’s Morning. A Strange Case. (from our sfecial correspondent.) London, January 10. A mystery which threatened a few days ago to provide us with a particularly ghastly murder horror has been strangely, and yet conclusively unravelled. The follow ing are the facts recapitulated by a ‘ Daily Telegraph ’ man. He says : .Mrs Bryden, aged 39, was found dead in her house at Chiswick on the morning of New Year’s Day. She had been recently separated from her husband, who was a window-blind manufacturer, and in consequence she lived alone, except for the companionship of a female servant. No. 30, Linden Gardens, Chiswick, may be supposed not to be a very desolate neighbourhood, and, as a matter of fact, there was a house so close to the one which the lady in question inhabited that a conversation going on in the hall or on the doorstep was overheard by persons next door. Three days before the'end of December the female servant is permitted to go to Scotland to attend the funeral of a relative or friend. On the last night of the year Mrs Bryden is seen by a servant at the next house standing on her own doorstep, apparently frightened by something. Mrs Bryden attracts her attention, and asks the girl, if she is going into the Highstreet, to tell a policeman that he is wanted at No. 30—Mrs Bryden’s residence. ‘I want to speak to him about something very particular,’ were her words ; but she did not disclose to the girl what the cause of her anxiety might be. The servant posts the letter, and, not meeting a policeman, comes back. She no longer finds Mrs Bryden on her own threshold, but the door of her house was open, and ‘ she heard her talking to a man ; the sounds seemed to come from the drawing-room.' What these sounds were is partly explained by the evidence given by Police-constable John. Hewitt. This officer was going down Linden Gardens in plain clothes, when the deceased called to him and asked him to send the first policeman he saw. He at once informed her that he himself was a policeman, and then Mrs Bryden asked him if ‘he could get somebody to stop in the house with her, as she was alone.’ She added, ‘I have done a foolish thing. I allowed my maid bo go down to Scotland on Saturday to bury a friend, and left myself alone without her.’ The police-officer told Mrs Bryden that he himself could not sleep in the house ; and, as far as his evidence goes, it would seem that he did not make any suggestion for securing any substitute who could guard, the house until the next morning. Unhappily,the sequel of this strange story proves conclusively that Mrs Bryden was well justified in seeking protection, and considering her solitude as a direct peril to her personal safety. Next day being New Year's Day, her servant returned from Scotland about noon, and, on opening.the front door with a latch-key, was surprised to find the gas still burning in the hall. On going upstairs, aterrible sight was presented. Inahed room which Mrsßrydenhadnotbeen in the habit of using, her dead body lay undressed, and on tho bed, but with no bedclothes on it. ‘ Her night-clothing was disarranged, and a linen bag, which usually contained her night-dress, was stuffed into her mouth.’ Her hands were clasped on her breast, and she was stark and cold. So far we move within the region of some barbarous history of murder. The scene next shifts to the dissecting-room of Dr. Dodsworth, one of the police surgeons. The discovery is made that, although the body is extensively diseased, the actual cause of death is suffocation produced by the accidental swallowing of false teeth. The whole aspect of the case is changed. The suggestion now is that the deceased lady retired to her room with the intention of going to bed, and that, after partially undressing, she seated herself on the edge of the bed, wishing to remove her teeth. Unfortunately they slipped down her throat, and she then appears to have placed her night-dress case into her mouth, as the easiest means within reach to enable her to get hold of the teeth which were choking her. Before she could effect her purpose she seems to have been suffocated, the general unhealthiness of her body beiner such that even a slight obstruction to breathing was sufficient to cause death. There is something so incongruous in the contrast between the anticipations of murder and the real facts of tho case that it is impossible not to have somewhat mixed feelings in reference to tho catastrophe. We are sorry for the sufferer, but we cannot avoid congratulating ourselves on the issue. It would be well if all the mysteries of tho Metropolis wex*e capable of so simple an explanation. There has been enough and to spare of gloomy tragedy in the streets of London in the past months.