THE BARFIELD MYSTERY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1975, 28 November 1889, Page 4

THE BARFIELD MYSTERY.

The Barfield mystery of which I wrote in my last letter, has turned out a complete mare’s nest. Instead of the “ removal ” of a virtuous Baptist minister with conscientious opinions against Home Rule, we have unearthed for us the elopement of a delinquent pastor, who has prepared the most skilful of plots to account for his disappearance. At least, this is what it all looks like. The detectives, says a Birmingham paper, who have been employed, now declare their belief that Mr Barfield has been Hying a double life for a couple of years, and that he lived at home with his wife and family at one time, while at others he lived under an alias with a young lady named Maggie Bourne, who was his ward. This girl apparently invented a long and complicated story about her marriage with a French Count. The marriage must be kept secret because of the Count’s parents, and in the meantime, until they were married, his sister invited Miss Bourne pretty frequently to Cheltenham to stay with her. Great circumstantiality is shown in the young lady’s account of her lover, who had been seen by Mr Barfield, but by no one else. The date fixed for the marriage was July 10th, and she wrote to her father giving an account of the ceremony, and her prospects, and so forth. Subsequently letters were received from the girl relative to the marriage letters which read well, and bear, as did the story all through, the mark of great circumstantiality. But unfortunately the young lady has been traced to America in the company of Mr Barfield, and it is supposed that that gentleman wrote the “ Invincible” letters, with the idea of putting people off the scent.-—Correspondent Press.