From the Chichester Observer, dated 23 July 1918:
WOMAN MISSING FROM WAR HOSPITAL
Police in Chichester are inquiring after the whereabouts of one Emily Siew Pin Ang, aged 26, who disappeared from Chichester some time on Saturday afternoon, the 20th of July. Miss Ang, a native of Hokkien province in China, was employed as a maid at Sotheby Manor. She is described by all as a hardworking, respectable young woman with a bright, cheerful manner.
Sotheby Manor, located near the village of Wexford Crossing, is currently engaged as a war hospital under the direction of Sir Andrew Sotheby. Miss Ang was frequently required to contribute to the nursing work, an addition to her duties that she took on without complaint.
“You could not ask for a better worker,” says Sir Andrew Sotheby of Miss Ang. “She was exceptionally reliable and dependable. All the household staff liked her. It wasn’t like her to be late for work, much less fail to appear altogether. When we realised that she hadn’t returned to the house after her day off, we knew something had gone terribly wrong.”
Miss Ang is known to have left Sotheby Manor on the morning of the 20th and taken the motor coach from Wexford Crossing to Chichester, it being her habit to do so on her days off. The stationmaster, Mr. Reginald Stokes, remembers noting her arrival that day.
“She was the only Chinese lady for miles around,” says Mr. Stokes. “I came to recognise her very well.”
Miss Ang was last seen in the company of a sinister-looking man driving a green Crossley motor. They had tea at the Hammer and Anvil, a public house near the Chichester train station, where witnesses describe Miss Ang’s companion as growing agitated to the point of violence. They departed together in the man’s car, after a brief argument in which Miss Ang expressed her reluctance to go with him.
This man is described as being of medium height, between 25 and 35, with dark hair and an unsavoury beard, and dressed very shabbily. Mr. Stokes, the stationmaster, observed that he did not appear to be the sort of person who would own a motorcar, suggesting that the vehicle might have been stolen.
A white feather had been left at the table after Miss Ang and her companion departed the Hammer and Anvil. White feathers are often distributed by our patriotic ladies to those able-bodied men they meet who, in spite of their duty to the Crown, fail to enlist for the War. It is believed that this man had been presented with the feather prior to his arrival in Chichester.
Miss Ang is described as between 5´2˝ and 5´4˝, weighing approximately 8 or 9 stone, with black hair, dark eyes, and no distinguishing marks aside from race. She was last seen wearing a dark brown dress with white collar and cuffs, a light-brown coat, a wide-brimmed brown bonnet decorated with a white ribbon, and low-heeled black leather shoes.
Any further information that might be of use in locating Miss Emily Ang should be reported to the police in Chichester.
From the Chichester Observer, dated 16 May 1922:
UNIDENTIFIED SKELETON FOUND IN BRUTON WOOD
Ramblers in Bruton Wood made a gruesome discovery yesterday of a skeleton in an unmarked, shallow grave several yards from the road.
Mrs. Winifred Jones, 34, and her daughter Clara, 9, of Singleton, Sussex, had been taking a walk through nearby Bruton Wood and had just stopped to eat their packed lunch. It was Clara who first spotted what turned out to be a human skull, half buried in the dirt where it had been shifted from its resting place by a burrowing animal. Mother and daughter immediately abandoned their lunches and made their way back to their village to report their discovery to the authorities.
“Clara’s a brave girl,” says Mrs. Jones of her daughter, “but I worry about the effect this grisly experience might have on her.”
Miss Clara Jones, seemingly unperturbed, only expresses a desire to one day study archaeology.
The complete skeleton was unearthed near the skull. It bore no identifying marks, nor were any identifiable objects found with it. It is believed to be of a woman in her twenties, no more than 5´4˝ in height. The case has been referred to the Chichester police, who suspect foul play based on the nature of the burial.
Dr. Timothy Grey, coroner, has been tasked with determining the cause of death, and whether further inquiries should be pursued.
“It’s early to say, but I believe we will almost certainly have to proceed with murder inquiries,” says Dr. Grey. “The fact that the skeleton was buried at all indicates an outside party, and the lack of personal effects suggests it had been stripped before being buried. I don’t see an innocent explanation for any of this.”
Dr. Grey assures the public that the Bruton Wood skeleton had almost certainly been in the ground for a significant amount of time, and did not indicate the presence of a homicidal maniac in the area. Any such danger, he says, will have been long gone by now.
Further developments will be reported as they become known.
No further developments were reported. Both stories simply vanished into nothing after those inaugural articles, with no sign of any connection being made between them.
Eric set the two newspapers down in front of him, open to their respective stories, and leaned back in thought. Late-morning light streamed into the Newspaper Reading Room from the windows on Montague Street, and the scent of strong coffee clung to the threadbare jacket of the elderly eccentric at the desk next to him.
He had an idea that the man in the green Crossley might be Saxon. He already knew, from matching Saxon’s handwriting to the notepaper scraps taken from Emily Ang’s personnel file, that Saxon had been at Sotheby Manor that day. And he remembered from Benson’s funeral that Saxon drove a green Crossley. Saxon had to have served to qualify for membership at the Britannia, but the evidence about the white feather could probably be discounted: there were countless soldiers who, being home on leave and in their civvies, had been presented with white feathers on the mistaken assumption that they were contributing nothing to the British war effort. Eric himself never had that trouble, as he looked too much like a foreigner for the white feather brigade to care.
If the man in the green Crossley was, in fact, Saxon, then it was suspicious that he never came forward afterwards.
The Bruton Wood skeleton, meanwhile, was interesting as much for what hadn’t been said as for what had. How could there have been no further developments, given the coroner’s suspicions? Perhaps the coroner was embarrassed to admit suspecting the worst. But Eric was sensing a pattern of silence and suppressed news here. It wasn’t just about these two articles: there was also the story of Joseph Davis, and all those “accidental” shootings that Bradshaw had effectively confessed to keeping quiet. It was suggestive. And one wondered why anyone would want to keep the news around the Bruton Wood skeleton quiet, if it really were innocent.
And what had happened to the Bruton Wood skeleton in the end? It seemed to Eric that a visit to the coroner, Dr. Timothy Grey, might be in order. But first, there was the invitation to dine with the Aldershotts. Eric knew that Bradshaw would not be in attendance, but Saxon might; and it might be worthwhile to see what Saxon thought of the whole matter.