CHAPTER 18

The Second Death on Kingston Hill
1939

The old bastard has got what he deserves.

Kingston Hill, as already noted in chapter 8, was where many of Kingston’s wealthier residents lived in their detached houses adjoining the east side of Richmond Park. Theophile Jean Baptiste Desnos, aged sixty-seven in 1939, was one of these fortunate people. He was probably of French parentage, but had been born in Bermondsey, London, in 1872 and was living in New Cross Road in 1901; and was then working as a manufacturing chemist. In 1911, still with the same occupation and still single, he lived with his two servants, at Lancaster Place, Richmond. By 1939, he lived at The Beeches (a detached house, now demolished, on the east side of Kingston Hill, nearly opposite to the Knoll), with his wife, Winifred Ida Desnos and their daughter. Desnos’ wealth stood at £22,255 2s, a very large sum indeed (worth about £823,000 today), and he was described as being in the import business. They had lived there since about 1932. They also had several servants. The latter included, from 1 October 1938, George John Brown, a gardener, and his wife, and Richard Clarke, a chauffeur. The Browns lived in a flat above the garage.

Brown was one of seven brothers who fought in the First World War, and of these, five were killed in France. Brown was in the Black Watch regiment for two years. After the war, he and two other men worked on a farm near Nottingham. He worked for the Duke of Buccleuch at one time, and from late 1936 until October 1938 he worked for a Mr Beaver of Kenley. All his employers stated that he worked satisfactorily, he always left his jobs of his own accord, but that he did have a violent temper.