CHAPTER 10

A Blue Silk Scarf George Russell 1948

Kathleen Cronin was a nurse at Maidenhead Hospital but by May 1948, she had decided on a slight change of career. Kathleen had come to the conclusion that she might well be happier working as a housekeeper or maid for an elderly lady or gentleman and, as a result, had registered with an agency. That agency had on their books an eighty-nine-year-old lady, who lived alone and was in need of a maid to attend to her needs. So it was that at around 9.00pm on Saturday 29 May 1948, Kathleen Cronin called at Wynford.

Wynford was a rambling and rather run down house, situated in its own grounds in Ray Park Avenue, Maidenhead. It was in this somewhat dilapidated twenty-two-room house that Minnie Freeman Lee lived alone and, by all accounts, this would not be an easy position for Miss Cronin for, apparently, Mrs Lee was a rather cantankerous old lady who treated people rather badly.

Kathleen Cronin knocked on the front door and rang the bell. Mrs Lee was known to be rather deaf and for that reason the doorbell was very loud. However, despite ringing many times, Kathleen did not receive a reply and there seemed to be no sign of life in the house. By the time Kathleen left, it was close to 9.30pm.

A few days later, at 9.30am on Tuesday 1 June, the local milkman was about to leave another pint at Wynford, when he noticed that there were three bottles still on the front doorstep. Two were completely full and the third was almost full, due to the fact that the foil top had been removed, presumably by birds, who had then consumed some of the contents. There was also a folded and apparently unread copy of the Evening Standard, dated 31 May.

Concerned that Mrs Lee might have been taken ill, the milkman walked into the badly overgrown back garden where he found Arthur Thomas Hilsdon, who worked in the grounds. Asked if he had seen the old lady recently, Hilsdon replied that he had not. He too then went to the front door and rang the bell a few times. When there was no reply, Hilsdon telephoned for the police.

It was 9.50am by the time Constable George Ernest Langton arrived at Wynford, with Mr Kenneth Ruffe Thomas, a magistrate’s clerk and Mrs Lee’s solicitor. The two men rang the bell and, receiving no reply, went around the back of the house. There they noticed that one of the windows, although closed and locked, was rather insecure so they forced it open and entered the house.