November 4th: investigations by the coroner

Morning Post, November 4^th, 1893. 

The Bath Mystery.

Yesterday Mr Braddock, the Coroner for North Somerset, continued his investigation of the circumstances surrounding the mysterious death of Elsiie Luke, alieas Wilkie, whose skeleton was found covered with stones in a cavern at Hampton Rocks on the 22^nd of September last. After being cautioned by the Coroner, Arthur Coombs, who alluded to the suspicion attaching to him, and the charge that had been made against him, said he wished to give evidence. He said he was never engaged to Wilkie, and had ceased keeping company with her in January, 1891, as he heard she had obtained a situation by means of a forged character. She represented to witness that she was a lady, and that her father had a salary of £1,000 a year. He called twice at Cheriton House, where Wilkie was in service, but did not go inside. He never walked out with Wilkie in the summer of 1891, and the witnesses Clare and Phillips were inaccurate in saying that they saw them together near Hampton Down in July 1891. 

On the Saturday preceding Bank Holiday in August of the same year, when Wilkie disappeared, witness went for a long walk with a young woman named Thorne. On July 27 his thumb was bitten by a young man during a quarrel while returning from a Liberal fete. This was the injury referred to by various witnesses. Mrs Hayman was mistaken in saying she saw him speaking to Wilkie on the Saturday before Bank Holiday. He did not see Wilkie at all on the Bank Holiday, and he was never unduly intimate with her. The brooch found in his room was the one which Wilkie gave him to get repaired.

Mr Titley: Were you concerned at all in Wilkie’s disappearance, supposing this is the girl? – Certainly not.

The Coroner: You mean you had no hand in her murder? – None in the least, sir.

The Coroner intimated that Miss Thorne, with whom Coombs said he had walked out, should be examined.

A letter was read from the Chief Constable of Sheffield stating that a Mrs. Morement, who formerly lived in Bath, had asserted that about Easter or Whitsuntide, 1891, Wilkie took a young man to her house, and afterwards left with him and Mrs Isaacs for Bristol. She believed that Mrs Isaacs knew that man’s name.

The inquest was adjourned until November 21.