Sunday and Monday

The next morning, when all but Thelma had woken up, Mareo left the house for a ten o'clock appointment. Just before he left Stark said she asked him 'don't you think we had better get a doctor. Thelma has been asleep practically two days' and he replied '[i]f she is not awake by the time I get home I will call a doctor then. A couple of hours more won't hurt her'. Mareo returned at about one o'clock and Stark told him, 'Thelma isn't awake yet, and I think you had better get a doctor straight away.' His response according to her was 'Oh, it's all right. I rang up the chemist, and he said that the sleep was due to nervous exhaustion, and that Thelma could sleep for two or three days, without any ill effect, and that she would wake up feeling very weak but wanting food'. Stark insisted that 'Thelma's breathing very heavily' but Mareo thought that 'that's just the way you have her lying-on her back' and so they shifted her onto her side.⁴⁹

The rest of the afternoon Stark attended to the comatose Thelma while Mareo slept in a chair beside the bed. At around six o'clock Graham, Stark and Mareo had tea and at about seven o'clock Stark prepared to leave. When she was ready she told Mareo that 'Thelma has been sleeping nearly three days and I really think she should have a doctor'.⁵⁰ Mareo promised to call a doctor if she did not wake up in the next few hours and Graham accompanied Stark back to her house.

On Monday morning Stark called Graham. Then at one o'clock Graham rang her and she went straight out to the house: page 28

I met Mr Mareo first when I went out. He said 'Go in and see her'. I did. She was in a terrible condition. She was blue in the face, and perspiration had dried on her face, and there was some brown saliva that had run down her face and caked in her hair. She was just gasping for breath. I said to Mareo 'Oh, why didn't you get a doctor', and with that I ran out to ring up from Mrs Knight's next door. I didn't wait to hear any reply from Mareo before I went.…

After having rung him [the doctor] I went back to the house. I went into the bedroom where Thelma was. Mr Mareo suggested that I should wash her. I did so. When I had done so the doctor called — Dr. Dreadon. He got there about three o'clock. While I was washing Mrs Mareo the accused did not assist me. After I had washed her he came in and helped me to put on a clean nightgown. When I was doing that I noticed the sheets were wet and had bloodstains on them. Mareo and I came to a conclusion about the stains. He said she had just come on unwell. I thought that too. We moved her onto the clean side of the bed. Then Dr. Dreadon arrived.… Dr. Dreadon looked at her and opened her eyes and he said 'Oh, it looks like veronal poisoning'. He asked accused if there was any of it in the house. Accused said 'Yes'. He said he had been taking it to make him sleep. He said that he kept it outside - I think it was in a suitcase — outside in the washhouse. I said to him to go out and see if any had been taken. He went out and came back with an empty bottle. He showed it to the doctor and said that it had been practically full.⁵¹

Dr Dreadon then called an ambulance. Despite treatment at the hospital, Thelma died about two hours after her admission.

Soon afterwards, Eleanor Brownlee drove Mareo at his request to a telephone so he could inform a number of people of the news, then to the Herald office to make a death announcement, the undertakers, and the Clarendon Hotel for liquor. About an hour and a half later they returned to Tenterden Avenue where they met Stark, Graham and the detectives. Mareo told one of the detectives, 'I have had a double whiskey and I have a bottle of brandy in the car to make me sleep tonight. I feel like doing myself in.'⁵² When asked by Detective Meiklejohn how page 29his wife came to have so much veronal, Mareo replied, 'Do you think I am a murderer?' Questioned about his own veronal consumption, Mareo also asked, 'Do I look like a drug addict?'⁵³ Detective Meiklejohn then brought Stark into the room and he said to Mareo

'Miss Stark has stated that she asked you to call a doctor for your wife several times'. [Mareo] said, 'I don't remember that, my dear'.…

I mentioned about the bottle of dope [the medicine purchased from the chemist because of Thelma's concern about her overdue period].

I said 'Miss Stark has stated that you told her you had bought a bottle of dope from the chemist for your wife' and he [Mareo] said [to Stark], 'You are mistaken, my dear.'⁵⁴

After this conversation, Mareo took the detectives out to the washhouse to show them the empty veronal bottle. Handing over the bottle to Detective Meiklejohn, Mareo confessed, 'I feel like a criminal.' On top of the suitcase containing the empty veronal bottle were three empty whisky bottles and an empty pill box from which, according to Stark, Thelma had taken the medicine purchased from the chemist when her period was overdue. Mareo identified this as 'the box I got the veronal tablets in', but he could not account for how it had got there. They all then went back to the front room of the house where Mareo read his first statement in which he referred to Thelma's drinking and he said, 'I feel like a cad saying all this about my wife but I've got to protect myself.' He also asked the detectives, 'Is there anything in this to hang me' and confessed, 'I feel like going and hanging myself, bringing all this veronal into the house.'⁵⁵