Saturday

Upon awakening on the Saturday morning, Mareo found that Thelma 'still appeared in a drunken sleep and [he] did not wake her up'.³⁸ Mareo then took a bath. Thelma must have risen from bed because Mareo's son, Graham, testified that he heard a page 23'couple of bumps' and went into his stepmother's room to find her 'swaying' in her dressing gown, 'clutching the dressing table drawer' and saying 'something about some curry' that 'didn't make sense'. Graham called out to his father and they both put Thelma back to bed where she soon fell asleep.³⁹ Mareo then left the house on business to return at about 1.00 p.m. Graham was at home during this period looking after his stepmother except for some time after 11.30 a.m. when he left the house. Thelma was still in bed when Graham left.

As she had promised the previous evening, Stark returned to the house at about 3.00 or 3.30 p.m. on Saturday. It is not entirely clear what happened after Stark's return because her account differed significantly from that given by Mareo and Graham. However, since the Crown's case depended largely on Stark's evidence we will, at least for the moment, stick to her version.

According to Stark, Mareo and Thelma were in the bedroom when she arrived. She did not see either of them until 'about half past five' when Mareo emerged from the bedroom to go to the bathroom. He was, she testified, 'very unsteady on his feet and lurched once against the wall', but she did not smell anything on his breath. In the passage Mareo told Stark about the events of the day and she then went into the bedroom to see Thelma, who was 'fast asleep' and 'breathing as though she was in a heavy sleep'. A little later she asked Mareo whether they should call a doctor and '[h]e said oh, it couldn't hurt her to sleep a little longer, but if she wasn't awake soon he would send for one. He said he couldn't get a doctor or he would get into trouble for getting her the medicine that she had had [for her overdue period]'.⁴⁰

Mareo, Graham and Freda then had tea. Afterwards, Stark checked to see if Thelma was awake and Mareo received a phone call from Eleanor Brownlee asking him if he wanted to go out for a drive. 'That's just what I need, a blow in the fresh air', he told Stark; '[i]f Thelma should wake, tell her I have gone out on business.'⁴¹ Just before leaving, Stark asked him again if he should call a doctor, and he said he would if she wasn't awake by the time he got home.

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Half an hour after Mareo left, Stark was in the sitting room and heard her name called. She went and said, '"What do you want, Thelma?" and she said "Freda, I heard your voice". She was awake but she seemed as though she had been in a very heavy sleep and was dazed. Her eyelids were very heavy and her speech wasn't distinct.'⁴² Mareo returned about half an hour later at approximately ten o'clock and Stark suggested to him that they try Thelma on some smelling salts. Mareo and Freda managed to support Thelma in a sitting position and give her a drink of water.

Graham then went to a place called the All Night Pharmacy for smelling salts or sal volatile. While he was gone Stark and Mareo 'told her funny stories to keep her awake. They were funny stories and limericks. She knew what they were because she laughed.'⁴³ About half an hour later Graham returned and Freda gave Thelma three doses of sal volatile. Recovering somewhat, Thelma chewed a toffee given to her by Mareo and they then played a game which involved Thelma looking at all the objects in the room and naming them: 'She started off with the dressing table and chair and then she closed her eyes. Mr Mareo said "Open your eyes and look at them" so she opened her eyes and started off again to name them. She named them.'⁴⁴

Soon after this game, Mareo and Graham left the room. Stark's account of what happened next needs to be given almost in full because according to the Crown this was when Mareo murdered his wife:

[Graham] brought in a cup of hot milk and gave it to me. He went out again then. He brought in another cup for himself. I did not want the milk. I didn't drink it.… Graham threw the milk that was brought for me out the window.… Mr Mareo came into the room next. He brought a cup of hot milk in with him and a plate with a slice of dry bread. I was sitting on the bed then, with Thelma. At that time I had let her lie back on the pillow. When Mareo came in with the milk and bread we sat her up in bed again and first of all Mr Mareo broke off a piece of dry bread and gave it to her. She was chewing it rather slowly so I said to him I thought it would be rather doughy for page 25her to eat. She chewed the mouthful that she had and swallowed it. I then gave her a drink of the milk. I held it in my own hand and she drank not quite half a cup. She wasn't capable of holding it herself. Then I spilt some of it round her nightgown so I handed it to Graham to see if he could do better. When I gave her half the cup she did not do anything then. When Graham had given her some more from the cup he handed the cup back to me again. Then when I was giving her the last lot she was getting very drowsy and she closed her teeth and wouldn't have any more. This was given to her from the cup direct. No spoon was used.

Just before we gave her the milk she said she wanted to go to the lavatory. After she started going off to sleep — after I had given her the milk-so I thought I had better take her out before she went right off to sleep. So I asked Mr Mareo to help me to take her outside. He did not do so. He couldn't stand on his feet very well — he fell across the bed, so I asked Graham to help me take her out. Graham and I got her out of bed and put one arm round our shoulders and our arms round her back so as to support her. We sat her on the bed first and then put her arms around us. She wasn't capable of walking on her feet — she was dragging them, so we practically had to carry her out.

When we got to the lavatory I went inside with her.… Mrs Mareo used the lavatory.… By the time I got Graham to help me back with her she had fallen fast asleep. She was taken back to her room in the same way that we had taken her from it. We were away from the room altogether not more than ten minutes.…

When we were taking her out I did not notice any odour from her breath. No smell of alcohol.…

When we got back to the room Graham and myself put her back to bed. She just lay back on the pillows. She was asleep by then.⁴⁵

According to the Crown, while Mareo had been in the kitchen heating the milk he had deliberately laced it with a lethal dose of veronal.

Incidentally, in his final address to the jury, Johnstone (the Crown Prosecutor at the first trial) did maintain that he had 'proved conclusively' that Mareo also administered veronal to page 26Thelma on the Friday night as well, but for a number of reasons the Crown's case focused almost exclusively on the Saturday night and the cup of milk. Two members of The Duchess of Danzig cast, Mrs Freda Evans and Miss Doris Bransgrove, testified that they had read about Thelma's death in the newspaper on the following Tuesday and had decided to visit Mareo together that day to offer their sympathy. Both women told the court that during this visit Mareo told them that he had given Thelma veronal on the Friday night. However neither Mareo nor any other witness could confirm that he had either given Thelma veronal or said that he had. Moreover under cross- examination by the Defence both Mrs Evans and Miss Brans- grove revealed that they were close friends and neighbours, that they both disliked Mareo and admired Thelma, and that they had not thought to tell the authorities about their 'sympathy' visit until the police visited them more than a month later. Mareo's counsel, O'Leary, asked Mrs Evans whether theirs had been 'the visit of two curious women' and she replied rather unconvincingly '[n]ot necessarily… We went to see Mr Mareo in his time of grief. – Q. The man you didn't like? – No'.⁴⁶ However, even if these two women were to be believed, it was plain that administering a sleeping draught such as veronal to a mildly unwell woman was quite a different matter to giving an apparently very sick woman barely capable of staying awake the same drug disguised in a cup of milk. While the second action might well be murder, the first might be at best (or worst) manslaughter. Besides, only the second of these actions had been witnessed by anyone other than the accused and the deceased. Thus while the Crown maintained that Mareo had given Thelma veronal on at least two occasions, proof of the murder charge largely depended on Stark's testimony cited above and the logical inferences that could be drawn from it.

After Thelma was assisted back from the lavatory, Stark said she told Mareo they should call a doctor but 'Mareo said that a few hours sleep wouldn't hurt her and it wouldn't hurt her to sleep until morning'.⁴⁷ The whole household went to sleep, Freda in bed with Thelma and Mareo in a chair beside them. Stark page 27said that she could not sleep that evening and that she heard Thelma 'breathing very heavily' and making a 'gurgling sound in her throat'. She called Mareo for assistance but could not rouse him. Nevertheless Stark, who was worried that Thelma 'was going to be sick', managed to sit her up in bed even though she remained asleep.⁴⁸