Tuesday and Later

Eleanor Brownlee left Tenterden Avenue at about eleven o'clock on Monday evening. According to her, Mareo and Graham arrived uninvited and unannounced at her rented room at about page 30half past two the next morning where Graham slept on the bed and she and Mareo in chairs. The next day they went back to Tenterden Avenue. That morning Stark claimed she received a phone call from Mareo in which

[h]e said that he knew how I felt over Thelma's death — he knew how much I would miss her, and he would miss her too. And he told me to stop crying, or he would be crying too. Then he said 'Fritters dear, you'll have to be careful what you say to the detectives or you'll have a rope around my neck'. And he said 'The next time you give a statement tell them that you weren't in a fit state when you gave your first statement.'⁵⁶

The same day Mrs Evans and Miss Bransgrove made their visit and Mareo told them that he was going to take a veronal tablet and have a good sleep. Mrs Evans testified that she said

'Surely you won't take a veronal tablet when you know the way Thelma suffered' and he said 'Thelma suffered no pain.' He said he hadn't got a doctor before because he was so used to seeing Thelma 'Canned'. We left shortly after. Just before we rose Mr Mareo said he was really frightened and would we help him if he needed us. Then as we were leaving he grasped the arm of Miss Bransgrove and myself and said 'They won't hang me will they?' When we arrived there — before he said 'Thank God she wasn't insured', he said that Graham and himself had walked the streets, all night.⁵⁷

Eleanor Brownlee stayed with Mareo and Graham at Tenterden Avenue for two days after Thelma's death. A few days later Mareo and Graham moved out of Tenterden Avenue and went to a flat in Waterloo Quadrant where Brownlee often visited. She and Mareo continued to work on a scenario for the film Mareo was planning make. According to the Herald's summary of the Crown's closing address

As soon as Mrs Mareo died, Miss Brownlee was installed at No. 1 Tenterden Avenue for as long as Mareo remained there, page 31and later her room at Wyndham Street was constantly at his disposal — all this without any fee save the expectation of a problematical return from a film production.⁵⁸

The detectives returned to Tenterden Avenue for the last time on 19 April, Good Friday. An inquest into Thelma's death had been held a few days earlier on the Tuesday at which Betty had testified that Thelma drank excessively. This had been reported in the Auckland Star and on Good Friday Detective Meiklejohn 'commented to accused that it was a pity that she said what she did. I said people were commenting and saying that she did not drink as much as what was said. Accused agreed that that was correct.' Betty then came into the room and kissed and hugged her father while he said

'You will visit me at the prison, won't you Betty?' She said 'Of course, Daddy.' Mareo then said, 'Why did you say all that about poor Thelma'. He said that to Betty. She said 'They told me I had to, and I did it to protect you, daddy'. He commented that she should not have said so much.⁵⁹

After the detectives had left Betty later confessed in court that she

did something in relation to the bottles there that afternoon. I took off two labels and threw them away or burnt them. One bottle was like a small aspirin bottle. I think the label had on it 'Barbitone' or something like that. I took that label off and burnt it. I am not sure what I did with it — I threw it away somewhere. I don't know what the other bottle was — a sort of medicine bottle. It had on it some sort of red label I think. I did the same with that label as the other. I threw the bottles out. I did this because I knew that veronal had been found in the house and I thought the chemist would get in for a row. You are not supposed to buy that stuff and I threw the labels away because I thought the chemist would get in for a row. Mareo was out of the house that Friday. I don't think he was in the room when I did that.⁶⁰

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The police later found these bottles in the backyard as well as the remains of an insurance policy in the name of 'Thelma'.

The detectives visited Mareo at his new address and Brownlee's place on several other occasions, finally reading Mareo the warrant for his arrest nearly five months after Thelma's death, on 2 September 1935. Mareo responded, 'Really, on what evidence, this is ridiculous. What evidence have you got?'⁶¹

The only other evidence relevant to the Crown's case was the report of the government analyst who examined portions of Thelma's body as well as her mattress and bedding, and the coroner's report on the post-mortem examination carried out the day after her death. According to the coroner, Dr Walter Gilmour, a pathologist at Auckland Hospital, Thelma died of uncomplicated veronal poisoning, 'probably' from a dose of 'at least 100 gr'.⁶² Dr Gilmour thought that Thelma had one dose of veronal on either the Friday night or the Saturday morning and the fatal dose on the Saturday night because it was impossible for a patient to awaken from a comatose state and then relapse into a fatal coma. On the evidence of Stark and Graham, Dr Gilmour thought that Thelma was not in a coma when she drank the milk and would have fully recovered if she had not taken or been given another dose. During the trial two other doctors with limited experience in the treatment of veronal poisoning were called to give evidence. They both confirmed Dr Gilmour's conclusions.

Thus the Crown's case was reasonably straightforward. While Thelma was recovering from at least one poisonous dose of veronal, Mareo contrived the administration of a fatal dose disguised in a cup of milk so that he might replace his wife with his mistress, Eleanor Brownlee. '[T]he possibility of a third finding' other than murder or not guilty of murder, manslaughter, was, the Crown argued, 'not here'.⁶³