Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1889-05-15 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

MELBOURNE MYSTERY.  STRANGE DEATH OF A CHEMIST.  MURDER OR SUICIDE?  Melbourne & excited over a very extraordinary death. rit to the dispatch of the last mail, which has just reached England, the affair was surrounded with peculiar mystery. Upon entering the shop of Mr. Henry Davy, a well. known city chemist, at 260, Elizabeth-street, one of his assistants found the body of Mr. Davy lying on the table in a back room. The deceased was dressed with the exception of his coat, and appeared to have been dead for some hours. No sign of violence was apparent, nor was any thing discovered in the room to bear out the theory of suicide by poison. Mr. Davy was 43 years of age, and a married man. No one sleeps in the house, bat as sets of keys were in the possession of the manager (Mr. Robert Beddome). the assistant (Mr. Thomas Cowl), and the deceased, it was possible for either of the three to enter the shop at any hour of the night. Mr. Davy last visited the shop on the Monday morning prior to the Thursday upon which he was found dead, at about 11.30, and the assistant heard nothing of him until about the same hour on Wednesday, when he sent a telephone message to the effect , 'hat he was going away to Geelong. It is I certain, however, that he spent the intervening day at home, and that he was at his private re-1 eider., at Parkvillee until soon after nine o'clock on Wednesday morning. Instead of going to Geelong, as he had said, the deceased went to Oakleigh Park. In the evening he was with a friend in the bar of an hotel two doors from his establishment. The two left the hotel tog3ther, and nothing more was seen of him until the next day, when his body was fovnd. The visit to the hotel is denied by the gentleman said to have accompanied him, a Mr. Gray also a chemist. On the other hand, the barmaid swore at the inquest that the visit was paid, and that the two left the house together. Mr. Gray says he met the deceased soon after ten o'clock in the billiard-room at the Port Phillip Club Hotel, and that they both joined with some friends in a game of pool. After a little time Mr. Davy ceased playing, but the others played on until closing time, when the marker called his attentien to the fact that Mr. Davy was asleep on a sofa. Mr. Gray woke him up, and the two walked together to the corner of Bourke and Swanston-street, where Mr. Davy got into a cub and said "Good night," Miss Lorne, the barmaid, however, persisted in her story, mentioning as a further proof of her accuracy that Mr. Gray had, on Wednesday night, worn a boxer hat, instead of a tall bat as usual, and Mr. Gray finally admitted that he might have been in the hotel with the deceased, but persisted that he had no reccollection of the circumstance. He was positive, also, whether he had visited the Post Oftice Club or not, that he had parted with Mr. Davy at the corner of Bourke and Swanston streets, and that the deceased had hired a cab with the intention of driving home to Parkiille The medical evidence given at the inquest, after a poat-mortem been made, was to the effect that death was due ssphyaria. How it was caused no one knows, and it is considered a remarkable circumstance that the doors of the rooms, leading into the one where the body was found, were all carefully locked, as the assistants had left the night before.