right in the Greenwood home for
some considerable time, and the word
“murder’’ was muttered.
The rumours later appeared to be
supported by some facts. Meanwhile
Dr. Griffiths certified death as being
due to valvular disease of the heart,
meaning that his patient’s heart was
worn out.
Mabel Greenwood was interred on
Thursday, June 19th, in the churchyard
of St. Mary’s, Kidwelly. A grief-stricken
Irene Greenwood registered her
mother’s death, but her father had
omitted to send the formal certificate
to the vicar. This omission caused
the Rev. Jones to voice his personal
misgivings and thus direct suspicion at
the widower.
Nurse Jones was another who didn’t
shut her ears to the gossip about how
Harold Greenwood had neglected his
Mabel, the better to enjoy other female
company. Indeed, she added a few
strong views of her own. The gossip
reached the ears of Police Sergeant
Hodge Lewis, who felt obliged to call
on Nurse Jones and question her about
Mrs. Greenwood’s death.
The sergeant took copious notes,
which he showed to his superior,
Superintendent Jones. The officers
were later to cite these at the inquest.
But like a good many people who live
to regret having let their tongues wag
too garrulously, the nurse suddenly felt
it was time to beat a strategic verbal
retreat in the face of a gathering storm
of aroused anger for which she had
been partly responsible. In her interview
with the sergeant she attempted to stop
inflaming opinion against the solicitor,
but she was like Pandora trying to shut
her particular box of tricks.
She now saw Harold Greenwood as
a possible suitor. She had been visiting
him since his wife’s death, on the
pretext of his attending to some legal
business for her. On one occasion she
had remained late with him to tell his
fortune...had contained prescriptions by the
doctor, as well as a variety of patent
medicines ordered by Mrs. Greenwood.
Later that night the nurse returned
to see Mrs. Greenwood, and the doctor
continued to look in during the hours
before midnight. The diarrhoea had
become uncontrollable, but he did
not examine the excreta. Later, this
omission assumed importance – and a
great deal of what actually happened
was called into question. By midnight,
with the patient’s condition growing
visibly worse, Mrs. Greenwood asked
if she was dying. And at 1 a.m. she told
the nurse: “If I don’t recover, Nurse
Jones, I’d like my sister to look after the
children and bring them up.’’
With the patient talking of death, it
seems surprising that a second doctor
was not summoned. Irene finally asked
her father to go again for Dr. Griffiths.
For some reason never explained
satisfactorily, Greenwood dallied on this
short mission across the road, staying to
chat to Miss May Griffiths, the doctor’s
sister. It was a good hour later, when
an impatient Irene was on the point
of going out to find what was delaying
her father, that Greenwood at last
reappeared. He was alone – and he was
stifling a yawn.
As the night progressed the nurse
became even more alarmed for the
patient. She shook Greenwood awake.
“You must fetch Dr. Griffiths without
delay,’’ she told him. “This may be a
crisis!’’
The solicitor left his bed and went
again for the doctor, returning almost
at once to say that Griffiths was
apparently fast asleep and he couldn’t
rouse him. The nurse then ran across
the road and immediately succeeded
in awakening the doctor’s household,
returning with him.
Mrs. Greenwood died at about 3.
a.m. Watched over by Nurse Jones and
Irene, she had fallen into a coma after
taking some pills prescribed by Dr.
Griffiths.
Nurse Jones brooded on Mabel
Greenwood’s death for some four
hours. Then she went to St. Mary’s
Vicarage. At 8 a.m. the Reverend
Ambrose Jones received her and learned
that Mrs. Greenwood was dead.
“She certainly seemed to be in
reasonably good health when I last
saw her,’’ he said, expressing his shock.For some reason,
Greenwood dallied
on his short mission
across the road to get
Dr. Griffiths, staying to
chat to May Griffiths,
the doctor’s sisterLadies’ man Harold Greenwood
in the library at Rumsey House.
Below left, an illustration of his
daughter Irene“I never realised that she was so
desperately ill.’’
Nor did many others who had seen
Mabel attending various functions
in the district. Before long gossips
began to suggest that all had not beenRumsey House in
Kidwelly where the
Greenwoods lived
and Mabel died