COMPANY’S SECRETARY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 8, 7 December 1926, Page 10

COMPANY’S SECRETARY.

SHORTAGE IN THE CASH. SUICIDE BY POISONING. Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, Dec. 6. “Ho was surprised to see me and after showing mo where the books were he left the office. When next I saw him he was dead. In the meantime 1 had found a shortage of £450 in the firm’s cash, of which he had been in charge.” These were the words of Mr W. E. Best, auditor, who gave evidence at the adjourned inquest on James Adair Hall, accountant for the Hawarden branch of the Farmers’ Co-operative Association, who was found dead last Wednesday. * Mr Best said he visited Hawarden to audit the books without giving notice of his intention. Witness asked Hall for two receipt blocks and he walked to his overcoat and took something from a pocket and left the office. Witness thought he had gone to get the blocks. When witness found the shortage he made inquires for Hall, but was informed that he was not on the premises. Subsequently he was found in a stable quite dead. Tho face was painfully distorted. Mr Feek, manager of tho drapery department, told witness that he had seen deceased in tho chaff house and told him that witness waited for him. Hall replied that he would go to the office in ten minutes’ time. “Mr Feek came back,” said witness, “but did not inform me that he had seen Hall. I cannot understand that action on his part. The first intimation I had that anything untoward had happened was when I saw the body. They told me nothing but just led me to him. Tho coroner, Mr Lawry, returned a verdict of suicide by poisoning.