Sacre bleu! While flicking through the pages of a profusely illustrated , French text art book , in a set of three , out pops a folded , faded leaflet . On examination it is found to be an invitation to attend a June 1929 branch meeting of the Mothers' Union at Saint Oswald's Anglican Church , Swanbourne , Perth , Western Australia , the special speaker, Mrs Stileman.
There is a penned , hard to decipher inscription on the front free endpaper which could be taken to read : A Gwen en souvenir, Henri Leonard or Given as a souvenir ... It also bears a trade sticker of the Brussels library/bookshop of M. Lamerton . The situation is clarified somewhat in another volume, a general history of art in France , by Louis Hourtico , 1919, by another inscription : To my dear friend Gwen , H. Leonard . The third book contains an inscription which has been whited out , a modern concoction used to hide names and erase errors .
What would the French detective , Chief Inspector Maigret (not the Rowan Atkinson version ) do in a baffling case like this? He would, of course, Google the name of the guest speaker , Mrs Stileman . This bright piece of detective work resulted in an unexpected turn in the investigation .
Directed to Trove , the wonderful source of yesteryear newspaper information, up came a February 4 , 1927 Children's Court case in the Perth Daily News involving a 15 year old girl who had stolen a seven stone diamond ring valued at 70 pound from Mrs F. W. Stileman . The girl had been in service to Mrs Stileman , and after receiving the first week's pay had run away with the ring , wearing it when picked up by detectives at a railway station .
In a plea for leniency , the girl's mother said her daughter was out of control; she was committed to an institution for a year. While her daughter may have run off the rails , it seems Mrs Stileman's husband was the chief engineer of WA Government Railways who drew up a grand rail extension plan for the state , part thwarted by the Depression and other issues , a member of the university senate from which in 1930 he was given a send off before departing back to England .
In near mint condition , printed in Paris in 1928 , another inclusion , above, was later detected , advertising the three volume set Encyclopedie Des Beaux Arts .
In a plea for leniency , the girl's mother said her daughter was out of control; she was committed to an institution for a year. While her daughter may have run off the rails , it seems Mrs Stileman's husband was the chief engineer of WA Government Railways who drew up a grand rail extension plan for the state , part thwarted by the Depression and other issues , a member of the university senate from which in 1930 he was given a send off before departing back to England .
( These books came from the collection of an artistic lady in North Queensland who may well have been a keen French apache dancer in her younger days.)
