04/09/2026
A Dead Woman's Letter and a Fatal Cab Ride…
In September 1924, a deeply tragic sequence of events unfolded on the streets of Leeds, beginning in a room at the Great Northern Hotel and ending in the back of a taxi cab. The story centres on two fragile individuals: thirty-five-year-old Helen Mary Nind, a music teacher who resided at 56 Baker Street, Heavitree, Exeter, and Mr Hugh Gerald Evelyn White, M.A., a forty-five-year-old lecturer at Leeds University. Hugh was a distinguished Egyptologist who had worked near the tomb of Tutankhamen and spent over a decade with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Though his home was believed to be in Cambridge, he lodged at 33 Victoria Terrace, Belle Vue Road, while in Leeds.
The tragedy began between 4:00 and 4:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, when Peter Dillon, a night porter residing at 9 Servia Road, Leeds, heard unnatural, heavy breathing from one of the hotel rooms. With the help of another porter, Herbert Masterman, he entered to find Helen fully dressed on the bed, unconscious. She had checked in the evening before under the false name of Bryant. Police Constable Parfitt arrived to find her foaming at the mouth, and Dr Edwin Holmes later confirmed at the Leeds General Infirmary that she had swallowed a caustic poison, likely carbolic acid. She died on Monday morning.
Among her possessions was an unposted, heartbroken letter addressed to Hugh at his Victoria Terrace lodgings. In it, she wrote that life was too miserable to go on, distressed that she had missed him when she called at his home the previous week. Investigators also found a cold, unsigned letter-card from Hugh to Helen, warning that if she gave him any further trouble, he would report her su***de threats to the Exeter police.
Hugh, described by his landlady as a highly nervous, chain-smoking scholar whose room was filled with archaeological texts, had been subpoenaed to attend Helen's inquest. He never made it. At around twenty minutes to two, Hugh engaged a taxi driven by Tom Burrows of 22 Howden Terrace at the Quebec Street stand. Tom's wife, Mary Burrows, noted the well-dressed fare looked terribly pale and trembling. Hugh asked to be taken to 29 Park Square, the home of his physician since 1922, Dr Maxwell Telling.
Tom drove past the General Post Office and along Infirmary Street and St. Paul's Street. Just twenty yards from the doctor's door, Tom heard a dull report like a bursting tyre. Hugh had shot himself in the forehead with a revolver. Tom rushed to the door to fetch Dr Telling, who sat with his dying patient as they sped to the infirmary. Hugh died shortly afterwards.
The coroner, Mr W. H. Clarke, had to pause Helen's inquest when Inspector Pass left to investigate the shooting. Helen's sister, Ruth Mary Carlota Nind, a nurse stationed at Netley, testified she knew nothing of any young man in Leeds. Ultimately, the coroner concluded that a severe quarrel between these two highly strung people had driven both to take their own lives, recording a verdict of su***de whilst temporarily insane.
