The Vanishing Vicar

As shepherd of the flock in tidy, suburban Woodford, just outside Manchester, the slim, silver-haired Rev. Philip St. John (rhymes with Injun) Wilson Ross, Cambridge '26, was irreproachable. On call to his parishioners for religious consolation at any hour, he was also arch and sporting at children's church picnics, full of charm at meetings of the church mothers, and a lively, intelligent man of the world with the businessmen of the local vestry. There were those, of course, whose evil tongues sought mischief in gossip over the frequent calls paid by the Rev. Mr. Ross on Wealthy Widow Kathleen Ryall about four years ago after the death of her husband--but, as Philip's devoted wife Eileen herself said, "Mrs. Ryall was in a terribly distressed state and she needed spiritual guidance. My husband gave her that."

Morning Swim. In any case it made little difference, for three years later, on holiday with his wife and child in Wales, Philip Ross went out one day for his customary morning swim--and was never seen again. All that was left of him were his clothes and his footprints on the beach. Eileen Ross went back to Woodford in mourning. The parishioners held a memorial service and raised -L-600 to build her a bungalow, and the bishop appointed a temporary vicar for Woodford until Ross's death should be declared official, as in due time it was.

And there the story might have ended--except for an anonymous letter that found its way to Scotland Yard and the press. The letter implied that the Rev. Mr. Ross was still very much alive and in happy residence with the Widow Ryall. "A fantastic rumor!" said Eileen Ross when she heard of it. "My husband is dead." But newsmen soon found a more enthusiastic listener in Mrs. Ryall's daughter Wendy, 23. "I'wouldn't be at all surprised," said Wendy coyly. Then, warming to the talk, she blurted: "I want to clear the air. The death was all fake. The day he 'died,' he telephoned my mother."

Throbs in the Headlines. With that to go on, Britain's newsmen soon pieced together the whole tale. Philip Ross and Kathleen Ryall had been childhood friends. Ross, newly in love with his old flame and desperate at the thought of losing her again, had faked his death and joined Mrs. Ryall. Moving first to London and then to a house in the country (which bore, by the sheerest chance, the motto: "To live happily, let us live hidden"), Mr. and ' Mrs. Sydney Davies--as they called themselves--had lived happily thereafter on Mrs. Ryall's money.

Last week, as their story exploded in the press, newsmen tracked down the couple on holiday at a hotel in Montreux, Switzerland, and the idyl throbbed in the headlines. Sobbing and distraught, Kathleen returned to London in the company of her lawyer. "He has the face of a saint and is the only man I'll ever love," she said of Philip. "We are ready to forgive and forget. We still love you dearly," said Eileen Ross in a message to her husband. Thus doubly beloved, the Rev. Mr. Ross-Davies prudently lingered in Europe, while in England a solemn brood of lawyers set about annulling the legal consequences of his untimely death.

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