Cecil Maltby, a 47-year-old London tailor with a taste for gambling and drink, shot his mistress Alice Hilda Middleton three times in the back at his flat above his shop at 24 Park Road, Regent’s Park, on 24 August 1922. He concealed her decomposing body in a bath in the kitchen, wrapped in a sheet with a note claiming she had committed suicide. Her husband, returning from service with the Merchant Navy in the Far East, reported her missing in December 1922, prompting police to watch the premises.
When authorities finally forced entry on 10 January 1923, using a health order citing unsanitary conditions, officers heard a shot from the bedroom. Maltby had put a gun to his mouth and died within minutes. The pathologist’s report demolished his suicide narrative: Middleton had been shot three times from behind. A coroner’s jury returned a verdict of murder against Maltby, finding that he had then taken his own life to avoid arrest.
