Doris Evans

Doris Evans is a typist whose visit to Captain Anthony Sessle’s bungalow places her at the center of the investigation into his murder. Though charged on circumstantial evidence, she maintains that Sessle threatened her and that she fled; her case remains unresolved, with the possibility of another woman’s involvement left open.

Identity and Introduction

Doris works as a typist. According to her statement, she met a well-dressed man at a cinema who introduced himself as Anthony and invited her to his bungalow at Sunningdale. She says she did not know he was married. Only later did he give her his full name, Anthony Sessle, and the name of his house.

The visit was arranged for a Wednesday when the servants were to be away and Sessle’s wife was absent. Doris arrived that evening after travelling by train. At the station, she asked for directions to Sessle’s home; about two hours later, she returned in an agitated state, with her hat awry and hair tousled, and asked about trains back to town while repeatedly looking behind her.

The Murder Investigation

The police had little physical evidence: a strand of fair hair in the dead man’s fingers and several threads of flame-coloured wool caught on a button of his blue coat. Their inquiries traced the young woman in the matching flame-coloured outfit to Doris. She was charged with murder and cautioned that her words could be used against her, but nevertheless gave an account that she later repeated in detail without substantial variation.

Doris said that Sessle had just returned from the golf links when she reached the bungalow. Although he had professed delight at seeing her, she described his manner as strange and said that fear arose in her almost at once. In the account reported by the investigation, Sessle seized her arm; she struggled to get free and, if necessary, to take the revolver from him. The struggle offered an explanation for the hair and wool found on his clothing.

Escape and Unresolved Evidence

Doris said that she eventually broke free and ran across the golf links, fearing that Sessle would shoot her. She fell twice on the way but reached the road to the station and realized that no one was pursuing her. A revolver was found in the furze near the body; it had not been fired. Doris denied striking Sessle with a hat pin in self-defence, although the account acknowledges that such an action might have been possible.

Her consistent statement did not settle who killed Sessle. The investigation raised the possibility of a tall woman in brown, whose appearance had upset him and who was seen on a footpath across the links before disappearing. No one explained her connection to the case, and the evidence did not establish whether she was local or had come from London. The account distinguishes her from Doris, described as small and fair and only then arriving at the station.

Identification and Narrative Role

Doris’s case becomes part of Tommy Beresford’s inquiry through a clue in the clothing: he proposes using the blue coat to test the connection between Doris and young Hollaby. Inspector Marriot says the police will confront the two and see whether Doris recognizes Hollaby, while also acknowledging suspicions about the Hollabys and the absence of evidence against them. The proposed identification is a next investigative step, not a reported result.

Doris therefore occupies an uncertain position between suspect and witness. Her account explains the physical traces and her distressed return to the station, but leaves the central question—the identity of Sessle’s killer—open. The unexplained woman in brown preserves that uncertainty rather than resolving it.