YOUNG HEIRESS AND HER £160,000,000 WILL.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 47, 24 February 1923, Page 19

YOUNG HEIRESS AND HER £160,000,000 WILL.

TO LOOK AFTER LIONS AND SEKPENTS. A. Paris investigating magistrate and the police have been trying to throw some Ught on an extraordinary and mysterious affair which reads like a fantastical tale In a child's Christmas book. It concerns the alleged legaej of hundreds of millions of dollars—between £140,000,000 and £160.000,000—said to have been made by a Boston girl to a Parisian woman. She Is asserted to bare made this with tbe stipulation that the beneficiary must go round the world to take care of the pet animals—cats, dogs, birds, lions, serpents, etc.—which the dead Boston girl is said to have left either In her many villas in Europe, America and Japan, or in American zoological garden*, to the latter of which she was a generous doner. The alleged heiress to these supposed millions is Mme. Leotardi, a middle-aged woman, the wife of a Parisian Journalist. According to her story, Mme. Leotardi several years ago met Miss Lilian Heller, a Boston girl who bad inherited an immense fortune from an uncle.

The supposed Miss Heller—who up to the present time is as much of a mystery as was the '•millionaire" Crawford in the Humbert affair some twenty-five years ago -travelled a good deal. She instructed Mme. Leotardi to buy for her villas and chateaux in France to the value of some 30.000,000 francs.

On various occasions she took M. and Mme. Leotardi cruising in her yacht, tbe Old Chap. It was during a cruise in the Mediterranean early In 1921 that Miss Heller died.

Mme. I-ootnrdi claims to have been notified a few months after by Mr. Wilbur HelU-r, n cousin of the dead girl, that the latter had left her all her immense fortune on condition that she would look after the pet animals left by her in various corners of the globe. To her ronsln, Wilbur Heller, deceased left her yacht.

Mmp. Leotnrdi claims to have a copy and a photo of the original document, which Is said to have been left In the e«re of a Marseilles notary; but formalities Iβ America and France to obtain possession of the fortune said to have been left to Mme. Leotardi take a long time, especially as up to the present the "heiress" has not yet been able to obtain a death certificate in proper form. A I'aris banker, who was said to have advanced money to the "heiress" to cover expenses in connection with the matter, nnd who Informed the police because he failed to recover the money, brought to light the whole story of this fantastical inheritance. But he has been repaid his money, and withdrew his complaint. Meanwhile the police have been making inquiries. So far they have been unable lo trace the dead millionairess' cousin. Wilbur Heller. Also they have failed to trace two of three supposed friends mentioned in many letters In Mme. Leotardi's possession and signed by Miss Heller. Nor have they found the captain of the yacht Old Chap, and, so far as thin Is concerned, they are inclined to believe that it is a phantom yacht. As for the long lists of Miss Heller's pet animals, which were found In Mme. Leotardl's possession. It is said that the "heiress" has admitted to the police that she had made them up to amuse her husband.

The police have cabled to Boston to find out if Miss Heller has ever existed, or whether she Is merely an invention ct Mme. Leotardl's imagination.