MAN WHO SOLD HIS FRIEND.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 25, 30 January 1926, Page 36

MAN WHO SOLD HIS FRIEND.

SHAMEFUL DOWNFALL OF CAPTAIK ARTHUR. THE LAST BLOW. Could fiction invent anything stranger than the story of Captain Arthur, the A.D.C. in the famous '"Air. A." case, who was found guilty by a French court of receiving money obtained by fraud from his own benefactor and employer? Those who knew Captain Arthur as a young man describe him as a notable flnd extremely popular figure- in racing circles in Ireland. He hunted, shot, fished, raced, and danced and dined with the best in the land. His family had held their estates in County Clare and County Limerick ft»T hundreds of years. They were as rmieli c part of Limerick ac its famous Treaty ■ Stone or as the lordly Shannon that flows by its quays. An ancestor of his was Bishop of Limerick, and more than a score of his forbears had held the office of mayor of that town. One could scarcely parallel an association like this in the life of an English town. Captain Arthur was, in tho words of his countrymen, "one of the rale cruld stock, tho quality." His Bride. Like most young Irish landlords, he got a commission in the Irish Militia, a pleasant form of soldiering, with a month's training every year, and an admirable mess full of young Irish landlords who made life an open-air gymnasium, full of fun, frolic, and good cheer. Captain Arthur married into his own class, his bride being Miss Roche-Kelly, a name that shows a mixed descent from the native Irish and the Normans who came over with Strongbow. Ho had a younger brother, Desmond Arthur, of whom he was intensely and affectionately proud. Desmond was one of the pioneers of flying. A lighthearted, daring boy, he lost his life in a crash at Mo'ntrose. His elder brother seemed never to recover from the blow. He lived more and more the .ife of the less moderate set in Irish racing cirolc-s, and found companions in the men who made a day's racing the preliminary for a night at tho cards. To: porno of hia friends he complained that this association had cost him very dear. Meeting With "Mr. A." After their honeymoon Captain Arthur and his wife went for a big game-shooting expedition to the East. At that time be had an income of between five and ten thousand a year. In India he wet Sir Hari Singh—then a mere boy—who -was fascinated of this clever, captivating sporting Irishman with his storie3 of hunting and racing and his inexhaustible store of amusing and cynical anecdotes. "That is the kind of man," he said, "I should like always to have about mc." Hβ could not foresee—no man could —that his association with this dashing, plausible, and entertaining Irishman would one day land him, in a predicament that would shame him before the world and imperil his claim to the throne for which he was destined. Sir Hari Singh ha dhisway, and Captain Arthur was appointed to .his staff. Together they came to Europe, and Arthur took his princely patron to Ireland, introduced him to racing circles there, and helped him to purchase bloodstock and run his own, horses. The Shameful Plot. Then came the tragedy—the shameful plot to inveigle the Rajah, High, Priest as well as heir-appaxent of an almost fanatically religious people, with, a woman to compromise him, with, the full knowledge that there was scarcely any amount of money that he would not pay to save his name and Iris throne. One remembers the harsE words tised by the judge in the trial, his public expression of thankfulness that the man Arthur, whose business was to protect, not betray, the hand thcit fed him, was not a Regular British officer. Could any comment be more cutting and painful to a man who once held his head high and was esteemed by the best among his fellow-countrymen? The broken and disillusioned Rajah returned to India, leaving his no longer acceptable Irish aide-de-camp behind him. 111-luck dogged Arthur from that moment. His wife divorced him. He paid £40,000 into his bank account. In a year or two the money -was all gone. It is said that he lost most of it at caTds and the balance in ill-considered rum-running enterprises. Contempt of the Rajah. When he was arrested in Paris he had only £25 to his credit. He was sued in the Dublin courts for a tailor's bill. At the time of his arrest he denied that he was in any way a party to the plot to extort money from the Rajah. He resisted extradition on the ground that he was not English, but Irish. But French justice declined to let him go free, and the world watched this ■wretched men, locked away in the Saute Prison and fighting desperately to save his honour. There was only one man who could save it for him—the Prince who once accounted him a faithful and trusty servant. Arthur wrote to him and begged him to say the word that would cave him and restore him to a world that he could still look in the face. Rajah Sir Hari Singh did not even deign to give him the courtesy of a reply. So the curtain falls -on this tragedy of sordid and shameful treachery. Arthur will step out of a French prison prematurely aged, broken in health, bankrupt in reputation.