DETECTIVE'S DUTY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 117, 20 May 1933, Page 4 (Supplement)

DETECTIVE'S DUTY.

DRAMA OF DEVOTION. SON SENT TO GUILLOTINE. The one man alive in a position to do so has revealed a terrible drama of devotion to duty at a time when his very heartstrings were tugging him in another direction. The man who has made the revelation is a veteran inspector of the French Surete Generale, Jean Luigne, who has just retired to end his days in his native Dijon after over forty years of service. Promotion for provincial police in France is slow, and at the age of 30 M. LuiKne was kicking his hdels at Nimes with little hope of obtaining an opportunity to prove his worth, when chance came his way in the shape of a particularly baffling murder mystery in one of the adjoining villages, of which an old couple had been the victims. The case attracted much attention in France because of the exceptional circumstances attending* it, and when local detectives failed to solve the mystery some of the cleverest detectives in Paris were "lent." Knife Clue. But after a year there were no regnlts, and it was decided to leave the matter in the hands of the local police. The local detective chief then detailed M. Luigne for the task. Little dreaming where his zeal would lead him, the detective got to work on the case, going over again and again the okl ground, until at the end of eight months of patient work he led intc tiie police station a youth named Leonard Pascal. Pascal was the son of an unmarried mother living not far from the scene of the crime. 1 ' None of the detectives who had examined the mass of "exhibits" had Keen anything pointing to Pascal or anyone else, but in going through the liftle museum for the last time, M. Luigne was struck by one "exhibit," a boy's pocketknife of British make. And like a flash came back to him the recollection of having given such a. knife to his son, born while lie, the father, .was still in his 'teens, the outcome of a liaison with a farmer's daughter. Traced His Son's Movements. It was obvious that only its possession j by the murderer would account lor trie presence of this in the room of the crime, j and. hoping against hope, that there ! might be some innocent explanation, M. ! Luigne set himself to trace the movements j of his son, who went by his mother's name ! of Pascal, until he fouud the most coi'- j vincing evidence. When the chain of evidence was so complete that conviction with the guillotine at the end of it was certain for the lad, the anguished father had a fierce battle with his duty and his natural feelings for the lad he had brought into the world. "For me it was a Calvary," he says now in telling his secret. All through one night I battled it out. and the tide of battle swayed from side to side through the night. "The long drawn-out trial was torture for me. and not the least excruciating part of it was at the end when the judge called me into court and eulogised the detective work that had solved this mystery."

A Moslem in the Northern Hills of India has died aped 120. He had twelve wives—and survived them all.