HE BURIED HIMSELF—ALIVE!

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 17, 21 January 1939, Page 8 (Supplement)

HE BURIED HIMSELF—ALIVE!

CC VI IE have the honour of inYV forming you that we are a powerful secret society composed of persons of the highest aristocracy. Our purpose is to rid France of the unscrupulous crooks and swindlers who prey on their fellow men." So began a mysterious letter that arrived at the ofiices of "Lc Matin," great Paris newspaper. The Marquis do Chainpaubert, it stated, was to be victim No. 1. Within ten days he was to die. The society disclosed its plan*. Tn July, two months before, the Marquis had been released from prison. He bad been lured to their headquarters by Mine. D'O.-gcval, the only woman member of the society, who had written io the Marquis to say she would like to publish his autobiography. The Marquis walked into the trap. Then he had been sentenced to deatli by torture. If he survived one, a more terrible form was to follow. '"To-day he was strapped on a cot in his cell, an iron funnel in his mouth. One and a half gallons of water were poured into him. "But he has the vitality of 20 men; he did not even complain. To-morrow he has an appointment with Sam, our giant orang-outang. He cannot survive." There was no signature, tout under the letter appeared: "For the Knights of Themis, Their Leader?" Of these "Knights of Themis," the Surete, the Scotland Yard of Paris, knew nothing, but of " the so-called Marquis de Cliampaubert they knew plenty. In fact, their fat dossier filled 200 pages and covered a career of 20 years of crime. He was a , master criminal who went from place to place, never repeating the same scheme twice, always changing his

ByJohn TheWes

At Nantes he had opened a fraudulent motor car agency, leaving suddenly with half a million francs in his pocket. He had started a bogus perfume factory, milking investors to the extent of 300,000 francs. He had taken a pavilion at the Marseilles Colonial Exhibition, said he represented a famous perfume house and decamped with another halfmillion francs. Finally lie overstepped himself. A famous Paris jeweller one morning received a letter. It came from the "Marquis de Champa ulicrt" and read: "Would you bring a collection of diamond necklaces mid bracelets to the Cattle du 'Prieure for me to see?" Suspicious, the jeweller turned up his reference book*. He could find no mention of the nobleman and promptly informed the police. They at once started their inquiries and learned that not only had four other notable jewellers received the same invitation, but also that this mysterious marquis liad taken the castle for September only. Soon they had identified him as Clement Passal, the man they had been hunting for months, the man responsible for a lengthy series of frauds all over the country. They raided the castle, and his entire cunning scheme was laid bare. He had set. aside live rooms for the jewellers. They had been made completely air tight.' Then in a billiard room on the first floor, the detectives found a tank of chloroform. Pipes le.d down from it to the five specially prepared rooms. As the chloroform fumes spread through his room, each of v the jewellers in turn would gradually fall unconscious. Whereupon, the Marquis de Champau-

Bert, alias Clement Passal, had intended to disappear with some millions of francs worth of jewellery in his pockets. It cost him live years' imprisonment. Other letters now began to follow at the oflice of "Le Matin." "To-day, the Marquis met Sam, our orang-outang," the second began. "We keep this gigantic beast in a pit 14ft deep, its sides so slippery that it is impossible for him, or anyone else, to clamber out." Sam, the letter continued, had been starved, for 24 hour*?. .Moreover,, he had been given a heavy club which fie knew from experience how to use. Into this pit the Marquis had been lowered by a rope. "Another man would have - grovelled in fear. But not the Marquis. He bent over so that his hands touched the bottom of the pit. Then he*» managed to scoop up some dirt, stand up, and hurl it into Sam's bulging eyes." This had apparently made the animal hysterical with agony. It- had dropped the club, which the had promptly seized and brought crashing down on the orang-outang's head, rendering it unconscious. Next they bound him to a parachute with delayed timing so that it would open 200 ft above the ground. Then they flung him out of an aeroplane, hut once again he survived. Die he must. That was the message of all these strange* letters. Not by bullets. Not -by poisoning. Those methods were far too'merciful. Cryptic Message Of Vengeance No. He must be buried alive. He was to be put into a cofiin from which a long pipe led into the open air. "Tell the whole world of our plans," this particular letter ended. "Let all scoundrels know of Chainpaubert's fate." Feverishly the police pursued their inquiries. But everywhere they turned they were completely -baffled. Finally, on October 2, a short note arrived at the newspaper. "We have the honour of informing you that this is our last communication concerning the Marquis de Champaubert. Our task is accomplished." That grim, cryptic message could convey one thing only. Clement Passal, alias the Marquis de Champaubert, must 'be dead. . The news was conveyed to Inspector Adam, of the Surete, and he at once left for Elbcuf-Saint-Aubin to see Passal's aged mother. He found the old lady in bed, tears coursing slowly * down her deeply wrinkled cheeks. She could not speak. Sobbingly she pulled a letter from under her pillow and handed it to the inspector. "Mv sweet, dear little old mother," it started, "with breaking heart I write this, the very last letter you will ever receive from me." He told her of his tortures, of the last sentence to be buried alive. "My last thought will be of you, my most beloved mother. And I am asking my captors, as a dying man's last request, to bury with me the-photograph of you I have always carried about. Right over my heart.—Clement." That same Wednesday morning, however. another strange letter had arrived at Elbcuf-Saint-Aubin. The letter was received by an old friend of Clement Passal's. Georges Durot. And» it was signed Madame D'Orgeval. "Ever since the Marouis de Champaubert has been buried alive. I have been sorry," she wrote. "You can save him. There is still time. The ventilating pipe will have brought him sufficient air. But hurrj." The letter described exactly how he had been buried, and the exact spot in Verneuil Wood. There in a ditch, he could find the pine wlueh allowed air to come down to the coffin. George* Durot rapidly made his plans. In Paris lived another friend of Passal's, M. Bachelet, who also possessed a motor cycle.

In the darkness, tliey nearly missed the pipe. It protruded about three inches from the ground. With feverish liaste they started digging and at last uncovered the coffin. Their only tools were their pocket knives. With these they tried to force open the lid, but in vain. Ecqueville, the nearest village, was only a few miles away, and here Passal's two friends hurried in a last desperate effort. They, poured out their story to the gendarmes and two of the officers returned with theni' to the desolate wood, taking axes and other tools to force open the coffin. It was no easy tasl, DUt eventually they succeeded. In the dim light of their torches, under the dripping trees, they saw before them the body of Passal. He looked strangely inert. "Passal, Passal," Bachelet called. "We are here. It is all right!" But no answering words came from the body in the coffin. No word was possible. Clement Passal was dead. The coffin was a crudely made box of poplax, not even painted. It was Georges Durot who now came to the assistance of the police. He told them of a cottage he had rented for Passal and of Henri Boulogne, a fellow convict at Loos Prison. The police hurried to the cottage and questioned Henri Boulogne there. But to all their questions he could give only the vaguest answers. Near the house was a rubbish heap. One of the detectives searched it and picked up a scrap of paper and a piece of wood. Tests were at once begun and soon startling discoveries were made. The wood was the same as the coffin, the paper identical with the letters sent to the newspaper. -"Passal planned it all," muttered Henri Boulogne when the police again fired their questions at him. "He inade me help him." And then, piece by picce, the whole astounding story was revealed. "Passal wrote all those letters to the newspaper," the young man explained. Passal had tried the coffin out. He slept the night in it; the experiment had been successful. The last letters were written and posted, and the two conspirators had then set out for the Verneuil Wood. Here the coffin was screwed and nailed down with Passal inside, then buried, with the pipe projecting above the earth. But they had forgotten one detail. Not only did they need a pipe to let in fresh air, they needed another as an outlet for the stale air. During the experiment, the spaces between the board 3 of the coffin had allowed the used-up air to escape. f Now the earth closed up these gaps and Passal had been slowly suffocated. What secret reasons did Pa&sal have for his complex plot? The police were unable to discover. Near the coffin had been buried a packet of notes. Tliey were the stories of his own exploits. But the secret of his greatest exploit of all he carried with him into his grave.