PARIS BAFFLED.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17940, 7 December 1923, Page 9

PARIS BAFFLED.

THE DAIDET SENSATION. A MYSTERIOUS WITNESS. (37 CABLE— SVSES3 A=S 0 0 "ATI o>* —CO!' TP.IE~ (AVETBALIAir AND 1,". .1. CA3I.S ASS-SCIATIC-' ■ • (Received December 6th. 11.50 p.m.' PARL>, December 5. As a result of the post-mortem ir.ation of Philippe Daudet, the doctor? aro unanimously of opinion that it wss a case of suicide.

Police investigations up to the P re " sent time have revealed no new iacis, bus a mystery attaches to a witness who gave evidence at the magisterial enquiry, held in camera. Considerable pains were taken by the police t j preserve his anonymity, on the ground that his life was otherwise endangered. DOCUMENTS FOUND. ALSO A CARTRIDGE-CASE. (Received December Gth, 9-20 p.m.) LONDON. December 6.^ The Paris correspondent or tno '■' Morning Post" says that M. Daudet and his friends persist in the allegation that Philippe was done to death by their anarchist enemies. It is suggested that the only alternative to the hypnotic suicide theoryis that Philippe was shot by an assassin through the cab window. It is believed that yesterday's mysterious witness was called in order to testify to one or other of these theories. When he entered and when ho left tho Law Courts he was surrounded by a band of young Royalists, who screened his identity and prevented photographs being taken. The police in examining the cab yesterday discovered lying in a crack between the floor-boards an empty car-tridge-case, corresponding in calibre with those used in the revolver found near Philippe's body. A story is now told of a stranger's arrival at the garage for an inspection of the cab. It is suggested that he was an anarchist, and that he placed, the cartridge-case in the cab. The mystery continues to absorb the Paris public. The "Daily Express" says that a number of missing documents, throwing light on the case, have been found sewn in the dress of the fiancee of Comrade Coloter, of "Libertaire's" staff. She dashed to Marseilles with the documents, but returned to Paris, where the police awaited her. They took the papers, which included the manuscript of Philippe's prose poems, 011 the first folio of which was written :

"Good-bye to Mummy. None will discover tho feeling that directs me." , [On October 25th, Philippe Daijdet, th'J 10-y ear-old son of M. Leon Daudet, the Hoyalist leader and director of the newspaper "Action Francaise," was found dead in a taxi-cab with a revolver bullet in his head. It was generally assumed that the lad had committed suicide, but, following a statement by the anarchist journal "Libertaire" that Philippe, before taking his life, had enrolled as a member of the anarchist party, the father came to the conclusion that his son had been assassinated. M. 3>audet has accordingly made a formal charge against an -unknown person of murder by suggestion.]