THE LURE OF THE ALTAR.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3132, 28 August 1922, Page 7

THE LURE OF THE ALTAR.

AN AMAZING STORY OF A MATRIMONIAL SWINDLER. (The Weekly Telegraph.) A few years ago there was no more popular' woman in the district of Versaiillies' than Madame Guerin, a plump little "widow" of middle age with a still beautiful face and with charming manners, who had her home in a sumptuous villa, just outside the grounds of the old Palace. Madame was a lady of considerable means, with a passion for entertainment. She gave thie most delightful dinners; and her favorite guests were well-to-do bachelors from Paris, who were only too pleased to find a seat at her hospitable table, assured not only of a perfect meal, but of excellent company and the most charming and amiable of hostesses. And by no means the least attraction was that among their fellow guests were always two or three pretty and fascinating young ladies, Madame's protegees. Among Madame's guests one day in 1905 was a Monsieur Clermont, a middle-aged Government official with a considerable private income, who in the course of conversation confided to Madame that he had no objection to marriage—in fact, he would like to marry—but so far lie had never met a lady who took his l fancy. "Ah, Monsieur." said Madame. "what a pity! Why. there must be many charming girls who would be glad to have such an altogether desirable husband. I myself know of more than one. Let me see now! —Ah! yes; there is Miss Northeliffe, a dear little friend of mine, petite, very beautiful, well'lxym and clever, and with £5.000 a year of her own, which she inherited from her father, a rich English lawyer. There you are, Monsieur! What-more could you wish?'.' she added playfully. Monsieur was 'delighted. A beautiful girl with £5.000 a year! Madame he vowed was too good to interest herself in hia iittlc affairs. He would be charmed to meet so attractive a young lady, if Madame would have the great kindness to arrange it. "But yes. certainly!" said Madame. with a sweet and benevolent smile. "That will be quite simple. I will ask her to spend a few days with me; and then— well, it will rest with Monsieur." Thus it was that, a few days later. M. Clermont was transported to the seventh heaven when lie met the adorable' English heiress, and found that she was even more lovely and charming than Madame had said; and when she showed unmistakably that she was far from being indifferent to his own attractions. That she was rich. too. was beyond doubt; for the pearl necklace which circled her prettv neck could not he worth less than £2',000. It was all too wonderful to be true! Monsieur trod on air. He was the most enviable man in all France ! So rapid was his conquest that, bofore a fortnight had passed. Miss Northeliffe had consented, to he his wife. without displaying the least curiosity even as to his financial position. When he mentioned this circumstance to her she had answered with a careless laugh. "Oh, that is nothing to me. All that matters is that we love each other. But if you really wish it, you can talk the matter over with Madame." This suggestion the infatuated and jubilant lover gladly adopted, with the result that he insisted on handing €2OOO to Madame Guerin, to be settled on his fiancee, as evidence at once of his means and his honorable intentions.

A date was fixed lor the wedding that, was to make Monsieur the happiest man in France; and meanwhile Miss Northeliffe went to Paris to buy her trousseau. The day appointed for her return came; and with it M. Clermont appeared at the Villa on the tiptoe of delighted expectation, to greet his bride. But. alas! disillusion awaited him. When nmdamp appeared she was in a state of great distress. She was weeping; amtt her sobs she told him that Miss Northeliffe had mysteriously disappeared! "Where and why she has gone, Monsieur, I. know not," she sobbed. "All I know is that she has gone. She has sent me- a note of farewell, saying that she can never seen me again, and that it is hopeless to try to find her. Ah ! Monsieur. 1 am desolate. 1 am the most miserable of women ! To have brought this trouble on you —I. who only sought to make you happy!" 'I o all Monsieur's distressed inquiries he could get no more enlightenment. except that his vanished' fiancee had taken his £'2ooo with her; and, crushed and humiliated, he went sadly away, a disillusioned man. He had been outrageously deceived and 1 swindled by an English adventuress; and he dared not appeal to the lav.-. He had not the courage to face the ridicule that would follow the exposure of his lolly, and he decided to hear his loss and profit its lesson.

With M. Clermont's €2OOO in her pocket, and her husband —for she was no widow -for companion, masquerading as her cousin, M. Cesborn, we next see the adventurous Madame practising her wiles and arts in London, with a M. Lalere, a well-to-do Parisian, for dupe. This time she lias fur decov another English beauty—golden-haired, blueeyed—a fascinating little creature, lull of charm and gaiety, who speaks French with.a pretty accent and talks cleverly on Ihe subjects that most interest M. Lalere.

Again the little drama is repeateddelightful dinners at Madame's West End Hotel; tete-a-tetes with Miss Howard, who is a "great heiress'' as well as a lovely girl; and the rapid enslavement of the gullible "Frenchman, who is so infatuated that he offers Madame L'loOO for her assistance in securing so desirable a prize. And once more the "heiress" vanishes at tho crucial moment, to Madames great distress- and another dupe is added to her list, with a substantial increase of her bank balance.

Thus the charming and guilcness "widow'' reaps her harvest, with fresh decoys and fresh victims to their fascinations and her designs on their purses, living sumptuously on her spoils, and always posing as a disinterested and benevolent woman whose only object is to make others matrimonially happy; and whose distress at her failures is at least as great as her disappointment. But though for years she had emerged successfully from all her adventures. Nemesis was on her track, and was soon to lay arresting hands on her plump shoulders.

So far her victims bad been Frenchmen, romantic and gullible. Now she decided to practise her arts on the more prosaic, unconventional Englishman; and for this purpose she chose a well-known West End doctor, a man of middle age. who was reputed to have amassed a considerable fortune. One day she called at the doctor's house, ostensibly to ask bis opinion on a new method she had discovered of sterilising milk, in which be professed himself highly interested. But, as she was delighted to see. the doctor seemed more interested in herself than in her invention. He found the "widow'' charming, and her sprightly conversation very enjoyable; and when she mentioned casually a few of the beautiful iriils of her acquaintance, all well-gilded as she artlesslv liinted, his interest grew more marked still. , , t "Perhaps, Monsieur, the doctor, would like to meet one or two of her

young friends? she diffidently suggested. They would amuse him, at least; and siie, Madame, would be delighted to introduce them so charming and clever a man. If Monsieur would din© with her at the- Hotel the next day, he would give her and her friends the greatest pleasure. To such a gracious and flattering invitation the doctor gladly assented; and thus jt was that lie spent a very happy time with Madame and two of the most fascinating girls he had ever met—Miss Northcliffe, who again appears on the scene, and a Miss Smith, who made the stronger appeal to him; for, while no less beautiful and charming, she had a clever tongue and brain, and was ablo to discuss with him a wide range of subjects in which ho was specially interested. Such, indeed, was the impression Miss Smith made on the grave, mid-dle-aged physician by her vivacity, her sparkling wit and brilliant Conversational gifts that, before he left the dinner table, he had decided that she was: a prize well worth winning, even apart from her money bags. To his delight he found at later meetings that she was by no mean* averse to his attentions; and his happiness was completed when at last she confessed; that his love, was returned ivnd she consented to be his wife. It was arranged that thd marriage should take place a month later (on the 10th of November, 1906); that meanwhile Madame" and Miss Smith should return to Paris to make the necessary preparations for the wedding; and that he sfoowld join them a few days before the event at Madame's- villa at Versailles.

It was thus in a. mood of blissful anticipation that the infatuated doctor made the journey to Versnillies to spend the last days of his bachelorhood' under .such delightful conditions —little dreaming what a tragic awakening was soon to come to his dream of happiness; for Madame and her "cousin" Cesbi'on had determined, as the only way to make sine of his fortune, that he should never leave their roof alive.

One day, as lie was sitting chatting with hi.s hostess, M. Cesbron up to the villa with a large iron-bound trunk. "Hallo!" exclaimed the doctor, as he saw tlie cab pass the window, "is your cousin also going to he married? J see he has got a trunk large enough to hold 1 a record trousseau." "Oh," answered Madame, with a laugh, "he is always buying trunks. It's a hobby of his; though lie hasn't got enough clothes to fill hall' of them." And, with mutual laughter at M. Oasbron'V little eccentricity, the subject was dismissed, the doctor little suspecting that the trunk was awaiting his own (Head body.

That evening Madame gave a dinner party in honor of her guest—a merry little party, a which Madame and her "cousin" were in great spirits, and the doctor was the gayest of them all 1; for In two more: days his lady would return from Paris and would make him the happiest of men. And as has laugh rang out again and again the trunk in the next room was mutely waiting for its contents.

The last evening of his waiting had arrived. The morrow would bring the crown of his happiness. He was sitting alone in the drawing-room. The house was hushed in silence. He was alone with thoughts of his loved one. Suddenly behind him was a deafening explosion ; a flash of pain darted through his face. He sprang to his feet; and. turning round, saw Cesbrou standing in the doorway, a smoking revolver m his hand. He sprang towards him ; and, when Cesbrou took to his heels, chased him out of the house, into the dark night an dthrough the garden. When he reached the gate he found; that it was locked. His assailant had vanished in the darkness. He knew that he had been shot in the head; Ins strength was failing rapidly. He realised that he must escape while he could; for beyond a doubt Cesbrou meant, to murder him. and was no doubt lurking somewhere near with the object of finishing him off. With difficulty he managed to climb the garden wall, his senses reeling. He was about to get over it, when a second shot rung out, and he fell back unconscious into the bushes at its foot; and he remembered nothing more until he recovered consciousness—to see that another day—his wedding day !—has dawned. He had mercifully escaped discovery by Cesbron, thanks to the friendly shelter of the bushes —or perhaps Cesbron had concluded that he must be dead, and had left his discovery until daylight. Once more he managed, with infinite difficulty, to scale the" wall: and he made his way to the Kontainebleau police station, where he told his tragic story to the police. An hour later Madame Guerin was arrested and lodged in a prison-cell. But, though .Madame had at last fallen into the clutches of the law, her good fortune had not altogether deserted her. Cesbron and .Miss Smith had both vanished so completely that all the elforts of the police failed to discover the least trace of them. And when Madame was brought to trial, some months later, she pleaded so successfully that she; was merely the unwilling tool of her scoundrelly husband and the designing .Miss Smith, and that she had no knowledge whatever of the attempt, on the doctor's life, which was Cesbron's doing, that to her delight she escaped with a sentence of three years' imprisonment.