A BOULOGNE MYSTERY

Evening Star, Issue 19551, 9 May 1927, Page 3

A BOULOGNE MYSTERY

NURSE'S DISAPPEARANCE SEOUEL 70 GROSS-CBMHEI. TRIP LONDON, March 17. Two young hospital nurses named M‘Carthy and Daniels go to Brighton and are tempted to take a day trip to Boulogne. Just before the steamer is duo to return Nurse Daniels disappears. Five months later her dead body is found in a copse near the Napoleon Column, near Wimereux, immediately to the north of Boulogne. Such are the basic facts of a mystery which is puzzling amateur detectives in Britain and France. When the body of Nurse Daniels was discovered a small hypodermic syringe, of the type known to doctors as “original record,” was found at her side. The discovery of the syringe was the more curious because there is no evidence that the dead woman was addicted to any drug habit. Near the dead body was the girl’s umbrella, standing upright in the ground, but fixed, not by the ferrule, but by the handle. Who stuck the umbrella into the ground in this fashion, and why? This is another mystery. The field where the body was found is some way from the roadway connecting the Napoleon Column with Wimereux, and two barbed-wire fences have to be '’limbed before the snot can bo reached. The dead woman’s shoes and stockings were not torn, a fact which Jins suggested that the body was carried to jfche spot in a motor car after death, or in a comatose condition. COMPANION’S STORY.

Miss M'Carthy, who is agod 23 years, says that she met Nurse Daniels about two years ago, when they were both probationers. At this time they were little more than acquaintances, hut in August last Miss M'Carthy met Miss Daniels again at the Chiswick Isolation Hospital, and they became friendly. On October 5 both girls happened to have a day off, and they agreed to spend it together. They took tea at a shop in Ealing about 11 o’clock, and then de- 1 cided to go to Brighton for the afternoon and evening. Brighton being about one hour and a-half’s journey from London. They danced at Brighton until 6 o’clock, and then went for a walk on the pier, where they noticcd_ an advertisement of the last excursion of the season to Boulogne. They decided that they would go. though both weny due hack at the Ealing Hospital that night. They stayed at, a boarding-honso. and caught the Boulogne steamer at 10 o’clock next morning, Miss Daniels retaining the two tickets, for which 25s had been paid. These tickets were not upon the body. The girls reached Boulogne at a quarter to 3_ o’clock, and spout the afternoon roaming about the streets of tho town until just before 5 o’clock, when the steamer was due to return to Brighton. Passing the town railway station Nurse Daniels said that she wished to go to the cloak room. Miss M'Carthy’s sworn declaration continues;—“l walked no and down inside the station waiting for her return, hut as time went by and I began to think that wc might be late for tho steamer I went to tho cloak room to ascertain whether she was there. I could not see her, and I addressed tho cloak room attendant in English, but sbo was busy with other people, and paid no attention to me. I then went to tho quay, arriving just in time to see the steamer moving off. It was impossible for mo to get on to the steamer, as it had practically started, added to which I had no tickets. I walked back to the station. .1 had in my pocket about 10s 6d. I had never been abroad before, and I hung about the station, not knowing what to do. It was becoming dark, and it occurred to me that, being a Roman Catholic, my best plan was to trv to ascertain whether there was a convent in the neighborhood of tho station. I asked two porters whether they know of one. They did not appear to understand my question, and I then had to consider what 1 should do tor tho night. 1 was afraid of venturing out in the town of Boulogne, and 1 was by this time distressed and worried. I spent the night within the precincts of tho otation, either walking up and down, sitting on a seat, or sitting in the / aiting room. I noticed trains that --amo into the station. I could not fail to notice them, because I was awake all night.” SOME CLUES. This is tho first problem raised by Nurse M'Carthy’c declaration. Tiio authorities at Boulogne state that the station was closed at 11 o’clock, and that “ no one could sit in tho waiting room ail night. Tho last train on October C arrived from Paris at 10.02 p.m., and a few minutes later the station was locked up However that may ho. Miss M'Carthy says that sbo left rho station about 7 o’clock in the morning to get breakfast, and eventually met a Mr Catou and Jus wife, who took her to a convent. Nurse M'Carthy ; reached tho i onvent at half-past 12 o’clock, and told her story. First she was directed to go to the British Con- . sul, but, failing to find tho consulate, she returned to the convent and had an interview with tho mother superior. Next day she did see the consul, and arranged for tho issue of her passport. On Saturday, October , 9, Nurso I M'Carthy received £4 from her sister , in England and ».n amazing telegram : “Daniels lias not returned.” That night she reached the Ealing Hospital, reported to the matron, and received a call from Mr and Mrs Davies, the sister [ and brother-in-law of Nurso Daniels. She assured them that, apart from necessary inquiries, sbo had never spoken to a man in Boulogne. The declaration ends; “Until her disappear-

since t was for the whole time in Nurse

Daniels’s company, and I can add with certainty that during that period sho spoke to no man. Up to the time of the discovery of Nurso Daniels’s body tho truth of my story lias never been questioned.” Nurse M'Carthy, while refusing to go to Boulogne for interrogation, expressed her willingness to submit to any judicial examination in Britain. It is stated that anxiety has left Nurse M'Carthy in a bad state of health, making it undesirable that she should submit herself without protection to a foreign jurisdiction, of which the powers .and methods of examination are un-

known to her, and are certainly widely different from the British. Meanwhile French detectives have been at work. More than forty people bav© been examined with regard to Nurse Daniels, including two men whom they behove met the girl in Boulogne on the_ night of October 0 and the early morning of October 7. when Nurse M'Carthy says she was at tho railway station, or even later than this. Officers concerned in

•ho case are unanimously of the opinion that either before or directly after the sailing of the steamer by which Nurse Daniels should have returned she made the acquaintance of a strange woman. Apparently tins strange woman introduced Nurse Daniels to two men. There is evidence that under some persuasion or provocation Nurse Daniels visited, with the strange woman, a cafe in the Rue Faidsherbe, where she was introduced tc two Frenchmen who had been waiting for the return of the strange Woman. The clues'in the possession of the examining magistrate seem to make it certain that Nurse Daniels, with toe men and the woman, visited a cafe. The next fact which the examining magistrate regards ns proved is a visit by Nurse Daniels and another woman to the Napoleon Column, though the French police are less certain than they uere on this point. Instead there is a. tendency to believe that , Nurse Daniels met her death at Boulogne, and that the dead body was carried out to the Napoleon Column in a two-seater car on the morning of October 7. The Trench police, however, still attach tlio litmost importance to a personal examination of Nurse M'Car thy, from

whom they hope for light which will enable them to clear up the mystery attending Nurso Daniels’s death. [Since tin’s letter was despatched the body of Nurse Daniels has been exhumed, and a post mortem examination has revealed that the woman was strangled. Cable messages state that the police possess a cl no to a man of strong physique who is suspected of th© murder.]