FATAL ALTERCATION

Evening Star, Issue 19839, 12 April 1928, Page 10

FATAL ALTERCATION

TRAGEDY AT GENEVA CHAUFFEUR SHOOTS BUTLER. LONDON, March 26. An altercation arose at the Bellevue Villa of Baron Paul do Hervesy, the Hungarian representative to the League of Nations, between the baron’s bnlf-casto negro chauffeur, John Coates, and an Hungarian butler, Charles Szabo (says the Geneva correspondent of the ‘Daily News’). Szabo told Coates to refer the dispute to Baron de Hervesy in his room. Coates was about to knock when Szabo Hung open the door and dealt him several blows with a cudgel, which would have been fatal but for the negro’s thick skull and woolly hair. Coates rushed to his own room and seized a revolver. He fired four shots at Szabo, one lodging below the heart. Szabo died on the way to hospital Coates was arrpsted, but Baron de TTarvesy, whoso lawyer is defending him. says that he may bo released it it is proved that he acted in selfdefence. The affair has placed the baron m an awkward predicament. Ho was at the theatre wlicn Szabo died. He said today: “My footman is dead, my chauffeur is imprisoned, the chambermaid is in hospital, the cook’s knees are too tremulous to stand, and the gardener is incapable of work.” The chambermaid, Theresa Hothammer. aged thirty, is suffering from shock. Apparently her preference for Coates incensed Szabo, who was tall and handsome. He determined to square accounts with a lead-weighted life-preserver. The girl, hearing shots, rushed up the stairs, and met Szabo descending, .armed with a revolver. It is. not clear whether Coates fired all the shots.