GENTLEMAN BY BAY.

Franklin Times, Volume 14, Issue 911, 13 August 1924, Page 2

GENTLEMAN BY BAY.

MUFtDERER BY NIGHT.

Twenty-five mysterious killings in Berlin confessed by Sir Harry Whitecliffe, who declared that the impulses of evil i resistibly overwhelmed him at nightfall.

In the early part of ’last year a rich Englishman registered at* one of the best hotels in Dresden. He was a young man. aged a ound twenty-live, handsome and lather distinguished looking* He gave his name as Sir Harry Whitecliffe, and soon gained the respectful sympathy of the hotel people through his kind manne s and his liberal tipping. He was already very well known in England, where he had published some articles on Oscar Wilde that met with success. A play of his, “Simili,” was pioduced at the Albert Theatre, in Diesden, which also met with much success.

Very ambitious, he organised a printing firm, the Do'.ain Verlag, and made connections with the best Herman authors. The people who knew him considered that he led a perfect life. He would go to bed early every night, to a ise early in the next morning for a ride on horseback on the banks of the Elbe. After that he would att end to the day’s business.

At about that time he met a pretty young fraulein of the Ge man aristocracy, with whom he soon fell in love. The girl was not sensitive to his wooing and a very short time e'ia.psed before Whitecliffe was allowed to become a caller at the home of her parents, the Von H’s'. One evening he had complained during the conservation about the ethics of having to live everlastingly in hotels. His host sympathised with him, with the result that the next day the Englishman moved to the home of his future wife, where an apaitment had been prepared for him over night. The marriage was to take place in 1923. when Whitecliffe. suddenly disappeared. The young German girl was heartbroken. The police took the matte up, believing that her fiance had 1. een murdered. Ail searches lcmainmg in vain the matter was dropped. And the next she was ever to hear of Whitecliffe was a letter found, on the second <;if April of this year in the jail, where he had committed suicide while awaiting execution as a murderer ! For the last few months the disreputable quarters of Berlin (about one hundred miles from Dresden) had been shocked by crimes of an unp. intabt'e nature. A week never went by without the finding of the murdered body of a Berlin street girl in some low hotel of the redlight district. Generally the th oat had been cut widei open. Every detail gave reason to be ieve that these crimes were the deed of the same person* The death,.dea!ing instrument was the same thi oughout, also the manner of the killing.

The .Berlin police made tireless efforts to trap the murderer, but met with no success.

The assassin, howeve., soon began changing his methods. Within one single week, in three different fit: - ni-shed rooms, three postmen earn - ing registe ed mail were found, likewise with open throats and "obbed. The way the murderer - went about this was as follows : He would hire a inun dnd send; a iegistered letter to himself. Thus he kn e w exac 1i v the time and place where he could carry out his deed with infernal simplicity. lire police of Berlin were now Asperate. Such wholesale killings must be 'Stopped.. Every single bar, night place and hotel was raided by the entire Berlin police, which, had been called out, all leave of absence ?■»«- ing forbidden to the force till the mu derer had been captured. The detectives soon learned that a weird specimen of a man had begun haunting the low quarters of the capita! abou: the lime when the long chain “f murdes had started, under the name of “Uncle Harry.” He was pale and worn, his shoulders bent, and he had that vague look in his eyes that is peculiar to dope fiends.

Uncle Harry was very soon captured. The prisoner immediately confessed the murders of the street giiis ancl of the. postmen as> well. He declared himself born in Australia, of German parents, his name being Lovach) Biume. Everything now seemed quite simple for the police, since the prisoner made no effort, to hide his guilt. Biume was brought up for trial and condemned to death* In his cell nothing- seemed to worry him much. He was always in _ a good mood and spent most of his time

writing. On the second of April the keybearaf entered bis ceil and stood transfixed with surprise on t.he threshold. Lying in a pool of b ! ood was Blume, his naked body drained of all its blood. He had used his trouser buckle to cut his arteries open in the neck, wrist and ankles. On the table near the wall a letter had been propped up ostentatiously, addressed to Fraulein Wally Von H. Next to it was a request to Ihe director of the. prison in which the convict asked that the letter be transmitted to the young woman without being opened. The law. however, dyes not respect the last wishes of a dying man. when he is an ; assassin. The director of the prison opened the letter .ai.tl was shocked at its contents.

Blume, the murderer of the street girls and of the postmen, was none other than Sir Hairy Whitecli'ft'e, the poet, ihe missing literary genius from Dresden the police had looked for so long.

His letter was a civ of despair, a touching confession. In it the wretch begged the young lady that he had loved to forgive him and not to hold in her memory an image of fright and disgust. He went on to say that. his .name was .neither Blume nor Harry Whitecliffe. .he was the son of a great English family prominent in the nobility,, and he. had left home with his share of his inheritance.

He had travelled the world over. He had fought in wars, had enlisted as an officer in foreign armies, had been a saiior, a barman and had led every possible kind of a life one can imagine. :His literary taler.: had been, conspicuous thixjughout his adventurous career. In many different

languages he had gained success by publishing different books, always under a new name.

But there was one terrible thing which he could not escape. He was everlastingly haur.teu bv the desire to kill at night. This obsession had been with him since his childhood. | •He had selected Dresden as a s f ping-off place because he could, easily lead his double life there. A gentleman of high impulsse and or. « m* . in the day time, attending to his work and waiting his plays—at night, within two hours’ train ride, he could be in Berlin, where he ’would arrive in old clothes and disguise and commit his mu: der and then return to Dresden by morning. He became a' gentleman in the day time, and a murderer at night. His evil instinct, which would completely disappear in the daylight. overwhelmed him as night fell. As tiie hours of the evening wo e on the impulse to kill grew stronger. Whitecliffe, the gentleman, resisted, but his other self, Whitecliffe the brute, begged for one mo:e indulgence in blood. It was as if. a spectral hand held out to him a : dripping knife while spectral fingers beckoned him to his butcheries. Strange to say, timing his nights of crime and debauchery he gradually withered into the appearance of a feeble old man, while by daylight, after a bath and a good breakfast in luxurious surroundings, he looked a young man again.

How could the police ever suspect that the bedraggled vagabond Thai woukl board; thei fourth-class compartment of the Berjin train almost every night was none other than the briliant writer, Sir Harry Whitecliff e ?

Alt this was told sadly in the letter opened by the di.ector of the prison by the dead man whose body lay in a heap on, the cold stone floor of the cel';. After this description of his life and ways the murderer came tc the climax in his letter thus

“I loved you,” it said, “>I loved you with all my heart and soul. 1 ran away from you and purposely (fell stupidily into the trap laid by the Beilin police because I was afarid that; I would kill you. Every time 1 saw you the obsession would gain possession of me. I wanted to kill you. and was afraid of myself/

A curious fact is that in spite of this wretched man’s f’antasms vhatever he wrote was- never of a bloodthirsty nature. His stories were generally touching, almost (feminine in the gentleness with which they were written.

Together with 1 Ire letter he wote to Fraulein Wally Von ,H. was a short manuscript that the wret ch had written in tire quietness of his cell, just, before his death. It was an out. a romance, and he had titled it “Doffv’s Governess.”

This monster with a human face, that spoke so gently yet killed with such coolness, murdered not :ess than twenty-live victims. He has carried to the gravei his secret —the secret of i *j’.v the urging came to him, how he lelt when the transition of good to bad overcame him, and a thousand other mysteries that tne police criminologists would. like to question him about.

Science, of course, na,s long rise cl what is known as dual persd* ?Hly. and Robert Louis Stevenson, ir. his famous masterpiece, “Dr Jekv-l and Mr Hyde,” has dealt with this subject, as wei as other novelists and dramatists. But ve y tittle is yet understood about the subject. Perhar s one of the most remark-

able instances known to science was the strange and complete change oif personality which took place with Alis C. E. Richards, of Rivnside, California, a few. years ago. In this extraordinary case the woman, v/hql was of comfortable circumstarwysj and admit abie character, fell asleep and for no known reason waked up a completely different person. In almost every respect the : ’L”S Rjchai ds of the following _mm rung was completely different (from the yii-s Richards of the previous evening. Clothes she admired she no longer cated for, while _ dresses which she had expressed dislike for were now her favourites; she would not eat the things which she had been fond, of ail her life, but suddenly took a liking to dishes which she could not heretofore -bar to taste. , A skilful cook before she _ fell asleep that night-, she awoke witnouh any recollection of the dishes she used to prepare so skilfully. Ai talented musician of years of experience, Mrs Richauls found that she no longer had the slightest understanding of music—-and had r -o start all over again. And, strangest of all, she awoke that mO. ning without any recollection of her husband, who was introduced to her as a stranger, and ajfter a new courtship she fell in love with him again.

In the hours of her sleep did the soul that had inhabited Mrs Richard's body for thirty years take flight and in the empty home of the departed soul did another soul find lodgment ? —American Exchange. “