PAYING THE PENALTY.

Feilding Star, Volume V, Issue 1428, 28 February 1911, Page 4

PAYING THE PENALTY.

PARIS POLICE ROUND UP YOUNG DESPERADOES.

APACHE HUNT IN PARIS.

SEVEN CAPTURES,

M. Georges Dubois was-on his way home early tlie other morning. Ho lives near tbe St. Louis Hospital, from which a network of small, twisting, illpaved streets runs down to the banks of tlie St. Martin's Canal. There ;s something sinister about tbe neighbourhood.

In the older parts of Paris—and, for that matter, in all parts of Paris or of any other towns—streets are open books for those who have imagination and can read tbem, and these small streets near the St. Louis Hospital, which run down to the St. Martin's Canal, tell tales of crime as clearly as though a gramophone with megaphone attachment shouted them to the passer-by. There are -very few passers-by in these streets after nightfall. They arc ill-lit, and the glimmer of the lamps on the cobbles and the opaltinted waters of the canal seem alive with whispers of mysterious doings which the home-goer thinks of with an apprehensive shiver. Now and again one meets a nightbird, man or woman, slinking along close to the house fronts. The honest passenger hurries along the centre of the roadway.

NOISELESS NIGHT BIRDS,

The nightbirds who glide noiselessly along tbe inner edge, of the dirty, narrow pavements are "Apaches" and their squaws. Police are rare in the neighbourhood. When mot they are always in couples, and it is noticeable that their revolver cases are invariably unstrapped and in readiness. The time lost in opening a buckle has cost a brave man's life before now near the St. Martin's Canal.

M. Georges Dubois bad bis coat collar turned up, his bands were deep in bis coat pockets, and tbe kuob of bis cane in one of them. He .wisbed tbe cane were heavier. He wished that lie had a revolver, but Dubois is a clerk in a post office and a peaceable man. So he wisbed that be bad taken a cab, though on a salary of £6 per month cabs were luxuries to which Georges Dubois was unaccustomed.

As Frenchmen will, he talked to himself to give himself courage as he walked along. "But I am a fool," he told himself. "I go home this way every evening. To-night it is a little later- but why should I meet anybody!' 1 " There were footsteps behind him, and Dubois, whose nerves were betraying hini, pulled bis cane fromhis coat pocket and held it by the ferrule. "Good-night; I wish it to you happy and good 1" And the man hurried past him . Dubois, with a slight quaver in his voice (he really had been frigHtened) returned the greeting. Two miiUutes later he uttered a loud, raucous cry which ended in a. gasp, and he fell sobbing his life's blood out on the cobbles.

The two "Apaches" had come up quite noiselessly on their string-soled shoes just as the other man had tuxnied the corner. Dubois had doubtless | seen tho one who glided out of the doorway and stood in front of him. He had not seen the other, who had padded up behind him and had planted his long spring knife just between his shoulder-blades. NETTING TxxE CRIMINALS. The man who wished Dubois his last good-night had heard the cry. He saw one of the murderers rush past him and fired the revolver which he carried down the street at haphazard, hoping to hit the other. The bullet only broke a gas-lamp, and Dubois was dead. But the report brought two policemen up, and that is why my telephone bell rang. "We are going netting this evening,'' said the voice of a police commissary, with vyhdm I am acquainted. "Do you. care to come?" I accepted with enthusiasm. "Dress warmly, and meet us outside No. 101 of the Faubourg dv Temple." "At what time?" "Midnight." And he rang off. It is not very pleasant just now in the streets of Paris late at night, but this was an appointment which I did not care to miss.. I did not recognise my friend the police commissary as he strolled up to me. He had a muffler ' round his neck, and walked with the indescribable swagger bf the unpleasant gentry he was out to catch. "They are beginning to know me out here," he growled, pulling his hat down over his eyebrows. An inspector in blue overalls, whom I should have felt inclined to shoot at sight if he had not called me by name and shaken hands with me, rolled up and whisI pered to the commissary. "How many did you say?" asked he. "Seven at least, and good ones," was the answer. "Then let us go and have 3; drink—have your revolvers handy in your pockets," said the commissary. In response to this oddly worded invitation to conviviality, we turned down the faubourg; and as we strolled another group of "Apachelike detectives followed. There was a light at No. 197, and as we passed I saw the familiar zinc counter of the low-class drinking shop. THE ARREST. A man whom I had not noticed before—a decently dressed man in bowler hat, collar, and overcoat —was walking on the inside of the pavement. He did not apparently belong to our party, but pushed rather rudely past the police commissary, and as he growled, "But pay attention, then!'-T beard him add, "Those are the men ,■ I* saw them clearly.'' (He was the man Svho had been near the Hospital St. Lotus'when "Dubois was muxdered.) "\y"e strolled to the corner, and waited for the little crowd behind us to catch us up. "Half of you in the road, the other half on the pavement with me," said the-commissary.. "And when I give the word, right' turn, and arrest everybody I' We will weed them out afterwards."

We strolled back as aimlessly—apparently as aimlessly—as before. We did not look nice. As we passed a gas lamp an elderly woman with; a baby in her arms scooted across the road to the other pavement, like a frightened hare, to get out of our way. "Apaches" have killed a baby in its mother's arms out of sheer wanton cruelty before now in a crowded thoroughfare in Paris. We were level with No. 197. The man on my left wheeled'me out into the road. ■ I saw -the- glass door fly open, heard a shout', and revolvers cracked like -rockets in a firework display. It was'hard $o tel} from the "Apaches," but five' mi"iii|tel afterwards seven ashen-faced boys were standing linked to fourteen detectives, and a fifteenth detective was tying up a comrade's wounded arm. "Anybody hurt?" said Monsieur le Commissaire de Police. "Nothing to speak of," said the wounded-man. The seven netted nightbirds were all nuder twenty, and two of them were under seventeen. These were the two who murdered Georges Dubois.