MYSTERY GROWS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 12263, 26 May 1934, Page 7

MYSTERY GROWS

COMPLEX 'STAV-JSKY CASE. THE PLOT IN BAKE OUTLINE. No fiction writer ever produced such a tremendous a nil coni plicatedgangster mui'ilctr and police mystery as day by day is being revealed by thft x examination of the Stavisky scandal, writes P. J. Philip in the “New York Times.” Hero in bare outline is the plot: Three men afro found dead. The IN-st is Jean 'Gal mob, an adventurous Frenchman who was involved in 11 rum-ruuning. scandal during tlic ivai, who got himself elected Deputy 'o’ iho. "French .prison colony district of Cayenne, who wrote a remarkable book concerning his own lU'e, and who was poisoned in 11*28. His seivau't and thirteen other persons were tried and acquitted. No-w, six years afterwards, it istjiab it was Jean Galmot, who had been an associate of Alexandre Stavisky, whe later was responsive I'o.r, the sensational Bayonne pawnshop scandal. He denounced Stavisky in 1926 to the police and had him arrested. It is alleged that he did so because of his love, Tor Arlette Simone, non' Aim?. Stavisky. Here is mystery No, one. Did ■ Stavisky ■ have Gahnot poisoned when ho himself was (released Horn prison ? Alvstery No. two is, who, tided Stavisky? From ■ 19*28 until December, 1933, this sinister figure with a had prison 'record lived immune.ironi arrest in France, apparently enjoy-. jug protection in high places bndci the name of Alexandre he managed by means of the Bayonne Pawnshop Company, to defraud various insurance companies of something over 200,000,000 francs.

Tie w n trying to start another enormous swindle when, thanks in a warning by the Minister of Finance, he was finally denounced. But full warning was conveyed to him in tim° io permit him Id , “escape/' He wont, accompanied by two ‘friends, io Chamonix. Why didn’t bo cross the Swiss frontier? He bad plenty of time and a passport. As the police broke into his house at Chamonix—such i s their story—they hoard a revolver shot. Stavisky had commit tod suicide.

Now comes mystery No. three. Un February 20, on a railway track near Dijon, was found the body of Magistrate Albert Prince, who was sup* posed to have had in his hands several threads that would lead to Hiearrest and conviction of at least some of those who know Stavisky’s secret.

Now the plot deepens ana ihe mystcirv becomes more and more obscure. A mqifih after that last murder, only one person had been arrested. and that, one a jobless dancer who told some fantastic untruths to «i magistrate and had been arrested for misleading .justice. But who else is misleading justice? .loan Da mint and some of hi s ioliowers have assumed the role of Edgar Wallace's four “.lust Men.” Daily they point n linger at this ,sn,poet and that. They denounce members ot the French secret police. They cry out—and even Ministers echo them—that there Is a hidden hand at work, that France, is being corrupted and endangered by Alalia.But the mystery of ihe death of Albert Prince is still unsolved.

Every duo the police claim to have in their hands ends in nothing. When the Press, which seems muon better informed than the. police, im dicates that here otr there, proof may he found, the police find there is nothing in it. Alcan while, public irritation grows and grown. It is being turned by each political faction against its rivals. In big letters Freemasonry is denounced. Radicals and Socialists are held guilty of everything than has happened these last eight years. They reply with accusations. Tho extremes on both sides are said to he arming. There have been two suicides as a 'result of the inquiries that have been made. There are 21 persons, of whom five are lawyers, in gaol, and, stall everybody has the impression, or received the impression, from tho political Press, that nothing has been or is being done, and that much more enormous sensations are being - held back. Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that at this time of the, year Pans lias seldom been so dull a 3 at present ur perhaps it is that it, just seem s dull in contrast with each morning's Press sensation.