DEATH RIDDLE

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4325, 3 August 1937, Page 2

DEATH RIDDLE

WOMAN ON EXPRESS Now that all the sensationalism ol Mrs Simpson’s arrival on the Riviera has gradually abated, a new affair occupies the attention of police and people in this region of France. It concerns a dramatic turn in connection with the alleged murder ot Mine Suzanne Garola, the handsome manageress of the most fashionable teashop in Cannes, which was patronised by the Duke of Windsor, when Prince of Wales, and also by many people well known in London society. Mine Garola was discovered drugged and strangled in the Strasburg-Venti-miglia express. The drug—a peculiar kind of chloroform—had partly rendered her unconscious. To prevent struggles, which accompany the administration of this kind of drug, her wrists and ankles had been secured by a silver-gilt chain. About £2O was missing from her handbag; _ When the crime was discovered detectives were hastily mobolised and many clues followed*up.

SLENDER CLUES. Now the police have arrested Marius Veyrac, aged 46, ticket collector on the express in question, and he was brought before the examining magistrate, M. Giaccomoni, for questioning. The police allege that a chance remark and the initial “ M ” on a handkerchief were slender clues which led to suspicion being directed against Veyr£U» “ Did you murder Mine Garola? ” demanded the magistrate, when Veyrac was brought before him. “ I swear I did not,” answered Veyrac, looking M. Giaccomoni straight m the eyes. At that moment the door of the questioning room opened, and M. Charles Paulet, the official responsible for hiring out cushions to passengers on the express, entered. M. Paulet told the magistrate that Veyrac, on the morning of the murder, remarked to him: “The woman in that carriage is sound asleep,” and indicated the carriage where, in fact, the woman lay dead.

“ YOU’RE LYING! ” Veyrac, his eyes blazing, _ shouted: ‘‘ You’re lying! I never said such a thing.” M. Giaccomoni. “ You are the only man with a key to look into the carriage where the dead woman lay? ” Veyrac: “ I am, but I did not use my key until I entered and found her dead.” “ Is this yours? ” asked the magistrate, pointing to the letter “ M ” in the corner of a handkerchief, which he help up. Again Veyrac protested his innocence, and asked that a man and woman, who, accompanied by a baby, were on the train on the night of the tragedy, should be traced. Other women have complained that while they dozed in the express a hand containing a handkerchief reached round at them through the half-opened door of their sleeping compartment and partly drugged them. “ MADAME X’S ” STORY.

One, a “ Madame X,’’ who comes from Nice, told the magistrate that on the night of July 21 she was travelling by train to Nice, when a. man in uniform entered her compartment and dimmed the lights. He showed her, she asserted, a lawn tennis racket, and remarked: ‘ >\ e find «tll sorts of things in the trains. I have just found this racket. We even find chains here to tie up people.” “ Madame X ” also stated that she was afraid to cry out or report the incident, but when shown a photograph of Veyrac she declared that it resembled the man who had entered her compartment. . , Mine Garola’s own movements have been shrouded in mystery. _ She is known to have visited several towns where she had neither friends nor relatives, and a few days before her untimely end she told a brothei-in-law that she feared death by violence. It is now asked whether she was in the pay of the Secret Police, and whether her death is yet another mystery connected with that organisation.