FATE OF A SPY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9188, 13 April 1910, Page 7

FATE OF A SPY.

MYSTERY OF WATERLOO BRIDGE

EXPLAINED

A mystery—half a century old— which created the greatest excitement when it was brought to light, lias just been explained for the first time by Sir Robert, Anderson, the retired Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, in the current number of Blackwood's Magazine. "Of all the London holrors of our time," writes Sir Robert, "none ever made a greater sensation than ' the Waterloo Bridge Mystery of 1857. On one of the buttresses of the bridge a carpet bag was found on the morning of October 9 of that year, containing mutilated fragments of a human body. The evidence, given at the inquest made it clear that a murder had been committed, but 110 clue could be discovered to the identity _ of either the victim of the assassins. Maxwell (the 110 m de guerre by the authorities of Scotland Yard to a former member of the French Secret Service, a very remarkable man), gave me the facts in full detail, and inquiries made through the Foreign Office and Scotland Yard brought confirmation of all the main points of his story. The victim was an Italian police agent who had been sent _ to London on a special mission. Posing as a revolutionist, he put up at a house in Cranbourn street, Solio, frequented by Italians .of that class. Revolutionists arc proverbially suspicious of one another,' and a glaring indiscretion cost the man his life. He not only preserved a letter of instructions about his work, but carried it in his pocket, and this litter his companions got hold of by searching his clothes when he was asleep. As he mounter the stairs the next night in company with some of his fellow-lodg-ers he received a blow on the head that stunned him, and his body was dragged to the basement. There he recovered consciousness, but a brief struggle was quickly ended by the

use of the assassins' knives. They proceeded to cut up the body, and several nights were spent in efforts to get rid of the remains by burning tliera. This, however,'proved a tedious and irksome task, and it was decided to jettison the rest of the corpse in the river."