L’ATLANTIQUE FIRE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 116, 16 April 1934, Page 2

L’ATLANTIQUE FIRE.

STARTLING REVELATIONS

The full story has now been revealed of how, after ‘journeys through Swiss blizzards, a band of Englishmen obtained the documents which will enable London underwriters to appeal against the verdict of the Pans Courts that they must pay £2,000,000 insurance on the burned French liner L’Atlantique. . The documents, it is stated, not only prove that important facts concerning the steamer’s construction were withheld when it was reinsured, but connect the Stavisky gang with the fire The Geneva correspondent of tne Daily Mail reveals that a Frenchman told, interested persons he was willing to sell very important documents. There immediately commenced a race between the insurance companies representatives and opposing interests The Frenchman lived m a little tenement at Cliampagnolle, in the Jura Mountains. The Englishmen were unable to following the ordinary train route from Paris because their rivals whom it was necessa.ry to hoodwink at all costs, closely watched the stations They reached Geneva by devious routes and found a blizzard raging. The roads across the Jura Mountains were almost impassable, and they had a nightmare drive, often digging the car out of snowdrifts. The party arrived at the tenement and found that the Frenchman’s documents fully supported his story, but he demanded more money than they had brought, and they were forced to return to Geneva to secure a further draft from London. The Englishmen, while waiting at Geneva, spoke to nobody and consulted each other in the utmost secrecy, tlieir mysterious attitude causing the secret police to investigate. When it was discovered that they had been journeying in the mountains and receiving large drafts on the Swiss banks, the police believed they had stumbled across a huge international espionage gang. The story gathered momentum and every big nation sent secret police to Geneva, while cablegrams were flashed to capital cities, and even to New York, France being particularly agitated. , _ .. . In the meantime the Englishmen again set out in a blizzard to Champagnolle, and arrived to find rivals there bargaining with the Frenchman’s wife. . . , , The Englishmen immediately buttonholed the Frenchman, came to terms, obtained the documents and left their unsuspecting rivals talking to the wife in an adjoining room. The documents are now safe m London.