MURDER BY A JEALOUS HUSBAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8842, 2 April 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

MURDER BY A JEALOUS HUSBAND.

AN AMERICAN SHOOTS A FRENCHMAN. Cannes, February 20.As the details of the actions of M. Emile Abeille, the Frenchman who was shot and killed by Mr. Edward Parker Deacon at the Hotel Splendide Thursday morning, bocome known, public condemnation of him becomes stronger and stronger. It is not known whether the intrigue between Mrs. Deacon and M. AbeiMe was carried on before she came ' to the Riviera, but it is known that when she arrived at tho Hfttel Windsor a fortnight ago Abeille was not long m following her. When Mr. Deacon arrived at the hotel, a few days later, ho found Abeille's name upon the register. He was suspicious as to the relations existing between his wife and tho Frenchman, and at once insisted that Mrs. Deacon and the children should find quarters elsewhere. Mrs. Deacon agreed to this plan, and selected a salon bedroom in the entresol, at the Hotel Splendide, telling her husband that no other rooms in that part of the house were vacant. She took rooms on tho first floor for her husband, their four children, and her stepmother, Mrs. Baldwin. On Tuesday last Mr. Deacon was surprised to find that Abeille had removed from the Hotel Windsor and engaged rooms at the Hotel Splendide. He made inquiries at the office of the hotel, and was informed that Abeille had left the house.

Abeille, who was a rich man, had been on terms of intimacy with the Deacon family for three years. Mr. Deacon, though he had been informed that Abeillo was no longer at the hotel, was suspicious that all was not as it should be. He kept a clo«e watch on his wife, but she had evidently taken fright, and so behaved herself in a circumspect manner. Mr. Deacon was therefore unable to confirm his suspicions on that day. The next day, Wednesday, ho told his wife that he was going to attend the ball given that night by the Cercle Nautique, a swell club of Riviera.

Mrs. Deacon presumably thought that during her husband's absence at this ball it would be safe for her to receive her paramour in her rooms, though it appears strange that she did not suspect her husband might suddenly return and discover her in flagrante dtlictu. However this may be, she agreed to receive her lover in her room, with the result that he left it wounded unto death by the man ho had sinned against. On Wednesday night Mr. and Mrs. Deacon parted on friendly terms, the former going, us he had said, to tho Cercle Nautique ball. He did not remain very late, however, but returned to the hotel. Upon his arrival there, shortly after midnight, he saw the light shining from beneath the door of his wife's room, and, as has before been stated, this reawakened his suspicion that his wife was betraying him. He felt confident that Abeille was in the room with Mrs. Deacon, and when ho listened, and heard a man's voice, he know his worst belief was well founded. He at once went to his room upstairs, and procured his revolver, his intention being, as he testified at his examination yesterday before the magistrate, not to kill the betrayer of his wife, but to mark him for life with a bullet.

He then summoned the clerk of the hotel, and this fact bears out his statement that he did not intend to kill Abeille, for had he intended to shoot to kill, it is not believed that he would have summoned a witness.

When, in company with the clerk, Mr. Deacon burst in the door of his wife's room, he found her attired only in her nightdress. She, though dreadfully frightened, for she must have realised that at last she was caught, retained enough presence of mind to run to tho toilet-table, on which a candle was burning, and extinguish the light. The clerk, who had entered tho room with Mr. Deacon, had a lighted candle in his hand that sufficed to show- everything in the room.

Mrs. Deacon rushed towards the clerk and knocked the candle from his hand, her evident thought being that perhaps in the darkness Abeille would be able to make his escape from the room. But her efforts to aid her lover availed her nothing. Mr. Deacon found Abeille crouching behind an armchair, and while the latter thus sought to avoid the man lie had so grievously wronged he was shot by the outraged husband. Abeille sprang to hi? feet, staggered through the doorway to the corridor and fell bleeding and speechless to the floor.

, Mrs. Deacon seized her husband by his hands, threw herself at his feet, and in an agony of fear implored him to spare her life. She showed even in her fear that her husband was nothing to her, for amid hor own abject appeals for mercy from the man she had wronged she begged him not to shoot her lover again.

She, who had disgraced herself, her family and her friends for a man who betrayed his friend, pour passer le temps, appealed to hor husband for the sake of thoir children to make no scandal.

Mr. Deacon remained perfectly cool. To his wife's appeals he replied, " I would shoot you but for the sake of the children. I have caught you at last, and now I will leave you to surrender myself to tho police." Ho thereupon went straight to the Mairie, where he explained the whole affair and gave himself up to answer for what ho had done. He was well known to the police authorities, and their sympathy was plainly with him. Ho was not subjected to the indignity of confinement, but was allowed to spend the night in tho offico of the Mairie.

In the meantime, there was a scene of tho greatest oxcitwnent in the Hotel Splendide. All the people in the entresol had been aroused and ran into the corridor in all manner of deshabille. They clustered about the dying man and asked each other hundreds of questions regarding th,. affair. Some of the hotel servants finally carried Abeille to his room. His clothes were soaked with blood that was pouring from his wounds. A doctor was summoned and did everything possible, but nothing could save the wounded man. His constitution had been weakened by the life ho had led, though he was only thirty years of ago. He became unconscious through loss of blood at 8 o'clock in the morning and soon afterwards died.

Mr. Deacon recounted the details of the shooting before the Procureur, in the presence of Mr. Theodore 1). Valcourt, the American Consul at Cannes. Upon being asked if he intended to prosecute his wife for adultery under the French law Mr. Deacon replied that he would not do so if ib involved the imprisonment of Mrs. Deacon. He told the magistrate ha ought to be liberated. Ho gave his word of honour that he would preseub himself for trial when called upon.