PHOTOGRAPH TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13537, 7 September 1907, Page 2 (Supplement)

PHOTOGRAPH TRAGEDY.

WIFE'S DRAMATIC VENGEANCE. Jcst where the Boulevard des Italiens joins the Rue Laffitte'*a terrible tragedy was enacted on' July 23. M. Margry, a Frenchman carrying on a dyer's business, in Paris in the name. of Lilliccrap, being shot dead by his wife.- .-,;:'.«■ ...... The great thoroughfares were thronged as usual with a ceaseless flow of vehicles and pedestrians, when a shot was suddenly fired by a well-dressed woman at an elderly man, who was walking in front of her. The man, grievously wounded, staggered a few yards, and then fell heavily on. the pavement. The bullet had pierced the brain, and before the victim had been carried to the nearest chemist's life was extinct'. . Mdme. Margry, who is in custody, was the. dead man's second wife. The first Mdme. Margry was a Miss Lilliecrap, under whoso, lmiiie the feather dyeing business was and is carried on. She died about 16 years ago, anil a year or two later M. Margry married Miss Jane Shooboil, whose mother was a Miss Heath and whose father was a German of Hie name of Schubert, living in London under the anglicised name of.Shoobert. Mis. Shoobert is now nearly 80 years old, and lives in a suburb of London. The business is a flourishing one. and M. and Mdme. Margry's married life- would have been happy out for monsieur's inconstancy. . Scenes'of jealousy often occurred. Madame complained' particularly of her husband's attentions to one of the shopgirls, Alice. The gM was dismissed, but M. Margry continued to see her and give her work under an assumed name. • Matters' had 5 been .hi this 'state for some considerable time, when an unlucky coincidence brought about the tragedy. M. Margry had taken . Alice to Fontainbleau a Sunday or two ago. and had struck up. a friendship with another party of picnickers. They" all agreed to go for a drive in the forest. One of M. Margry's new-found friends had a camera, and took a group consisting of M. Margrv, Alice, and a little girl. "You won't forget to scud* me the photograph, " said M. Margry, as he said goodbve to his friends in the evening, and gave them his business address. Accordingly the fateful photograph arrived in a transparent envelope, addressed ( "Monsieur and. Madame Margry." . The concierge handed the caul to M. Margry's fifteen-year-old >on, as monsieur, had not yet arrived at business from home in the suburb of Boi's Colombes. PHOTO. IIKAUItKS [HANDS. , The boy took the card upstairs, and handed it innocently to his stepmother. The effect-': of the revelation may be imagined, j although Mine. Margry could not have been blind to her husbands goings on. During the whole of the.day Mdme. Margry betrayed no emotion,-and was silent as to*her .project for revenge., If. she. had, any.. She appears, however, to have asked her husband to buy her a revolver, as she did not feel safe when alone. Margry handed her his, and mmt have bought another, as he also was armed at the moment of his death. In the evening the pair dined at a restaurant, and were going to take the train to their suburban home, when Mine. Margry suddenly taxed her husband on the subject of the photograph. . Margry, who" was a hot-tempered man, flew into a violent passion, and finally burst out with : "Go on. Go home to your people in Enghiul, and leave me in peace." ; Stung to fury Mdme. Margry fired the fatal" shot, her husband thus -meeting his death through the agency of the weapon he had given his wife for' her own defence only a short time previously. Mine. Margry is a woman of diminutive stature, and her husband towered head and shoulders above her. In her excitement the muzzle was pointed upwards, and the bullet, striking the man's left temple, lodged in his brain. "When Margry fell his wife, outwardly calm, said to the crowd, pressing round, "My husband has shot himself." This was probably to avoid violence at the hand a of the crowd, for at the" police-station she did not'attempt to conceal that she was the murderess. ' '.',',.

'There was cbnsiderable~c!isparfty between their aires,, the' lady being only 46, 1 while her husband was over 60.

The son had gone home to Bois Colombes early in'the evening, and had retired to bed as usual. He knew nothing' whatever of the terrible tragedy that had happened, and was met el v 'surprised 'that his parents bad not come home during the night. He learned the truth only bv reading' the papers in the morning, and hurried to the city in a state of terrible anxiety.