A BEAUTY'S TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13722, 11 April 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

A BEAUTY'S TRAGEDY.

ACTRESS' brother shot IN domestic: quarrel. Great interest is shown in Paris in the case of M, Paul Roy, son of a big horse dealer, of Neuilly, who is accused by his wife, the beautiful /American actress, Gracia. Calla, of shooting her brother in a duel. Gracia Calia was a sensation of Paris five years ago, young patricians vying with each other in homage to the American beauty. She was there three years with her mother, both stopping at the home of her sister, the. Baroness von Orendorff, in the Rue ilamelin. Gifted with a fine voice, she decided to make an attempt to obtain an engagement at the Paris Opera, and studied assiduously under Professor Duvernoy, of the Conservatoire. - M. Jobcrt painted a large portrait of her, which was much admired in the Paris Salon in 1903. This very portrait, at the time, gave rise to a romantic story, a French count being said to have fallen in love with her at first sight of her picture at the salon, and having made great efforts to obtain an introduction to her. But the count denied the story as far as he was concerned, which, however, did not prevent it from making the round of the press. : .Miss Calla suddenly returned to America, and nothing more was heard of her till some days ago, when despatches told the extraordinary story that she had been married to Paul Roy, and that during a quarrel between herself and her husband in her residence at Bayside, near Newington, New Hampstead, her brother intervened, with the result that a duel was fought, and her husband shot her brother. The death was at first said to have been accidental., and it was only after her husband took the steamer for France that she accused him of shooting her brother. M. faul Roy has been found in Paris, and has given a full account of the affair to the French journals. After his marriage, he explained, he went to live in a country house owned by his wife in New Hampshire, his wife's mother and her husband by a second marriage, "Mr. Kelly, living near. In December his brother-in-law, Mr. George Carkins, came to live with them. After spending New Year's Day in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, his brother-in-law returned on January 2, and all three dined together in the best of spirits. * QUARRKL OVER A HAT. After dinner his wife, who was to go to a concert, went to dress, and asked her husband to accompany her. Mr. Carkins was also asked to go, but declined, as it was a stormy night, and snow was falling heavily. His wife had put on one of her best costumes, and was about to don her hat, when her husband remarked that it was too big, and that she would be very uncomfortable with it in the automobile. His wife persisted in wishing to wear that particular hat, and a dispute followed, in the course of which, M. Roy alleges, she used some very provoking expressions, which roused his temper, and he told her that she would have to go with her brother. His wife went away angry to tell her brother, who was in a largo room used as a kitchen at the back of the house. M. Roy says that he waited ten minutes, and, thinking that she might have quieted down, he went where his wife and her brother were conversing. His wife then, he alleges, taunted him, and he replied in French, whereupon she dared him to repeat'the word in English, which he did, and no sooner had he done so than Carkins pulled out a revolver and fired at him. His wife threw up her hands in horror, and ran screaming to the next room.

Meanwhile M. Roy had taken out his revolver, and both men fired at each other until their revolvers were empty. As the last shot was fired ho saw Carkins fall. M. Roy afterwards learned that his bro-ther-in-law had just been able to drag himself into the next room, where the last words he said were, "Peach, I am dead." M. Roy says that he went to his father-in-law's place to tell him what had happened, and intended to give himself up to' the police, but the family persuaded him that it was best not to tell the truth, and to make out that Carkins had committed suicide. Mine. Paul Roy, who is now only twentyseven, avers, on the contrary, that her married life has been marred all through by her husband's hot temper." He not only quarrelled with her, but there were continual disputes between her brother and him over most trivial things. The fatal quarrel began in her bedroom, and was all over a hat. She went to the kitchen with her brother, and her husband followed. She continued : " Hot words ensued, and I then said I would not go at all. .Thereupon Roy turned to my brother, and observed, 'It's all your fault.' My brother pushed me out, and a moment later several shots resounded. "My brother staggered out, saying, 'I'm shot.' The statement that there was a duel is absurd. That may be what the French call it, but if my brother had a revolved he used it. only in self-defence. The case was reported as one of suicide, but after my husband ■ left New York I consulted a lawyer, who informed the authorities what had actually happened." y On the strength of Mrs. Roy's allegations, the body of Carkins was exhumed, and two bullet wounds in the back were found. REMARKABLE THEORY. A remarkable statement, throwing a new light on the shooting of Mr. George A. Carkins, at Bay Side, Newington, N.H., has been made to a correspondent of the New York Herald by Colonel Henry Mapleson, who expresses the belief that Mr. Carkins was not Miss Calla's brother at all, but her first husband, and M. Roy was her second, he having been introduced to her in Franco three years ago/ ''. Ho says that three years ago when selling a beautiful property at Etretat called " Blanc Castel," he met a young and pretty woman, who said she was Mine. Sergius. She introduced a young man as her husband. They, agreed to buy the property. On going to the notary to draw up the deed of sale, Mm. Sergius admitted that her first husband, Mr. Carkins, was still alive, so the lawyer made the deed out in the name of Gracia Calia Carkins. " (""".'■■ "Some months afterwards,, on going with a friend to M. Roy's big horse establishment in Paris, I saw M. Roy's son, and the impression left upon me is that he was the man whom I had previously -known as M. Sergius. I now see that M. Paul Ray has killed Mr. Carkins, who, if my surmises are correct, would be Mrs. Calla Carkins' husband and not her brother."