MIDNIGHT MURDER DRAMA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18197, 16 September 1922, Page 2 (Supplement)

MIDNIGHT MURDER DRAMA.

SHOT HEARD ON TELEPHONE, PARIS CRIME OP JEALOUSY. A double tragedy, in which a girl named Juliette Blanchard shot, her lover, | Georges Rodin, a railway' clerk at St. Cloud Station, in the middle of the night, i and then committed suicido, form 3 one of the strangest dramas of real life recorded in France. At midnight on a recent Friday the solitary policeman on duty at the telephone at St. Cloud Police Station was I rung up. He heard a man's voice say, I " Como quickly and turn this woman out i or she will kill me." j The policeman was about to ask for 1 an address when he distinguished a seo- ] ond voice. This time it was a woman, ! and she said, " Drop that telephone or i 1 will shoot you ! " There came the sound of a revolver shot and then—> silence. | The policeman ascertained from the girl jon duty at th e telephone exchange that i the call had come from the office of the j Htationmaster at St. Cloud. He hurried ! 'hither on a bicycle, but found the doors I closed and the station in darkness. He got on a bench and peered through | the whitewashed windows of the station ; office. There was a light within and somebody moving about. The policeman with two comrades, wh 0 had arrived t help him, tried to burst the door open j An they did so they heard two more re ! ports. Finally, with tho help of a bend as a battering ram, thßy broke open th door. j Lying on the floor by the side of thi telephone was the dead body of George; Rodin. A few paces away still groaninj lay a dark-haired girl with a wount in her forehead. By her side was a linj revolver ornamented with silver and mother of pearl, while in her hand was « second weapon, a more serviceable one oi blue steel. The police inquiry enabled the fact* t< be established very quickly. Mile Juliette Blanchard had been engaged foi some time to Rodin, who, however, re cently met another girl whom he likec better. He announced his intention o: breaking his first engagement. Mile. Blanchard thereupon went to St. Cloud Station to discuss the matter witr her lover. When he telephoned to tht police she shot him. A few minutes later, evidently aware that the police were outside, the station, she fired al herself. The bullet missct? her, and a third cartridge in tho pretty toy revolver missed fire. But the girl had come amply prepared, and. throwing away the small revolver, she took the second weapon from her bag. This time tho shot was effective. She died on th© way to the hospital.