DEAD IN BLAZING ROOM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18996, 18 April 1925, Page 2 (Supplement)

DEAD IN BLAZING ROOM.

INVENTOR'S TRAGIC DEED. DESPAIR OVER INVENTION.; SEEKS DEATH WITH WIFE," ENGINE BROKEN TO PIECES, ' Firemen who hacked (heir way into s locked and bolted blazing bedroom above a workshop in Colville Mews, Lonsdale Road, Bayswater, early on the morning of March 12, says a London paper, found the charred bodies of Alphonsc Guiard, a French motor engineer, and his wife. Between the bodies on a collapsed and still burning bed was a small dog which had been burned to death. Its head reposed on the woman's chest, and it was evident that at the moment she died Mme. Guiard had clasped her pet to her side. The man's arm was >' aiseti toward his head. Near his body was an empty revolver holster. It was known that he possessed a revolver, and it is expected, that this will be found boneath the wreckage of the roof, which crashed into the room on to the b<sd. Close to the bed were three overturned petrol cans, and a gas jet had been turned on. Guiard's workshop, which was immediately beneath the bedroom, was in confusion. Engine Smashed to Atoms. For years past Guiard had been work-* ing on'a new type of two-cylinder motorengine, which he claimed would be equal to the four-cylinder engine. This engine had been smashed to fragments. Business acquaintances of the dead man stated that he had spent hundreds of pounds on the engine and in trying to get manufacturers to adopt it, but he had always failed. He had come almost ta the end of his resources and had grown silent and morose. A few days ago he spoke of his despair, declaring that all hia hopes were shattered. It is thought that Guiard had had. reason to expect, recently, that his engine would at last be purchased and his fortune made, for on a motor-car in a garage below his workshop has been found this message, scrawled in English with chalk: —"ln remembrance of wllat you have done for us, you hypocrites. Goodbye.—A. J. J. Guiard." On another car was a messange in French, but beginning with the words, in English, "Without prejudice." This second inscription, however, was half obliterated by water from the firemen's hose, and only two sentences could be deciphered. These are far as can be made out, ran:—"Les Anglais ne sont pas si malins que cela. Comment est.-ce que vous m'avez empile ? {The English are not so bad as that. Why have you swindled me?)" At the end was written, "Adieu, A< J. J. Guiard." Letter in a Safe. The cars on which the messages had been chalked were damaged by a fire at Guiard's premises on the previous Sunday. He explained to the police that his wife had accidentally set fire to one of the cars while searching for a cat with a lighted candle in her hand. In a letter which has been found in a safe, Guiard, it is understood, alludes to the first fire as haying been caused accidentally, but declares that tha second was "deliberate." When he settled in Colville Mews soon after the war Guiard bought the lease of the premises, and there were still 15 years or so to run. The fact that he had tried in vain to dispose of the lease is said to have been a farther source of worry to him. Some time ago he let part of hia premises to Mr. John Glasgow, a greengrocer. " Terribly Despondent." "I had felt for days that Mr. Guiard would do something desperate," Mrs. Glasgow said after the tragedy. "He was always rather reserved, but lately lis had been terribly despondent. . Last night, at about seven o'clock, he began to maka a great noise of hammering as though ha was smashing up everything in his workshop. When my husband and I went to bed the hammering was still going on, keeping us awake. I was afraid that bo was doing something rash, and I was terrified. "The noise went on until past three this morning; then it stopped suddenly. A few rr-nutes later big flames burst- out of his bedroom window, and as quick as lightning the whole place was ablaze." Guiard was a heavily-built man, more than six feet in height, with fair hair and moustache. His wife was a slight little woman, and very dark. She spoke English with difficulty, but Guiard knew the language perfectly, having been about 20 years in England.