The Secret Death Trap

NZ Truth, Issue 997, 3 January 1925, Page 8

The Secret Death Trap

In The Floor Of An Old French Castle Scheme Of A Masquerading Criminal Masterpieces Of Detective Fiction Take Second Place According to the Paris police, some of our most famous masterpieces of detective fiction have oeen surpassed by a recent discovery m real life. •

Stranger things seem to happen m Paris and its neighboring suburbs than any other place on earth. And thus it is that the French police the other day suddenly stumbled on a mysterious death-trap, m an old castle just outside of Paris, where they found a chair carefully placed over a trapdoor which, when the spring was pulled, would drop the unsuspecting occupant into a secret cell on the floor m the cellar below. And into this cell projected tubes through which chloroform could be sprayed upon the unhappy victim — and m the yard of the castle preparations had been made to dispose of the "bodies of the unfortunates who unsuspectingly seated themselves m that death-chair. As the Paris police gazed upon 1 ' the trap-door and the various ingenious mechanisms for trapping the victims, all operated by electric / handles and push-buttons, they remarked that nothing m the detective masterpieces of Sherlock Holmes Maurice Leblanc were more remarkable than the real life death-trap which stood before them. It was the Castle dv Pi-ieure, m a fashionable neighborhood, and the building has for many years been the property of a wealthy Parisian engineer who spent his Summers there with his family. When the season was about over, last year, he was advised by a real estate agent that a very honorable couple, the Marquis and Marquise de Champaubert, wanted to rent the castle for two months. The engineer immediately inquired about his prospective clients' respectability. He was informed that the Marquis, decorated of the Legion of Honor, very distinguished and elegant, had juct arrived with his wife, whose health was very poor, from French Indo-China. He wanted the castle to let his wife have two months' rest and recover a little from the fatigue caused by the long trip. To verify the validity of his statement would have taken a very long time, and therefore the engineer negotiated at a hign price, which the Marquis accepted without, bargaining. "A VERY FINE COUPLE." As the engineer and his, family had not quite finished their season, the Marquis and his sick wife remained for a while at a smart Hotel m Dinard, entertaining and spending money m a most aristocratic manner. A very smart American automobile, said to be the one used by General Pershing toward the end of the war. would roll up m front of the hotel door at the Marquis's orders. To all appearances they were a very fine couple. - Then the engineer returned to Paris, letting the nobleman and his wife move into the castle. In a very short time they had delighted the neighborhood by their prodigality and spendthrift ways.. The Marquis had said that his four servants had remained with, his, baggage m Marseilles. After a few days the car and chauffeur left. A woman, who said she was the Marquis's cook, , arrived. ' Then, mysteriously enough, the wide open gate to the castle grounds became closed. The Marquis and his wife from then on lived m seclusion. Weeks : pass.cd by and the .two months were drawing near their end when the engineer m Paris received a telephone call from a jeweller of the Rue de la Paix, who had been a friend of his since' childhood. "Hullo," the jeweller said. "So you have sold your Castel dv Prieure?" "What makes you think that?" answered the engineer. "Do you mean to say you haven't sold it?" . "I certainly do!" "Well, then," said the jeweller, "I must see you right away. I will be up m ten minutes. Wait for me." Some few minutes later the jeweller entered the engineer's apartment. He handed a letter to the engineer. "Read this." PROVING TOO MUCH. The engineer -took the letter. It was written on note paper, embellished by the crest of the Marquis, and bearing at the same time the name and address of the castle, with signs to show that it was accessible by .the railroad and post. ■ v The engineer read aloud: "To Mr. X., Jeweller, Rue. de la Paix, Paris: ' "Dear Sir, — I want to make a magnificent surprise to my wife for- her thir-ty-fifth anniversary. Unfortunately, she is ill and I cannot leave her alone here, I therefore beg of you to send one of your employees to me with a diamond necklace, white or blue, of the-best you have. I would also want a pearl necklace, pure pearls with no deficiencies, the totality not exceeding eight hundred thousand francs m value, which I will pay upon the purchase. Add to this two necklaces, brooches and rings of a value of about three hundred thousand francs. I will thus be able to select. The castle was looked tiver a few minutes following the arrest of the Marquis. The jeweller who had near-

"l will beg of you to be most discreet about this, as it is my desire to surprise the Marquise with these presents, and I do not want l this purchase to be known of by anybody else except yourself. My castle is known all over the region. . It has Had the honor of receiving Prince Victor and the Duke of Orleans. "Hommages et cordialites. Signed--, . "Marquis Elie de Champaubert." He who wants to prove too much proves nothing. Here was an egregious social error! "Hommage et ' cordialites!" Who ever heard of a nobleman finishing a letter 4 to a tradesman m such terms. ,It showed Mack of true aristocratic breeding. . This mistake" set the jeweller thinking. Also the last sentence of the letter, boasting of the IPrince and the Duke, seemed to crowd nobility too heavily m the scenery. So the jeweller, remembering that the castle was the property of his friend, the. engineer, had consulted him. The next item on the programme was to advise the police about the matter. A first and rapid summing up of circumstances and happenings brought clearly to the mind of those concerned that the* Marquis, if he was a marquis, was above all a crook. It was obvious that the castle, being very isolated and * distant from any other habitation, was well situated for a crime. The neighbors had been mesmerised by the apparent display of wealth by the Marquis,- together with the difficulty of identifying him, since he professed to 'come from IndoChina. The sending away of the chauffeur seemed also a preparation for a snare into which the envoy from the jeweller's shop would step. The difficulty then arose. How arrest the Marquis? So far he hadn't had a chance to do anything that was m conflict with the law. Somebody remarked that naturally the Marquis was ; not a marquis. It would have been difficult; however, to prove this. Whereas, for his Leg-ion of Honor, this 'was another matter. Whether or not he had any right to it could be ascertained. To scour. the official list of those entitled to wear the little red ribbon, however, would take several days, since the list is so long. The French people have often joked about the enormous number of men entitled to the wearing of the decoration, and when it was learned that the Americans .who were entitled to it had formed a club m the United States, one comic French sheet declared that m France a club was going to be formed by those that had not yet the Legion of » Honor, and that it was anticipated that the membership would be so enormous that at least a game of whist could be arranged among them. So it . was decided to arrest the Marquis for the illegal wearing of the red. ribbon as soon as it was ascertained that the name of Champaubert did not figure on the list. The local police at Dinard had already had orders to watch the castle very closely. A NARROW ESCAPE. ' It was learned that two other jewellers m Paris had received similar letters,, from , the Marquis, also asking them to come to. the castle with some jewellery; , Onelhouse had immediately sent a. i-epresentative, who became suspicious when he saw the castle from the outside, noticing how silent and secluded it appeared. He ran into a policeman : m plain clothes who was lurking around, and asked him about the .Marquis. The policeman warned him not to enter the castle, and m so doing saved his life. The episodes that follow clearly prove this. A day or so after the police officials sent from Paris arrived and decided that it would be unwise to try and enter the castle, which might be defended very stubbornly by its occupants. , They sent a messenger boy .from the nearest hotel to advise the Marquis that a 'phone call from Paris was awaiting him. The bogus -nobleman stepped into the snare without hesitation and was immediately taken into custody. He strongly protested, saying he was innocent. The charge on which he was arrested had been the illegal wearing of the decoration. Meanwhile the cook had been captured; But madame, the Marquise, could not be' found. The truth was soon discovered. The cook was none other than the bogus Marquis's wife, while the Marquise, chosen for the part because' she had an abundant wardrobe and looked far more aristocratic than the real wife, was but the crook's sweetheart, a notorious demi-mondaine. ly entered it before he had been warned by the policeman felt a cold shiver running down his back when he discovered the snare he would have fatal- I ly fallen into. In -the two short months that the, crook had inhabited the castle he had accomplished a superhuman task. The place had been converted most ingeniously into a torture chamber with modern devices, using the latest in-

ventions brought out by science m the last year or so. The Marquis had sawed through the floor of the library of the castle and had constructed a well concealed trapdoor. Beside this trap-door stood a fine piece of medieval steel armor, | which would hold the eye of any visitor who was being motioned to sit down m the chair carefully placed m the centre of the trap-door. This chair was a small, gilt salon chair of old .French design. The.vbther various chairs m the room were conveniently occupied with one', thing or another so that the visiting jeweller would naturally move toward the fatal chair on the trap-door near the suit of armor. v ELABORATE PREPARATIONS. / The detectives found that upon moving a little lever and pressing an electric push button the trap-door would fall and precipitate the chair and the victim into the cellar below. Proceeding down into the cellar, the detectives found a cell made at the botton of the trap, which was padded with half the mattresses from the beds of the castle, which the Marquis had prepared to deaden any sound. Next to that .cell was another, and into both of them chloroform could be 1 sent through tubes by a control from' the . floor above. The resourceful crook had three cases of chloroform and an atomizing machine with a distributor. Thus he could put the jeweller asleep. Beyond the first two cells was a third one. This was a torture chamber, with several instruments that could be worked on 'the prisoner m case there was something the bogus Marquis wanted to learn from him. All worked by electricity. . • ; The fact that the bandit intended murdering his victims was laid bare by the reports handed' m by the custodian of the castle, which said that the new occupant had announced that he would possibly plant flowers to amuse himself. Evidently, the police concluded, this was so that his digging m the grounds, doubtless to bury his victims, would not attract any attention. , A high-powered car was found m his garage, probably m anticipation of a sudden departure m case things went badly. ■ ; . The Marquis was very soon identified, turning out to be m . reality a notorious crook who had already been involved m several large affairs. He eventually admitted his guilt and intentions, with many, a tear, and pleaded that he had no intention of murdering the jewellers. He protested that he would have left the castle after his contemplated robberies and then would have called up the police to tell them that they could find his victims alive m the underground cells.