“CELL MYSTERY”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22742, 30 November 1935, Page 20

“CELL MYSTERY”

PRISONER DISAPPEARS WHAT A £3OO BRIBE COULD DO. Three hundred pounds paid over to secure the “mysterious” escape of a notorious fraudulent financier from the cells in the Palais de Justice; a wife who spent an afternoon secretly in his cell, and a sensational scene when the prisoner’s name was called in court —and it was found that he had vanished. Such were the thrilling events which came to light in Paris in what is likely to prove one of the worst scandals of French official life yet exposed. First indication of the affair came when the name of Charles Alexis Vincent Pelissier was called through the corridors of the Law Courts, and the officers went to his cell to bring him before the examining magistrate.

The cell door was locked. Inserting the key, the warder turned it and threw open the door, calling on Pelissier to come out. To his amazement he found that the cell was empty. In some “mysterious” fqghion the financier had escaped, apparently vanishing through the solid walls of the cell. NOTE FROM HUSBAND.

The alarm was given, and almost immediately a woman was found in the gallery leading to the cell block. It was the prisoner’s wife. She was in a state of extreme agitation, but when she had recovered sufficiently to speak she told a strange story. She had received a note from her husband the previous night, she said, telling her to be at a cafe outside the Law Courts next morning with £3OO, which she was to hand to a man who would make himself known to her.

After handing the stranger the money she went with him to the Law Courts, where she was passed into her husband’s cell. She spent the rest of the day in the cell, and they left together. She refuses, however, to say where she left him or where he went to. The obvious fact remains that many officials must have turned “ blind ” eyes on the escaping man. Investigation has also revealed that although Pelissier’s passport had been taken from him he ,had obtained in some equally mysterious fashion another enabling him to travel to England if he manages to get out of France. Pelissier has been in the hands of the police several times in connection with fraudulent building society schemes and the establishment of small “ banks.”