A PARIS MYSTERY.

Colonist, Volume LV, Issue 13738, 2 June 1913, Page 3

A PARIS MYSTERY.

DISAPPEARANCE OF A LADY

THE SOLUTION

Mr Clement K. Shorter tells in tlio "Sphere".,an absorbing story of the mysterious disappearance of an Englishwoman in a Paris hotel. Two -women—mother and daughter— who spent a groat deal of their lives in travelling, had been for some time in the Near East. While at Constantinople they road in a newspaper that the Paris Exhibition—tlio k:;t—wts -.V-- J: to open, and as they h;;;'! '.".'ri-.lc;" ;n •..■,■ Iback to Engh:i'-1 fur.! tV-v t 7-'•■- ri::;-' to go by Paris i:) r:<'.r' in :■,>. ..■ 'v:' ■ liibitian. Nt an ccr?;,- st;;~. .'■;■. • i'■ ! Garo de Lyon tlieir br^-.^r- ;■- v,t : "*■ ': j upon the< outside of the closcci •r.-.rrir.; -^ in which they went t-o thejr 'hotoi. Their luggage corVPisfced of two boxen and a large carpet bag which the elder woman had been in the hr.bit of carrying for many years.- ,TMs last the porter plac&d between the two boxes.

Th© driver, however, for.greater security, took it down and placed it under his feet. "When these ladies arrived at the hotel they duly signed their names in th© book and asked for two separate rooms adjoining. Tho manager profusely apologised for the fact that this was quite impossible. He gave the elder lady a room on the third floor, and her daughter a room on th"c fourth floor immediately above it, this being the bost he could do.

Both agreed that as they, had dined in the train they would go and lie down, and tho daughter promised her mother that she would return in two or thrco hours to see that she was comfortable. The younger woman then wont to her room, and being very tired fell ' asleep without removing her clothes. Some three hours afterwards, at midnight, she went to.say good-

night to her mother. She entered,- a« sho believed, her mother's room on the third floor —room No. 49—.and found not only that it was empty, but that it was quite a different room from the one in Avhich'she had left her three hours bofo-rc?. She thought she must have made a mistake, and called the chambermaid. The chambermaid professed profound surprise. She rememborrd mademoiselle, but'she had como to the hotel alone. She know nothing of the •elder companion of whom madomoiso'-Te spoke. The young lady, greatly agitated, asked to see tho manager, who appeared and tola her vc-ry emphatically that sho was iin dor. a delusion, that she had really arrived at tho hotel quite alone—companionlcss. "But," said the bewildered girl, we signed our names in the visitors' book. The porter also will romember us." The visitors'1 back was brought, in which she found her own name and above it that of an entire stranger. Tho porter came, and he a.so assured her that she had como to the hotel at 9 o'clock that evening wjth one trunk. "But," she said, "can the cabman bo found? He will remember." After some delay the cabman was found near the hotel. She asked him to recall that she had two trunks and a carpet bag, that ho had deliberately taken the carpet bag from the top of the carriage and placed it under his feet. No; the cabman asseverated that he had driven her from the Gare do Lyon to the hotel alone, and that she had only one trunk with her. At this stage the girl fainted. The next day the j .hotel.officials saw, with tho assistance of a nurse- from one of the hospitals, that she was taken to England and to her friends. It was not till a year or two afterwards that she heard what had become of , hoT 'mother. ■■•

Now hero is a. mystery which 1 wonder if any of my readers havesolved. The story was told to me as it was. told at some breakfast or luncheon at Cambridge by Mr Arthur Benson, at which I understand Mr. A. J. Balfour was present, and Mr Balfour guessed tho solution at once. That solution is amazing, but credible. Within five minutes of the younger of the two visitors to this hotel parting from her mother and going to her room tho elderly lady was suddenly taken ill. She has just strength to reach the- be-11 and ring for assistance. The chambermaid entered tho room -and found her lying on the floor. She telephoned down to tho manager, who came promptly. The manager saw at onco that the woman was dead. Ho sent for a. doctor, who was at the moment in the hotel. The doctor came and said "This is a matter for the authorities," and telephoned to a department of State. Two officials came down and another doctor, .and both doctors certified that the woman had died of bubonic plague—caught, no' doubt, in Constantinople or somewhere in tho East. It w<as agreed that it was impossible that this case should be permitted to receive publicity just at the moment when th© Paris Exhibition bad opened. It might cause umitterable panic in Paris, and ruin the exhibition.

With the connivance, therefore, of tho police authorities of Paris and the Government official, it was promptly, and immediately arranged that this unfortunate Englishwoman shduld never have hp.d-any.exist-.-rico. ! The body was removed in a wardrobo from the room and secretly buried or cremated. The furniture in the room was rearranged, and, indeed, a paperhanger was commissioned to alter the colour of the room —all this within.an hour or so. The chambermaid, the hall porter, and tho cabman were bribed or terrorised into silence, and the .hotel visitors' book was tampered with. Not until n. year or more afterward© did the chambermaid write to tho unhappy girl as to the real fate of her mother. Incredible, you will.say J is this story; and yet I fully believe that it actually happened, although I think it could . only happen in a city so thoroughly organised as Paris. If it be true, as I am informed, that Mr Balfour guessed the solution, I can only surmise that in the back of his mind he had heard something about it during the period he was in office, for it is quite reasonable to suppose that the British Government were informed of what had happened. Mr. Shorter adds that tho story has been used by two authors of repute who heard it —by one in a.'short, story in an American magazine, and by tho other in a long novel.