POLICEMAN AS BURGLAR.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 143520, 8 June 1911, Page 8

POLICEMAN AS BURGLAR.

ORDERED TO ARREST HIMSELF. (London Express’ Paris Correspondent.) It is proverbial that man in his timo plays many parts. Police Inspector Warze played only two, but they were curiously different ones. A\ arze doubled the parts of criminal and detective with such success that, he was actually given the warrant for his own arrest .and sent to look for himself in the rabbit warrens of criminal Paris, which are to be found in the network of streets round the Fauboilrg Montmartre. Warze, who drew good money as a, police inspector, made even more by burglary. But he had not always been a criminal. Love was his ruin. He had been a policenjau for some years, and was considered one of the best men of his brigade. He belonged to the famous 11 Brigade Mobile,” which is commanded bv Mm. Hamard and Valle, ami his chiefs confided the' most difficult-. cases to him in preference, to alb their other men. Warze was curiously daring. He would venture with impunity into the most dangerous haunts of the most dangerous “Apaches” everywhere in Pans, and was responsible for some of the most .sensational arrests of the last few years.

It is only now, when he is wanted by his former comrades on charges of burglary and coining, and is under suspicion -of a more serious crime, that M. Hamard has found out that-Warns was no other than the well-known criminal whose nickname of “N’iek Carter” had.become a terror, that Warze used his position in the police force to cause the arrest of those “Apaches” who were hostile to the band oh which he “was the chief, and that He had warned and caused to escape frfm the police traps at least as many badlywanted criminals as he had himself arrested.

Even now M. Hamard is not sure how long ago “Nick Carter's” criminal career began- He believes, however, that it began ,about six months ago. Ho had been, married some years then, ancl was the father of, family. But the home was unhappy, for Warze, who until two years before had been an excellent husband and . father, had fallen in love with another woman* and began ill-treating his Wife. The real name of the woman is not known. Her nickname is the strange one of “White Lilac.” ' ’ “White Lilac” was tho Helen of this Paris of crime. Like Helen of Troy, she had golden hair, Like Helen she made strong men’s hearts beat with passion 'and caused them to fight to win her .‘smile. Warzo fought,••lost, and then by 'guile; defeated Helenas lover, who was no other than Louis Henrich—“Big Louis,” he was called. Ho was the ruflian who murdered Police Inspector Monlis on the Boulevard do Cliehy some lime ago, and it is now suggested that Warze instigated this meaningless murder - for the express purpose of arresting Hcnrichj whom ho had fought and failed .t 6 kill.

Before'the murder Warze and Henrich had coined twg-franc (Is 8d) pieces, and issued them in company and had committed many;othorf crimes. Among them was a clover burglary, in which Warze had a lending snare, as lately ns the first of last month. With two other men who escaped at the 'same time? as ho did, Warze broke into a house ‘in ; the thie Vivienne, climbed up on the roof, ; and succeeded in letting himself and his,comrades dpwn into a jeweller’s shop on the second floor of-tho house next door.

There he stole" 67 silver'purses‘Worth £216 and £325 worth of platinum. He left behind him, though, £2500 of precious stones. ' Tho day after the burglary (April 2) M. Hamard-instructed three’ inspectors, of whom Warze was ono' to find the three men who l\ad broken into the jeweller’s shop and got away. They had been seen by .two' policemen, and their names and descriptions wfcro given in the warrants. As M. Haninrd handed Warze the Iwarrant for the arrest of ‘‘Nick Car-, 'ter.” he laughed,, and said, ‘‘the description almost \ tallies with ygursolf," Warze,” and Warze laughed, and said how. oddi'.it was. It was not so" odd, 'ami naturally enough 'Warze failed, to arrest “Nick Carter.” But one of the other inspectors captured the second of the band, a-man named Jacquin, and Jacquin betrayed Warze’s identity with the much-wanted “-Nick.” ■

But “Nick Carter” had disappeared. He had*the impudence to send in his formal resignation,before he decamped, saying that lie was-going to reorganise the Monaco police force. . M. Hamard made 'inquiries' in Monaco. Ho learned that Warzo had lied, - and a second warrant was issued for his arrest, in his Wn name this time, j Two days later'another charge was brought against liim. On March 20 a,‘ woman named Bertho Roubin was murdered near tho markets. She had been murdered in the streets, and was hot. robbed. Vengeance was evidently the motive of the crime. The pqKco found that Bertlie had been a friend of “ White. Lilac’s,” and that she had made trouble between “White Lilac” and Wnrzc. Evidence was given, too, by a woman who had seen the murder from her window. Her description of the murderer, who had stepped up to Berthe 'Roubin and had cut her throat from ear to ear, was . the description of Warze. As a police inspector Warze. had, as I have said, many successes. But in tho light of these disclosures many peculiarities of his assumed another aspect. ' It was remembered that in many cases after tolling his chiefs of the whereabouts of notable criminals this model detective failed to effect a capture. No French detective is ever sent to take a criminal alone. They go in couples, or by throes or .fours.

The moil who had boon told off to accompany Warze oh these raids on criminal- haunts remembered when it was too late that he had always insisted,on going in first and alone; They remembered, too, that some rf the men they wanted always managed to disappear and evade capture, and that those who were taken were always loud in their outbursts of rnge against Warze. Then several police remembered .that Warze had been seen in the company of “ AVhite Lilac’s” friend, Berthe Bonbin. Jacquin and the other burglar stated that the t>vo women had words about “Nick,” and that one day both women disappeared. ' “ White Lilac” has never been found. Berthe Roubin was found dying on the pavement of the Hue Quincamnoix. Some days later AVarze and ‘‘White Lilac” were seen together in Brussels. There ares now warrants out for them both. And while the police arc hunting for “Helen” and “Paris,” Mine. AVnrzo and her two children have been slaving to keep body and soul together in husband and father’s absence, and found nut oulv by reading to-day’s newspapers that Warze and the famous criminal, “Nick Carter,” were one and the same man.