MILLIONS AT STAKE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20277, 11 April 1934, Page 1

MILLIONS AT STAKE.

Englishmen in Alps Start Spy Plot Story. LONDON, April 4. Following nightmare journeys through Swiss blizzards, a band of Englishmen obtained documents which will enable the underwriters to appeal immediately against the Paris Court’s £2,000.000 verdict relating to the insurance on the French liner L’Atlantique, which was destroyed by fire on January 4, 1933. The documents not only prove that important facts about the steamer’s construction were withheld when it was re-insured, but connect the Stavisky gang with the fire. The “ Daily Mail’s ” Geneva correspondent reveals that a Frenchman told interested persons that he was willing to sell these highly important documents. There immediately began a race between the insurance companies’ representatives and the opposing interests. The Frenchman lived in a little tenement at Champagnolle, in the Jura mountains, Switzerland. The Englishmen were unable to follow the ordinary train route from Paris because their rivals, whom it was necessary to hoodwink at all costs, closely watched the stations. So they reached Geneva by devious routes. They found that a blizzard was raging and that the roads across the Jura mountains were almost impassable. They had a nightmare drive, digging the car out of snowdrifts, but they reached the tenement. They found that the Frenchman’s documents fully supported his story, but he demanded mc-re money than they had brought, so they were forced to return to Geneva to get a further draft from London. Spy Scare. While they were waiting at Geneva for the money the Englishmen spoke to nebody and consulted with the utmost secrecy. Their mysterious attitude caused the secret police to investigate, and \rhen they discovered that the foreigners had been journeying in the mountains and receiving large drafts on Swiss banks, they believed that they had stumbled across a huge international spying gang. The story gathered momentum, and every big European nation sent secret police to Geneva. Cables flashed between capitals, and even to New York. France was particularly agitated. In the meantime the Englishmen got their money and again set out through a blizzard for Champagnolle. They arrived to find their rivals there, bargaining with the Frenchman’s wife. The Englishmen immediately buttonholed the Frenchman, came to terms, got the documents, and left their unsuspecting rivals talking to the wife in an adjoining room. The documents are now safely in London.