DUST BETRAYS MURDERER

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3480, 16 June 1934, Page 7

DUST BETRAYS MURDERER

In England people should be astonished if New Scotland Yard “called in” Madame Tussaud’s to assist in the detection of a murderer. Something comparable to that actually happened in France. Mr. F. D. Grierson relates that he was looking over the Service de l’ldentite Judiciare, the scientific headquarters of the Paris police in the Palais du Justice, when he saw a life-size wax figure sitting rigidly in an armchair. The figure was being brought to an exact resemblance of a certain Monsieur Z., who had been shot dead in his house a day or two previously. Madame Z.’s story was that a masked stranger had knocked at the door late at night, demanded money from her husband, and then shot him dead. But the police knew he had not been on good terms with his wife, and suspected her. So they dressed the wax figure in his clothes, and installed it in a room of the house while Madame was away recovering from the shock of the death, with a strong light on the face and the rest of the room in shadow. Madame was then called back. She was ushered in, saw what appeared to be the ghost of her husband, and her cheeks blanched. “Mon Dieu!” she cried. “C’est lui!” The shock was too much for her. She broke down and confessed that it was she who had shot her husband, after a violent quarrel. Simple, even melodramatic, but terribly effective. The scientific method is not so simple. Take the case of Louis Boulay, a bank messenger of sixty-eight, who went out to pay 10,000 francs into another bank and was found murdered in the Bois de Boulogne. Among the dust in the dead man’s pockets the police found ti'aces of anthracite coal dust, sand, and sawdust of pine and oak; on his coat, spots of mildew; in his hair, tiny scraps of strawboard and microscopic insects that breed only in the dark; and in the dust extracted from his trousers, minute particles of an uncommon red varnish. From these the police concluded that he must have visited, or been carried to a cellar. They discovered that Boulay, in his spare time, ran a small bookmaking business, and began “combing” possible associates in this class. Their inquiries led them to a house in which lived a concierge named Tessier. One of three cellars in Tessier’s house was searched minutely, and among the dust there they found all the ingredients of the dust in Boulay’s pockets; also faint stains of blood; but, above all, mildew of the same genus and some of the same minute insects as were found in Boulay’s hair. These clues, combined with others, were the means of bringing Tessier to justice. In another murder, also of a bank messenger, a man named Nourric was suspected. The body had been trussed up and tied with electric wires, while cords had been wound round the sacking. The scientific instruments in the police laboratories “found that these cords were composed partly of hemp and partly of

jute, and determined the exact proportions of each . . . The dust between the strands came under the microscope. In this dust were found some minute grains of azure blue . . . similar grains were found in the dust between strands of rope in Nourric’s house—rope that was made of exactly the some proportions of hemp and jute as that which bound the sack dragged from the river.” Admirable scientific detection. But it did not stop there. The head had been wrapped in a large handkerchief common to many working men in France. They are not bought separately, but in a length, and have to be cut and hemmed at home. Similar handkerchiefs were found in Nourric’s house; they might, however, have been found in countless others. This was where the police expert came in:— “In this weaving,” he explained, four white threads are followed by two red threads. You will see, however, that between the forty-seventh and fiftieth threads, there are only three white threads instead of four.” The handkerchiefs found in Nourric’s house showed the same fault in weaving. In addition, he showed that all the handkerchiefs had been hemmed by the same sewing machine, which repeated a minor peculiarity in stitching. “I have a clear and honest conscience,” said Nourric; but he got a life sentence all the same. In the crime museum of the Paris police, says Mr. Grierson, there is a handsome walking stick with a crook handle which figured in the assassination of a prominent society man. He was a guest at a garden party when he staggered and fell dead with a bullet wound in the brain. There had been no sound of a report. It was ultimately discovered that Y, another guest, who had a grudge against the dead man, had constructed a walking stick which was really a very powerful gun worked by compressed air. The weapon threw a small bullet with great accuracy and force for a distance sufficient for Y’s purpose. He shot X at almost point-blank range, after which he coolly mingled with the crowd round the prostrate man.