"Impudence and Immunity "

FRANCE

"Impudence and Immunity"

Last week Paris-Soir, smart eleven-year-old French daily which has made great leaps in circulation in the past year, again showed its mettle by accusing the Paris police and the Surete Generale of wilfully bungling the Stavisky investigation and then hiring five of the fanciest detectives to track down the murderers of Alexandre Stavisky and of Judge Albert Prince. The Paris-Soir pack of bloodhounds included Detective Story Writers Georges Simenon and Andre Gaston Leroux, son of the creator of Arsene Lupin; onetime Chief Inspector Alfred C. Collins of Scotland Yard; famed ex-Chief Constable Frederick Wensley, Britain's greatest detective (TIME, July 8, 1929); and last but not least Sir Basil Thomson, onetime Director of Intelligence of the British Secret Service.

After a brilliant career which included the tracking down of Mata Hari Sir Basil retired, a Knight Commander of the Bath, in 1921. In 1925 he was the object of a cause celebre of his own when lie was arrested in Hyde Park with one Thelma de Lava on charges of indecency, public impropriety and attempting to bribe a policeman. Knowing that Sir Basil was not only a distinguished sleuth but the son of a late Archbishop of York, the British Penny Press gloated. Sir Basil claimed a frame-up. He was fined -L-5 and costs.

For his prowess in detection the office of Chief Constable was specially created for Frederick Wensley, whose service at Scotland Yard began 47 years ago just before the dreadful days of Jack the Ripper.

After solving most of Britain's best-known murders he retired at 64, five years ago (TIME, July 8, 1929). All these gentlemen were used to unraveling a shrewd, intelligent, well-constructed plot. Last week they suddenly found themselves flung into the middle of a nightmare of murders, suicides, plots and recriminations that any of them would blush to submit to the editor of a detective story magazine. Assembled at Dijon, they went down to the railroad track where the crushed body of Judge Albert Prince was found, puffed their pipes and pondered while Paris-Soir waited for their discoveries. Meanwhile the official agencies investigating what was rapidly becoming the greatest political crime of the 20th Century made the following advances to public knowledge: P: To the parliamentary committee investigating the Stavisky scandal was privately exhibited the suddenly suppressed newsreel film showing the body of the wrecker of the Bayonne municipal pawn shop as it was found last January in a mountain cottage at Chamonix. The committee, on which were several doctors, immediately noticed several facts tending to contradict the police theory of suicide. There were no powder burns visible on the body. A pistol was clutched in his left hand but Stavisky appeared to have been shot both through the right side and over the right temple--a difficult job for a suicide. Bleeding was profuse, suggesting that he suffered an internal hemorrhage. On the strength of these pictures the body of Alexandre ("Sacha") Stavisky was dug up from its mountain grave and brought to Paris for an autopsy. P: In the matter of the murder of Judge Prince, Dijon police could only announce that they were "hot on the trail" of a mysterious automobile containing a woman and two men that had been seen by several witnesses near the scene of the crime. But in Paris two men swore that they recognized Gilbert Romanigno, former secretary to Stavisky, as the man who had watched the Prince apartment for several days before his death. P: Philippe Henriot. fiery young Deputy of the Right, gave the investigating committee details of still another murder of the incredible Stavisky Saga. Kept from the French Press, the details were revealed by foreign correspondents. Before 1926, according to Deputy Henriot, Swindler Stavisky entered into relations with a rival adventurer known as Jean Galmot, from French Guiana. Galmot, a Wartime rumrunner, turned a handsome profit before developing political ambitions. With 800,000 francs, lent by Sacha Stavisky, Jean Galmot became a Deputy for French Guiana. The two cronies developed an even wilder scheme: to arm the convicts in the Guiana penal settlements and set up an independent state which they imagined the U. S. would support. At this point, still according to Deputy Henriot, Jean Galmot and "Handsome Alex" Stavisky fell madly in love with the beautiful Arlette Simon who married Stavisky. Conspirator Galmot tattled on Conspirator Stavisky. In 1928 Jean Galmot was mysteriously poisoned. A partly burned letter from Stavisky contained the sentence: "Galmot will find out what it costs to cross my path." On his deathbed Jean Galmot gasped: "The dirty dogs, they've killed me!'' P: No less interesting than the murders was the problem of what had become of the great cache of jewels that Stavisky succeeded in spiriting out of his Bayonne pawnshop before its collapse. One box full of jewels was discovered three weeks ago in Orleans. Last week French agents got another tip that more Stavisky jewels were to be found at Fontenay-sous-Bois in the home of one Rosa Rein, one of Stavisky's numerous confidantes. Detectives with search warrants rushed there. After pounding on the door for seven minutes, it was opened. They found a freshly dug hole in the cellar, another in the garden-- nothing else. Newspapers charged that the Rein family had been tipped off either by the Secret Police or from the Palais de Justice. Detective Liger of the Surete Generale hurried to London and Scotland Yard. The Yard's Inspector Canning went back to Paris with him. In London a few days later British detectives and another Surete man, Commissioner Paudepiece, called at the sober pawnshop of one Edmund Sutton near Victoria Station, discovered half a million dollars' worth of Stavisky gems, apparently pawned by Stavisky Secretary Romanigno.

All these developments were not enough to quiet the French people. Eight Stavisky suspects, transferred from Bayonne to Paris, were nearly lynched in the Paris streets before blue-caped agents rescued them.

Two more people committed suicide. A diamond merchant named Jean Brunschvick whose name appeared on some Stavisky check stubs swallowed poison and died in his hotel bathtub. Charged with accepting Stavisky bribes, Emile Blanchard, Director of the Agricultural Service Station, took poison, slashed his throat and finally died of pneumonia. That same midnight the telephone in the home of Minister of Agriculture Henri Queuille rang. A quiet voice spoke: "You are responsible for the suicide of Emile Blanchard. You will be killed within 48 hours."

Hysteria swept the streets. On every corner people talked of fresh rioting. Typical of the stories which gushed up from nowhere was one in last week's Candide: "An American manufacturer last week had a number of machine guns, mounted and ready for action, landed secretly in France. They were immediately purchased, and they were not purchased by the State. . . . The current rumor that Communists are arming heavily must not be taken lightly."

The national council of the Confederation of War Veterans, boasting 3,500,000 members, met and voted to take direct action to reform French politics. At least one branch of this organization of War veterans, reporters learned, was frankly in favor of another armed uprising, with the seizure of strategic centres in Paris and the provinces.

At this point worried old Premier Gaston Doumergue attempted to soothe frayed nerves by broadcasting directly to the French people in the manner of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was the first time that a French statesman in office has so spoken. Sitting before a microphone in the Foreign Office and waving his monocle with his free hand. Premier Doumergue read his speech:

''The Government's task is vast and arduous. It must first appease overexcited passions, and to do so promptly it must punish severely the guilty whose impudence and immunity have very justly exasperated the whole of our nation. . . . It is indispensable and urgent if one wishes to save the Parliamentary regime, for before there was neither much order nor authority in the house.

"The value of the franc must be maintained. It is low enough. . . . When the boss has no business, the worker has no work. Therefore taxes must be reduced as soon as possible. We must march shoulder to shoulder as our soldiers did at the Marne, because I cannot perform this miracle alone."

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