The San Francisco call., 1913-07-27

man with such savage disregard
for the lives of others that when he
was captured off his guard a long
bladed dagger tipped with a deadly
poison was found sheathed In his
pocket.
Pleuchot is the one who will talk.
Just as soon as he was arrested he
saw that treachery to his comrade
would benefit him. 1t is from the
various confessions made by him that
the details of his remarkable escape
will now be told. Pleuchot is despic-
able and revolving, but in his life
there have been extraordinary adven-
lures such as happen seldom even to
men of his kind. And the most thrill
ing and startling of all was his first
struggle to be free!
The arrest of Pleucnot revealed the
unsuspected presence on Staten Island
of a colony of French criminals in
little hollow near the centre of the
island, called Skunks' Misery by their
countrymen. Nobody else knew OF
this name or of the scum of the
French prisons who made it their
refuge.
| Pleuchot and woman named Marie
Louise, whom he calls his wife, Eau
chon, Emil Leroy, Louis Capillon and
Elise and Ernest Fauchon, the wife
and son of Fauchon, are under
arrest for setting fire to the home OF
Jacques Dier at Eltingville, s. l., on
the night of June 6 and taking from II
diamonds and jewelry worth $4,000
$50 in cash and savings bank books
representing $4,000.
When the detectives, after the cap
ture of Fauchon in Montreal, invaded
that curious, squalid settlement of So
cial outcasts, Skunks' Misery, they
were confronted by the wife of the
Devils Island refugee. Shrieking
with rage she stood in the door OF
her little house, waving a shotgun
while her sixteen-year-old son and
the woman known as Marie Louise
covered in an upper room. The har-
| riden cried that she would let loose
both barrels of the gun If the police
came any nearer. Some of the sleuths
knew French--they had been selected
! for that reason-and they thought il
best to use strategy. While several
parleyed with the Fauchon woman
one slipped around the back way and
managed to grab her from behind and
pinion her arms till the gun was TAX
en- away from her and handouts
snapped on her wrists.
jacques Dier and his wife had been
acrobats in travelling circuses and
had the traditional French thrift
About five years ago Nine. Dier tired
of the road and started a little store
in Hartford, Conn. Last year the
husband retired also. He had become
elderly and his joints and muscles
stiffened up. The dream of the pair
had been to buy little farm in
France, but some business made it
necessary for them to stay here for
one year more. So they rented the
vine-clad cottage at Eltingville.
1t was not long before these hon.
est, kindly old people learned that a
countryman had small roadhouse
catering to motorists, about three
quarters of mile away. 1t was not
long before the Diers made a neigh
borly visit to that countryman, whose
name proved to be Pleuchot. AS soon
as the villainous Pleuchot and the
precious crew of cutthroats and
thieves that lounged about his place
they began to plot to strip the Diers
of their savings.
On the night of June 6 the unsus-
pecting Diers were urged to dine a.
Pleuchots inn. In the meantime Pleu-
chot had gained the confidence of the
kindly old couple. Several times he
had offered to watch their house while
the Diers made trips to Hartford, and
they trusted him so that to Pleuchot
was given duplicate set of keys.
When dinner began several of the
robber band drank an aperitif and then
declared that they had to hurry away
to the city. Pleuchot and the women
of his household outdid themselves in
trying to make the party a merry
one. They were just toasting the
guests in the best wine of the place
when a boy rushed in.
Your house is burning!" he cried
to the Diers.
All ran to the scene of the fire
and Pleuchot was the loudest in his
cries of sympathy. An alarm had
been turned in and the firemen saved
the building 1t was soon found that
the place had been robbed, but that
the doors had not been forced! The