Evening star., 1930-05-11


Within one month 100000 francs came in in
reply to these advertisements
One day, however, an irate gentleman who
had paid his first installment without getting
his car, and suspected that everything was not
quite square, turned up at the garage and de-
clared In the presence of the staff that Pascal,
alias Gabriel Gouraud, was nothing but
swindler. and that he intended to lay a COM
plant with the police. Pascal tried to pass
the matter off with laugh, but he realized
that the game was up once more. It was time
to be on the move, and he went.
THE very next day he was at Lille under
the name of Louis Pate, establishing a
new business for the sale of wireless set
(whony imaginary which was said to give
most marvellous results On the strength of
mere drawings and his gift of CAB" he OBJ
tanned another 100000 francs from rich
tradespeople Of the district for the establish
ment Of factory for the manufacture OF
radio equipment. Having gained his ends,
the resourceful rogue vanished again
We come now to the time when Pascal,
growing more and more ambitious, launched
his biggest swinde. This was toward the
end of the Summer of 1924.
By this time he had become the MARQUIS
Ellie de Champaubert." Knight of the Legion
of Honor, administrator delegue des Mines
de Phuong-Do, and administrator general of
two other important mines in Indo-China. An
important and wealthy man, he had os-
tensibly just arrived from Tonkin to spend
the Summer at charming country residence.
at La Viconte, near Dinard.
Gisele de GiSors was now madame La
marquise, an extremely smart little woman
with fine motor car, costly furs and splendid
jewels. Everybody extended them q hearty
welcome, in view of the money which it was
evident the rich and happy couple intended
to scatter right and left.
The Marquis de Champaubert's latest bril-
nEr
jewelers. to the Castle du Pieure, chloroform
them and rob them of the diamonds and
pearls which they had brought to be sub
mitted to the "marquise," whose thirty-ffth
birthday anniversary was on the point of being
celebrated!& He made his plans with great
care, using his skill as a former engineer to
fit up elaborate apparatus in the room
where the jewelers. were to be received, which
would impregnate the air with deadly fumes.
Pumps in an adjoining billiard room were to
be set working at the right moment to drive
in the chloroform vapor.
This plot was discovered and at the sub
sequent trial Clement Pascal was found guilty
and condemned to five years imprisonment.
There were four previous sentences by default
against hin1-two years pronounced at Saint
Malo, four years at Nantes, two years at
Havre and five years at Lille. These SEN
tences were Jumped together and counted as
five years, which he spent in the prisons of
Lille and Rennes until July 29 1929. Mean
cred in" by Inspector Royere and, as Passal's
accomplice in many swindles, was imprisoned
elsewhere.
On leaving prison Pascal went to live with
his mother at Elbeuf and, urged by that
worthy woman to turn over a new leaf and
seek honest work, made a sort Of living by
buying and selling secondhand furniture and
household oddments. But he did not stick
to this humdrum life for long. AS already
related, there came a day when he disap-
peared. Then the mysterious communlca-
tions from the knights of Thems" began TO
arrive at a newspaper Office, followed by his
own tragic letter to his mother and finally
the discovery Of his dead body in the wood
of Verneuil.
What was the key to this mystery?
THE clever detectives of the famous Paris
Prefecture and Surete undertook to find it,
and they began their work by series of arrests.
interrogations and seizures of documents.
Many surprises were still in store as, little by
little, the whole strange story was unfolded
When the body of the pseudo Marquis de
Champaubert-whomI I shall henceforth desig-
nate by his real name of Clement Passal--had
been transported to the nearest town, Ver-
sailles the first thing the authorities sought to
discover was the length of time he had been
in the coffin before death ensued. DR.. Detis
attached to the criminal investigation depart
ment, proceeded to make the autopsy and found
that death, which had taken place at 48 hours
before disinterment, was due to asphyxiation.
1t was proven, therefore, that the unfortunate
man had been buried alive, but how long he
had been in the coffin before death put am
end to his sufferings it was extremely difficult,
If not impossible, to tell. Had he, perhaps,
been rendered insensble by a narcotic before
being nailed down? That was a question which