A curious feature of the affair that his mother, a Mme Blane, was found murdered five months ago in the small Paris flat. which she occupied with her son. She was knocked on the head and strangled with a towel by someone who escap-and was never traced. Mme Blane in earlier life was a professed anarchist. She was the concierge cof the house in which Almereyda, the editor of the notorious "Bonnet Rouge," lived for some years and the appears to have continued her connection with anarchists and to have known a great deal about them. One of them may have put her out of the way for fear she should give information to the police, Dut this is only supposition, the citeumstances of her death having never been cleared up. Another theory, also unsupported by proof, that hor son was on the track and was himself killed by the same person, A more likely supposition fs that he was killed' in the heat of passion by someone who hurtied-Jy and unskilfully attempted to dis-Pose of the oily, went out and bought a trunk and threw the victim's papers into it with the ree mains. "He may have been an angry creditor, or a jealous. husband, Cherehez la fenime is" a sound Drineiple which has solved a great many" mysteries, especial France, Band The Self-Appointed Avenger The murder at the Prefecture is Puzzling ina different. way: M. Bayle, the head of the identification service established by Bertilion the inventor of the finger-print system, Was deliberately shot down middle-aged commercial traveller named Phitipponet, who, when Tested, made a perfectly calor and collected statement. "He said. that M. Bayle was called in, as an offs al expert, to decide the value of some furniture which was in dis-[pute between him (Philipponet) and]
most unfair decision. Asked if he really thought 'a sufficient reason for taking the life of a man who was the father of five children, Philipponet replied in the affirms ative. He also took care to assert that he was not mad and knew quite well what ko was doing. He sed, in short, as a self-appointed instrament of justice.
'M. Bayle was a quiet, good-natured, unobtrusive man, whose life was Jeentred.on his laboratory—the last person, one would have thought, who was likely to meet with a tragic end. He was essentially a man of science who served society by helping to detect crime and expose fraud. His analyses of blood-stains and similar clues were always done with absolute thoroughness, and his evidence in the witness-box was given in a clear and dispassionate way that had a great effect on JJuries. He was consulted about the tiles and other objects supposed' to have been found in the alleged prehistoric field at Glozel, and he fi pronounced them, after an in: 1 over several months, to have nothing like the report ispelled any illusions that have remained as to the "fak perpetrated at Glozel. The campaign over that place aroused much bitterness, and it is asked whether Philipponet is really an exasperated pro-Glozelian,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.