Mysteries of Police and Crime, Vol. 1 (of 3)Griffiths, Arthur
History
Mysteries of Police and Crime, Vol. 1 (of 3)
Griffiths, Arthur
Crime; Police
descriptions, of names, aliases, and the supposed movements of persons
in request, has constantly borne fruit. In France police officials often
deprecate the incautious utterances of the Press, but it is a common
practice of theirs in Paris to give out fully prepared items to the
newspapers with the express intention of deceiving their quarry; the
missing man has been lulled into fancied security by hearing that the
pursuers are on a wrong scent, and, issuing from concealment, "gives
himself away."
[Illustration: THE PORTRAIT WHICH LED TO LEFROY's ARREST (p. 12).
(_By permission of the "Daily Telegraph."_)]
III.--THE PRESS AN AID TO THE POLICE.
Long ago, as far back as the murder of Lord William Russell by
Courvoisier, proof of the crime was greatly assisted by the publication
of the story in the Press. Madame Piolaine, an hotel-keeper, read in the
newspaper of the arrest of a suspected person, recognising him as a man
who had been in her service as a waiter. Only a day or two after the
murder he had come to her, begging her to take charge of a brown paper
parcel, for which he would call. He had never returned, and now Madame
Piolaine hunted up the parcel, which lay at the bottom of a cupboard,
where she had placed it. The fact that Courvoisier had brought it
justified her in examining it, and she now found that it contained a
quantity of silver plate, and other articles of value. When the police
were called in, they identified the whole as part of the property
abstracted from Lord William Russell's. Here was a link directly
connecting Courvoisier with the murder. Hitherto the evidence had been
mainly presumptive. The discovery of Lord William's Waterloo medal, with
his gold rings and a ten-pound note, under the skirting-board in
Courvoisier's pantry was strong suspicion, but no more. The man had a
gold locket, too, in his possession, the property of Lord William
Russell, but it had been lost some time antecedent to the murder. All
the evidence was presumptive, and the case was not made perfectly clear
until Madame Piolaine was brought into it through the publicity given by
the Press.
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