Murder on the Leviathan

Record of an examination of the scene of the crime carried out on the evening of 15 March 1898 in the mansion of Lord Littleby on the rue de Crenelle (7th arrondissement of the city of Paris) [A brief extract]

… For reasons unknown all the household staff were gathered in the pantry, which is located on the ground floor of the mansion to the left of the entrance hall (room 3 on diagram 1). The precise locations of the bodies are indicated on diagram 4, in which:

No. 1 is the body of the butler, Etienne Delarue, age 48 years

No. 2 is the body of the housekeeper, Laura Bernard, age 54 years

No. 3 is the body of the master’s manservant, Marcel Prout, age 28 years

No. 4 is the body of the butler’s son, Luc Delarue, age 11 years

No. 5 is the body of the maid, Arlette Foche, age 19 years

No. 6 is the body of the housekeeper’s granddaughter, Anne Marie Bernard, age 6 years

No. 7 is the position of the security guard Jean Lesage, age 42 years, who died in the St-Lazare hospital on the morning of 16 March without regaining consciousness

No. 8 is the body of the security guard Patrick Trois-Bras, age 29 years

No. 9 is the body of the porter, Jean Carpentier, age 40 years.

The bodies shown as Nos. 1-6 are in sitting positions around the large kitchen table. Nos. 1-3 are frozen with their heads lowered onto their crossed arms, No. 4 is resting his cheek on his hands, No. 5 is reclining against the back of the chair and No. 6 is in a kneeling position beside No. 2. The faces of Nos. 1-6 are calm, without any indication whatever of fear or suffering. On the other hand, Nos. 7-9, as the diagram shows, are lying at a distance from the table and No. 7 is holding a whistle in his hand. However, none of the neighbours heard the sound of a whistle yesterday evening. The faces of No. 8 and No. 9 are set in expressions of horror, or at the very least of extreme consternation (photographs will be provided tomorrow morning).

There are no signs of a struggle. A rapid examination also failed to reveal any sign of injury to the bodies. The cause of death cannot be determined without a post-mortem. From the degree of rigor mortis the forensic medical specialist Maitre Bernhem determined that death occurred at various times between ten o’clock in the evening (No. 6) and six o’clock in the morning, while No. 7, as stated above, died later in hospital.

Anticipating the results of the medical examination, I venture to surmise that all of the victims were exposed to a potent and fast acting poison inducing a narcotic effect, and the time at which their hearts stopped beating depended either on the dose of poison received or the physical strength of each of the victims.

The front door of the mansion was closed but not locked.

However, the window of the conservatory (item 8 on diagram 1) bears clear indications of a forced entry: the glass is broken and on the narrow strip of loose cultivated soil below it there is the indistinct imprint of a man’s shoe with a sole 26 centimetres in length, a pointed toe and a steel-shod heel (photographs will be provided). The felon probably gained entry to the house via the garden only after the servants had been poisoned and sank into slumber, otherwise they would certainly have heard the sound of breaking glass. It remains unclear, however, why, after the servants had been rendered harmless, the perpetrator found it necessary to enter the house through the garden, when he could quite easily have walked through into the house from the pantry. In any event, the perpetrator made his way from the conservatory up to the second floor, where Lord Littleby’s personal apartments are located (see diagram 2). As the diagram shows, the left-hand section of the second floor consists of only two rooms: a hall, which houses a collection of Indian curios, and the master’s bedroom, which communicates directly with the hall. Lord Littleby’s body is indicated on diagram 2 as No. 10 (see also the outline drawing). His Lordship was dressed in a smoking jacket and woollen pantaloons and his right foot was heavily bandaged. An initial examination of the body indicates that death occurred as a result of an extraordinarily powerful blow to the parietal region of the skull with a heavy, oblong shaped object. The blow was inflicted from the front. The carpet is spattered with blood and brain tissue to a distance of several metres from the body. Likewise spattered with blood is a broken glass display case which, according to its nameplate, previously contained a statuette of the Indian god Shiva (the inscription on the nameplate reads: ‘Bangalore, 2nd half XVIII century, gold’).

The missing sculpture was displayed against a background of painted Indian shawls, one of which is also missing.

From the report by Dr Bemhem on the results of pathological and anatomical examination of the bodies removed from the rue de Grenelle … however, whereas the cause of Lord Littleby’s death (body No. 10) is clear and the only aspect which may be regarded as unusual is the force of the blow, which shattered the cranium into seven fragments, in the case of Nos. 1-9 the picture was less obvious, requiring not only a post-mortem but in addition chemical analyses and laboratory investigation. The task was simplified to some extent by the fact that J. Lesage (No. 7) was still alive when he was initially examined and certain typical indications (pinhole pupils, suppressed breathing, cold clammy skin, rubefaction of the lips and the ear lobes) indicated a presumptive diagnosis of morphine poisoning. Unfortunately,

during the initial examination at the scene of the crime we had proceeded on the apparently obvious assumption that the poison had been ingested orally, and therefore only the victims’ oral cavities and glottises were subjected to detailed scrutiny. Since no pathological indications were discovered, the forensic examination was unable to provide any conclusive answers. It was only during examination in the morgue that each of the nine deceased was discovered to possess a barely visible injection puncture on the inner flexion of the left elbow.

Although it lies outside my sphere of competence, I can venture with reasonable certainty the hypothesis that the injections were administered by a person with considerable experience in such procedures: 1) the injections were administered with great skill and precision, not one of the subjects bore any visible signs of haematoma; 2) since the normal interval before narcotic coma ensues is three minutes, all nine injections must have been administered within that period of time. Either there were several operatives involved (which is unlikely), or a single operative possessing truly remarkable skill - even if we are to assume that he had prepared a loaded syringe for each victim in advance.

Indeed, it is hard to imagine that a person in full possession of his faculties would offer his arm for an injection if he had just witnessed someone else lose consciousness as a result of the procedure. Admittedly, my assistant Maitre Jolie believes that all of these people could have been in a state of hypnotic trance, but in all my years in this line of work I have never encountered anything of the sort. Let me also draw the commissioner’s attention to the fact that Nos. 7-9 were lying on the floor in poses clearly expressive of panic. I assume that these three were the last to receive the injection (or that they offered greater resistance to the narcotic) and that before they lost consciousness they realized that something suspicious was happening to their companions. Laboratory analysis has demonstrated that each of the victims received a dose of morphine approximately three times in excess of the lethal threshold. Judging from the condition of the body of the little girl (No. 6), who must have been the first to die, the injections were administered between nine and ten o’clock on the evening of 15 March.

Nightmare crime in fashionable district

Today, 16 March, all of Paris is talking of nothing but the spine-chilling crime which has shattered the decorous tranquillity of the aristocratic rue de Grenelle. The Revue parisienne‘ 5 correspondent was quick to arrive at the scene of the crime and is prepared to satisfy the legitimate curiosity of our readers.

And so, this morning as usual, shortly after seven o’clock, postman Jacques Le Chien rang the doorbell of the elegant two storey mansion belonging to the well-known British collector Lord Littleby. M. Le Chien was surprised when the porter Carpentier, who always took in the post for his Lordship in person, failed to open up, and noticing that the entrance door was slightly ajar, he stepped into the hallway. A few moments later the 70-year old veteran of the postal service ran back out onto the street, howling wildly. Upon being summoned to the house, the police discovered a scene from the kingdom of Hades - seven servants and two children (the 11year-old son of the butler and the six-year-old granddaughter of the housekeeper) lay in the embrace of eternal slumber. The police ascended the stairs to the second floor and there they discovered the master of the house, Lord Littleby, lying in a pool of blood, murdered in the very repository which housed his celebrated collection of oriental rarities. The 55-year-old Englishman was well known in the highest social circles of our capital. Despite his reputation as an eccentric and unsociable individual, archaeological scholars and orientalists respected Lord Littleby as a genuine connoisseur of Indian history and culture. Repeated attempts by the directors of the Louvre to purchase items from the lord’s diverse collection had been disdainfully rejected. The deceased prized especially highly a golden statuette of Shiva, the value of which is estimated by competent experts to be at least half a million francs. A deeply mistrustful man, Lord Littleby was very much afraid of thieves, and two armed guards were on duty in the repository by day and night.

It is not clear why the guards left their post and went down to the ground floor. Nor is it clear what mysterious power the malefactor was able to employ in order to subjugate all of the in habitants of the house to his will without the slightest resistance (the police suspect that use was made of some quick-acting poison). It is clear, however, that he did not expect to find the master of the house himself at home, and his fiendish calculations were evidently thwarted. No doubt we should see in this the explanation for the bestial ferocity with which the venerable collector was slain. The murderer apparently fled the scene of the crime in panic, taking only the statuette and one of the painted shawls displayed in the same case. The shawl was evidently required to wrap the golden Shiva - otherwise the bright lustre of the sculpture might have attracted the attention of some late-night passer-by. Other valuables (of which the collection contains a goodly number) remained untouched. Your correspondent has ascertained that Lord Littleby was at home yesterday by chance, through a fatal confluence of circumstances. He had been due to depart that evening in order to take the waters, but a sudden attack of gout resulted in his trip being postponed - and condemned him to death.

The immense blasphemy and cynicism of the murders on the rue de Grenelle defy the im agination. What contempt for human life! What monstrous cruelty! And for what? For a golden idol which it is now impossible to sell! If melted down the Shiva will be transformed into an ordinary two kilogram ingot of gold. A mere 200 grams of yellow metal, such is the value placed by the criminal on each of the ten souls who have perished. Well may we exclaim after Cicero: O temporal O mores!

There is, however, reason to believe that this supremely heinous crime will not go unpunished. That most experienced of detectives at the Paris prefecture, M. Gustave Gauche, to whom the investigation has been entrusted, has confidentially informed your correspondent that the police are in possession of a certain important piece of evidence. The commissioner is absolutely certain that retribution will be swift. When asked whether the crime was committed by a member of the professional fraternity of thieves, M. Gauche smiled slyly into his grey moustaches and enigmatically replied: ‘Oh no, young man, the thread here leads into good society.’ Your humble servant was unable to extract so much as another word from him.

J. du Roi

L

The golden Shiva is found! Was the ‘Crime of the Century’ on the rue de Grenelle the work of a madman?

Yesterday, 17 March, between five o’clock and six o’clock in the afternoon, 13-year-old Pierre B. was fishing by the Pont des Invalides when his hook became snagged so firmly at the bottom of the river that he was obliged to wade into the cold water. (I’m not so stupid as to just throw away a genuine English hook!’ the young fisherman told our reporter.) Pierre’s valour was richly rewarded: the hook had not caught on some common tree root but on a weighty object half buried in the silt. Once extracted from the water the object shone with an unearthly splendour, blinding the eyes of the astonished fisherman. Pierre’s father, a retired sergeant and veteran of the Battle of Sedan, guessed that it must be the famous golden Shiva for which ten people had been killed only two days earlier, and he handed in the find at the prefecture.

What are we to make of this? For some reason a criminal who did not baulk at the cold-blooded and deliberate murder of so many people has chosen not to profit from the spoils of his monstrous initiative! Police investigators and public alike have been left guessing in the dark. The public appears inclined to believe that belated pangs of conscience must have led the murderer, aghast at the horror of his awful deed, to cast the golden idol into the river. Many go so far as to surmise that the miserable wretch also drowned himself somewhere close at hand. The police, however, are less romantically inclined and they discern clear indications of insanity in the inconsistency of the criminal’s actions.

Shall we ever learn the true background to this nightmarish and unfathomable case?

A bevy of Parisian beauties

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