Read Online The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection by Dorothy Hoobler, Thomas Hoobler - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Dorothy Hoobler, Thomas Hoobler
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face powder from a woman’s makeup kit. Police searching Marie’s lodgings found the same kind of makeup. Gourbin had picked up the powder while strangling his victim and taken it from the crime scene.
Confronted with this evidence, Gourbin confessed. He told Locard that he had established his alibi by changing the time on the wall clock where he had been playing cards. Thus, when the game ended at what the other players thought was midnight, it was in reality half an hour earlier.
Locard, whose career continued till his death in 1966, acknowledged the debt he owed to two maîtres. One was Lacassagne; the other was Alphonse Bertillon, who was regarded even by Sherlock Holmes’s creator as the highest expert on crime in Europe. Bertillon was the scion of a brilliant family, whose members were so devoted to intellectual pursuits that they donated their bodies to be dissected and examined after death for the advancement of science. If anyone could have used the most recent technological advances to find the Mona Lisa, it was this tortured and flawed individual.
7
THE MOTOR BANDITS
O n the night of the thirteenth of December, 1911, three men traveled by train to the fashionable Paris suburb of Boulogne-sur-Seine. They had purchased one-way tickets, for they planned to return by automobile. Not just any automobile either. They had scouted the area in daylight, looking at the shiny new cars parked outside the grand houses, before selecting one that belonged to a family named Normand. It was a Delaunay-Belleville, which many people regarded as the finest automobile in the world. The company, through its showroom on the Champs-Élysées, sold only the chassis, complete with six-cylinder engine and tires. Each purchaser then had to arrange for the construction of his own distinctive body, or coach, with companies that catered to this trade. However, every Delaunay-Belleville was still easily recognized by its distinctive circular radiator, which reflected the company’s origins as a boiler manufacturer.
A Delaunay-Belleville was not a casual purchase. The chassis alone cost fifteen thousand francs, the equivalent of five years’ wages for the skilled workmen who built it. It was a favorite of Nicholas II, the czar of Russia (he is said to have owned twenty), and — to make a point about the superiority of the French auto industry — virtually the required form of transportation for the president of France.
The three men waited until all the lights inside the house were extinguished, and allowed time for everyone inside to fall asleep. Then they forced a side door to the garage, not a difficult task, for all of them were familiar with burglars’ tools. Once inside, they used flashlights to examine the car. One of the men, Jules Bonnot, was an experienced mechanic and professional driver.
The men opened the large door of the garage and pushed the car outside. Starting it would be a noisy process, but one of the men stood in front of the radiator and turned the crank that rotated the driveshaft while Bonnot sat in the driver’s seat and worked the ignition lever.
Nothing happened. A light went on in an upstairs room of the house, and the three men huddled. Deciding that they could not abandon their plan now, they pushed the automobile into the street and managed to roll it around a corner. Bonnot examined the controls with his flashlight and discovered what he had been doing wrong. On a second attempt, the engine roared into life. Bonnot, who would become notorious as “the Demon Chauffeur,” felt a thrill of pleasure as he opened the throttle and felt the power at his fingertips. He had grand plans for this car. He would use it for something that had never been done with an automobile before.
i
What the newspapers came to call the Bonnot Gang began well before Bonnot himself arrived on the scene. In August 1909, nineteen-year-old Victor-Napoleon Lvovich Kibalchich, who later became known as Victor Serge, arrived in
Confronted with this evidence, Gourbin confessed. He told Locard that he had established his alibi by changing the time on the wall clock where he had been playing cards. Thus, when the game ended at what the other players thought was midnight, it was in reality half an hour earlier.
Locard, whose career continued till his death in 1966, acknowledged the debt he owed to two maîtres. One was Lacassagne; the other was Alphonse Bertillon, who was regarded even by Sherlock Holmes’s creator as the highest expert on crime in Europe. Bertillon was the scion of a brilliant family, whose members were so devoted to intellectual pursuits that they donated their bodies to be dissected and examined after death for the advancement of science. If anyone could have used the most recent technological advances to find the Mona Lisa, it was this tortured and flawed individual.
7
THE MOTOR BANDITS
O n the night of the thirteenth of December, 1911, three men traveled by train to the fashionable Paris suburb of Boulogne-sur-Seine. They had purchased one-way tickets, for they planned to return by automobile. Not just any automobile either. They had scouted the area in daylight, looking at the shiny new cars parked outside the grand houses, before selecting one that belonged to a family named Normand. It was a Delaunay-Belleville, which many people regarded as the finest automobile in the world. The company, through its showroom on the Champs-Élysées, sold only the chassis, complete with six-cylinder engine and tires. Each purchaser then had to arrange for the construction of his own distinctive body, or coach, with companies that catered to this trade. However, every Delaunay-Belleville was still easily recognized by its distinctive circular radiator, which reflected the company’s origins as a boiler manufacturer.
A Delaunay-Belleville was not a casual purchase. The chassis alone cost fifteen thousand francs, the equivalent of five years’ wages for the skilled workmen who built it. It was a favorite of Nicholas II, the czar of Russia (he is said to have owned twenty), and — to make a point about the superiority of the French auto industry — virtually the required form of transportation for the president of France.
The three men waited until all the lights inside the house were extinguished, and allowed time for everyone inside to fall asleep. Then they forced a side door to the garage, not a difficult task, for all of them were familiar with burglars’ tools. Once inside, they used flashlights to examine the car. One of the men, Jules Bonnot, was an experienced mechanic and professional driver.
The men opened the large door of the garage and pushed the car outside. Starting it would be a noisy process, but one of the men stood in front of the radiator and turned the crank that rotated the driveshaft while Bonnot sat in the driver’s seat and worked the ignition lever.
Nothing happened. A light went on in an upstairs room of the house, and the three men huddled. Deciding that they could not abandon their plan now, they pushed the automobile into the street and managed to roll it around a corner. Bonnot examined the controls with his flashlight and discovered what he had been doing wrong. On a second attempt, the engine roared into life. Bonnot, who would become notorious as “the Demon Chauffeur,” felt a thrill of pleasure as he opened the throttle and felt the power at his fingertips. He had grand plans for this car. He would use it for something that had never been done with an automobile before.
i
What the newspapers came to call the Bonnot Gang began well before Bonnot himself arrived on the scene. In August 1909, nineteen-year-old Victor-Napoleon Lvovich Kibalchich, who later became known as Victor Serge, arrived in
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