Vampire on the Tracks

The way to keep a vampire in his grave is to bury him face down with an oak stake through his heart while a priest reads the Lord's Prayer backward. Devoutly French politicians wished it were as easy to keep Alexandre ("Sacha") Stavisky in his grave. On the boulevards Alexandre Stavisky, in wax, shared honors with the original tub in which Marat was stabbed, star exhibits in the venerable Musee Grevin.

The day before Conseiller (Appellate Judge) Albert Prince was due to testify as to the wire-pulling behind the Stavisky scandal before a Parliamentary committee, Mme Prince received a mysterious telephone call: the judge's mother was seriously ill in Dijon and had been taken to the hospital. Conseiller Prince packed his most important papers in a briefcase and took the 12:25 p. m. train to Dijon. At the railway station he turned in his ticket and a short time later registered at a nearby hotel. He had just learned that his mother was resting comfortably and in no danger but could not be seen at once. Judge Prince went for a walk.

Around 8 that evening a freight train pulled into Dijon. The engineer stepped down to inspect his oil cups. There was blood on the driving wheels. Railway police started down the track. A few minutes later they found the body of Judge Prince. Several trains must have, passed over him. One ankle was tied to the track. There was a knife wound in his throat. His money was still in his pockets. But all incriminating papers had been removed from his briefcase. Next morning Mme Prince received a telegram signed with the judge's name saying that his mother's operation had been successful.

Blacker than ever hung the shadow of Stavisky over the Chamber of Deputies. The death of Stavisky might not have been a political murder but nobody could deny the murder of Albert Prince. Premier Doumergue, enraged, offered 100,000 francs reward for the capture of the murderer and assigned famed Detective Charles Belin to take personal charge. Now head of the Surete Generale, the French secret police, M. Belin trailed, captured and brought to the guillotine Bluebeard Landru. All he could discover last week was that Judge Prince was quite dead before he was tied to the track, and that the original telephone message had come not from Dijon but from Paris. Raymond Prince, son of the murdered judge, cried bravely: "In spite of the terrible responsibility it involves, which may cost me my life, I am determined to tell all I know. I feel certain that this was a political crime. My proof is that my father on the day following his death was to have submitted a report concerning several important personalities whose names I intend to make public within a few days."

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