THE DISAPPEARANCE of M. Quemeneur
will remain mysterious for a long time

(From our correspondent)
Morlaix, July 24,

Seznec remained in prison today: Mr. Campion, his judge, did not need him for the investigation. Brest, at 5 o'clock, and which brought him the negative result of his research in Houdan and Le Havre.

The investigation therefore wanders. It is fatal. Indeed, any search, even serious, for the body of Mr. Quemeneur, in the region between Houdan and the copses near Gambais will most likely remain in vain. If Seznec killed his traveling companion there, as the prosecution assures, with a jack on the head, he was able to take the body to the Seine by one of the two roads available to him. His car contained enough gasoline to provide a round trip.

He returned to La Queue-les-Yvelines, the night of the crime, in a surprising state of fatigue in a man of his physical strength, a magistrate from the Public Prosecutor's Office told me, when he claimed to have slept for several hours in his broken down car. . On the other hand, he claims to have arrived around 4 o'clock in the morning whereas the mechanic did not see him until around 8 o'clock. Now – take note of this – this road, a national road, is very busy from dawn or almost, and no passer-by has even glimpsed Seznec broken down…

This remark, joined to the others noted down as Seznec made his declarations to the judge yesterday, intrigues the justice. Mr. Campion, admitted six months ago, then judge, then in charge of the investigation, attaches extreme importance to it. And, if he could also discover some bloody stain on the blue trousers worn by Seznec on the fatal night, but since washed by his maid, or on any other garment of the accused, the magistrate would heartily rub his hands.

But the Seznecs, man, woman, servant, don't seem like people to give themselves up without resistance. Seznec defends his head. His wife defends her husband. Angèle, known as Aurore, her maid, defends the boss, to whom she once entrusted all her savings.

It is therefore necessary, at all costs, to establish guilt, to do without them.
"But," I asked, observing the state of mind of the magistrates, "there would be
So complicities — and family complicities?

- Oh ! I was answered, that is quite difficult to establish. It could only help in the preparation. As for the material execution, no! We are convinced that Seznec acted alone.

:—And the help in the preparation would not lead to any new indictment?

My interlocutor reflects:

— The head of the family, he says next, is not Seznec, however imaginative he may be. While the judiciary and the police thus attempt to support the accusation, the defense acts. Mrs. Le Hire, having voluntarily made available to the accused her legal science as president of the bar, saw her client again.

'Yesterday you told him,' he said to him, 'that on June 12 you left Morlaix by car to go to Saint-Brieuc, where you were to see your attorney, M. Bienvenu. A breakdown stopped you before in Plouarec, you took the train, slept in an unknown hotel and visited an unknown mechanic. So try to be more specific.

"I am questioned so much," replied Seznec, "that I may well be a little mistaken; I didn't write down all my steps, me, at that time... But I remember the name of the mechanic, his name is Mattest.

"Write that to me," said the lawyer.

Seznec nodded. Ten minutes later, the judge received this written clarification. He proposes to have it checked. And the judge, the police, the curious and all those who, directly or indirectly, are interested in the case, are waiting impatiently today...

If the sellers of the typewriter in Le Havre recognize Seznec, they say he is lost.

"But will they recognize him?"

— They will surely recognize the machine

But Seznec, his wife and Angèle claim that this famous "Royal" machine was brought to the sawmill of Traon-ar-Velin, home of Seznec, by the police themselves.

We see the importance of the question and why the day will, this time, be decisive for the defense or for the prosecution.

EMMANUEL BOURCIER,

The contents of the secret letter

The results of the examination by M. Beyle of the Municipal Laboratory of the secret part of the letter addressed by Seznec to his wife and which he had entrusted to an inmate, were communicated to M. CAMPION.

Here is the text:

“To write to me without anyone being able to read, you just have to use a new feather that you will wet with saliva. No one will suspect it and only I will know what you have to say to me!

It is therefore only a means of corresponding that Seznec wanted to communicate to his wife. Other more interesting indications were perhaps to follow. But it should be noted that if Mr. Campion judges it, had had the malice to conceal the discovery of this letter, and to have it skillfully delivered to the addressee, he could have obtained very interesting things in the secret correspondence of Seznec with his wife...