FRANCE: Impudence and Immunity

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FRANCE

"Impudence and Immunity"

Last week Paris-Soir, smart eleven-year-old French daily which has made great leaps in circulation in the past year, again showed its mettle by accusing the Paris police and the Sûreté Générale of wilfully bungling the Stavisky investigation and then hiring five of the fanciest detectives to track down the murderers of Alexandre Stavisky and of Judge Albert Prince. The Paris-Soir pack of bloodhounds included Detective Story Writers Georges Simenon and André Gaston Leroux, son of the creator of Arsène Lupin; onetime Chief Inspector Alfred C. Collins of Scotland Yard; famed ex-Chief Constable Frederick Wensley, Britain's greatest detective (TIME, July 8, 1929); and last but not least Sir Basil Thomson, onetime Director of Intelligence of the British Secret Service.

After a brilliant career which included the tracking down of Mata Hari Sir Basil retired, a Knight Commander of the Bath, in 1921. In 1925 he was the object of a cause célèbre of his own when lie was arrested in Hyde Park with one Thelma de Lava on charges of indecency, public impropriety and attempting to bribe a policeman. Knowing that Sir Basil was not only a distinguished sleuth but the son of a late Archbishop of York, the British Penny Press gloated. Sir Basil claimed a frame-up. He was fined £5 and costs.

For his prowess in detection the office of Chief Constable was specially created for Frederick Wensley, whose service at Scotland Yard began 47 years ago just before the dreadful days of Jack the Ripper.