1.
THE CHINA MAIL, FEBRUARY 1, 1941.
A YELLOW GLOVE TRAPPED WOMAN MURDERER
WHEN THREE WOMEN were found murdered in a Kent garden Chief Inspector Beveridge did not bother about the scene of the crime. He went to a farm seventy miles away, asked a woman if she had lost a glove
and that woman, Mrs. Florence Iris Ouida Ransom, has now been sentenced to death.
Mrs. Ransom was a slight, frail-looking woman of thirty-five in the Old Bailey dock. But Mr. St. John Hutchinson, K.C., counsel for the prosecution, said as he closed his case:
"This is not a murder some one could do in a moment of excite- ment. It was one of the most cold, deliberate, and. I an bound to say, brutai murders that can be imagined."
All through her trial Mrs. Ran- som did not falter Two wardresses held her up when the jury said "Guilty." She did not need their support.
To Mr. Justice Tucker's ques- tion, "Have you anything to say
she replied
a clear
steady voice: "I am innocent.”
But when, black-capped, the judge began to recite the furnula
of death she collapsed into the
HOW NAZI
TROOPS
STUDIED OUR ROADS
Hitler has many motor-
arms of the wardresses, moaning bicycle troops who are
quietly.
CATS DON'T
PANIC AT
BOMBS
Cats don't panic at bombs. They seem to know instinctively when danger is near. They immediately dive under a table and wriggle their way to safety afterwards.
That is the discovery of a Midlands branch of the R.S.P.C.A. The secretary says he has been amazed at the way SO many cats wriggle to safety out of demolished houses. Dogs are not so lucky because they are big- ger and more easily frightened.
DUCE FEARS ASSASSIN
familiar with British Mussolini, haunted by
Mrs, Ransom was guilty of mur- | roads.
the fear of assassination,| dering forty-five-year-old Mrs.
ordered In the last few years, and es-has found Fisher. Dorothy Sanders
the Ovra, shot with her daughter and house-pecially since Hitler came to pow- keeper under the apple trees at her er, German motor-bicyclists have Italy's Gestapo, to double
taken part in events in practically his bodyguard. every country in Europe, and whether by accident or design, many of them were serving sol-
home near Tonbridge on July 9.
Perfect Fit
Chief Inspector Beveridge, tak-diers. ing over the case, learned first that Mrs. Fisher's husband had a farm at Piddington, in Oxfordshire,
of sharp- Special detachments
Duce every- shooters escort the where and guard him day and night.
Britain was one of the places in which they competed. In 1937 Monarchists, soldiers and politi- and again in 1938, German soldiers, eians, who openly criticised Mus- Stormtroopers, and even S.S. mensolini for entering the war, now Intuition and long experience | from Hitler's own bodyguard, took eendemn the way he is conducting --sent him there at once. He part in the international six days' it. carried a yellow pigskin glove-the | trial in England and Wales. sort of glove that is bought and lost in thousands every week.
Meeting Mrs. Ransom, he ask. ed her to try on the glove. It fitted perfectly.
Inspector Beveridge asked a number of innocent questions. He returned in time for Sir Ber. nard Spilsbury's post mortem.
Sir Bernard had just begun his post mortem when he straightened suddenly and said: "These are not revolver wounds. They were made by gunshot."
Beveridge remembered a gun he had seen casually at Piddington.
|
There were also many civilian
riders.
In both years the German riders had ample opportunity for study- ing British roads, for they travell- ed from the port at which they arrived through the Midlands to Wales, and for five days of the nearly 300 miles “ day on all classes of roads, chiefly in Wales.
trials covered
In both years the event ended with speed trials at Donington Park, in the Midlands.
Germany had 79 riders in the 1937 event. In addition, there were many mechanics.
Thousands of these opponents have been arrested, among them princes.
Throughout Italy groups are secretly cellars, palaces, and men's homes Fascist regime.
to
morale Italian
the Mothers hate vanity has caused sons' deaths.
revolutionary meeting in in working overthrow the
is waning. man whose their soldier
In a desperate bid to counteract this spirit Mussolini has ordered his Fascist Group Leaders to start a campaign for the uplifting of national morale.
Back he went, again ignoring MYSTERY MAN FLIES BY NIGHT
the scene of the crime. He learned
that Mrs. Ransom, the day before the three women were shot, took a shooting lesson from her brother.
He questioned her. Mrs. Ran. som wat cool, self-posзcased. Only a slight nervousness bo. trayed her when she inalsted: "I have been here all the time. Ack the servants,"
So Beveridge asked the servants. He learned that the woman "ser- vant" was actually Mrs. Ransom's mother. He also learned that Mrs.
MR. X FIGHTS BOMBER
NIGHT
(By A London Correspondent)
A MYSTERIOUS Mr. X is making nightly
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In response to numerous requests The South China Morning Post, Limited, invites sub- scription to
ASSIST A FUND TO
Ransom had not been there all flights for the Air Ministry to solve the problem of BRITAIN'S WAR EFFORT
the time.
Queer Tangle
He needed now a motive; and in finding it a queer tangle of human relationships he unravelled.
Mrs. Fisher, the dead woman, had left her husband for another man. But they remained on friendly terms.
Mr. Fisher himself had met Mrs. Ransom and lived with her, her mother and her brother at the *farm at Piddington.
learned everything. Only then
the night bomber menace.
He is the "best brain in Britain"
such is
the description of Air Ministry chiefs of the man who is experimenting on the answer to the Dornier and the Junker.
On each of his flights he remains
in the air as long as possible.
"Only in the air can air menace
Mr. 2. is not an inventor- officially..
Saved Petrol be countered," he told me. !
Yet since the war began he has This man is consultant, on four invented a new type of carburet-
Chief inspector Beveridge Agures a year in each case, tot tor for 'plane engihos which has did he turn to the scene of the The leading manufacturers of
crime.
A butcher's boy, a wagon driver, and two others picked out Mrs. Ransom at an identity parade.' They had seen her near Mrs. Fls-
'plane engines;
Principal makers of carburettors; A large chemical firm; and.. An important concern in the dye-
ing Industry.
He said "There is no reflection
her's house not far from Toh- on the astonishingly fine work our bridge, and noticed that she wore blue trousers,
Beveridge knew then that his intuition was right, his job finish....
AA. defences are putting up, but shell fire from the ground, con never be more than a deterrent.
"It lan't the solution of night bombing,"
cut owner cent, a nou como
10 to 15 new composi- tion anti-weather coating for
The whole of the money subscribed will be handed to The Government c. Hong Kong for. transmission to
THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT For the Purchase of Aeroplanes or such other Armaments as the British Government
may decide.
Donations will be received by The South wings and allerons, and helped China Morning Post. Cheques should be. with a new and much more made payable to "War Fund-South China
clent 'plane gun mounting.
And yet this "boat
brain"
could not get a tin hat to pro. Steck.ltf...but a friend In the
Morning Post, Limited."
RAF., managed to "wangle" All donations will be acknowledged in the
him one.
In his spare time M. X plays the piano, the, ukelele, saxophone, accordion
* and flute.
columns of The S. C. M. Post.