Page E
THE CHINA MAIL, MONDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1960.
IF YOU FANCY YOURSELF King who strives
AS A SLEUTH by PERCY HOSKINS
HOSKINS
London Express Service.
Could you have beaten these?
WHEN 200 of the coal worn and shiny at the back
ANSEWER: Marks in the dew
CASE NO. di A man known to be a "squealer" was found hanging lis a West German attic. There was the usual "goodbye note" and the cus tomary "kicked away" chale,
But the picture did not look
live. To him it seemed murder.
for a Democracy
(Re-incarnation of Vishnu, Hindu God of Creation)
KING Mahendra, King of Kings, Five Times Godly, Valorous Warrior and re-incarnation of Vishnu, the Hindu God of Creation, looked sad. The ceremonial time-fable of his Royal visit to Britain just did not
and shoulders with a fear in which had collected on the right to the investigating detec permit one more engagement. Not even of an hour and a half. world's greatest the left breast, trousers shiny bench showed that another sleuths get together it is at the seat, the left shoe heel person had been
perhaps only natural that they should spend a great deal of time swop- ping stories-stories of the odd things about crime of the million-to- one stroke of intuition that paid off.
This 29th mural congress of Interpol attended by cops of 64 ruatione of all creeds and colour is proving no exception to the ruic.
Listening to these men, whose, brains are continually matched against the world's most ruth- less criminals, I have collected this intriguing set of case his tories. See how many you can solve,...
''
The tear
CASE NO. 1: The body of a man was found dumped on the New York waterfront. Papers, clothing Labs, and all possible leads to identification had been removed.
signs"-9 The "occupational the police call them were
A
well worn down,
The Arst detective on the scene accurately predicted that the man was a taxi driver,
ANSWER: The back of the cout- und pout of the trousers were shiny through COASTAL rubbing against the cushions of
the vehicle. The tear In the cont had been caused when the ussailant lore off the driver's badge. The left shoe heel was worn with the constant use the accelerator.
The seat
· sitting very
close to the woman. The marks were very faint but the camera leas had caught them bofore evaporation had taken place. And murder it proved to be.
The rolls
Uka
He could not get along to see Spurs play. How did he prove it?
Had he been able to get along Tottenham· ground he ANSWER: He put the chair to the back in the position it should would have viewed the malch man not as a king, but as a fellow have been before the
sure footballer. A footballer who And from it. Jumped caough the man's feel were still lined up in shorts and mono- dungllug: ยุ good four inches Armmod silk shirt for Nepal's above it. The murderer had Royalty v Government soccer forgotten to make the rope long match. enough.
Thirtyning year old King the Royal A curious story emanated Mahendra contained
side. The Government the subsequent investigated by the Prime Minister.
CASE NO 3: In a newly rent at Brussels police discover ed the body of a young woman a currency el suspected of being
notes smuggler. Forged
West
from lound sewn inside the shoulder- tion. pads of her cont. In this case also all means of identßention had been removed.
CASE NO. 21 A young woman was found dead sitting, on va bench in a Vienna park. She herself had apparently shot through the head with a pistol which was in her left hand.
Joquiries showed that she had
that
The Belgian police were con- fident she was English and s there happened to bo a Scoi land Yord man in the elly on brother mission
he was called in
The Yard man looked around the room and said: "She is not
to
a denile resson for wanting from my country. I suggest to take her life and
she you send her description was indeed left-handed.
Stockholm."
According to one confession this was one of the first 'cases of "murder by hypnotism."
WU6
Remarkable
VICTO
Even as a show of democratic feeling the performance would have been remarkable. That it reflected the genuine feeling for democracy of a king, and a king of Nepal at that makes the whole thing barely credible.
The "squealer," it is alleged, had been hypnotised in another on a place and fold to stand chair. A
then placed around his neck and he was instructed to "start walk- ing." After the hanging the his victim was laken back to
the "sulcide" own hame and scene arranged.
But the chairs used were of
different heights. Thus another attempt at the "perfect mur- Czar. der" came unstuck.
These No, you canzo! slop men of Interpol from talking "shop"-the shop that deals in murder.
The scene was photographed That was Indeed the elly Immediately the oclice were the woman's origin but how did
the early morning the Yard man know? calledumin
ANSWER: He before sunrise.
had noticed When the senior detective that the woman's linen was not Tooked at the developed picture folded in the typical British be declared: "This is murder,"
was rolled in a How did he know?
way used by the Swedes.
MID-AIR BUSES
SCHEME
FOR LONDON
T
They glide on ring's of steel
EIGHTY-PASSENGER buses, gliding silently around seven-mile rings of steel, 150ft. ABOVE London's streets. That is the startling plan who believes the air-bus,
of 72-year-old engineer Mr Herbert Shields,
slung under a girder and pulled by steel cable, offers the cheapest solu- tion to the ever-worsening problem of getting Londoners quickly from A to B.
Els proposal, in detail, is this: system. Link the 15 ears to-
16 Up
gether by a common cable, so Build a circle of girders, sus- that they enter or leave stations pended
between
evenly in unison, and travel at the same spaced stations.
to four circles can be carried side by side.
Hang 15 passenger cars under each, one per station. 60 for the
Impression of an air-bus. station, 200 feet tall, incor- porating multi-storey саг park and offoe block above, Two-way passenger lifts run up the centre.
CIRCUIT 1
"PADDINGTON
STATION
speed. All can then be pulled by one engine in a power house, operated by one man,
And car parks and offices in the air-bus buildings would cut
costs still further.
have these advantages.
An aerial bus service would
It would run almost silently.
Mr Shields believes that the It could operate at normal speed stations can be built on the top in fog. Few signals would be Overloading could of existing London buildings, required.
electronic
הי
prevented be
لايا
Or new ones can be put up devices to register the number with multi-storey helny, and offices aboves
parks
of vacant seals ay a bus nears the station, and admit only the
.
manner.
It
of
Considered against the back- ground of Nepalese tradition it is like Nickto Khrushchev agitating for the return of the
Until eight years ago Nepál was subjected to an autocratic- control which was an object lesson in dictatorship unequalled
passenger car,"150 feet leaves a station, Matu eirder holding the car is ATS- pended on slect cables from
A
up,
The World of Science
by Peter Fairley
Buses would need no driver, extended to branch out to the Liverpool Street, King's Cross, Marylebone, West London Air carbox or transmission, and suburbs.
Victoria Couch each ring could be pulled by an
Mr Shields suggests that the Terminal, engine of less than 100 horse- main ring of stations should be Stallon and Charing Cross, power.
built at Victoria. Charing Cross, Pler, with Ave athers to keep The circulls could easily be Waterloo. London Bridge, the distances even,
"I do not propose whisking correct number of new pissen- passengers around $1 breath- Kurs to the lift at ground level. taking speed," he says. The cars would travel at about twice the spood of a bus in normal traille, leaving a station once every three minutes.
"Safety? The records of aerial systems auch as this are unblemished. And il would need lega maintenance than the London underground,"
And the cost? After consult- ing experts. Mr Shields estimates that sich station could be built for £1,500,000 and a four-line cireult with 60 buses and 15 two- way 1s for £8,000,000,
This compares with London Transport's proposed now 11- mile Underground line from Victoria to Walthamstow, which will cost £55,000,000.
CIRCUIT 2
"BRITISH
CIRCUIT 3
map showing the suggested change streuste ar Mt. Zamiare, Burion, West London and Sloane Square,
MOTOR SHOW
FARIS COVAT
two quid
the stailon root.
BY
SIMON KAVANAUGH
even by Hitler or Stalin at the height of their lyrantcat powers. For A hundred years, the Kana Prime Ministers had been in ruthless control, running the country like a private estate.
The will of the people was never heard, their needs never considered. Education and com- munications just did not exist. Aliteracy was $3 per cent. There There constitution. wero no civil servants, for there was nothing to edzninis- ter.
Was
no
In the sea of mid-twentieth century advance, Nepal was en island of primitiveness.
Ranas
The barrier holding back the Lide of progress seemed as insurmountable as mighty Mount Everest itself,
MAHENDRA
Previously, Nepal tradition decreed that there should be two queens who were sisters.
King Mabendra immediately promised elections for the country. But how to implement them in a country with no rules of government and virtually no roads?
Then in 1931, the Ranes were routed. The monarchy, which had been nothing more than a succcasion of imprisoned pup peia resumed control. King Tribhuban, King Mahendra's father, made Nepalese history by becoming the first monarch・・ The politicians could not pro- för a hundred years to set fool vide the answer, and went back outside the 13-by-20 mlle Kot to their squabbling. In eight mandu Valley.
years eight governments, rese
Yet his kingdom extended and fell. 500 miles from east to west and 100 miles from north to south,"
Nepal's troubles were not over with the fight of the hated Rangs. They not only took Hele millions with them they left a legacy of ignorance and Intrigue that could not be ex- pected to solve itself. Who was to solve It?
The answer was provided on May 4, 1950, when King Mahendra succeeded to the throne after the death of his father.
The coronation did not itself Fuggest sweeping social change. Its very timing. 1043 am, was decided by astrologers as the most auspicious time for the world's only Hindu King to be crowned.
Sacred
In the pre-crowning ritual he was smeared with fifteen dif- ferent types of clay, (one sample taken from under an elephant's Passengers could "change cir-foot), before taking a bath in tutts" at St James's, Euston, waters brought from sacred West London or Sloane Square, Hindu rivers.
already ex-
Service
Meanwhile King Mahendra gol down to work,” He left, his poetry and music to establish the framework of a civil service, started educational reforms and turned to India for help in building roads, setting up air communications and got the services of Me Sukamer Sen, India's election commissioner.
But all this goodwill ord sound advice nooded direct- action to bring any result, This the king supplied by` under- un taking an unprecedented mis- - “- sion for any king in any country.
For turee winters, on pony ho and on foot,
trekked the mountainous countryside to tell the people what democracy was and why it was so important. In short why they and not the king should mile the country, The result was that on July 20, 1959, King Mahendra open-
of Parlia ed the first session
ment ever held in Nepal. The country now boasts 2,500 schools and many badhustrial and agricul- tural schemas are under "way.
The pity of it is that in these
emergent natione cannot
But Nepal had Is my map illustrates.
"Somehow," he says, "we have perienced the first breath of the that was to got to get traffic off the streets. wind of change
the Why not literally lift It Into the sweed
King days country. had announced that air? It only requires imagina-Mehendra lion and courago."
he would be satisfied with only one wile the darkdly beautiful Queen Ratna Devi,
Has anyone vot both?
-(London Express Baraton.),
CORNEY
be left just to emerge.
They are seen na pawns in the battle for ideological power being woged by East and West. In April 1950, Nepal, whose contribution to work, preES Headlines 'had previously been | themosth Mount Everest, the skill of its Sherpa guides and the courage of i Gitarka Boldiers. was suddenly big political nowa.
Chinese infiltration into Tibet, resulting in the fight of the Dalai Lama, put Nepal into the front line of the cold war and In grave danger of muffering a iate similar to Tibet's, King Minhendra' sought ingent=<#E#zr- unces from Indian Prime kinder tor Nehru about his countrie territorial integrity,
Frontiers
The position of a buffer stato can be invidious, especially in the case of a country like Nepal. The geography of the country. makes decurato demarcation of the frontiere impossible and the mountain dwellere, share a sort Central Asian
citizmuship..
It is against this and a book- ground of laule ... whion 014 nothing to encourage and national feeling at all, that" Kink Mahendra sevics to fashion) a new nation.
And with her smalt resources Népal heeda frontaldenu nid, but with no pollion) stringz.
Il, looks an Emglossiile tame. But then they firwold, trying to