1940-01-30 — Page 15

THE CHINA MAIL, JANUARY 30, 1940

REAL LIFE DETECTIVE TRIUMPHS `

MAN WHO ATTENDED HIS

OWN "FUNERAL"

Some years ago it was announced At this stage of the game Scotland that Vital Douat, a native of France, Yard stepped into the picture. Na- had died in a little house on Ann thaniel Druscovich, one of the St., in Plaistow, at that time an cleverest detectives on its staff, found eastern suburban section of London. the undertaker who had conducted It seems that he was alone in the the funeral. He testified that Rubini big city and that he was attended in | had insisted that he must personally his last illness by a fellow country- man known as M. Rubini:

The funeral was private and was attended only by the so-called Mon- sleur Rubini and nothing more would have been heard of it if the widow of Vital Douat had not called at the office of an Insurance company in Paris to collect a policy that had been made out in his name for $20,000 in American money.

in

attend to the dressing of the body. So the undertaker merely furnished a ready-made casket with an unusual- ly heavy lead lining.

He put crepe on the door and had a hearse and a funeral car at the house on the

morning of the interment, At the request of Rubini the handles on the casket were altered and placed on the ends instead of the sides in or- der to conform to French custom.

MEAT TO BE RATIONED

MR.

LONDON, TO-DAY T LENNOX-BOYD, ́UNDER-SECRETARY → IN DETHE MINISTRY OF FOOD, STATED YESTERDAY THAT MEAT RA- TIONING WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT A COMPARATIVELY EARLY DATE.

There would not þe a large lag be- tween the announcement and its imm-- plementing, he added.

He also stated that after February 5 all margarines would be vitaminised with Vitamins A and B, to make them equal in vstamin content with butter,

Reuter.

that another body had been substi- tuted for the insured man. At all events it was determined to open the grave and examine the casket. The next morning two men with picks and shovels went to work in the ceme- The first important discovery made tery. Druscovich and two other Scot-history of Insurance crime. Donat by Druscovich was that the deathland Yard men were present with the was the "fat and jolly" man certificate was a forgery. To the undertaker and a representative of had attended his own funeral. detective this suggested a reason why the insurance company. Rubini had insisted on dressing the body and fastening down the lid of the casket in the absence of the un-

Everything was in order. Madame Douat presented the policy, a cer tificate of death signed by a London physician, also a receipt for the burial fees from the English cemetery which her husband had been inter- red. But to her surprise the insur- ance company postponed the pay- dertaker. ment of the money until they had made an investigation into the illness and death of their client.

They learned that Dount had lived originally in Bordeaux and that the policy had been placed through one of their agents in that city, although the insured had come to Paris in or-

-By-

GEORGE BARTON

who

that

There was nothing to prove When the casket was opened it Madame Douat was concerned in the was found that no other body had fraud. Douat was eventually captur- been substituted for that of Douat. | ed in Antwerp. He was brought back In fact there was no body at all. to France, convicted of attempted The casket was filled to the top with swindling and sentenced to a long That night there was a conference | bricks and old metal. It had been term of penal servitude on Devil's

The theory at Scotland Yard.

one of the biggset humbugs in the Island.

0

✡

was

der to put through the transaction. He was a wine merchant, but after tak- ing out the policy he had failed in business. He told his wife he was going to London in the hope of re- habilitating himself financially. They parted with mutual expressions of love and he promised to keep her informed of his movements.

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From what they were able to learn Douat had rented the house on Ann St. In Plaistow. But at that point the case became confused. The neigh- bours said the original tenant was a Monsieur Rubini. He was described as a "fat and jolly" man. He had paid the rent, and while he kept to himself he managed to make himself well liked in the neighbourhood.

The man who died, insisted the neighbours, was a French friend by the name of Douat. He had been buried from the house, although none of them had been given the oppor- tunity to seeing the corpse.

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