SIAM: The King Is Dead

One morning this week, just before noon, a servant entered the palace bed room of King Ananda Mahidol, 20-year-old constitutional monarch of Siam, and found the king's lifeless body. There was a bullet wound over his left eye, and a pistol lay at his left side. Courtiers who sniffed foul play remembered that Ananda was right handed. Although he had been thoroughly accustomed to handling firearms, the Siamese police and medical authorities pronounced his death "accidental." While his people grieved and the young queen mother, the Phraratanani Sri Sangwan, lay prostrate, Siam's...

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