Because of cold and snow the 9:45 express train from pine clad Sinaia into Bucharest was delayed one night last week. A fair-sized crowd was on the station platform, for nearby is the extravagantly turreted palace that is King Carol's country home. Impatiently awaiting the train were Premier Ion Gheorghe Duca, hurrying back to the Capital after a conference with the King, former Mayor Costinescu of Bucharest and Secretary General of the Legislative Council Michel Vlashide. Frugally all three bought third class tickets. They did not notice a group of university students at the other end of the platform.
Suddenly there was a yellow flash, a loud explosion. One of the students, Nicholas Constantinescu, had pulled a smoke bomb from his pocket and hurled it. Before the smoke had cleared he walked slowly up to the unscathed Prime Minister, placed one hand on his shoulder and fired four shots into his head and body. Ion Duca turned at the second shot, made the sign of the Cross, dropped with blood oozing from his mouth.
King Carol, told by telephone of the tragedy, had Premier Duca's body brought to the royal palace and placed in state in one of the drawing rooms. Twice during the night His Majesty tiptoed into the room to look at his dead Prime Minister, still in his bloodstained traveling clothes.
Next afternoon Premier Duca's body was sent back to Bucharest. Assassin Constantinescu, who after police hustled him to safety had spent several hours puffing out his chest and posing for photographs, was taken the same day to Ploesti near Bucharest for trial. The murdered Premier's brother-in-law, Radu Polizu, took the morning train out from Bucharest and burst wild-eyed into the Sinaia stationmaster's office where Assassin Constantinescu was held. He whipped out a small revolver and sent two bullets whistling round the prisoner. Bang! Bang! Neither of them took effect. Radu Polizu was disarmed and hustled out of the room. Another bomb, apparently a spare left over from the evening assassination, burst in the station waiting room wounding a small child who stepped on it by accident. The engineer of the funeral train pulled out with a sigh of relief.
Premier Duca was a member of the Liberal Party, oldtime machine of the famed Bratianu family and long bitterly opposed to the restoration of King Carol. Lately he was won over to the King's side and set valiantly to work suppressing anti-Semitism and a terrorist organization known as the Iron Guard. Beyond question it was the Iron Guard that killed him. Martial law was declared throughout the country; all army leaves were canceled; an iron-clad censorship was clapped on the Press. Detectives went out in squads, picking up every known member of the Iron Guard, 1,400 in all. A special bodyguard was set over King Carol's Jewish mistress, Magda Lupescu.
Meanwhile the same Cabinet carried on with no change beyond the appointment of Minister of Education Angelescu as Provisional Premier. All Government buildings flew black flags while members of the Liberal Party announced that they would wear mourning for a year.