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After solving most of Britain's best-known murders he retired at 64, five years ago (TIME, July 8, 1929). All these gentlemen were used to unraveling a shrewd, intelligent, well-constructed plot. Last week they suddenly found themselves flung into the middle of a nightmare of murders, suicides, plots and recriminations that any of them would blush to submit to the editor of a detective story magazine. Assembled at Dijon, they went down to the railroad track where the crushed body of Judge Albert Prince was found, puffed their pipes and pondered while Paris-Soir waited for their discoveries. Meanwhile the official agencies investigating what was rapidly becoming the greatest political crime of the 20th Century made the following advances to public knowledge: ¶ To the parliamentary committee investigating the Stavisky scandal was privately exhibited the suddenly suppressed newsreel film showing the body of the wrecker of the Bayonne municipal pawn shop as it was found last January in a mountain cottage at Chamonix. The committee, on which were several doctors, immediately noticed several facts tending to contradict the police theory of suicide. There were no powder burns visible on the body. A pistol was clutched in his left hand but Stavisky appeared to have been shot both through the right side and over the right temple—a difficult job for a suicide. Bleeding was profuse, suggesting that he suffered an internal hemorrhage. On the strength of these pictures the body of Alexandre ("Sacha") Stavisky was dug up from its mountain grave and brought to Paris for an autopsy. ¶ In the matter of the murder of Judge Prince, Dijon police could only announce that they were "hot on the trail" of a mysterious automobile containing a woman and two men that had been seen by several witnesses near the scene of the crime. But in Paris two men swore that they recognized Gilbert Romanigno, former secretary to Stavisky, as the man who had watched the Prince apartment for several days before his death. ¶ Philippe Henriot. fiery young Deputy of the Right, gave the investigating committee details of still another murder of the incredible Stavisky Saga. Kept from the French Press, the details were revealed by foreign correspondents. Before 1926, according to Deputy Henriot, Swindler Stavisky entered into relations with a rival adventurer known as Jean Galmot, from French Guiana. Galmot, a Wartime rumrunner, turned a handsome profit before developing political ambitions. With 800,000 francs, lent by Sacha Stavisky, Jean Galmot became a Deputy for French Guiana. The two cronies developed an even wilder scheme: to arm the convicts in the Guiana penal settlements and set up an independent state which they imagined the U. S. would support. At this point, still according to Deputy Henriot, Jean Galmot and "Handsome Alex" Stavisky fell madly in love with the beautiful Arlette Simon who married Stavisky. Conspirator Galmot tattled on Conspirator Stavisky. In 1928 Jean Galmot was mysteriously poisoned. A partly burned letter from Stavisky contained the sentence: "Galmot will find out what it costs to cross my path." On his deathbed Jean Galmot gasped: "The dirty dogs, they've killed me!'' ¶ No less interesting than the murders was the problem of what had become of the great cache of jewels that Stavisky succeeded in spiriting out