FATAL QUARREL AT GENEVA

Taranaki Daily News, 10 April 1928, Page 15

FATAL QUARREL AT GENEVA

-CHAUFFEUR SHOOTS BUTLER. London, March 26. An altercation arose at the Bellevue Villa of Baron Paul de Hervesy, the Hungarian repiesentative to the League of Nations, between the baron’s halfcaste negro chauffeur, John Coates, mid an Hungarian butler, Charles Szabo, says the Geneva correspondent of the Daily News. Szabo told Coates to refer the dispute to Baron de Hervesy in his room. Coates was about to knock when Szabo flung open the doer and dealt him several blows with a cudgel, which would have been fatal but for the negro’s thick skull and woolly hair. Coates rushed to his own room and seized a revolver.- He fired four shots at Szabo, one lodging below the heart. Szabo died on the way to hospital. Coates was arrested, but Baron de Hervesy, whose lawyer is defending him, says that he may be released if it is proved that he acted in self-defence. The affair has placed the baron in an awkward position. He wag at the theatre when Szabo died. He said today: “My footman is dead, my chauffeur is imprisoned, the chambermaid is in hospital, the cook’s knees are too tremulous to stand, and the gardener is incapable of work.” The chambermaid, Theresa Rothar.’.mer, aged 30, is suffering from shock. Apparently her preference for Coates incensed Szabo, who was tall and handsome. He determined to square accounts with a lead-weighted life-pre-server. The girl, hearing shots, rushed up the stairs, and met Szabo descending, armed with a revolver. It is not clear whether Coates fired all the shots.