DEATH-TRAP FOR TOURISTS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8304, 6 December 1906, Page 3

DEATH-TRAP FOR TOURISTS.

Three detectives, sent by M. Hamard, chief of the Paris police, to solve the mystery concerning the disappearance of the Swiss deputy, -M. Alphonse Braunschweig, lost ■ since August 10 in the Tyrolese Alps, have made gruesome discoveries. The journal L'lmpartial, of Chaux de Ponds —the home of the deputy—- ■ sent a special reporter to Bozen to Jnake inquiries. After interviewing ,the detectives, he sends the following information: — ; The detectives, in a course of a Systematic search of the district, found the decomposed body of another tourist, who had disappeared some months ago under the same circumstances as the Swiss deputy, and near the same spot. The body ■was unearthed near a little inn occupied by a Tyrolese family of bad reputation. The detectives searched the inn, and found a suit of good clothes, torn in im.ny parts as if in a.struggle, and a button, which it is nearly certain belonged to the lost deputy. They learned also that on the night of M, Braunschweig's disappearance the watchdog of the inn howled all night, and only ceased at daybreak, • when it is supposed that the murdered man's body was carried from the inn to to the brink of a precipice and hurled over the edge. One of the women of the suspec- . ted family said recently that she . would have no trouble in obtaining . the rewajd offered by the deputy js . son for the recovery of his father's body. A servant at the inn also said that one of the sons of tbe family showed her a beautiful gold watch and chain, which he said he had recently found. This man is believed to be the real murderer, and the whole family is suspected of complicity. The Parisian detectives felt that these facts justified them in demanding warrants for the arrest of the eldest son and all the family, but, ..to their great surprise, the Bozen' authorities refused the request. The • detectives telegraphed to their chief at Paris, who called upon the Austrian Ambassador, and the diplomat has laid the matter before his Government at Vienna.

During the past six years four tourists have mysteriously disappeared on going or returning from excursions by the mountain route that leads past the inn, and two other tourists, have never returned from climbs in the same vicinity.