Crimes of Paris_ A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection - Dorothy Hoobler [107]
The wide, straight boulevards created by Baron Haussmann seemed designed specifically for a driver like Bonnot, who pressed the accelerator to the floor and never let up. Fulfilling the fantasies of countless future drivers, he avoided obstacles by jumping the curb and roaring down the sidewalk, as frantic pedestrians leaped out of his way. Anyone who might have wanted to pursue the bandits was soon left behind.
Another sharp turn and the Delaunay-Belleville was barreling down the rue Vauvenargues, headed north toward the city gate at Clichy. A few minutes later, customs officials halting traffic there were scattered by gunshots fired from the speeding vehicle as it roared through the gate. The getaway car (a term nobody had ever used before) was soon lost from sight, heading north in the rain.
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The Paris newspapers had a field day with the latest sensational crime, and — as La Presse called them — les bandits en auto (“the motorcar bandits”). Though there were twenty thousand police in Paris, a city with a population of three million, journalists suggested that the force was undermanned in light of this new development. Most fascinating, of course, was the thieves’ method of escape; the police used motor vehicles only for transporting high officials and thus were considered powerless against this new form of crime. Moviemakers saw the dramatic potential immediately. One studio reenacted the robbery as soon as the news became public, and by the next day the film debuted at theaters throughout Paris. Though popular, it also attracted protesters, who felt that it glorified crime.
The hunt for the thieves soon spread across national borders. The following day, the Delaunay-Belleville limousine was found abandoned in a street in the town of Dieppe, a port city on the north coast. It was assumed that the criminals had taken a boat for England, and Scotland Yard was asked to trace any passengers arriving at Southampton.
In fact, by that time Bonnot and his friends were back in Paris, having deliberately reversed course at Dieppe and taken a train to the capital, where they were sure no one would expect to find them. The three were not ready to celebrate, however, for they were a bit disgruntled with their gains. The bank messenger’s case had contained mostly bonds and checks that would be difficult to cash, and the bills and gold coins came to a value of only about fifty-five hundred francs. Bonnot knew a man in Amsterdam who might be willing to accept the bonds at a discount, so, undaunted, they stole another car and were soon on the road to Holland. That trip proved to be unproductive, for Bonnot’s friend told him that the serial numbers of the stolen securities were being circulated to every bank in Europe. They were too hot to try to move.
Meanwhile, having found the stolen Delaunay-Belleville and located its owner, the police tried to find where it had been kept between the time it first disappeared and the day of the robbery. As it happened, some of Georges Dettweiler’s neighbors in Bobigny had complained about the noise coming from his garage at late hours, and one of them thought he had seen the now-famous car inside. Like so many Frenchmen, the neighbor was suspicious of the Sûreté and merely told a town official about it. The official then sought to make himself a quick franc or two by selling the story to a tabloid newspaper, Le Petit Parisien. After its publication, the chief of the Sûreté himself, Octave Hamard, led a raid on the garage, arresting Dettweiler, his wife, and a girlfriend of Carouy’s. Carouy himself escaped, but Bertillon found his face, along with several aliases, in his voluminous card file,