Murder Most Foul – Issue 111 – January 2019

In September 1949, things came to

a head. For the 100th time Felix asked

her to marry him. But she laughed in his

face. “Do you think I’m crazy enough to

abandon my freedom?’’

Felix’s reply was, “You’ll never see me

again.’’ She didn’t believe a word of it.

But for once she was wrong.

Felix’s bags were packed and within

the hour he left Lille for parts unknown.

When she found out, Pauline hit the

bottom of despair. Or was she playing a

role in a drama which she herself finally

believed? She swallowed cyanide – even

inhaling its dust can be deadly. Pauline

supposedly took quite a dose of it, but

it failed to end her life. Some people

held that, being a medical student, she

knew exactly how to stage the perfect

fake suicide. Others said she owed her

life to the fact that the chemical had

decomposed during the years she had

kept it untouched in her chemistry lab.

The diary touched briefly on the

suicide attempt and from then on it

didn’t mention Felix again. The tears

were dry. Many new honeymoons took

the place of her old love. In June 1950

she flew off to Austria with a young

ma who, like all the others, wanted to

marry her. She deserted him in Vienna

and en route back to Lille stopped off at

Utra in Germany, Colonel Dominick’s

peacetime residence, to rehash old bliss.

Two more professors entered the

picture. One, aged 49, wanted to marry

her. “Too old,’’ recorded the diary. The

other, an eminent member of the staff,

was a vulgar blackmailer. He threatened

to fail her unless...

She sailed through his course with

flying colours.

On March 5th, 1951, the diary came

to an abrupt end with the first mention

of Felix in a year and a half.

“Jeanne L. back from Paris,’’ Pauline

wrote. “She saw Felix and they talked

about me. I must see him again.’’

On March 8th, 1951, Pauline

Dubuisson went to Paris. She returned

to Lille in an unhappy mood. On March

10th she bought a gun. Once more she

went to Paris, this time to settle things in

a final way.

Who was Jeanne L., the detectives

wondered? What news could she have

brought that led to the tragedy?

Oxygen and antibiotics had saved

Pauline’s life and the investigators were

now able to talk to her. Jeanne – Jeanne

Labousse – was a friend of hers, Pauline

revealed. When Jeanne went to Paris she

chanced to run into Felix Bailly.

He had spoken to Jeanne of his

impending marriage to Monique

Lombard. He didn’t seem happy about

it; called it a marriage of convenience.

Monique was wealthy. On the other

Left, defence counsel Paul Baudet.

Right, René Floriot, attorney for the

Bailly family

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