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Show BROADWAY AND MAIN STREET A Little Secret of Murder -Revealed After 40 Years By BILLY ROSE On an October morning in 1903, in a village not far from La Rochelle in eastern France, a young priest paled as he listened to his first confession. "Yesterday afternoon," he heard the penitent on the other side of the curtain say, "I met a strange girl on the dirt road that runs by the pond. When I tried to make friends with her, she laughed at me, and I got so mad I picked up a stone and hit her to make her stop laughing She fell down, and when I yelled and she didn't move 'I got scared and buried her beside some bushes." Father Antoine recognized the voice as that of a 15-year-old who was known in the village as "t h e story teller" a boy who was always talking about his daydreams as if they had actuaDy happened. Even though he didn't know whether wheth-er the confession was fact or fiction. those who lived in the La Rochelle district, but many of the villagers did what they could for the resistance resis-tance movement and not the least among them was the priest, now in his late 60's. And when liberation finally came, a great celebration was arranged with Father Antoine as the guest of honor. After the dinner there was a good deal of reminiscing among the veterans of the underground, but when someone asked the priest to tell of his own adventures, adven-tures, he smiled and declined. "The occupation was eventful for all of us," he explained, "but in my calling the eventful is almost an everyday occurrence. As matter of fact, the first confession confes-sion I ever heard was that of murderer." Then, remembering his vows. Father Antoine apologized for his off-guard remark, and despite the urging of the guests would say no more. Later that evening a delegation of underground workers from other districts joined the celebration and one of them, a colonel in the Maquis, was asked to say a few words. "Meeting Father Antoine tonight is a great pleasure," he said to the gathering, "and not only because of his war record. Although he doesn't remember my name or face, I knew him when I was a boy as a matter of fact, I was the first oerson who ever confessed to him." was a fabrication. "I did meet a girl," he said, "and she got me so angry that I wanted to kill her. But I never touched her, and afterwards after-wards I got all mixed up about what I wanted to do and what I 'really did." "J suspected as much all along," said father Antoine, "but I must admit I was shocked at first. You see, you were the first person who had ever confessed to me." Two years later, the boy's family moved to Paris and the priest aU but forgot the incident until a new paved road was laid alongside the old dirt one. Under a bush near the pond was found the decomposed body of a girl, and the coroner testified testi-fied it had been there about two years and the 'skull had been crushed by some heavy object Bound by his vows, Father Antoine An-toine could say nothing, and for the next 40 years the secret remained re-mained with him. THE YEARS of the German oc-cuoation oc-cuoation were difficult ones for the priest imposed Billy Rose the most severe penance, and in addition ordered the boy to visit him every day after school for a friendly talk. A few weeks later, Father Antoine was almost certain the "crime" was an hallucination. For one thing, there had been no report of a missing miss-ing person in the district and, for another, the boy's descriptions of the murder grew more and more confused. mm ONE AFTERNOON he finally admitted- to the priest that his storv |