1911–1912: (Leconte’s Suspicious Death: The Severed Limbs and the Anniversary of Firmin’s Expulsion): While deterioration of the Antoine Simon’s powder prese…

1911–1912: (Leconte’s Suspicious Death: The Severed Limbs and the Anniversary of Firmin’s Expulsion): While deterioration of the Antoine Simon’s powder presents a more than plausible explanation for the palace explosion that killed Leconte, Furniss confidentially reported the curious circumstance that when Leconte’s body was found, the head, arms, and legs were severed from the trunk — which of course suggests murder by enemies followed by detonation of the magazines. The most likely objects of such suspicion would be the Zamors and their Cacos, but it is also a fact that the death of Leconte came on the exact anniversary of his final expulsion of Firmin. As might have been expected at the time, public opinion widely attributed the explosion to those standing scapegoats, the Syrians.