Pigeon autopsies and expert hearings failed to prove any espionage charge, yet imprisonment continued

Evidence

The next day, an autopsy was conducted on the pigeons, searching for microfilm hidden inside their persons. There followed a hearing at which three pigeon experts were brought in to give an opinion on the birds’ ages, which they estimated at twenty-six and thirty-five days respectively, and on their exact breed — which they pointedly said they could not identify ‘because the number and variety of known pigeon types, and the many cross-breeds that have been and still are being created by amateur breeders, makes identification difficult’. The experts concluded, however, that the pigeons were probably of the common domestic type found everywhere, and showed no signs of being bred to carry messages. All the same, Duclos was kept in prison for a month before being released. A huge campaign was mounted to support him, and the Communist poet Louis Aragon wrote a poem about the ‘pigeon plot’. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 805

Categorization

• CANDY: Pigeon experts solemnly testifying on bird ages and breeds at a criminal hearing, searching for microfilm ‘inside their persons’.