DETECTIVE FORCED INTO A LUNATIC ASYLUM.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 55, 5 March 1921, Page 19

DETECTIVE FORCED INTO A LUNATIC ASYLUM.

WOMAN'S TICSE TO COVER TJP £1000 THEFT. A handsome and handsomely gowned woman drove up to a well-known New York store shortly before Christmas In a closed motor car and purchased furs and gowns to the value of £1000 (says the special correspondent of the "Dally Chronicle"). She could not wait for their delivery, and wanted to take them with her. She only had £100 about her, however, and wondered whether. If she paid this on account, the management would allow an employee to accompany her to a safe deposit vault in a euburb w&ere she lived, so that ahe could hand the balance In cash tc him before her departure for California. The management eald this could be done, and detailed, one orf their detectives. The suburb reached, the iroman ordered the liveried chaffeur ro stop at a sanatorium, and asked the detective If ie wouldn't mind keeping watch on her purchases while she went In to see a patient: To the head of the institution she handed her card and eald: — "I am in Tery great dtetrees. My l»or husband, who liad been acting strangely following heavy losses on the Stock Excihnge, (has suddenly become quite deuiented and violent. "He imagines he is a store detective. He is out there in our limousine, and I have brought him in the hope that you will keep him under observation for a few days." At this point she was shaken by a paroxysm of weeping. The physician sought to comfort h*r- He also explained that certain formalities were necessary before the patient could be accepted into the institution. visitor's distress end her fear of her husbnnd were 3uch, however, and the sappliant so obvipusly was a lady of refinement and considerable wealth, that, after looking over the smart turnout and liveried chauffeur from the window, he consented, in view of the urgency of Hie case, to grant her request, and comply -with the formalities subsequently. Accordingly, accompanied by two powerful male attendants, he went oat to the machine and tried to persuade the "busband" to enter the sanatorium ■In vain the v.ictlm told them that he wae a store detective, and Shouted for help as he resisted them. Manifesting the greatest sorrow at Sris "poor master's" condition, the chauffeur helped them to carry the detective i Q to the institution where a strait-jacket coon took all the fight out of the patient. Then the woman, more than ever overcome by the painful scene, wag helped Into the motor-car, after promising to return as coon as she could from New York—where, traving come from Califonla, eh e was staying at one of the most fashionable hotels—bringing -with her the physician, Tery well known toy reputation to the head of the sanatorium, who had been doctoring her husband. It happened that this physician was tem■porarlly out of town, and It -wa« only when the head of the sanatorium was able to get In touch with ihlm toy telephone, and a fat cheque the lady had left was returned (from the 'bank on whi.-h it wms drawn marked "N.G." that the detective was believed, and his release followed communication with the store wh.ich employed him.