TALES OF ADVENTURE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 162, 11 July 1925, Page 27

TALES OF ADVENTURE.

THE FATAL SLIP.

By ARTHUR CURSHAM.

Countless criminals have been brought to book through one apparently lnslgmincant. blunder, and so it bereli ln the case here narrated. " The story is perfectly true," writes Mr. Cursham.

. The events I am aT>out to narrate happened- in Natal some twenty yeare ago. but I remember the tyholo affair as clearly as if it had occurred yester-! day. | I was a happy-go-lucky young trooper in the Natal Mounted Police at the time, stationed at Fort Durnford on the Bush-' man's River, near a small town called Estcourt. There were about a dozen of us in the-fort, and two or three in the town itself. Beyond our regular patrols and' attendance at Court we had very little to do, for Estcourt was a sleepy hole,,and when a- little excitement did come along you can.be sure it was a change for us. It was the sort of place where you could think nothing ever could happen beyond arresting a occasional" "drunk"—in from an outlying farm for the annual "bust"—or getting evidence in a cattle stealing case. Yet in that same quiet town something happened that kept the smartest detectives in Natal busy for quite a time. It was a case of train robbery, and the culprit would have gone entirely unsuspected but for the fact that he made just one fatal slip. | In those days, for some reason other, the railways staff, from Pietenharitzburgto the Transvaal frontier, were paid their salaries in. cash. They used to put a safe into the van at Maritzburg, with clerk in charge of the key and' accounts, and when he arrived at each station on the line he would hand over the necessary money to the station master and obtain a receipt. The amount involved, as far as I can remember, was some £2000 or £3000. A detective was always sent with the clerk to act as an escort and see that nothing went wrong. This had been the system for many years, and as It had worked all right in the past, the authorities saw no reason why -it should not go on working for ever.' One day the mail train duly started from Pietermaritzburg with the pay safe and the clerk and detective on board in their special compartment. Everything i went.as usual until- they got' to Mooi River, a station not far from Estcourt. When the train pulled in, and the clerk was about to open the'safe, he was somewhat surprised to see a sergeant of the Mounted Police approach' the van and call to him. The officer was a short, dark man, with a moustache and side whiskers, and was wearing blue sun glasses. Neither the clerk nor the • detective had ever seen him before. "Your name's X ," said the sergeant, curtly. "I am Sergeant Z - -, of Ladysmith, and I have here a telegram from the Commissioner of Police at Maritzburg, on behalf of the Railway 'Administration,* ordering mc to- place you under immediate arrest for embezzlement. -Detective.. V— —,"— -he turned to the 'detective—"is ordered to take charge of the prisoner and escort him by the next train -.to '_ Maritzburg, handing him over on arrival, and reporting to the proper authorities. "Here . are my 'orders," he went -on,showing the astounded pair some offi-

cial telegrams. "You will also see that I am instructed to take over the safe and its contents and continue paying out salaries aa usual until arrival at j the border, when I am to return and make a full report." The clerk and detective looked at the 'papers, which seemed perfectly in order; ; then they gazed at one another—thunderstruck. The clerk's conscience in particular smote him, for, as a matter of fact ho was short in the petty cash, though only to the extent of a couple of pounds or so. Visions of transportation for life or at least a year or two's imprisonment flashed across his horrified mind. No doubt his face showed his emotion, and this settled the matter for the detective. He promptly arrested the clerk, and the safe, keys, and. pay books were over to the sergeant, who paid the Mooi River salaries in the usual manner. Then the train started off again. Just at the last moment, however, a doubt crossed the detective's mind as to the genuineness of the sergeant. Handing his prisoner over to another policeman on the station he dashed for the moving train and succeeded in getting into a third-class carriage. So far, so good. Unfortunately, however, the train did not stop before it reached Estcourt, and there, when the detective rushed for the pay van,. he found it empty save for the safe, which was also empty. The strange sergeant had completely disappeared! No time was lost. The station-master at once sent for W , the railway policeman, who lived in Estcourt, and who was due on duty very shortly. When the messenger arrived at W 's house he found the officer, in mufti, half asleep on his bed, but he jumped up quickly enough when he learnt what had happened. Together they rushed to the station, where W got on the telephone to Mooi River and obtained particulars of the robbery and a full description of the robber. We shall see .•later that his information, as taken down, was not quite correct. In the meantime we had all been called up, and I was told off to search a deep donga near the line, in company with W and two other men. W took the lead. "All right!" he shouted back?presently, "I've looked all along' here, and there's no sign of anything. Come on; we'll try the other way." We searched nearly all night, but found nothing. Every available man was on duty, and police and natives were sent in all directions. Finally, tired out, we went back to camp greatly excited. The thief had apparently got clean away with about £3000 in notes and gold—not a* bad night's work. Next day we were informed that a reward of £200 was offered for the recovery of tbe cash and the arrest of the robber, and spurred on by the prospect of earning this money'you may imagine that w» covered every foot of that country pretty thoroughly. Special detectives, white and black, made and female,. vers sent from headquarters,

the whole country was scoured right to the Drakenberg by native police, and we had the time of our lives. Nothing whatever was discovered, however, until one day the. Inspector called mc into his office. I was his clerk and orderly at the time. "Look here," he said gravely, "I've got an important job for you. I want you to do exactly what I tell you, and nothing more. Dont talk, don't look mysterious—just act in your usual way. Go down to the house of Trooper W (the railway policeman) and get him to come to your room to have a drink with B and yourself. Get him along somehow without alarming him. When you have him in the room with B , tell him quietly that he's under arrest. Don't handcuff him unless he resists, but don't let him go under any pretext. Carry revolvers hidden, both of you, but keep your heads. Don't shoot unless you are forced to, but if you do, shoot low. Have you got that? Right! Well, just take it easy." It was quite simple, of course. W came along without any suspicion, and when we got him to the room we told him he was under arrest. He turned rather pale, and wanted to know what he was under arrest for, but we were unable to enlighten him. He was taken to gaol the same afternoon, and later charged with the holdup. And now my story shifts over to W and the way he carried out the robbery, for it was speedily discovered that he was the guilty man. It appeared that his wife was inclined to be extravagant, though they seemed to be a contented enough couple. W was a quiet, harmless sort of fellow, and I still believe he was driven to do what he did. Apparently the pair were unable to make ends meet on W 's pay, and, seeing no way out, W determined upon the robbery. He was acquainted with every detail of railway and police routine, so it was comparatively easy. He planned matters out carefully, down to the last detail, prepared his disguise as a sergeant, pasted a false number over the proper number on his railway pass, and on the afternoon the mail was due down the line started from Estcourt to hold up the train. Leaving in the early afternoon, he crossed the Bushman's Bridge, and went to a small station, where the mail did not stop, and waited for a goods train to Mooi River. When he arrived at Mooi River the mail had not come in, so he walked up and down the platform, awaiting its arrival. He then acted as already described, and directly the train started again, quickly opened the safe and transferred the contents to a small bag which he had with him. When the mail crossed the Bushman's Bridge, outside Estcourt, sho slowed down, and W slipped off and hid the bag in the very donga which we afterwards searched in his company. Then he ran as hard as he could for his house,

burned his disguise, and dressed himself in mufti. He had just thrown himself on his bed when he was aroused to investigate the Tobbery. How he must have chuckled to himself! Ho altered the description of the robber —received over the 'phone—as much as he dared, deceived us concerning the searching of the donga, and later stood us drinks with some of the very money he had stolen! After stealing out —presumably in the early morning hours—to get the bag and bury it, with his wife's assistance, in his garden, he made a discovery, which absolutely terrified him. He couldn*t find his railway pass! One can easily imagine his. feelings when he found that it was missing. Going over the matter in his mind, he concluded that he-must have dropped it when walking along the line to catch the goods train. Straight away, just before dawn, while the mist was still hanging over the kopjes, he started off, determined at all costs to find the passBut a trooper of the Mooi River Patrol had also decided to patrol along the line, hoping to come across some clue to the robber, and it so happened—and this is the extraordinary part of the story — that the two men met, and the eyes of both fell upon that little piece of vital evidence lying on the sleepers, at precisely the same moment! Both made a rush and a grab for it, but the Mooi River man got there first. Then ensued a heated argument. W insisted that he ought to take the pass to Estcourt, whilst the other man was equally determined it should go with him to Mooi River. He was thinking of the reward; W , no doubt, was thinking of penal servitude! What W should have done (from his own point of view) was to have quarrelled violently with the trooper, laid him out, and then claimed that the pass had been lost in the struggle, or made some other excuse, for with him it was neck or nothing. Instead of this, he allowed the trooper to take the pass back in triumph to Mooi River, where the sergeant-in-charge examined it, steamed off the false number, looked up the real one underneath and discoverd it to be W 's. He then telephoned to Estcourt and W was arrested as described. Even then, apparently, the evidence was insufficient, and the stolen money could not be found. But women are weak, and a certain detective prevailed upon W 's spendthrift wife, the cause of all the trouble, to give her husband away. He got eight years' hard labour, and I was in charge of the prisoner's escort that took him away. He did not mind the punishment, and told the Judge so, but the threats he uttered against the detective in Court were blood-curdling. When taken to Maritzburg he informed the trooper escorting him that out of all the stolen money he had used only about two pounds himself, and given fifteen pounds to the woman, yet only a few hundreds were eventually found of the large sum he had buried!