Greatest Feats of Crime Detection.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 164, 13 July 1935, Page 4 (Supplement)

Greatest Feats of Crime Detection.

HATTON GARDEN PEARL MYSTERY

DRAMATIC CLIMAX TO SCOTLAND YARD SEARCH—SPECTACULAR ARREST FRUSTRATED BY SHREWD CROOKS — MILLION-DOLLAR NECKLACE FOUND IN LONDON GUTTER—WORKER'S EARLY MORNING FIND—"WORLD'S GREATEST JEWEL THIEF" SENTENCED.

(By GEORGE BAETOX. —All Rights Reserved.) ! A pearl necklace valued at a million dollars mysteriously disappeared in | 1 transit between I'aris and llattnn Gulden. London, where it was consigned to ' ! Max Mayer. Lump sugar was found in the box supposed to contain the famous 1 j gems. The police, were completely baffled fur a clue, but meantime, in circles | i whci c trade is conducted in rare, anil valuable jewels, efforts were being made i Jto dispose of the stones. Negotiations were entered into by the representatives \ i, of the thieves, Leiscr Outwirth end Josepji Grizard, with two dealers, Quadratstein 1 | and Eradstattcr, of Paris, and sortie •'haggling" ensued as to the price for the ! ■! pearls. j S' Ultimately, skilful sleuthing led Scotland Yard on the track of the gangsters, , >' who, however, had their own sctrtt scrvicc. Then began the sport of "shadowing j i the shadowcrs." I'll"- detcctivcs folio wing Grizard made their reports regularly to * i Scotland yard, and the convict shadowing the defectives made his reports to | i; Grizard. There was a set of investigators representing the insurance company. >

It is not surprising that tliey should occasionally run into eacli other, and there were times when one Scotland Yard man was on the point of hauling another Scotland Yard man to the nearest station. Never were there so many opportunities for complications. The real danger was that the game might be gummed by the zealous and energetic disciples of Sherlock Holmes. But in this battle of wits "Cammy" Grizard came out second best. The reports he received were imperfect; those made to Scotland Yard were meticulous in detail. The time had now arrived to pull off the big deal on the million-dollar necklace. The wary Mr. Grizard was not taking any chances, and he was particularly anxious to consummate the job in some spot where they were not likely to be seen by the police. So on August 25 five of them met at the First Avenue Hotel in Holborn. Brandstatter, growing weary of the delay, insisted that the necklace would have to be shown to him at once, or the whole deal would be off. With a smile, Grizard rut his hand in his pocket and drew out a box and laid it on the table. The lid was opened, and there was the set of million-dollar pearls for which the police had been working so long. Spanier was again introduced by

and a small stickpin constituted all of his jewellery. A penknife, some picccs of string and a poem clipped from a provincial newspaper made up the sum total of all his possessions. It was a povertystricken list of assets for one of the most successful jewel thieves in history. But then we have known of millionaires being caught without enough money to pay their carfare. ' Doggedly the police turned to the other members of the gang. The search was one of the most thorough ever made in the Bow Street Police Court. But if Grizard seemed poor, his accomplices were virtually paupers. Finally the searchers gave up in despair. Not one of the prisoners had the pearl necklace! The Scotland Yard men were deeply chagrined—they had expected to get the evidence on one of the crooks and announce the completion of one of the biggest triumphs in the history of the Yard. Bitter Official Disappointment. No one was more bitterly disappointed than was Chief Inspector Ward. _ lie had purposely postponed the arrest in order to get the men with the goods in their possession. The Scotland Y ar d detectives resemble the Secret Service in one respect. They

Brandstatter as the man who had the money, and after he had convinced himself of the genuineness of the pearls, he said he would have another day in which to raise the money —which was demanded in hard cash. At British Museum Station. On the following morning Grizard and his gang got together in preparation for the iinai meeting. It was necessary that they should have a private talk before they met the prospective purchaser. Ordinarily, a meeting of this kind is held « in some thieves' den, but the master rogue vetoed that at the outset. His convict assistant had assured him that the police were watching all of these places, and that would be like walking into a trap. Mr. Brandstatter suggested that they might get together in the Holborn tea room, but that did not appeal to Mr. Grizard, He had the thieves' superstition that it is unlucky to meet twice in the same place when you are about to pull off a big coup. Another of the gang thought that the British Museum would be a nice, quiet" place for a conference between the greatest crooks in Europe. This reference to the British Museum gave Mr. Grizard an idea. "We meet to-morrow afternoon, he said, "in the British Museum Tube Station." , , At the appointed time, the little group found its way to a far corner of this particular station. From time to time other persons came down into the tube to take outgoing trains, while others, alighting from the cars, made their way to the street. Grizard was in charge of the squad ot crooks. This was the day and the hour at which the celebrated necklace was to change hands. After many anxious weeks they were about to exchange the troublesome pearls for good Bank of England money. In a short time the cash would he in their pockets and they could leave town for a well-earned vacation! The only thing that bothered them was an agreement as to a division of the spoils. One of them ventured to speak of this delicate side of the business, but he was promptly squelched by the hard-boilea Grizard. , . , , "Shut up, you fool," he cried, and wait until we get the money." That was hardly the way for one respectable thief to speak to another, but the man took the rebuff in silence and thereafter held his peace. The Clutch of the Law. In the meanwhile . another little group had formed at the other end of the sub" way station. They were aggressive-looking men, alert in their movements, and apparently keyed for action. The man in charge gave a signal, and in less time than it takes to record the fact, Grizard and the members his staff had been placed under arrest. Scotland Yard had executed another of its famed master strokes. The detectives treated their prisoners with polite consideration, but it was not long before all of the crooks had been landed in the famed Bow Street Police Court. "Search the prisoners," cried Inspector Ward. Grizard was the first one to undergo the ordeal. He was taken unawares when he was arrested, but by this time he lrad recovered his accustomed self-possession and underwent the search with a sort of haughty pride. He was all but stripped, but the result was disappointing. He had some small coins in his trousers pockets and a few banknotes in his wallet. A plain watch

carefully guard against premature arrests. It is their aim always to have sufficient evidence to convict. They were morally certain that the gang had started out with the valuable pearls in their possession. Yet when they were searched, not a single crook had so much as an imitation pearl in his clothes. It was more than disappointing—it was positively humiliating. But Chief Inspector Ward and his associates did not give up. They continued to look for the million-dollar necklace. They worked with British persistence, and felt convinced that the mystery would be solved in the end. In the meantime they had the four thieves under lock and key and with ample evidence to convict them of the theft of the three odd. pearls which they had sold to Mr. Spanier, and for which they had been paid with marked money. Just about this time, when it looked as though all hope for capturing the million-dollar necklace had gone, Scotland Yard made a most important discovery. They found a diemaker named Gordon, who testified that he had been engaged by Samuel Silverman to make a die of the "M.M." seal of Max Mayer. In itself this may sound trivial, but it was the key which unlocked the mystery that had hitherto baffled the detectives. The importance of it may be understood when it is stated that Silverman was the jeweller in a small way who had a 6hop at 101, Hatton Garden. It was there that the postman had stopped on his way to Mayer's place on the morning of the robbery. The carrier was brought to Scotland Yard and questioned again. It developed that he had been employed in the postal service for more than 30 years and that he had a spotless record. He admitted that he was in the habit of chatting with Mr. Silverman when he stopped there to deliver the mail. He had done so on the morning of July 10. He could not recall how long he remained there. In any event, he had laid his heavy bag on the counter while he readied in for some letters addressed to Mr. Silverman. Pearls in the Mud. What followed then requires no stretch of the imagination. The thieves, who were all prepared fori the coup, had substituted a fake box for the one that contained the million-dollar necklace. They had covered it with the seals, and to all outward appearance it was the exact box that had been mailed in Paris and which was later delivered to the astonished Mr. Mayer. The letter carrier did not have the slightest notion of the value of the package he was carrying. He was absolved of all improper intent in the matter. At the most he would have been guilty of carelessness. The story of how the pearl necklace had been stolen was perfectly clear; only one thing was needed to make the triumph of the police complete, and that was the recovery of the necklace. The denouement came about in the most unexpected manner passible. It was pure chance and would have been laughable if it were not for the fact that the really meritorious work done by the detectives was worthy of a more dramatic climax. Two weeks after the arrest of the four crooks in the British Museum tube station a young piano worker came out of the doorway of his home in Finsbury and started for the factory in which he was employed.

1 It was a dull morning, with the overcast sky so familiar in London, but young Mr. Horn was in a happy state of mind arid whistled gaily as he proceeded on his way. As he crossed the gutter at one of the intersections of St. Paul's Road he noticed a large matchbox lying in the mud. Ordinarily the average man would pay no attention to a thing of that kind. But something prompted Mr. Horn to stoop down and pick up the box. The box contained no matches, but it was filled with a collection of wonderfully graduated pearls. Mr. Horn sniffed at them in the firm belief that they were imitation pearls. But even imitation pearls have some value, and Mr. Horn, being honest as well as thrifty, took time to take his find to Scotland Yard, where in the course of events the pearls found their way to the lost property oilice of tliat place. How long they remained there is not known but it is certain that for some hours they mingled with mislaid umbrellas, stolen coats, books that had been forgotten in the subways, worn wallets and articles of wear that had seen better days. The head of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation looks over this curious collection from time to time and when he glanced at this particular day's haul his attention was immediately attracted by the pearls in the match box. They were turned over to Chief Inspector Ward, and the sight of them caused that astute detective to gasp with astonishment. They were the identical pearls forming the million-dollar necklace that had played such a conspicuous part in the famous Ilatton Garden robbery! Tossed Fortune Away. Further investigation developed the fact that when the four crooks had met in the British Museum tube station they had been shrewd enough to leave the pearls in the care of Mrs. James Lockett, the wife of one of their number. When the papers came out with flaming headlines, telling of the arrest of the jewel thieves, the woman was panic-stricken. She felt confident that the detectives would make a search of the lodgings of all the prisoners and she had sense enough to know that it they were found in her possession Mr. James Lockett would face a long term in pc-nal solitude. What to do with them was a puzzle. It was out of the question to pawn them, because all of the money-lenders had been warned to be on the lookout for the stolen pearls. So the distracted woman went out one dark night and deliberately threw them into the muddy street; with a dramatic gesture she tossed away a fortune! And then along came the pianomaker and picked them up and carried them to the detectives who had been scouring three countries in the search for the million-dollar necklace. The evidence was now complete and fn a short time the jewel thieves were formally placed on trial. There were four of them in the dock —Joseph Grizard, Samuel Silverman, Leiser Gutwirth and James Lockett. Someone called them the "Four Musketeers of the Underworld." Grizard was the man for whom the police had been hunting for years. They had caught him before—but never with the goods. In most of his other enterprises he had kept in the background directing the operations of his subordinates. In that way he had escaped the police net. But the richness of the booty in this case had tempted him to forego his usual reserve and get directly in the game. The result was that he was now facing the Blind Goddess of Justice. All four were found guilty and Grizard was sentenced to seven years' penal servitude, while the others were given shorter years in gaol. The judge who pronounced sentence characterised him as "the world's greatest jewel thief."