WORLD ACHIEVEMENTS

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 12821, 16 August 1939, Page 2

WORLD ACHIEVEMENTS

THE MECHANICAL DETECTIVE. Hav© you ever thought that the human voice cannot be permanently disguised? Consider this story, and note how the telephone achieved a curious success as a detective: At a New York telephone a subscriber called and listened for a reply.

It came giving a name which was less familiar than the voice. The caller was puzzled. He had heard the voice years go, but it did not seem, to belong rightly to. the name. Where had he heard it before? He racked his memory; then suddenly remembrance came. The voice belonged to someone whom he had known eleven years before, and whom he had good reason not to forget. It was that of a defaulting banker who had disappeared.

He continued the conversation to make sure, and every utterance over the wire confirmed his suspicions. There was no doubt about it: the voice was that of. a man who had once conducted a bank in the Italian quarter and had disappeared with many thousands of dollars of Italian depositors. The Italian who now recognised his voice was one of them.

He smoothly continued the conversation, and suggested that the other man should come round to deliver an order he gave. The unwary defaulter did so, and his former depositor locked the door and sent for the police. They came to find a man who was not in the least like the fugitive of eleven years ago. The face had altered. Even the scars which made it recognisable had gone. The man had got rid of them, but could never escape his voice. , The voice never can be changed. But the telephone was the real detective, because it presented the voice without a face, which otherwise might have confused the impression.