MYSTERY REVIVED

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 87, 6 January 1940, Page 4

MYSTERY REVIVED

Two-Year-Old Motor-cycle Theft PATIENT POLICE WORK Dominion Special Service. • CHRISTCHURCH, January 5. Two years of patient work and painstaking endeavour by detectives throughout New Zealand have borne fruit, and it is now possible that the Heathcote County Council will discover the fate of a new motor-cycle which it bought in 1937 for the trafiic inspetcor, Mr. A J. Tait, and which was stolen on the night of September 10, in the same year. The police believe that they have identified the machine (it was dragged out of Auckland harbour on May 22 of this year) and a young, man appeared recently in the Magistrates’ Court and was charged with the theft. Like elephants, apparently, detectives never forget, and though everybody else, except Mr. Tait and the council, had forgotten the theft, the police proceeded with their inquiries. These led to investigation throughout the Dominion. The inquiry into the missing motorcycle was revived when detectives concluded their work on other cases indirectly connected with it, and the machinery of the law was set in motion. Backyard Dug Up. This involved the digging up and combing of a backyard in the city and the discovery, among a large assortment of articles, of a motor-cycle number plate arid rear mudguard. The plate and mudguard had been subjected to great heat and were crumpled and bent. They were straightened out by further heating and the plate was recognized as a 1937 one through (he particular mark used to divide the five numbers. The numbers themselves were brought up in photographs and the numerals —22-103— were recognizable as those of the stolen machine. Turning their attention to the mudguard, the police noted a peculiar alteration to it. The alteration had been made by a city workman to enable a siren to'be fitted. The workman definitely identified the guard as belonging to Mr. Tait’s machine. The inquiries hung fire till some time ago, when a boy, who was out fishing, saw a machine in the Auckland Harbour. The motor-cycle was recovered and the Auckland police, not being able to identify it, sent descriptive circulars out to other New Zealand stations. Substitution of Parts. The Christchurch police, their interest aroused by the make of the machine, took up the inquiry again, and they now believe they have discovered the missing motor-cycle. It wars discovered that, at the time the machine had gone into the harbour, another machine had been stolen in Auckland. Despite the substitution of parts, the machine was recognized. When stolen, the motor-cycle was valued at £l3i, but it was sold in Auckland recently for about £9. The machine was stolen after the doors of the garage at Mr. Tait’s residence had been forced some time about midnight. The council was not a loser as the machine was insured, but another interesting factor in the case is that, just before the machine was stolen, an anonymous person rang up the council foreman, asking where Mr. Tait lived.