A ROAD "MYSTERY"

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 109, 9 May 1923, Page 9

A ROAD "MYSTERY"

An absurd practical joke••"-. lei to a momentary sensation in Melbourne a few ■'■ days ago, the police, as the result of a" statement by two ladies, starting, to" investigate a supposed attempt to conceal a body by four ' men in a motor-car. ■ - When the public had just become prepared for some gruesome revelation a young man named Charles George Hildebrand came forward and informed the police that the supposed concealment of the body of a man at a point on the road between Moe and Darnum was just a prank on the part' of four men in joyous spirits. He said he drove a car i containing the foul 1 men from Yallourn to Richmond. On the road the car stopped. A man alighted, and throwing himself on the ground, covered himself with a blanket. .' Hia comrades, desiring to 'humour him, commenced to cover his body with stray leaves, and one of them placed a piece of wood near his head, facetiously remarking, "This will do for your tombstone." The joke was in full swing when the Misses Flint appeared on the scene in a jinker. Becoming alarmed when they saw a human foot protruding from beneath the rubbish, they said, "What have you there?" One of the men said solemnly, "This man that you see here died from heart failure; we want you two ladies as witnesses to it." The Misses Flint failed to see the humour in. the situation, and feeling that they were being made unwilling accomplices in a tragedy, said, 'You had better take the body to Warragul." Mr. Hildebrand was somewhat alarmed, however, when he read.that the police were seriously -investigating the affair.