COSTLY FUR COATS

Evening Star, Issue 20556, 7 August 1930, Page 6

COSTLY FUR COATS

STORY OF TWO WOKEN Hero is a curious real life crime episode, told to the ‘ Sunday Express ’ by a close friend of the innocent participant. A fashionably-dressed woman called on a well-known London firm of furriers and said that she wished to have a coat made out of some rare skins, which she had brought with her There were actually enough skins to make two coats. The woman, who was un known to the firm, but was apparently well bred, proposed that a coat should he made for her and that the remaining skirs should bo pavment She made the stinuLtion that if another f'oat was made it should not be sold to anyone living in London. The furriers agreed a ,- d made two coats, the second going into stock. A few weeks later another woman, obviously well to do. visited the shop, saying that she was in reed of a new fur coat, something distinctive. Her eyes foil upon the one made from the rare skins and she fell in love with it immediately. Her statement that she lived in the provinces having been substantiated, the coat was sold to her and duly delivered at the West End hotel where she was staying. Only two or three days remained of the woman’s visit to London, and sho thought it could not matter if sho sported her new coat once or twice during this time. So she put it on when going to the theatre that evening. On returning to tho hotel she and her husband sat for a time in tho lounge. When being taken up in the lift she put her hand into the right-hand pocket of the coat —and found there a pearl necklace. The clasp was set with a diamond. Jewellers pronounced the necklace worth several hundred pounds. The attendant of the theatre cloakroom could give no explanation. The necklace was handed to tho police. Next day the woman again wore tho coat while on a shopping expedition and on reaching her room she found in the right-hand pocket a gold wristlet watch of exquisite workmanship. She went to the police again, reported tho second discovery, and was told that they guessed what was happening. The next morning in the crowded hotel vestibule. an immaculately dressed young man was in the act oi slipping a diamond brooch into the woman’s pocket when he was arrested b- a plain clothes man. The first woman was a “fence.” A description of the very distinctive coat she would wear thenceforth was among tho members of a rr-'ng of thieves, who worn to “slip” their hontv to b<*r_ As it happened, -''o was taken i’l just when she was to have worn the coat a-d when the purchaser of the second coat began to ’"ear hors. Tho second coat spoiled the whole scheme. Woman number one was son-” r”n to earth and those of the gang of thieves who escaped her fate, have to evolve .some other specious system of trickery.

“Did tho doctor remove your appendix?” “Feels to mo like Jm removed my whole table of contents.”