“LONE WOLF" COINER

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 October 1939, Page 4

“LONE WOLF" COINER

MOW DEATH CHEATED JUSTICE. “Lone Wo]f John,” mystery counterfeiter of the London underworld, can never now pay the penalty for his crimes. For years Scotland Yard detectives tried to run him to earth. At length they caught him red-handed, but they could not bring him to trial. Only a few hours before he should have stood in the dock at the Old Bailey, “Lone Wolf .John” collapsed and died in St. Giles’ Hospital, where he had undergone an operation. In the police records he is described as John Huggett, aged 36, but his strange way of living earned him the more picturesque “Lone Wolf” title of the underworld.

All day long he worked feverishly at his illicit trade in a little back room in Railway Street. King.’s Cross. Every night he went out at seven o’clock, not returning until dawn. And all the time he was dying slowly of an agonising disease. Huggett had never been convicted, and so long as he worked on his own the police could not catch him. But when he brought women in to assist him in his activities, his downfall followed swiftly.

Flying squad officers noticed that Huggett, who appeared to have no occupation, always had a. plentiful supply of money, which he was prepared to spend on any attractive woman. Detective-inspector Greeno and De-tective-sergeant Blacktop watched Huggett go into various shops. They followed a few seconds later, and found that in every case a “dud” florin had been passed over the counter. For hours they trailed their quarry, until at last he entered a house in Railway Street. After an hour's wait the detectives followed, and found what every detective dreams of—a coiner actually engaged in coining. There, in a room with thick curtains over the window and lit only by an oil lamp, Huggett stood. He held a ladle containing molten white metal in one hand a row of moulds was laid out on the table in front of him. That he had spent a considerable time in perfecting his counterfeit coins was evident from the number of broken moulds thrown on the floor as useless*. It was also obvious that Huggett had been engaged as a coiner for some considerable time. Since his arrest the flood of bad 1036 florins which was alarming shopkeepers in the Central London area has stopped, and the Flying Squad have every reason to believe that, with the death of Huggett, one of the best of modern coiners has gone. In Railway Street, King's Cross, neighbours knew Huggett as "the man who never smiled.” His landlady, Mrs Elizabeth Buckland, revealed to a ‘News of the World’ reporter something of his life.

Mrs. Bucklaud is a pretty, blackhaired woman of 28. Her husband is a railway worker. Their house —save the one room which Huggett rented from them—has a spotless look. They are hard-working, respectable people with one little boy 13 months old.

It was only after the arrest that they realised how. in the very midst of their quiet home, Huggett had contrived to ply his nefarious trade. •‘John Huggett,” Mrs. Buckland said, "came to live here about five years ago. My aunt had the house then, and when she left, three years

. t ago, my husband and I took it over. I Huggett stopped on with us. He had I one rooip at. the back of the house, which was always kept closely curtained? “He told us hardly anything about himself. Auntie had said that he was a French polisher who couldn’t obtain work. He once told my husband that he had been lucky enough to get a job as night watchman. Where, we did not know. He used to go out every night at seven o’clock and not come back until eight in the morning. GROANING’WITH PAIN. “He paid his rent regularly every Monday. He never made any disturbance. .Nobody suspected him of being a criminal. “I did think it queer now and again that be was always so careful to double-lock his door when he came in or went out. And lately I had got worried about him. He looked so very ill. “One afternoon I heard him groaning with pain. I hammered on the door and begged him to have a doctor. He screamed out that no one was to come into the room. That was the only time 1 ever knew him to get excited. They tell me that he died in prison from gastric ulcers. “But you could never talk to John Huggett. He never spoke to anyone. When anyone passed him in the street he always ‘looked down.’ ” Mrs. Buckland went on to tell of the mysterious regularity of Huggett’s life. As far as she knew, Huggett had never married. But regularly two ■women —one a blonde, the other a stout brunette —called on him. ~ The blonde came every morning to do Huggett’s housework. She said at first that she was his sister, but afterwards confided in Mrs. Buckland that she was his “young lady.” “I can see it now, of course,” said Mrs. Buckland. "He never had a job as night watchman. He had a home’ somewhere else where he slept every night.” Another significant circumstance was discovered by the neighbours. Huggett was seen, evening after evening, at dog racing tracks, and always bet-1 ting what looked like new florins. "But other people did that,” said Mrs Buckland. “There seemed nothing to worry about.” It was only when (he police had taken Huggett away in handcuffs that his landlady learned the (ruth. She and her husband went into the room which had for so long been for- • bidden (hem.