RADIUM HUNT COMEDY

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 29 September 1933, Page 5

RADIUM HUNT COMEDY

£IOOO WORTH GOES ASTRAY. ! DELIVERED TO WRONG ADDRESS' i A taxicab- driver’s mishearing.caused ; a frantic search throughout London aj few weeks ago- for £IOOO worth of! radium. Dr. Bertram Shires, the radiologist, of Weibeck Street, West London, regularly lends radium needles to the Chil-j dren’s Hospital in Great Ormond Street. “Every Friday,” said his secretary, “1 put them in a cab for the' hospital. The same evening the hos-j pital porter sends them back here by cab. “Last night when I was putting the radium away in the safe 1 found that] 1 was 50 milligrammes short. Thej doctor said the hospital had not re-; turned the needles. 1 telephoned toj the hospital. They said they had sent! them back in a taxicab They could not find the paper on which they had written the taxicab’s number, but they found the pad on which they had blotted it.” T . , Then the search began. Neither the driver nor his cab could be found, and fears were felt for his safety. But when the anxiety was at its height the mvstery ivas solved. A detective traced the driver. “Can you tell me what happened to the radium?” asked the detective. “Radium?” said the driver. “I don’t know anything about that. I took a case to the Palladium.” The driver had taken the package to the theatre, obtained a signature for it and driven off The manager ot the tbeatie, Afi • Rhodes Parry, was on holiday. Mr. Simpson, the box-office manager, who received the packet, thought it was a hospital collecting box and had-locked it in the safe to await the general manager’s return. Everything ended happily.