ARTFUL JEWEL THIEF

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIX, Issue 4771, 12 November 1935, Page 2

ARTFUL JEWEL THIEF

MAID-SERVANT DECEIVED. Southampton police failed to trace a young man who very artfully appropriated £IOO worth of jewellery. Mr. and Mrs. W. Wells, of The Avenue, Southampton, were preparing to leave home with their family on a cruising holiday, and when the house was occupied only by a maid-servant, Miss Louie Colborn, a young man wearing a bright green open-neck shirt, sports jacket and navy dungarees knocked at the door and said he had come to repair the electric light. He was carrying a book and a bundle of wire, and when Miss Colburn said she knew nothing about ■ a light fault he explained he had come in response to a telephone message. "He came inside the house,"

said Miss Colburn, "and started switching lights on and off, talking affably all the time. "Then he went upstairs and switching on the landing light, said: "Ah, this is the one that is wrong;' Just then I heard Miss Wells, my mistress' daughter, come in, so I went downstairs." Miss Wells, who met the man on the stairs, said: "He looked rather flustered, and he asked me to see the light. Removing the switch cover, he made sparks and said: "It's not dangerous, but it is just as well to have it put right.' "I told him he had better do it, and then I went to my room to pack. Shortly afterwards he said he would have to get some more wire, but would be back in ten minutes. As he left he said, 'Good afternoon, miss.'" After he had gone the jewellery was missed from the drawers of a dressing-table in a bedroom.