BANK-NOTES MYSTERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12853, 29 April 1905, Page 2 (Supplement)

BANK-NOTES MYSTERY.

, CIGAR MERCHANT AND WIDOW. Ix dismissing a charge against- a cigar merchant of stealing two £10 Bank of England notes, Mr. Plowden remarked, at Marylebone, that the case illustrated the advantages of allowing an accused person to go into the witness-box and tell his own story.

By giving his own version of a. West End incident and a visit to the house of a young widow in St. John's Wood, the defendant, Raleigh Hyman, aged 34, of Shaftesbury Avenue, placed an entirely different complexion on the case.

Mrs. Louisa Hodgens, of Boundary Road, St. John's Wood, bad said that she and an artist's model, Miss Moore, met Hvmen late at night in the King's Head Hotel, Leicester Square, and after visiting his shop they all drove to Boundary Road. Here Mrs'. Hodgens took two £10 notes from her stocking and placed them on the breakfastroom table. Hvmun, it was said, placed his hat over them, and later, when he was accompanying Miss Moore to her own home in % cab. he drew them trom his pocket, insisted on Miss Moore taking one, and placed the other in the lining of his silk hat.

Hyman. who served in South Africa with Roberts' Horse, now said that he entered the King's Head American bar with a lady of his acquaintance, and. meeting there a number of people whom he knew, he "stood drinks all .ound." Later the barman asked him to see Mrs. Hodgens to a cab. as she was in drink. He did so, and. after presenting her and Miss Moore with a box of cigarettes each, from his own shop, he accepted their invitation to see them home, and they reached 1 St. John's Wood at halfpast one a.m. On entering the drawing-room Mrs. Hodgens fell down and screamed, and a gentleman came downstairs in his pyjamas. Mrs. Hodgens fa id she had lost her watch and purse. She also referred to some banknotes. but said they were all right, as she had left, them with the barman at the King'* Head. He saw Miss Moore to her cab, and returned to Mrs. Hodgens. He also saw Mrs. Hodgens again on the following evening, and she made no charge a'bout the notes ; but- later the barman of the King's Head asked him. over the telephone, if he had taken the notes "in a joke." as Mrs. Hoddens was there and h;id accused him of taking them. He replied that he never joked with money.

Mrs. Hodgens called at his shop the next day and said, "Miss Moore has confessed all" It is not too late to arrange it." He accused her of trying to "blackmail him. and sent for the police. When he went with her to Vine-street the inspector said that she had already accused two or threw people of taking her monev. He denied having had drinks with Mr. Newton, solicitor, at. Short's, in St. Paul's Churchyard, where one of the notes was exchanged. Thev visited Sweeting's, and he paid for the drinks in cash. The endorsement on the clienue was not in his handwriting.

Hvman added that he was a married man, and bad been living with his wife in .Southampton. He said in cross-examination that be was the owner of fix flats, Creighton Mansions, near Brunswick Square.

He suggested that the object of the prosecution was blackmail, and that Miss Moore took both the notes. With repaid to a solicitor's evidence, he declared that it was an invention, for spite, because five weeks ago lie (Hvman) intervened 011 behalf of a young man. heir to a good deal of money, who had been induced to part with bills to the value of £3600.

Mr. Plowdcn: You mean to say he carries his .spite so far that he wants to see you convicted as a felon and sent to prison?— Yes. When' he heard of thin case he said, "I am pleased. I hope- he can get five years." Mr. Plovden said that if Hyman had not been able to give evidence he* should have had no alternative but to send him for trial. Having heard the whole story he accepted the responsibility of saying that no jury would convict, and he discharged the prisoner.