A DARING JEWEL ROBBERY

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1746, 23 August 1905, Page 8

A DARING JEWEL ROBBERY

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

LONDON, June 30.

Qhristie’s famous auction-rooms were the scene of a sensational adventure yesterday. The story reads more like a chapter from a detective romance than an incident in real life. It was the luncheon and the usual crowd, of experts and auction-loungers thronged the salerooms, examining the jewellery sent to Christie’s by the executors of the late Reuben D. Sassoon. Among the people was a good-looking, welldressed lady of about thirty, who evinced considerable interest in the £2OOO Sassoon necklace of rare pearls. She had come the previous day to see about this necklace, and at her request an attendant had taken it out of the case and placed it on a tray for her inspection, afterwards returning it to the case. The same procedure was adopted yesterday. Turning to one of the attendants standing by, the lady asked him to show her the necklace. He obligingly took it out and. placed it in her hand. For a moment something else seems to have occupied his attention, and when he turned back the lady, with a smile of thanks, handed him the necklace and moved quietly away. She was near the door when a gentleman sanding by suddenly exclaimed to the startled attendant, “Those are not real pearls!” He pointed excitedly to the necklace wMch the lady had just returned. The attendant snatched it up, and rushed to one of Messrs Christie’s showmen, who was near at hand. “The tab on the necklace isn’t our tab, 1 replied the showman, “and I don’t believe the pearls are real !**

Sensation, and a hue and cry! A page-boy bolted after the mysterious lady, and with a “Hi! stop!” brought her to a halt just as she was stepping into a hansom. - Next minute, dealers, auctioneers, and policemen came tumbling out of the salerooms in hot pursuit, and the lady apparently decided that the game was np. She plucked the stolen necklace from her dress, and flung it into the rood; and the hansom conveyed her to the nearest police star tiom, The trick which had failed was a ver f old one, and in such a orowd was peculiarly audacious. Apparently a cheap imitation necklace had been carried by the woman in her handkerchief, and when she thought no one was looking the real necklace had been snatched up and the false one dropped in its place. Unfortunately for her, a gentleman standing by had been watching out of the oomer of hw* eye, and the daring trickery was thus «wx»sed before escape was possible