BURGLAR HUNT

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11662, 29 October 1923, Page 6

BURGLAR HUNT

EXCITEMENT IN CITY HOTEL

ATTEMPT' TO SET LARGE BUILDing on fire. AMUSING SEQUEL.

A burning bolster was discovered fit the wardrobe of an unoccupied bedroom in a popular "Wellington hotel on Saturday night. How it got there nono knows except the person responsible, but it seems certain that an attempt was made to set the building ablaze. The same hotel has been troubled recently by a series of petty thefts which were unimportant materially, but sufficient to make the inmates uneasy—and cautious. So it was that an unusual noise while the majority of the guests were at dinner on Saturday night was quickly noted by the landlady, and on running along a passage she saw smoke coming from a bedroom —the only unoccupied bedroom in the passage, and also the only one that was not locked.

To extinguish the burning kapok was the work of a moment, and; it took a very few minutes to ascertain that no intruder was to be found in the building. Then came reflection on what might have happened if the fire, started centrally in a building several stories high, had secured a hold before it was noticed.

Speculative discussion was at feverheat among the guests, and the older ones were just beginning to cast about for treasured memories of “burglars” and “fires” when everybody was startled by a heavy thud, obviously caused by someone falling down a stairway, and then by a woman’s scream. 'While the women stood petrified by ( fright, several of the men started along the passage towards the stairs. Foremost in their minds was the thought that the incendiary had hidden in a bedroom, been discovered by a woman occupant, that a struggle had taken place, and ——v They did not stop to think more. What they found was a young woman picking herself up at the bottom of the stairs. She had fallen about two-thirds of the way down, but she was more frightened than hurt. She had gone to her room with her thoughts full of the burning bolster, and had been 6tarbled by the sound of a struggle in an adjoining bedroom. Her natural conclusion was that the burglar, or incendiary—whatever he might be —had been discovered by one of the Ijoarders, and she lost no time in obeying her impulse to go below and give the alarm. Such was the story heard at the bottom of the stairs, and immediately several of the men went on to help their fellow-boarder, who was at grips with the burglar, passing half a dozen women standing too frightened to move, they burst into the room, and found —two boarders engaged in a friendly wrestling match, while a third stood by and acted as IVferee!

Tli© three men had been upstairs at the time of the first alarm, had heard nothing of it, and were more than surprised to find half a dozen of the household thronging round the door ot their room.

Amusement at the second incident served the useful purpose of allaying the alarm caused by the first, but'th* fact remains that the presence of a burning bolster in an occupied room has not been explained, and the only explanation feasible » that it was placed there by an incendiary. It has since been learned that an incident almost exactly similar occurred in another large hotel in Wellington a fortnight ago. Is there an incendiary maniac in the city ?