A BURGLAR’S ESCAPE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20318, 28 January 1928, Page 7

A BURGLAR’S ESCAPE.

SLIDES DOWN DRAINPIPE. (Special to Daily Times.) . AUCKLAND, January 27. A “cat burglar” made a sensational escape from the fourth floor of the Dilworth Building on a recent evening at the moment when it was thought that he was trapped in an office behind a locked door. There had been several thefts in tho building, the occupier of one office losing a cheque for a considerable amount. (From that time the occupiers of other offices had been on the qui vive. A few nights ago one business man had occasion to call back at his office on the fourth floor, and as soon as he opened the door he saw a man fiddling with a bunch of | keys and trying to unlock a drawer in I a desk. The business man promptly | slammed (he door, locked it. and called I for the caretaker. Tfie caretaker was handy, and the door was then unlocked, hut to the great astonishment of the pair the room was empty. An open window provided a cine, and a hurried glance over the sill revealed a man working In's way dexterously towards the ground by means of the downpipe. It, was far too perilous a path for the business man and the caretaker to follow, and when they hurried to the ground floor the burglar had vanished. Those \vho have viewed the scene of the exploit agree that the man merits the description of a “cat burglar.” Ho certainly carried his life in his hands as the handhold was precarious in the extreme, and nobody but a man accustomed to dizzy heights could have trusted his grasp to bring him safely down the sheer wall of the building.