A BURGLAR’S MISTAKE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20362, 20 March 1928, Page 10

A BURGLAR’S MISTAKE.

TOUCHES CALL BELL. HOTEL WAITER’S SURPRISE. A DRAMATIC SEQUEL. (Special to Daily Times.) AUCKLAND, March If). The call bell rang insistently at tho Star - Hotel on Saturday evening, and a white-coated waiter, after sighting the identification number of the room, tucked his napkin over his arm, gathered his silver tray with professional skill, and hastened to obey the summons. Instead of a well-tailored guest who warned soda water or something similar he discovered in an upstairs bedroom a grimy apparition. The shock was a natural one. The waiter fled to announce that there were burglars upstairs, and the licensee, who was smarting with the knowledge that several bedrooms had been ransacked a few nights before, made a strategic dash for the back of the building. Coming down the fire escape was the grimy one. Quite inadvertently he had touched the call bell instead of the electric light button, and he was bent on making a quick getaway. The licensee gathered up half a brick, took a hurried aim, and let fly. A groan of anguish and crash of splintering glass followed. The scene changed to the dining room. The breaking of the window was sufficiently startling, and when a very grubby man came hurtling through a waitress promptly fainted. The grubby one held his bands up in token of surrender, and was gathered in. Meanwhile other developments were following quickly. Two ahadowy forms vanished across an adjoining section into the night. A constable who was in tho vicinity at the time gave chase, and arrived at Prince’s Wharf in time to apprehend two firemen, each carrying under an arm an additional suit. A grimy trio had been collected, but it became a quartet before long. About this time a guest was oemg shown to a bedroom, aud as the door was opened ha remarked facetiously: “ I hope that there is nobody under the bed.” “Ish here all right,” came a thick voice. The bed heaved convulsively, and a man with a very dirty face scrambled out. Thus Charles Hart, ageu 2S, Joseph Dunn, aged 32, and Edward Carstens, aged 42, appeared at the Police Court this morning. Hart was charged with stealing a gold watch and chain with a sovereign case containing two sovereigns, of a total value of £3.d 10s Cd, the property of Charles Samuel Jiffs. Dunn aud Carstens merely said that they were drunk in reply to the charges preferred of having each stolen a suit of clothes valued at £5 os from rooms in the hotel. Hart, the man who got the brick and fell backwards through the window, in a statement mads to Detective Packman, said that he and his mates found their way upstairs at tho Star Hotel to get a drink. He admitted that he took the jewellery. The licensee of the hotel, Mr Nightingale, said that Hart was not drunk. Some of the stolen property taken from tho hotel was found in the coa' in the Matatua’s bunkers by Detective Packman and Constable Waterson yesterday morning, while a considerable quantity, including a diamond ring and £7 in cash, has yet to be found. Chief Detective Hammond said that Hart, Carstens, aud Robert John Lloyd, aged 24, the last-named being the drunken man found under the bed in the hotel, were all firemen off the Matatua. Dunn was not long out of gaol, and on Saturday had endeavoured to sign on the Matatua. “ This was their final pull, said Mr Hammond. ” These firemen sometimes go to a place and get stuff right at the last moment rbeforc their ship sails, and they run the risk of getting it on board. The Star Hotel was the nearest hotel to the Prince’s Wharf, where their vessel was Iving. Mr Hammond added that when Constable Wate-son could not find Dunn and Carstens near the hotel he ran down to the vessel, thinking that they would be going aboard. His deduction was correct, for each man was caught going aboard with a suit concealed under The three accused were each sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. LUyffi who was bailed out in the sum of and sailed with the Matatua oa featurdav night, was ordered to forfeit his bail on the charge of being found without lawful excuse on the premises.