RADIUM HUNT COMEDY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22063, 20 September 1933, Page 14

RADIUM HUNT COMEDY

£IOOO WORTH GOES ASTRAY DELIVERED TO WRONG ADDRESS. A taxicab driver’s mishearing caused a frantic search throughout London a few weeks ago for £IOOO worth of radium. Dr Bertram Shires, the radiologist, of Welbeck street, West London, regularly lends radium needles to the Children’s Hospital in Great Ormond street. “ Every Friday,” said his secretary, “ I put them in a cab for the hospital. The same evening the hospital porter sends them back here by cab. "Last night when I was putting the radium away in the safe I found T was 50 milligrames short. The doctor said the hospital had not returned the needles. I telephoned to the hospital. They said they had sent them back in a taxicab. They could not find the paper on which they had written the taxicab’s number, but they found the pad on which they had blotted it.” Then the search began. Neither the driver nor his cab could be found, and fears were felt for his safety. But when the anxiety was at its height the mystery was solved. A detective traced the driver. “ Can you tell me what happened to the radium ? ” asked the detective. “Radium?” said the driver, “I don’t know anything about that. I took a case to the Palladium.” The driver had taken the package to the theatre, obtained a signature for it and driven offThe manager of the theatre, Mr Rhodes Parry, was on holiday. Mr Simpson, the box-office manager, who received the packet, thought it was a hospital collecting box and had locked it in the safe to await the general manager’s return. Everything ended happily.”