DICTOGRAPH ARREST.

Patea Mail, Volume XLV, 18 February 1921, Page 4

DICTOGRAPH ARREST.

SIGNOR CARUSO’S LOST JEWELS. An arrest was made under dramatic circumstances in New York recently of a man alleged to have been concerned with the robbery of a large quantity of jewellery from the summer home of Signor Caruso, the tenor, three months ago, while the singer was in Cuba. Two women known to the New York public as the Pollion Sisters, whose escapades have frequently made them the subject of newspaper notoriety, are responsible for this latest development in the robbery, which caused con sternation in the fashionable colony of Hampstead, Long Island. A few days ago they visited the offices of the company with which Signor Caruso had had his wife’s jewels insured, and said they believed they wore iu communi,-ation with a man concerned in the robbery, who* had offered to sell them a quantity of Caruso’s gems. The police were n Rifled, ami diefograxdis (small machines eaJ.y concealed and containing an extremely sensitive microphone or telephone transmitter) were installed in the women’s flat, one behind a tapestry curtain and the other under a bed, with wires leading to the roof, where detectives and shorthand writers hid. The man, who gave his name as Harry C. Toback, cubed at Ihe hour he had fixed. According to the polhc who listened, he offered to sell to the sisters £9,000 worth of Caruso’s diamonds for £6,000. He is sai l to have suggested that the amount be paid in cash at an hotel-in Baltimore where the stones were hidden. The women tentatively assented, and made plans to accompany him back to Baltimore, but as the man left the flat ho was met at the door by a detective and arrested. He denied any connection with the jewel theft, although he admitted the trend of the conversation, which, he said, was a ruse to got the two women into Baltimore, where ho hoped to sell them an expensive sable coat.

The Pollion Bister, Katherine and Charlotte, who have been previously conspicuous as volunteer and amateur detectives, will share the reward of £2009 offered by Signor Caruso if the arrest results in the recovery of the stolen jewels.