QUEEN MARY DELAYED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19126, 22 September 1936, Page 3

QUEEN MARY DELAYED

fitM FbS SMtrCHLER WOMAN StSPECTED NEW YORK. Aug. 14. The Queen Mary was last evening held • up for 10 minutes in New York harbour at tito start, of her* homeward -voyage, while Hitt pericc satisfied themselves that a vvdmait wanted on drug .smuggling charges was not on board. This was a- sequel to a hunt across America for the woman, who is suspected of being, a member of a dope-traffic syndicate. The chase ended last night in the arrest of Miss Maria Wendt, a young woman of Chinese and Dutch parentage, ns she went aboard the North German Lloyd liner Deutschland. Federal agents to-day claimed that Miss Wendt had admitted that she Had booked her passage to Europe under an assumed name. The woman for whomthey were looking, they state, resemble,h Miss Wendt, having Oriental features and being of small stature. She was last seen at Los Angeles, where she Lad been detained For questioning after £22,C€O worth of heroin hu'd been found concealed in her baggage at the frontier when she' arrived hy aeroplane from Mexico. «■ ■ CAPTORS ELUDED ’ W, She eluded Iter captors by asking toi. he allowed to have a hath. After her escape agents at alt ports were warned. A-Chinese name in the Queen .Mary’s passenger list, noticed after the'Ttiio'r had ’ sailed, aroused suspicion and a message was sent to Captain. Peel, who is in command in the absence of Sir Edgar Britten on holiday, asking him to slow down, A coastguard cutter caught up with the litter in the Narrows of New York harbour. whore the channel is only between. 2000 and 3000 feet wide. . , ~ ._ According to Captain Henry McCoutie. marine superintendent of the Canard Line, who supervises the docking of his company’s ships in New York, the Queen Mary was'in some danger by being brought almost, to a standstill there. The Chinese, passenger, it was quickly discovered, was a person of unquestionable reputation and the liner resumed her voyage. Several hours Liter. Miss W emit aroused suspicion as she walked up the gangway to the Deutschland. Suspicion was strengthened when she said that she had arrived in New York on Saturday front the Pacific coast by aeroplane. She .vas told that she could not leave American soil pending further inquiries.