CAUGHT BY TELEPHONE

Southland Times, Issue 22362, 29 June 1934, Page 12

CAUGHT BY TELEPHONE

THE UNCHANGED VOICE. DEFAULTER BROUGHT TO BOOK. At a New York telephone a subscriber called and listened for a reply. It came giving a name which was less familiar than the voice. The caller was puzzled. He had heard the voice years ago, but it did not seem to belong rightly to the name. Where had the caller heard the voice before? He racked his memory; then suddenly remembrance came. The voice belonged to someone whom he had known eleven years before, and whom he had good reason not to forget. It was that of a defaulting banker who had disappeared. The caller continued the conversation to make sure, and every utterance over the wire confirmed his supicions. There was no doubt about it; the voice was that of a man who had once conducted a bank in the Italian quarter and had disappeared with many thousands of dollars of Italian depositors. The Italian who now recognized his voice was one of them.

The man smoothly continued the conversation, and suggested that the man he had known as a banker should come round to deliver an order he gave. The unwary defaulter did so. His former depositor locked the door on him and sent for the police. The police found a man who was not in the least like the fugitive of eleven years ago. The face had altered; even the scars which had made it recognizable had gone. The man had got rid of them, but he could never escape his voice. ‘ •

The voice never can be changed. But the telephone was the real detective, because it presented the voice without a face, which otherwise might have confused the impression.