Daring Diamond Robberies. Thefts Committed in the Owner's Presence

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 183, 18 December 1886, Page 8

Daring Diamond Robberies. Thefts Committed in the Owner's Presence

London, October 22. For an impudent robbery, carried out with unblushing effrontery under the victim's very nose, commend me to the crime (or rather crimes) for which a highly respectable firm of manufacturing jewellers named Spencer aad Cramp (of Edgbaeton) are at present doing penitanco in durance vile. These enterprising gentlemen had business relations with Mr Mauiice Gratz, a diamond merchant of considerable standing in Birmingham, The very name of diamond merchant suggests visions of a stately and turbanned Oriental carrying about precious stones of phenominal value in mysterious inlaid boxes. Mr Grtaz (unfoitunately for the story), was not an Oriental at all, but a Jew ; moreover, he carried his diamonds — which were individually of but trifling value — prosaically wrapped up in small paper parcels. Now, in diamond dealing it often happens—says a daily paper commenting on the case— that transactions are not finished on the day which saw them begin. The custom is apparently that the atones should be sealed up, weighed, and returned to the owner by his customers. Now Spencer and Cramp evaded the weighing part of the transaction, conduct which in itself might have suggested suspicion. " Never mind," Spencer said, "it v\ ill be time enouch to weigh them when you seloct the goods," with which Mr Gratz was to be in part paid for his diamonds. As he had no reason to dream of dishonesty, he lot this pass, which wag an error of judgment. Sarah Battle was quite right to insist on " the rigour of the game." All games become flat and uninteresting, all business tcnrlß in the direction of the illegitimate, if once the " rigour " ie get a&ide. So Mr Gratz soon found. When he took stock on September 6' h he discovered that hehad fewer diamonds by inoro than six; hundred carats' weight than he ought to have po?i-essed. Already some odd things had happened. One of his packets of diamonds in Spencer's hands displayed thequality discovered by Mr Frank Stockton, and known to ecienco as "negative gravity." It ought to have contained some three hundred carat"? of diamonds ; it only contained 19G. When Mr Gra % found himsolf over six hundred carats ''short," his memory recurred to the&e things. It also struck him that while Spencer had examined the diamonds, Cramp had always held him in conversation, ju*t as tho confederate of a conjuror or the conjurer himself catches the spectators' notice with somothing of no importance while the trick is beine worked. Revolving these things in hia mind, Mr Gratz weighed out six separate parcels of diamonds, and took them on September 8 to Spencer and Cramp. Spencer telected ten carats, but on reaching home, and weighing, Mr Gratz found twentysix caiats unaccounted for. Mr Gratz then went to the police, and, with Inspector Coopor, he made up packets of which the weight was ascertained, and the number of stones in each parcel was counted. The parcels, after Spencer had selected from them, wore handed to Inspector Cooper, who always found them short. Next day the operation wag repeated, and Spencer called a toast and wished Mr Gratz luck, prophesying that he would make £10,000 out of his doalings with them. Then Spencer chose some diamonds, and, when Cramp left the room to got a paper the police rushed in dramatically and eeizert the guilty partners Inspector Cooper thru9t his hand into Spencer's brea3t pocket and pulled out a diamond. On searching Sponcer, he proves to be quite padded, as it were, witb diamonds, which he had filched away in tbo process of selecting and examining the wares of Mr Gratz. Apparently, while Spencer wa 9playing this trick at the window, with his back to th 6 light, Inspector Cooper had been watching him through the glass, and waa able accurately to determine "how it was done." Spencer held up the stones to the light in a pair of pincers, and occasionally dropped one into hi 3 breast pocket. Cramp's view of the transaction has already been alluded to. As ho pnt the matter, the diamonds wore too expensive, and they were stolen meroly to keep the balance of trade level. Gratz used "to do us in the price and we did him." Tho jury had no difficulty in arriving at a verdict on the evidence.