HOTEL TRICKSTER

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 54, Issue 3895, 28 April 1937, Page 8

HOTEL TRICKSTER

A CHARMING SMILE With the aid of an expensive-look-ing- suitcase and a charming- smile a smartly dressed man carried out a series of ingenious frauds on luxurious Paris hotels—until caught by the police. A few minutes after he and his heavy suitcase, apparently of pigskin, had been escorted to his room he telephoned down hurriedly to, the hall porter and asked him to send £2 by express letter service to a certain address, which was actually that cf some small cafe. Shortly afterwards he sauntered out of the front door with a friendly nod to the hall porter and ordered a taxicab in which he drove to the cafe, ordered a coffee, collected the letter with the money, and disappeared. Later when his bag was examined at the hotel it was found to be of cheap material and to be filled with mineral water bottles and potatoes. By misfortune he tried his scheme at an hotel which was under the same management as another establishment he had previously victimised. So when he drove up smiling to collect his usual envelope at a qafe he found the police waiting there instead.