HAUL BY THIEVES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19804, 21 May 1934, Page 6

HAUL BY THIEVES

NECKLACE VALUED AT €150,000 INNER HISTORY OF THE CRIME Only two or three persons now living know the true story of the £160,000 pearl necklace theft —a mystery which has kept experts guessing for 21 years. I am one of those persons, the other is the man whose brain conceived the plan for the theft. He was sent to penal servitude for seven years for his part in the theft. But he kept his secret. Other members of the gang concerned are now dead. But this man —whose name I am pledged not to disclose—is free again. He is going straight. He is ill business. He has married and has a grown-up family. He never talks about the past. He tries not even to think about it. In these 21 years he has seen many theories expounded to explain how a parcel posted in Paris containing a £150,000 pearl necklace could arrive apparently intact in London containing nothing but eight lumps of sugar. Not one of those theorists has hit upon the truth.

But before I tell the inner history of this crime, which by its audacity and mystery startled and intrigued the world in 1913, you must know the facts of the story as they came to light. The necklace itself, as its price suggests, was a thing of great rarity and unique beauty. Its existence was the result of years of work by a famous connoisseur of pearls. The bare cost of acquiring the necessary stones was £123,000. Each pearl was of exactly the right rosy tint, with that warm lustre known to experts as “orient.” The matching and gradation of the 61 which formed the necklace were perfect. A Sealing Wax Clue. It was one of those pieces of jewellery which seem safe from theft because of their distinctiveness and the consequent difficulty of disposal, apart from the fact that pearls are recognised in the underworld as dangerstones, the riskiest and least desirable of all booty. This was the necklace which Mr Max Mayer, the owner, a Hatton-garden jeweller, sent to Paris at the request of his agent there, to be shown to a wealthy Frenchman, a prospective buyer. It arrived safely, but the deal fell through, and the agent informed Mr Mayer that he was returning it by registered post. It was packed with three loose gems, which the agent was also returning, sealed with Mr Mayer's seal—bearing the letters "M.M.”—and handed in at a Paris post office one evening about six o’clock. Next morning the package arrived at Mr Mayer’s office in London. It was opened in his presence. But instead of the pearls it contained eight pieces of common French sugar wrapped in a semp of paper tom from the “Echo de Paris” of a date 13 days earlier. Police and insurance assessors were at work immediately. Scrutiny of the package revealed a few clues. The sealing wax at one end was different from the rest. It had been heated by a different method. Another clue followed at once. A London engraver came forward and told how he had had a talk with a stranger in a public house near HBtton-garden. After a few drinks the man asked him to make a steel die, engraved “M.M.” for him. He gave him a wax pattern to work from. The engraver did it. He charged a shilling for the job. But he did not know the man’s name. The great problem of the case wus where the change had been made. In Paris? In the boat? On the train? In London? A reward of £IO,OOO was offered in the hope that some informant would appear from the underworld. The scene of the mystery then switched to Brussels. The next character to enter was a young French Jew. One day he was approached by a relative who asked him if he was prepared to buy jewels on a big scale. Promise of a Reward. The young man was shrewd. He led his relative on to talk, and from the vague descriptions and dark hints he decided that the jewels in question could be none other than the missing pearl necklace. He took a friend into his confidence, and they came to London. They told their story to the police and insurance company concerned and secured a promise of the reward if their efforts brought about the recovery of the necklace. They then announced to their original informant that they were in touch with a possible buyer. They were introduced to two men—Silverman and Cammi Grizzard, one of the cleverest and most successful criminals of our time. They were on the right track. The two crooks met the Frenchmen by appointment in a Holborn teashop. Quite frankly they said they had the pearls. Their price was £40,000. One of them produced a matchbox from his pocket, and showed two of the pearls as specimens. From that moment every one was shadowed. The next step was to produce the "buyer" in the flesh. A friend of Mr Mayer played the part. All five then met in a bedroom of a London Hotel. Grizzard and Silverman now produced two match-boxes, and from them the complete necklace and the three loose gems which had been in the package. The “buyer” offered £4,000 for two of the largest pearls, and promised to buy the remainder at regular intervals. The offer was accepted. French banknotes for £4,000 were handed over. At this point I must say that I have never understood why Grizzard and Silverman were not arrested until some days later, when another meeting between the “buyer,” Grizzard, Silverman, and two other members of the gang tSok place at the British Museum Tube station. If the arrest had taken place at the hotel meeting the police would have got not only the men but the pearls. As it was they got the men—but no pearls. Man With a Paper Parcel. Probably rather upset by their failure to recover the jewels, the police conducted at. intensive search. They had no luck at the houses of the four men arrested nor at their offices. Then, one day, a man in working clothes walked Into an Islington police station and handed over a small brown-paper parcel he said he picked up that morning in the gutter at an omnibus stop in the district. He added that he had taken it for a collection of coloured maibles, and had carried the parcel in h-S pocket all day. He confessed that he thought he had lost one. Even the police officer who accepted the parcel failed to realise its significance and wrote out a receipt for “imitation pearls.” They were sent along to Scotlani-yard the same day and immediately identified by Mr M'ayer as his £150,000 necklace. That is prgpt lcaily the end of the story so far as has been told i j* to the present day. Cammi Grizzard and his three associated were tried for the th ft in November, 1913. The mystery of how

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Crime IMunuecl lor Months. Two or them wore Allens, and were recommended for deportation on release from prise n. < h lz/.uvd l whom I regard Us one of thr cleverest organisers I ever encountered, came out after serving his sentence, went straight back to his old game, and returned to prison again before ho died. The fourth is the man I mentioned earlier. And this is tlie story of that crime that only he and I share.

Months of organising and deluded planning preceded the actual crime. When it did come off, nobody was more surprised at the result than the gang. A pearl necklace was the last thing in the world they wanted. They could not alter the pearls in size, shape, or colour. It was diamonds they had wanted, diamonds they had counted on. So there Is one point where every theorist who has ever tried to piece together the jigsaw of the £150,000 necklace has gone wrong. No one has ever started from any premise other than that the thieves knew exactly what they were stealing! All the work at the Paris end was done by the man who told this story. For monhts he shi.dowed Mr Mayers agent. He was simply waiting his time for the coup. He watched him buy and sell his wares. Regularly he stood near the ugent in the same post office and watched him send off his packages to London. He noted with the keen eye of the professional crook the exact size and shape of each package, its seals, and the amount of postage it required. Each time he went off and made up a dummy parcel of exactly the same weight- and appearance. He posted it by the same registered mail as the agent’s package. Met Postman Every Morning. Where did he sent it? That was where the London end of the organisation came in. Many weeks before the theft, was committed Silverman rented an office in Hatton Garden. He carried on no business. It was simply an accommodation address. Its position was strategically chosen. The postman delivering in Hatton Garden enters from the Holborn end. Half way between there and Mr Mayer’s office Silverman took his office. There the dummy packages were received. They became more frequent. And every morning that a Paris registered packet was delivered at Mayer’s its twin had arrived a few minutes earlier at Silverman’s. Silverman had made arrangements with the G.P.O. weeks earlier that his mail should be delivered direct to his office and not left with the housekeeper, as was the usual practice in the premises. Every morning he was there to meet the postman. While this traffic in dummy packets was going on the gang had “fixed” two other important tilings in London. They had acquired a wax impression of Mr Mayer’s “M:M.” seal. They had corrupted a post official employee—the key factor to the whole plot. The whole scheme might have collapsed at that point. Failure to win that employee on to their side would have baulked everything. I see the subtle hand of Cammi Grizzard in this part of the plan. But even he was lucky to find a post, office employee who had his price. Of course the employee had no idea of the dimensions of the thing he was entering. He was purposely kept in ignorance. And even he, wherever he is, does not know exactly how the trick was done. The employee solved both the points the gang wanted. All he was asked to do for his bribe was to leave a package addressed to Mr Mayer with Silverman for a moment when asked to do so. One morning he allow* ed into Silverman’s hands for a few seconds a parcel addressed to Mr Mayer. A few seconds was long enough for the necessary wax impression of the seal to be taken. Awaiting the Signal fo Begin. Everything was now ready. A word from Paris was all they were waiting for. On the evening of July 15 it came. The man in Paris, following Mr Mayer’s agent as usual, watched him register and hand over the post office counter a package larger than usual. That was all he neeeded. A jeweller’s package that size must surely, contain reward enough for nil their pains. He felt sure, he told me later, that he was watching a valuable consignment of uncut diamonds being despatched. With the skill of long practice, he quickly made up the exact counterpart. Its contents were immaterial. He snatched a handful of pieces of sugar from a cofe table, wrapped enough of them in a piece of newspaper to make the weight, he wanted, and sent the package off. At the same time he sent the cable in code for which Silverman and the others were waiting in London. To-morrow was the morning! That night he left Paris in the train that carried both the jewels and the dummy packet. He was thoroughly pleased with himself. Silverman was at the Hatton Garden office bright and early next morning. As usual, he met the postman and took in the registered package addressed to himself. In the minutes before he arrived Silverman was heating a stick of sealing wax in a ladel over a spirit stove in the office. But that morning the post office employee had his second and last request to do the thing for which he Lad accepted a bribe. Obediently he had procured and handed over the package addressed to Mr Mayer. The climax of that myrtery which has lain Unsolved for 21 years took place in about three minutes. Silverman’s slick hands were busy. He opened both the real package and the dummy. But he opened Mr Mayer’s only at one end. Very, very carefully. Gently he drew out the case containing the necklace. Deftly he slipped into its place the case containing the pieces of sugar. The observation of his colleague in Paris had been deadly in its accuiacy.

Signed Receipt for Sugar. The dummy box exactly fitted the wrapping paper of the stolen case. He closed the open end of the Mayer package, resealed it with the ready sealing wax, impressed it with the duplicate “M.M.” seal. A few minutes later it was being handed in to Mr 'Mayer’s office and a clerk was solemnly signing a receipt for eight- lumps of sugar safely delivered by registered post. Surprise and dismay were common to the two ends of the affair immediately. Mr Mayer found he had lost his precious pearls. Silverman realised that his gang had acquired an unwanted and highly dangerous prize. From that moment the Mayer end of the story became public knowledge, culminating in the trial and sentence of the four men. But whao happened to the necklace? How did it reach an Islington gutter to be picked up by a workman waiting for an omnibus. From the moment the necklace came into the

possession of the Grizzard gang in Silverman’s cffice until the four men were arrested it spent every night in a safe deposit in the heart of London. It was withdrawn only when it was shown to the prospective buyers. When the four were in custody the necklace was a source of danger. The other members of the gang were too scared to touch it. Eventually one of them decided something must be done. He passed It on to a “mosker” for disposal. A “mosker” is a person unknown to the general public, but very important in the world of crime. His business is to take stolen p-operty into pawnshops, use a false name and address, and get what he can. If he can. It is a highly dangerous game. But this particular “mosker” knew that the chances of raising money on the necklace in a pawnshop and staying out of the hands of the police were practically negligible. Found in the Glitter. He realised that it was impossible for him to dispose of the pearls with safety. At last, desperate, he threw them away in an Islington streeet. And so the £150,000 pearls tinkled on the pavement, rolled along, and fell, unnoticed, to the gutter. It was the next morning that a workman, entirely innocent, of the plot, the gang, i nd the robbery, saw the lovely pearls lying where they iiad fallen. He took them to the police and received £SOO for his find. The necklace’s history after its mysterious .dventure was short. A few years later it was divided into three separate strings, and these were sold respectively in London, Paris, and New York.—John B"ll in the “Sunday Express."