The Star. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1597. THAT AUCKLAND FIRE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6052, 14 December 1897, Page 2

The Star. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1597. THAT AUCKLAND FIRE.

I • THE "WHARF SHED MYSTERY | SOLVED. AX EXCITING NARRATION. STORY OF ROBBERY AND TREACHERY. A. specially written article in the Auckland morning journal runs as follows : — The mystery of the extraordinary outbreak of fire in the Harbour Board's shed on the wharf on Sunday, Nov. 28. has been at last explained, and gives confirmation to the oft-repeated adage that truth is stranger than fiction. The reticence of the police on the subject is part of the policy that has been recently introduced of refusing information to the press, under the apprehension that the disclosure of what may be the police clue to a crime may defeat the ends or justice ; but nothing could more clearly show the folly of such a system than the present case, because if the information in the possession of the police had been promptly j conveyed to the public a look-out would j have been kept at various points and inlets j oa the harbour, and the ruffians might ; probably have been prevented from getting j away with their ill-gotten booty. My \ source of information is the same as that | possessed by the police, and I have not the j least hesitation in disclosing all that is ; known on the subject, although unhappily, it may be too late now to get on the trail of the fugitives. The discovery of <■ A LARGE SQUARE HOLE iv the flooring of the wharf, after the debris had been thrust aside, was the firstindication to lead to the suspicion of the way in which the robbers had effected an entrance to the shed ; but the mystery of even this would probably have remained in obscurity had it not been that the principals, in their alarm at the suddenness of the outbreak of the fire, had decamped, leaving one of the number to his fate, and he, partly in revenge on his pal 3 for their cowardly desertion of him, but chiefly to save his own skin, has made a disclosure of the whole affair. It appears that operations were commenced on Saturday night, between eleven and twelve o'clock, shortly after the crowd which usually promenades on the wharf had cleared away, when a boat, containing three men, two of theiH bearing the evidently assumed names of Sloane and Williams, and the third Dob- '

son, who has now put the police on the scent, SLOWLY CREPT IN under the darkness beneath the outer tee, and the tide being nearing the full, they were enabled to reach the flooring of the wharf without difficulty. As the tee is some three hundred feet in length and about one hundred in width, they were, of course, in absolute obscurity among the piles and stringers, and could not have been observed even from a boat in the basin, to say nothing of the watch- j men or other persons promenading on the wharf above them. The three men had been passengers by the Rangatira, and though Dobson professes to have an unblemished record, it is quite clear that they all had a past, from the deliberation and skill with which they planned and carried out their nefarious work. However this may be, they had taken notice of the cargo going on board at the London Docks, and particularly of a LARGE CASE which they had seen to be. consigned to one of our principal jewellers, and which they concluded contained nrticles of great value. Sloane, who had been in the colony before, and was familiar with the construction of the wharf, told them that he had frequently contemplated the robbery of the sheds, for which every facility was afforded by their construction on the deck of the wharf. He had informed them how the cargo of the Rangatira would probably be stowed away in one of the sheds, and he had determined especially to keep his eye on the case of jewellery, which would well reward the three of them for the adventure. During the whole time while the cargo was being discharged they had hung about the hatches and gangway and sheds, taking watch turn and turn about, and then, on Thursday afternoon, Sloane had caught sight of jjhe case of jewellery, and they noted accurately where it was stowed away in the shed. Then on Saturday night, after spending two days in making their preparations, THEY SET TO WORK, and from their place in the boat under the tee making a couple of augur holes in the decking of the wharf above them, they proceeded to saw away the planking. They had the work of sawing through four of the planks almost completed when the morticing saw broke off short, and they were obliged to desist. That night they camped out at Brick Bay, and on Sunday morning they rowed over to the wharf, and casually floating about, took a glance at the work they had done, and the bearings of the position. Shortly after midnight they resumed operations, and the tide being more favourable they were enabled to complete what they had to do with rapidity, when suddenly the planking, which they had been propping up gave way above them, and with a lot of debris, wooden blocks, and even some cargo, came TUMBLING DOWN ON THE TOP OF THEM, and fell with a great rattle into the boat. Immediately after they heard the hasty steps of somebody, apparently the watchman, hurrying along on the side of the wharf overhead, as if he had been alarmed,, and they were on the point of scooting out from under the wharf and rowing off for their lives. However, after a short time — in which the man, whoever he was, evidently got down, and endeavoured to peer under the wharf, but then satisfied apparently that nothing was wrong, went on his round— and they heard his footsteps receding in the distance. However, they deemed it prudent to lie low, and for nearly an hour they kept perfectly still in the boat with oars ready, and prepared to make a dash for mid-channel if anything suspicious occurred. At last they saw that the coast was clear, and after lifting out the rubbish that had fallen on them, and making the boat fast they : SCRAMBLED UP INto THE SHED. Sloaae had no difficulty in making his way to the case of jewellery, and he and Dobson reached it down to Williams in the boat below. Then they proceeded to select in the dark whatever cases of a smaller and portable kind they believed to contain the most valuable class of things, and generally rummaged about, clambering over the top of the goods. They had been engaged in this way for better*than half-an-hour, and had got the boat well filled with cases of spirits and wine and various articles, and were about to leave, having got as much as they could stow away, when unfortunately for them a case was displaced from the top of the cargo and fell with a crash of glass on the floor of the shed. For a moment they lay still as they were, when looking back, they saw a thin stream lighted up with A PALE BLUE FLAME, stealing along the floor. Fascinated for a moment, Dobson watched the mysterious blue flame creeping along the planking, and lighting up the shed with a ghastly hue, when suddenly the flame flashed up to right and left of the little stream of light, and he realised that the shed was really on fire. Sloane had in the meantime made his way to the hole in the decking, and when Dobson reached the same place the boat had left and disappeared in the darkness. Cursing his pals who had left him to destruction, Dobson swung himself down through the hole in the flooring, and slid down the stringers till he reached the water's edge, and from the ruddy glow that lit up the harbour he saw that the, fire had burst through the rcof . Paralysed at thought of the dreadful position in which he found himself between the fire of a building ablaze above him, and the hand of the law ready to clutch him, Dobson thought at first of dropping into thesea and drowning himself, but life was sweet, and he determined to make AN EFFORT TO ESCAPE. Looking away to mid-channel he could see the sails which he knew to be the sails of the boat in which his pals had escaped, lit up by the ruddy glow that now filled the horizon, and was reflected back from the clouds. He shook his clenched fist at them, and again savagely cursed them from his heart, but meantime the firebell with its horrid clanguor was ringing out the alarum, and he knew that in a few minutes thousands of people would crowd to the wharf, and that he must surely be detected in the glow of the fire if, more dreadful still, he was not roasted as he clung to the wharf. SWIMMING FROM PILE TO PILE, and holding on by the stringers to rest himself, he made his way right under the fire, and under the feet of the firemen and the crowds of people lining the wharf, until he reached the end of the western tee, wheu, clambering up the stringers and piles, by a terrific effort he hauled himself up on the floor of the wharf, where he lay for a few moments exhausted. Gathering himself together at last, he stole away round by the back of the sheds, and mingling with the crowd, whose eyes were intently fixed on the fire and did not observe his I approach, he quietly found his way, in the ! confusion, to Queen Street. What has ! become of the fugitives Sloane and ! Williams, and where they have buried the ', plunder it is j THE BUSINESS OF THE POLICE Ito find out. Ihese have already their eye on a boat, in fact, on several boats, and uo | doubt, with their usual zeal and efficiency, they will hunt down the trail of the miscreants. But the surprising thing is that with such a temptation constantly presented, and with such facilities as were afforded in the construction of these buildings over the water, these goods sheds have not been robbed long ago through the decking of the wharf ; and it is a deplorable thing that on the very first occasion on which the job had been attempted, the robbers, by their careless handling of the carboy of acid, should have produced this dreadful catastrophe.