TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17027, 28 April 1923, Page 1 (Supplement)

TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION.

CRIME FACTS THAT BEAT THE STORYTELLER. i If L were a writer of fiction I should lr\ to eclipse all other fiction writers bv writing stories that nobody would believe, says G. T. Cook, in the “ Daily Mail.” 1 should at least have the satisfaction of knowing that f. should be nearer the truth than anybody else. The tragedy of the Regent’s Park mystery-house is true. . If a novelist had evolved a character like Maltbv he would have been ridiculed. Yet Maltbv did live alone in the bouse with the corpse of a- woman in the bath, and for nearly five months he cooked and ate his meals in that bathroom. And he shot himself as the detectives entered. George Smith murdered three wives by drowning them one after another in a batli. In all three cases a verdict of accidental death was returned. In a novel Crippen would have been

regarded as impossible. Ho poisoned his wife and took every bone out of her body. He preserved the flesh, which he cculd have easily disposed of by burying it in the basement of his house, and he mysteriously and successfully got rid of the bones. Murderers would noi be allowed to do these things in fiction. A few years ago a thief stripped a West End jeweller’s shop window of the whole stock of valuable gems and actually replaced them with worthless substitutes, which wore not noticed until an assistant took one of them out of the window to /show a customer. There arc scores of instances in which the most Highly imaginative fiction has been put to flight by cold truth. I particularly like the story of the £150,000 near] necklace which was stolen at Hatton Garden by the cleverest jewel thieves in London. A few days later a working man picked up the jewels In the gutter. They were in a matchbox. A police inspector to whom ho took them told him to take them away, as they were imitation pearls. The man visited several public-houses and tried hard to sell them for a- pot of beer. At Eastbourne Colonel Murray conceived the idea of shooting his two wives and their children, setting fire to the house, and shooting him self. They all perished and wore burnt to ashes, with the exception of one of the women, who was shot at but escaped miraculously. But for that the identity of all these people would have keen a mystery to this dav. Colonel Murray’s real name was Money, and be lived at Clapham Junction. raSwwHßKsa .car. ansmirennEaßKau