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THE CHINA MAIL, JANUARY 17, 1940
REAL LIFE DETECTIVE_TRIUMPHS.
JUDGE ON
VICTIM OF INSURANCE EX-NAZI'S
FRAUD PLOT
On July 30, 1925, Charles Henry Schwartz, chemist and promoter of the Pacific Cellulose Company; re- mained longer than usual in the test room of the plant in Walnut Creek, Cal. His wife, who was disturbed by his failure to return home at the customary hour, telephoned him and he assured her that he expected to leave in about 20 minutes.
Five minutes after that message had gone over the wire there was a terrific explosion in the laboratory of the company and the plant of the Pacific Cellulose Company from which Schwartz expected to make a fortune was a hopeless wreck.
WORD
of
Kurt Wilhelm Ludecke, author the book "I Knew Hitler" and by his own admission a former agent of the Nazi Party in the United States, is having more than ordinary difficulty convincing Federal Judge Arthur J. Tuttle that he is entitled to American citizenship.
For nearly eight hours,
with only
one five-minute recess, Judge Tuttle Ludecke and fired questions at Mr.
then adjourned the hearing to allow with coun- Mr. Ludecke to appear sel and "all the witnesses you want." With a copy of Mr. Ludecke's book and a sheaf of notes gleaned from reading it, Judge Tuttle challenged Mr. Ludecke's sincerity in professing It was known that the chemist was
to have turned away from Nazlism. time and as in the building at the
"The fact that I was imprisoned soon as possible the police and firemen
inside the apart-(in a Nazi concentration camp) and and a host of volunteer workers began report of a pistol
the book ruins. Eventually ment. When the door of the
was broken that I escaped and wrote
with the a search they discovered a leg sticking out of down the dead body was found to be proves that I am through the doorway of the laboratory in that of Charles Henry Schwartz. This Nazi Party," Mr. Ludecke contended, which Schwartz had been conducting time there was no question about the It was part of a identification. The chemist left a note his experiments. charred and. battered corpse which in which he said he had killed Barbe evangelist was all but unrecognisable. The body in self-defence, after the
He caused the attacked him. the chemist. had was about the size of The remains of the moustache and a explosion to cover up the crime.
It was impossible, however, to make few other detalls satisfied the exam-
belleve that the whole of Schwartz. the police iners that it was that The final clue was a missing tooth in the mouth of the corpse.
**
*
*
Schwartz had
sum
It was
It developed that been insured for a large placed by some at $100,000. also known that his business had not been successful. The widow and re- latives of the chemist were satisfied with the identification, but the insur- ance company was not.
There was a postmortem and as a result the posi- tive announcement was made that the body was not that of Charles Henry
-By-
GEORGE BARTON
Schwartz. The tips of the fingers had been cut off, the face and hands had been covered with acid and most proved convincing of all it was that the missing tooth had been chiseled out.
One' employee of the works - Joe Rodriguez was missing, but just when the police had decided to accord him the honour of being the burnt he walked into the corpse
station house and assured them that he was alive. In the meantime the police, under the alert direction of Captain Clarence Lec, discovered a number of religious books and hymnals' on the floor
It of the wrecked test room. recalled the fact that George Barbe, a wandering evangelist, had been in the vicinity of the plant at the time of the explosion. In the end it was
proved that he was the dead man.
✡
众
**
But what had become of Schwartz? Captain Lee worked rapidly and it was not long before he ascertained that a man resembling the missing chemist had rented a room in an apartment house in Oakland shortly before the explosion. The manager said that at 4 o'clock in the morning after the disaster his tenant had come to him in an excited condition to take possession of the room. He gave his name as Harold Warren. His cloth- ing was torn und his hands and face bruised. He explained his condition by saying he had been in an auto- mobile accident.
the
One night C. W. Hayward, manager of the apartment house, saw a picture of the missing Schwartz in a newspaper. He happened to lay his hand across the lower part of the face and was struck with the resem- blance it bore to Harold Warren, his new lodger. One had a moustache, the other did not. It required but a few minutes to get in touch with Captain Led. Two squads of police were hurried to the house, one to cover the front and the other the rear, Manager Hayward tapped on the door and called to his tenant to come out. tragic response was the muffled
or
affair had not been carefully planned, he had not deliberately that selected the unfortunate Barbe as his victim in carrying out the insurance plot. But in any event the last ex- periment of the chemist and inventor was a complete failure.
Kitty
BRR=R!//
12-15
{Priseerd by The Mell Ryndiente, Ino 7
If the boy-friend is as hot as he's supposed to be why is it that he can't prevent cold chills run- ning up and down her spine when the janitor turns off the heat.
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