1947-08-23 — Page 7

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 1947.

DRAMAS OF SCOTLAND YARD

How the slippiest burglar was caught

When clues failed a detective's

hunch did the trick

MAGINATION plays a much bigger part in the detection of criminals than is popularly supposed. I have achieved some of my best re- sults by following "hunches."

by Ex-SUPT. T. B. THOMPSON late of the Big Five'

When I told this to a few select-

people JIL *the neighbour- Bood, and emphasised that I was out for "Flannelfoot" alone and had golden-haired nothing against 'the

Some men would not have been caught at all if I had not relied on intuition to anticipate girl or her aunt, I obtained will the next move of a criminal and so trap him by "following in front."

. Much has Leen written about the career and capture of "Flannelfoot," the burglar who baffled the Yard for nearly 20 years, but I have never told the story of how the bed-time tale of a little girl gave me the vital clue in tracking him, how A sudden "hunch" of mine pra vented his last-minute escape.

His 1,000 "jobs”

WAS a chief inspector when I was put in charge of the There was little to go case. on; the record of nearly 1,000 burglaries and the strong sus- picion that "Flannelfoot"

Was

a man named Henry Edward Vickers.

ing observers.

I returned to London and waited. fur news.

After months of walling, it came.

heard that the aunt was o visit to the fame girl and was re- turning immediately to London by

motor-coach.

wan

One Friday night we were con- vinced that "Flannelfoot going out to do a job, and we not out to catch him red-handed.

My team of seven were there ready to tail him to the end,

I sat in the office waiting for Iesult.

and

the

But as the evening went on, I bo- came restive. I had a "hunch" that I should be on the scene myself,, The Arrest

T lust I could stand it no longer. called up a Yord car arid with Superintendent J. D. Duncan went to Holland-park:

A With the message came a descrip- Inspector-now tion, of her appearance.

#

to

Some colleagues thought I wns over-cautious when I sent one de- tective to join the coach and shadow her to town, another to the motor- coachi terminus, and then with colleague went myself in a car intercept the coach en route.

But my

precautions were. justi- fied: The

Arat woman gave my

the watcher the slip at the start: coach, because it had few passen- grs, took a short cut and by-passed my waiting car.

My reserve at the coach stop picked up the trail and followed the woman to house in Holland-park, W.

Henry Vickers had deserted - We had found "Flannelfool's" his wife, taken his 11-year-old. home. The next job was to watch

his every movement. daughter with him, and

com-

pletely disappeared. So con- A tricky man

fident was he that on one oc- casion-and this is an inside secret of the Yard told for the Now, crooks are extremely sen Isitive to observers, and “Flannel- first time-he rang us up and foot"

than was smarter

most. told us that we could have A He was up to every trick to detect rest as "Flannelfoot" was go- and avold shadowers. ing on holiday.

He would walk slowly round corners and then double-back, He did, and we had a rest. almost colliding with his "tail" and But "Flannelfool" was not making it extremely difficult for the above taking a busman's holi- follower to continue on the Job day and he paid for his rest without giving himself away. from London by doing several jobs on the south coast!

Chat with girl

As my car reached the end of the street, Sergeant-now Inspector-R. N. Orson, one of my watchers, gave me the word: "It's begun. He has Just left the house."

Any Idea of keeping observation on him by ordinary methods was out A détective in that country- side would have been more of a landmark than. St Paul's or the prb- posed Bankside power station.

Once again I found a good friend, A woman in the row of cottages was the daughter of a policeman. I persuaded her to help us.

But from the peculiar situation it had to be a case of "shadowing from the front."~:

In other words, we could not have

a follower on We had to

POCKET CARTOON

"One might almost say a phenomenal rite in praduction..."

have advance information of W NEW FIGHTER

our man had left, and in which direction, and then use our

Intel

gence to meet him on his way. TO RIDE IN

I had a conference with Inspec- tor R. Stevens, who was on the job, with me, and finally we procured a portablo wireless. transmitter, taught the woman to use it, and then we awaited results.

alarms

There were a number of when we were edvised over 1lttic radio that the man had his cottage and gone away on motor-cycle.

N

Cottage raid

BAY OF B-36

The US Army Air Forces have under production a new the type of fighter plane that can left be carried in the bomb bay of a B-36' heavy bomber and launched in mid-air to fight off enemy attack.

his

some occasions we failed to pick up the trall. On others his mission was innocent.

Then once we had flash that out on the Wootton Bas- scit road. We pleked up his trail.

He went into a village shop. Swindon detective Inspector dived

A few minutes later two of my detectives came racing back to me he was cursing grimly,

"Let us in, guvnor," panted one. "Our car has broken down,"

If I had not obeyed my hunch, the whole chain system would have collapsed at the start.

But my car proved even more valuable soon afterwards,

"Flannelfoot" beat my shadower on to a tube train, but the detec- tive had heard him book to Rulallp.

A

in after him and asked to see what money he had changed.

One of the notes was a forgery, but by the time the detective left the shop our man had vanished.

But by ΠΟΥ We were certain enough. It only remained to catch the man. When we raided his cot- tage we found his forging appara- tus, and got a conviction.

This new type "parasite fighter" fa now under construction at the McDonell aircraft plant in St Louis, it is designated the Xp-85,

It has a jet engine and is expected to have a speed approaching that of the P-81 that recently set a world speed record at Muroc, California.

The USAAF would not comment on the characteristics of the plane either/ or to its size, performance, range or speed. But cicers said i would be launched in mid-air and that it would return to the mother plane.

The B-36 bomber, a six engine plane constructed by Consolidated

has undergone Vulice,

its initial in-night and is now preparing to be given ground tests at Wright Field, Ohio, USAAF testing centre.

the

But we would never have finished My driver jammed his foot down, that case if we had not used and we raced that train to Ruislip witlon and wrticipation-or, as by a bare minule;

Jockeys say, waited in front.

NEXT WEEK

We picked up "Flannelfoot" again, lost him in the darkness, re- covered him almost at once, and Set a woman to catch fually caught him, just after hc had finished a burglary.

to

is arrest and his sentence five years' penal servitude in De- cember 1937--just ave years before his death were sensational news.

But no one knew how tenuous had been the threads which led us cleverest If he took a tube, "Flannelfoot" to the defcat of Britain's would hang about on the platform burglar.

until the moving doors began Lo

close, and would then slide between Note forger

them at the last second, leaving

EARLY in 1936 "Flannel- ls shadower helpless on the plat-

foot's"

daughter

* was

found suffering from loss of memory.

form.

A

NOTHER outstanding · case of anticipation was the capture of To keep watch on "Flannelfoot" I a banknote forger.

used which has been extensively

She could not give any use- ful description of the woman-on-duty, who was living with her father, and she did not now the ad- dress where she had been liv ing with them both.

Then her mother claimed her, took her home to a country town near London.

I wont to the address, found the girl in the house alone, and had a quiet chat with-her.

There was little I could gain by direct questioning. I knew that, and did not worry the girl.

But I asked her about the

a woman.

The B-30 is the bomber which the USAAF said could carry the atomie bomb to any inhabited region in the world and retum home without refuelling.

COMMENT BY "CANDIDUS"

Don't Think There Won't

Be A "Next Time

with

wore

for

99

CCORDING to on American of terror throughout the earth, of human historian of international fame, overthrow every form

destroy Church and the cost of the recent "War for freedom, Survival,"

its destruction. State. and revert to medieval devastation and economie losses. is despotism. To accomplish this their

and trained 000,000. There

sinughter. more thon

human generation estimated at the sum of $1,000,000,- leaders had raised 20,000,000 camalties: 30.000.000 more Mankind was to lose everything it

-driven-hud- gained through seventy

cen men, women-and-children- from their homes: 10,000,000 more turies of human progress. Every thousands race, nationality, and creed was to massacred; hundreds of of homes left in ruins.

be subjected to a paganistic system of "lite". of slavery. The rights General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Ex-liberty and the pursuit of happiness

were to be abolished." peditionary Forces, stated shortly

end of of after the

the war: "The

thought." The

Invented the chain shadow system, At that time I was a specialist in sce. I had a team of suven, three forgery and was engaged on a num- women and four men, continually bir of Bank of England cases.

Some excellent forgeries of £1 Four of them cruised round the notes were being put into circula- The three tion, mainly in the Satith Wales nearby streets in a car. watchers followed each other in the aro

Inquiries at Cardiff yielded in- "Flannelfont" chnin. No. 1 tailed No. 2 tailed No. 1, and No. 3 follow- formation that there was a clever ed on.

young artist there, who could draw at partits excellent Imitations

When "Flannelfort" doubled back to catch my No. 1, the detective strolled quietly, by him and did not even look round.

No. 2 took up the shadowing, one of the detectives in the car got out to become the new No. 3, and the old No. 1.picked up the car on Its

next trip.

Thus the shadowers were can- tinually changing, ond "Flannel

thint foot" never had

instinctive

saved many crooks' from arrest.

banknotes, but there was nothing to

implicate him.

I kept a map showing the of circulation of forgeries, and later found that similar bad notes were turning up in Wiltshire.

Forces was unity of

keynote of the success of the Allied HOW those forces of evil, in spite their present privations, must General went on to say that the inwardly gloat over the plight of keynote of a successful peace would their

victors today! They

aro

be team-work and unity of purpose already exerting themselves in or fret nations of the der to restore their economic stabi- among the world.

lity, and with this end in view. they doubtless rejoice in the In-

to One of my hunches led me On diff pollee, and they told us make further inquiries of the Car- their artist acquaintance had South Wales for a village Swindon.

I vislied the village and

that left

veria.

Admirai Nimitz referred

de ability of Britain and other nations scathing terms to Germany's de-

to shake off the almost overwhelm- generate barbarism and to Japan's

ing burdens caused by the nations savage conquest and brutal rule. near Dr Francis T. Miller, in discussing of the foully conceived Axis.

In Hongkong

ong today, one can once "Causes and Results of World War

evidence again buy Japanese products, which foundII" states: "Documentary

come in without that the Axis apparently

enforced against reparations.

stories that "auntie" used to tell feeling of being watched which has that he was living in a row of cot-proves irrefutably

her at bed-time: among the familar legends and fairy tales there were vague mentions of "another little girl like me, . with golden hair, only she has a limp.

"Oh, yes, and auntie told me once that when she was young she used to stand on the roadsido mear her home and watch the! King and Queen 'drive down to Sandringham."

Two clues, Vague enough. A golden-haired girl with a limp and 100 miles of road between! London and Sandringham.. "But they were something to work!

on,

I

Formal inquiries by the local police yielded no results. went down to Norfolk myself; and began a long, slow search,

At last, after many weeks, I fourd, in the eastern counties, { the golden-haired girl who had been lame, from birth.

She was in service at a coun- try house, and I learned that her aunt from London made occasional visits to see her.

Now, "Flannelfoot" was a burglar who preyed on the working classes.

His usual night for operations was Friday, his field of action the kit- chons of small suburban houses, his target the householder's... weekly, wage packet.

MARSHALL Paris Conference

any

tagis surrounded by open fields. plague threatened, to set up a reign duty or tax which might well be

If France participated in the discussions

- it would not be to give Germany "priority"

in reconstruction — BIDAULT.

WHAT! HO ROUND TABLE ?

I can only

course, I can hear someone saying: "Yes, that's all very well-but who would

pay the tax?”

In say that if people desire to assist the resurrection of those ends who caused our own bereavements and material losses, and if such a tax would cheek such, ill-deserved resur- rection then it would be wise in the Interest of the future of the world.

THERE is a general tendency today to consider the war which dis- rupted worldwide economy an mere- ly a phase. That it was no more than a phase is a bliter disappoint ment to the German and Japanese beasts-yes, and I would Include the treacherous Italians in my con- demnation of those who schemed to exterminate the world's freedom loving races. If there is a "next time"--and don't delude yourselves Into thinking that there will not be a. "next time"-It may not be a passing phase, but the dawn of hideous

would despotism which place your children and your chil dren's children...

ມາ. the bonds ot slavery for ever.

Today, the Japanese are fawning and cringing in their defeat. They will eat out of the hand of Muc- Arthur as long as the whip is in evidence. Give them 'but chance, and the Far East will again rover- berate to the whining of their shells, the crashing of their bombs, and the roping and torturing by theit Inhuman species.

Recently we have heard it ex- pressed that bualriess men havo not been given immediate oppor- tunity to return to Japan. Onco ogain the pursuit of money offers a pleasant antidote to the naused which afflicted humanity when the horrors of Belsen, the gas chambers, and the Japanese torturing, were told to the world. Shall we never Licarn?!

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