THE STOLEN NECKLACE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16486, 27 February 1914, Page 8

THE STOLEN NECKLACE.

LARGE PEARL TRACED. “Times"—Sydney “Sun” Special Cables. LONDON, February 26. A large pearl, valued at £II,OOO, belonging to flayer’s famous necklace, has been mysteriously traced and recovered. • The circumstances surrounding the recovery have not been divulged. KEPT A SECRET. LONDON, February 25. ,' The insurance assessors recovered three of Mayer’s pearls, valued, at £12,000, as the result of negotiation? with persons whose identity has been kept secret. A pearl valued at £4OO, which Horne lost in a bar-room, and a diamond clasp, are missing. Mayer now values the necklace at £150,000. A REAL ROMANCE. A real life story that beats the most romantic fiction 'was told, at Bow Street Police Court in November last, when five men were placed in the dock charged with being concerned in stealing and receiving the famous pearl necklace worth which vanished while in transit between Paris and the office of the owner, Mr Max Mayer, in Hatton Garden,. London. The Court was crowded to its . utmost capacity when the five prisoners’ stepped into the dock. Prosecuting counsel ' described an amazing plot to recover the necklace, taking his hearers behind the scenes with the experts of the Criminal Investigation Department. He told how three pearls, worth thousands of pounds, were thrown in a matchbox by an apparent stranger to a man who asked for a light in a London tea shop. A dramatic,-narrative was given by the man who played the part of decoy in the thrilling hunt for the stolen gems and which ended in the arrests. His evidence was that he and the prisoners were on their way at the time to a publichouse, where no was to buy a parcel of pearls for £BOOO, the rest being sealed in three parcels for disposal later on. “ It was all done in the style of a sensational story,’’ was the comment of counsel. The . scene of the drain? changed from; Antwerp to Paris, from Paris to London, from a tea-shop to a publichouse, then a private room at an hotel, then a tube station. The packed Court followed the story closely—all except the prisoners. They listened, but impassively, as if the strange narrative did not concern them in the least.

Mr Mayer had an agency in Paris, conducted by Mr Salaman, to whom he sent, on June 19, for inspection, a very valuable pearl necklace. ■ : On July 15 it was posted back in a box to Mr Mayer. When the box was opened in Mr Mayer’s presence it was found to contain the empty jewel case, some pieces of sugar, such as are used in France, and a piece of a French newspaper. These were placed in the box ready for anyone to see who wanted to know whether the necklace had been stolen in France, or after the box had reached English soil.