Three of A Kind Get Busy

NZ Truth, Issue 1108, 24 February 1927, Page 9

Three of A Kind Get Busy

When a Trio of Sleuths Took to The Long Trail '■-■■•-.-• . . . (From "N.Z. Truths Special Auckland. Representative.) Once upon a time there were three busy B's. Their names were • Buckley, Butler and Bowman. Sometimes as they buzzed about Auckland they, wore, the law's well known blue, at others, plain civilian grey, brown or putple, according to individual taste. But all the time they watched.

FOR some weeks before Christmas they had been told off to "pick up" certain ladies :of the city, whose names, though not to be found m the visitors' . book .at Government House, are nevertheless well-known, m offir cial circles. It mattered Httle from what part of the city their search commenced, , it seemed, m practically every case, -to lead the three "B's;' to the Shamrock Hotel, particularly to the ladies; bar of that house. of alcoholic solace. What was more natural then, than that they should keep a . fatherly 'eye — six fatherly : eyes, m ■ fact — on that particular pub. It was as a result of the interest that the three "B.s" took m the Shamrock that the licensee, Walter -, John Arnold, was called' upon to explain to S.M. McKean why he allowed his hotel to be the "habitual resort" of these daughters of the. dark. - „, The first of the three "8..5" Con-; stable Buckley, told of his watch from December 4, onwards. On; that* day he had seen three .of the ladies g6 into the hotel, and later m the< afternoon one of them left m a taxi with a gentleman friend. A couple of days later he and Constable Butler had drifted into the women's bar and found two others whose occupation was ip-bre notorious; than respectable, sozzlirig gin of some' such potent concoction". Then one day he paid a surprise call and found the licensee leaning over the bar talking to one of them — Queenie Harwood.- - Quite often taxis drove up. -to the' hotel and left laden with ladies, their gentlemen friends and beer.; It may be remembered how quite a number of ladies of: a certain well-known calling, but classed by the law as "idle and disorderly persons," were given a holiday "varying from ono month to threa, - . . . . - - - -

at Mt. Eden, just before Christ- ' mas. Fourteen of them were gathered m from that same ladies' bar at the Shamrock, F.C. Buckley said: "I pointed the women' out to him," said Sergeant Turner, who had also been a move or less frequent visitor to the Shamrock, having knOwn Arnold for some two and a'-half years, "and he said, 'Well, sergeant, if I turned these women away, I'd have to close my doors, it's the women who are paying my rent.'" Sergeant Danford had seen a man kissing one of the women on the doorstep. - . "Oh, on the" doorstep, not on the mouth," commented Lawyer McVeagh, who was watching Arnold's interests m the case. . . Just inside there had been another couple kissing, the" sergeant went on. Arnold was not m court to answer the charge, so Lawyer McVeagh was ' badly handicapped m thi, face of the overwhelming police evidence. He was embarrassed further, he said, by the fact that his client had gone south. He stressed Arnold's state of health during the time the three "B.s" and the sergeant had referred to and produced a doctor's certificate. ' But Magistrate McKean was more than convinced of Arnold's guilt. "I really" don't think I can assume that he did not know," said the bench. "There is not the slightest doubt he knows as much about Queenie Harwood as the police. "The other women were pointed out to him by the police. At any rate, the defendant is not here- to give any evidence. "'■ '- ; '.'- ■:■ "I must assume that he did know," And Arnold was fined the maximum, £ 10, and was only saved from having his license endorsed by the fact tttatv s he no longer possessed one. '- i ■■■ " ■- ". ■*■-■ -