RADIUM HUNT COMEDY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 650, 30 September 1933, Page 3

RADIUM HUNT COMEDY

FRANTIC LONDON SEARCH FOR YALUABLE NEEDLES. DELIVERY TO WRONG ADDRESS A taxicab driver's mishearing caused a frantic search throughout London a few weeks ago for £1000 worth of radium. Dr. B.rtram Shires, the radiologist, of Welbeck Street, West London, regularly lends radium needles to the Children's Hospital in Great Ormond Street. "Every Fiiiday," said his secretary, "I put th;m in a cab for the hospital. The same evening the hospital porter sends them back here •by cab. "When I was putting the radium away in the safe I found I was 50 milligramm.es short. The doctor said | the hospital had not returned the | needles. I tdephoned to the hospij tal. They said they had sent them ! back in a taxicab. -They could not | find. the pap.r on which they had I written the taxicab's number, but they found the pad on which they had blotted it." Then the search began. Neither tha di'iver nor his cab could he found, and fears wcre felt for his safe'ty. But when the anxiety was at its height I the mystery was solved. | A detective traeed the driver. "Can 1 you tell me what happened to the radium ? " asked the detective. ' "Radi- , um," said the driver. "I don't know I anyfhing about that. I took a case j to the Palladium." The driver had faken the package to the theatre, obtained a signature for it and driven off. The manager of the theatre, Mr. Rhodes Parry, was on holiday. Mr. Simpson, the box-offiee manager, who received the packet, thought it was I a hospital collecting box and had [ locked it in the safe to awa.it the general manager's return. Everything ended happily.