Masked Man With a Revolver

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 40, 10 May 1927, Page 9

Masked Man With a Revolver

While the guests were at dir city hotel, the lady clerk at the Two guests had arrive’d and the porter was showing them upstairs with their luggage, leaving the vestibule for the moment unguarded. The clerk in the inquiry office heard a movement at the window. Looking up, she found herself face to face with a levelled revolver, held by a man who had the lower part of his face hidden by a black handkerchief. “Hand over that bag, or I’ll shoot!” commanded the stranger, indicating a bag of money on the table, just out of his reach. Though thus surprised, the clerk for the moment believed it to be a joke being perpetrated by someone familiar w.ith the hotel. She came to the window. “Don’t be silly, pointing that gun,”

HOTEL CLERK HELD UP

ner last night at a well-known inquiry counter had a queer visitor. she said. “You ought to have more sense.” The masked man made a threatening gesture with the revolver. “You hand over that bag, or I’ll shoot you,” he said. Instantly, realising that this was no joke, the clerk incontinently bolted around a corner into cover. But the bag was not taken, for further guests came through the main entrance and the man with •he gun disappeared. As the time was 6.45, and guests and employees pass freely up and down the stairs to the dining-room at that hour, the incident is regarded as a particularly daring bluff to frighten the clerk in the inquiry office and make a quick get-away with the case on the part of some individual who is intimate with the hotel.