CATHEDRAL LOOTER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 875, 20 January 1930, Page 13

CATHEDRAL LOOTER

TITLED PLUNDERER LIVED IN TOWER Few stranger histories have been written by either the romantic novelist or the author of detective fiction than the story of how Count Pyelik Inna succeeded in plundering the treasury of Zagreb Cathedral under the very nose of the Bishop and chapter. The links in ike chain of crime reach through half a dozen European capitals, stretching finally across the Atlantic to the Cleveland Museum. The chapter of- Zagreb Cathedral, one of the wealthiest in the Balkans, was fortunate in the possession, not only of wide lands, but of a treasury stocked with examples of the goldsmith's art famed for their artistic and intrinsic value. One of the best known was the so-called “Zagreb diptych.” Last spring, a well-known Vienna art dealer named Gliiekselig, arrived in Zagreb to negotiate the purchase of the diptych for a customer who had seen it at the Historical Art Exhibition in Zagreb in 1925. He offered £4,000, but the chapter declined even to discuss the proposal to sell. Shortly afterward Gliiekselig learned that the diptych had been sold to the Cleveland Museum for £B,OOO. But he was surprised to discover that the American dealer who had sold it to Cleveland had bought it in Paris in 1927 for only £2,000, half the sum which had been rejected without discussion when he offered it. Cathedral Chapter Gets a Shock He resolved to make inquiries, and appeared in Zagreb accompanied by the Frankfort expert, Hagenbruck, and asked the cathedral chapter how it was that they had refused to sell the treasure to him instead of merely telling him that it was already sold. What, was his amazement to hear from them that the diptych remained in the cathedral treasury and that anything in Cleveland purporting to be it could be nothing but a copy. The amazement, however, passed from the art experts to the chapter when they inspected the treasury together and discovered that the copy was not in Cleveland but in Zagreb—and a very poor copy at that. Now a thorough examination of the contents of the treasury was instituted and it was discovered that it had been well plundered. The mediaeval mitres were intact, hut the valuable Bishops’ croziers had been tampered with. Huge emeralds, amethysts and diamonds had been replaced by worthless glass. Bishops’ rings had been stolen and many precious stones in other church treasures exchanged for glass. Police inquiries as to the persons who had access to the cathedral treasures revealed that the only stranger who had frequently inspected them recently, was a Count Pyelik Inna. The Count, apparently a man of wealth, had appeared in Zagreb a year earlier with his wife. He explained that he had to study the treasures of the cathedral and persuaded the bellringer to accommodate him and his wife in a room in the cathedral tower, overlooking the city. At the end of the year, the pair suddenly vanished, leaving some of their property and letters behind. These enabled the police to trace the romantic history of the young Count. He was, as he believed until the death of his father, the son Of a poor peasant, but, as in the story books, his “father” oil his deathbed told him that he was really the son of a noble family living in one of the many castles around Spalato in Dalmatia. He brought a number of legal actions against his distinguished relations but, as an illegitimate child, was unable to obtain any share of the property. Setting up in business as an art dealer, he wandered through many countries, and through transactions in objects of art, became acquainted with an Italian counteßS, who adopted him and conferred on him the title of Count Pyelik Inna to console him for the one which his illegitimate birth prevented him from inheriting. Ho established a shop in Paris which soon became known to connoisseurs on account of the extraordinarily lucky finds which Count Inna

managed to make. Once it was a sword of the Croatian King, mode in 1057, another time he discovered an unknown Titian in the tiny hamlet of Prbnik in Yugoslavia, still another time there was an invaluable silver statuette of Christ placed in 1715 on the altar of St. Anthony in the parish church of Klanjec. This last he presented to the chapter of Zagred Cathedral, securing thereby their favour and complete trust. The police soon got on his tracks. First they arrested in Dalmatia his “Countess," a pretty Y’ugoslav girl called Katitza Skarnitsch, who admitted living for months in the Count's eyrie in the tower of Zagreb Cathedral, hut declared she knew nothing of his ''artistic’’ activities. The police of Paris, London and New York searched in vain for the elusive Count for several months. But the thefts were too important for them to drop the trail lightly, and one night he was arrested outside the hotel in Paris where he had been living under a false name.