New-York tribune., 1920-01-25
Seize
Auto, 4 Guards
And $4,000
Three Capture a Pay Car
at Red Bank Factory Gate
and Dash Out of Town:
z Caught With $4,000

81 Taught With $4,000
Special Correspondence
RED BANK, N. j., Jan. 24.-Three
men made off in broad daylight here
to-day with a pay roll amounting to
$4,000, it's four custodians and the
automobile in which they were carry
ing it. Two of them were CAPTURED
about six hours later at Perth Amboy
with $4,000 of the money. The hold.
up men were employees of the firm
that was robbed.
1t was about 10 o'clock yesterday
morning. Harold B. Clark, head of
the shipping department of the Sig
mund Eisncr Company; Benjamin Van
keuren, of the purchasing department,
and Louis Van Kelst, an office en-
ployee, had been to the Second Ma
tional Bank for the first installment
OF the weeks pay roll. They were in
a commercial motor car bearing the
name OF the company, which manu-
features uniforms. Howard MacGrady
was driving.
Held Up at Entrance
AS the car drew up at the Bridge
Avenue entrance of the Eisner factory,
which is used only by employees, three
men stepped to the running board Two
of them had revovers. The third
reached into the rear of the car and
seized a bulky leather bag which CON
tanned $4,000.
keep right on going" he advised
MacGrady, as soon as he had made GER
tain he had the money bag.
With the revolvers Of the other ban
dts nudging his ribs, MacGrady lost
no time in taking the advice They
raced north across COoper's Bridge and
on beyond the town limits, where the
car .joited, careened and skidded on a
road whose icy hummocks and ruts
were concealed by slush and snow
water.
There are few houses along the route
they took and the condition Of the road
was such that no one was abroad who
could avoid it. They met no one. On
reaching the scattered settlement of
Headden's Corner, two miles and moro
north of the factory, the bandits told
Mac cGrady to stop.
"Here's where you get out and walk"
said one of them to the guardians of
the pay roll. "We'll go on with the
money"
MacGrady and his three companions
splashed out into the puddles and stood
lndecisively, glaring at their captors
go on, now, beat it," said one of
the robbers. waving his revolver
AS the four men picked their way
slowly down the road the bandits be-
gan to shoot over their heads to speed
their departure. After four or five
shots had been fred they started the
car, turning down road leading to
Atlantic Highlands.
Victim of Phone Alarm
When the car was out of sight the
four men who had been ordered out of
it turned and made their way to Ed
ward OFlaherty's store at Hadden's
Corner, whence they telephoned the
alarm to the Eisner factory. 1t was
only about half an hour since they had
been kidnapped at its gate with the
payroll and their message was received
with aSt0nishment. No one at the fac
tory had seen the hold-up or suspected
that the slight delay in receiving the
pay roll was significant.
John j. Quinn, Assistant Prosecutor,
and John NJ. Smith, county detective,
spread the alarm far and wide by tele-
phone, giving a description of the car
the car was found abandoned in
lonely stretch Of road beside the es-
tates of Percy S. and Herbert S. Straus,
Of r. II. Macy & Co., New York.
The hold-up men, evidently appre-
ciating that they could not hope to
travel far in a car labelled with the
name Of the firm they had robbed,
had left it within a mile of Headdcn's
Corner and gone on afoot in the dircc-
tion of Atlantic Highlands. Instead Of
walking in the center of the road
where slush and water would nave CON
ccaled their tracks, they picked their
way beside it.
Attract Attention
Everywhere they went the pIodding
trio with the bulky leather bag, each of
them with his cap pulled down over his
eyes, attracted attention. Within two
hours it was known that they had
passed through Locust Point on their
way to Atlantic Highlands. Before any
one conversant with the situation had
seen them at Atlantic Highlands, they
had engaged Charles Stryker to take
them to Kevnort in his taxicab. They
paid him $40 and gave him tip of
81, rcmarking that it was bad weather
for motoring.
At Kcyport they bought three cheap
suitcascs and, it is thought, split the
plundcr into three parts. One Of them
bought a collar and nccktic and all in
vested in fruit cake which they ate
on the curb. They made some in
quirics also as to the possibility of
getting a room at a hotel Constable
White took note OF the strangers in
town and when he learned of the rob
berry on reaching the police station he
telephoncd to Red Bank at once and
started to hunt up the strangers.
BY that time, however, they were on
trolley car bound for Perth Amboy.
1t was another patrolman with n Wig
liant eye for strangers who arrested
two Of them there. Patrolman John
Murray, regulating traffic at Smith and
Stagg streets, spotted the pair and
notified detective who arrested them
az they were about to take boat Tor
New York
The prisoners arc Victor Bruno,
twenty years old, Of Rumson, N: D.,