New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1921-09-29
Buys Auto With
Bad Check, but
Agent IrapsHinn
Sleek Youth Escorted TO
Station When Salesman
Finds Him Dining With
Girl; Tells of Big Income
Tries to Take Poison
Escapes From Captors and
Hides in Coal Bin, but
Is Finally Taken to Jail


It was an extremely sleek and orna-
mental young man who bought car
at the Studebaker salesrooms, 1900
Broadway, Monday. An almost visible
aura of affluence radiated from him.
That is evident from the fact that all
he had to do was to sign check for
$1,000 and drive off in the car he had
selected.
He was still sleek and even more
ornamental than before, in superbly
fitting suit of greenish-brown mix
ture, silk negligee shirt. brown silk
socks and immaculate tan oxfords, as
he sat last night with a delectable
looking young woman in a restaurant
at Broadway and Forty~ninth Street.
He looked good to r. L. Mcclure, who
happened into the restaurant about dim
ner time, for Mr.. Mcclure was the
salesman who had accepted the check
and turned over the automobile. He
had been looking for &C. H. MacFar-
land" as he judged the young man to
be from the name signed to the check.
ever since the Bank of Montreal had
1epudiated the slip of paper with the
brief comment: mo Funds"
Phoncd for Police
Mr. MCGUIRE went right out and tele-
phoned to the West Forty-seventh
Street police station that he had found
his man. He waited impatiently until
Detectives Fitzgerald and Denison
showed up. At their whispered sum-
mons, the extremely sleek and orna-
looking young woman sitting alone and
dumfounded at the table and strolled
out of The restaurant.
His companions took him to the West
Fortyseventh Street police station,
where he was booked as William D.
Brown, no occupation, unmarried and
living just now at the Netherlands
Hotel, Fifty-ninth Street and Fifth
Avenue. Before going there, he in
formed the police, he had lived at the
Ciaridge for few weeks.
They took him to the detective
bureau on the second floor to ask
why he carried bottle labelled choral,
which was full of brownish crystals
and to wait for the patrol wagon which
was to take him to Headquarters. lie
SKID he carried the phial of choral for
TO particular reason except that
physician in Canada had given him
prescription for the stuff.
SIT don't look any too easy to take,
observed Denison.
"I1l show you how easy it is" said
young Mr. Brown, reaching suddenly
for the bottle.
Denison moved it out of his reach
and he and Fitzgerald and Detective
Masked kept a vigilant eye on their
unconcerned prisoner thereafter
Nevertheless, they. were not vigilant
enough to prevent him from rising
from his chair IS though it had been
a .catapult and boiling through the
door.
Vanished in Cellar
They pursued him down two flights
of stairs to the cellar and there the
sleek and ornamental young man van
ished as though he had some strange
affinity for cellars which caused them
to absorb him completely. Not so much
as chemists trace of him could the
detectives find. They called the re-
serves, posted uniformed patrolman at
every window and door in the cellar
and went through it again.
This time they found him. but he
was not the sleek and ornamental
young man he had been. When they
dug him out from beneath pile of
coal in the bin he would have had diff
Guilty in buying an automobile if he
had been ready to pay for it in real
Until the patrol wagon arrived they
handcuffed him to char. Then they
hsndcuffed him to Fitzgerald. who ac-
companied him to Headquarters. Fitz-
gerald said that the disreputable look
ing young man confided 10 him that he
enjoyed an income of $4,000 from a
trust fund of s750,OO0, but didn't en-
joy it for more than about a third CT
the year allotted to it.
After about four months, Fitzgerald
said the young man told him, the in
come always was gone. 1t cost him,
according to Fitzgerald's recollection
of the young mans statements, more
than $4,000 a year to live. When
Fitzgerald expressed surprise at this
his companion said, according to the
detective:
Listen, young man, you trail with me
along Broadway and you'll see Pm tell
ing you the truth. 1t costs me $50 .0OC
year to live, and more. Broadway is
an expensive luxury. You travel with
me and you'll see."
Fitzgerald went no farther with him
than Headquarters, however.