Review: Dramas of French Crime
| Date | 01 July 1930 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3000300317 |
| Published date | 01 July 1930 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
477
situation and had the satisfaction of annoying the Duke of Monmouth and
irritating the anti-Court Party.
The
account is not presented from a legal or controversial point of view,
and the historical and dramatic side is emphasized.
THE
GREAT
PEARL ROBBERY. By C.
HUMPHREYS.
1930.
us.
6d.
(William Heinemann, London.)
THIS
book justifies its claim to make a record of fact as entrancingas detective
fiction. Dramatis personae: Grizard, criminal organizer, well known to be
amassing ill-gotten wealth,
but
unassailable by the
law:
his burglar hench-
man:
two unpleasant Austrians: a detective. Mise en scene: Hatton
Garden with its reputable and disreputable dealers, and the seemingly
unbusinesslike methods of both. Time, July 1913.
The
dealer, Max Mayer,
has returned to him by registered post from his Paris agent his famous
necklace of sixty-one rosy-coloured pearls: insured for £135,000, less than
their value: he receives eleven lumps of French sugar. European interest
aroused,
but
for one month no result. Enter two amateurs, lured by the
£10,000
reward:
their adventures and vicissitudes, first alone, afterwards
supported by Scotland Yard and otherwise. Eventual arrest of the four
miscreants
but
without the pearls: their trial and conviction, with two
problems left
unsolved-How
exactly was the opportunity created whereby
the Austrian, Silverman, abstracted the necklace
?-Why
six days after the
committal of the accused were fifty-eight of the pearls in a match-box
deliberately thrown away in an Islington
gutter?
Mr.
Justice Humphreys in his preface refers in particular to this second
problem. What, he asks, is the explanation of the throwing away of the match-
box containing the necklace?
There
is an explanation. Was it not possible
that at the bus-stop where the match-box was found there were in fact a
couple of patrols on pickpocket detective
duty?
Was it, further, not possible
that these men were mistaken for those detectives who might be looking for
the person who had the match-box; and that in sudden panic it was thought
desirable to get rid of the incriminating evidence?
Thus,
in Hamlet's
words, conscience doth make cowards of us all.
The
book naively demonstrates the unwisdom of stealing pearls instead
of diamonds, and the need that a liar, when dealing with crooks, should be
an accomplished liar, besides the utility on occasion of offering a huge reward,
the assistance the professional detective can derive from the clever amateur,
and the advisability that the latter should call in the professional before the
waters become too deep.
DRAMAS
OF
FRENCH
CRIME:
BEING
THE
EXPLOITS
OF
THE
CELEBRATED
DETECTIVE,
RENE
CASSELLARI.
1930. 18s. (Hutchinson.)
M.
RENE
CASSELLARI
was for twenty years a Commissary of the Surete
Generale, and enjoys an international reputation for brilliant detective work.
He has set down here the record of a score of his cases, providing varied fare
which includes bank and hotel robberies, train thefts, blackmail, motor
bandits, the famous theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in
19II
and a
couple of excellent spy stories.
The
son of an English mother, he is proud
of his ability to speak English almost as fluently as French, and one of his
best stories is the tale of the
'Sinister
Marquis,' an international crook,
whom he defeated by assuming the
rOle
of a 'Piccadilly
Johnny'
in a tweed
suit, with, as he says, no French worth mentioning beyond merci
beaucoup-
with emphasis on the
'boko.'
There
is no indication that the book is a
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