DOWELL’S

Cartage & Storage Co., Ltd.
BONDED CARRIERS
Moving - Shipping - Packing - Storage
LOW INSURANCE RATES
1119 Wharf St. G-7191 Victoria, B.C.

WILLIAMSON’S

ARTISTS MATERIALS — FRAMING

Everything for the Photographer
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640 Fort Street VICTORIA, B.C.

WE ARE PRESCRIPTION SPECIALISTS
Prescriptions filled in this Pharmacy guar-
anteed of the finest quality in their in-
gredients and the utmost care and skill
in compounding. We emphasize the im-
portance of our Prescription Department.
Our other lines are just as complete.

THE OWL DRUG CO. Ltd.

A. B. CROSS, Mar. VICTORIA, B.C.
’ Cor. Fort & Douglas Sts. Phone G-2112

Telephone E-5233

Sussex Apartment Hotel
Sussex Holdings Ltd.
E. A. Cox, Managing Director
COFFEE SHOP
Rooms or Suites by Day, Week or
Month

1001 Douglas Street Victoria, B.C.

HOTEL DOUGLAS

J. EM. NEELY, Manager
Victoria’s Standard Hotel
e
Victoria, B.C.

Phones:
Sidney (Day) 6; (Night) 60-Y, 29-Y
MITCHELL & ANDERSON
LUMBER CO. LTD.

All Kinds of Lumber, Mill Work and
Hardware

Sidney, B.C.

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Coal and Range Oil
Sidney
Freight Service Ltd.

SIDNEY, V.1. B.C.

Page Fourteen

“inside track’? in the international
syndicate.

The second stranger joined the
pair and it was not long before all
were registered at the same hotel.

One day when the trio were in the
room with nothing to do, Stranger
No. 2 made it known he was going
to place a bet with the agency for
$100.

He left, but in an hour’s time was
back in a jubilant mood and showing
handsome winnings, greenbacks
crammed into a paper bag.

This whetted the farmer’s interest.
So much so, in fact, he decided to
take a $100 plunge.

It was a win! The victim was
handed his winnings and decided to
keep playing .. . and so it went until
his original $100 had been built up to
$1,000, each time the bet-placer com-
ing back with winnings in a paper
bag.

Then one day the subject was
broached about how $140,000 could
be won for $70,000.

The two strangers lamented the
fact they could not find enough be-
tween them. They went through
elaborate mental wrestling (out
loud), wracking their heads about
ways and means to rake up the re-
maining ‘‘necessary’’ to clean up the
100 per cent profit.

THE BIG CLEAN-UP

Stumped, they finally asked the
farmer if he would care to get in on
the big clean-up.

The victim, his blood now aroused
to a somewhat feverish pitch by pre-
vious winnings, threw all caution to
the winds. He fell for the bait, of-
fered to put up $15,000—in other
words, everything he had in the bank
at home plus previous winnings.

The swindlers told him that was
fine, as one of them said he would
put up $25,000 and the other
$35,000.

The farmer, accompanied by one
of his “‘friends’’, went to the bank
and went through the machinery to
get his money from the Manitoba
Bank. His companion did not go
into the bank. He waited outside.

The farmer was notified by the
bank when the money came through.
He got it and handed it over.

Things after that got complicated
when the man with the “‘inside track’’
with the agency took the money
away to place the bet.

It finally boiled down to the fact
that the bet-placer, instead of follow-
ing the original plan, took a chance
bet—and came back to report he had
been cleaned out of the whole ca-
boodle.

It was a shattering report for the
poor farmer.

The one who had lost the money

was given a hot tongue-lashing by
his colleague for unwise actions ‘‘for
downright foolishness.

It was part of the play to keep
the elderly man’s confidence in them.
The pair finally decided, after one
had given the other the heated verbal
lacing, that while they could “strug-
gle along’ on the loss, something
had to be done in a hurry to reim-
burse the distraught farmer... and
here was swung into action the part
of the plot to get the victim out of
town to ward off local police inter-
vention and thus ensuze the sharpers
a clean getaway.

One of the farmer’s acquaintances,
seemingly to be working his brain
overtime, suddenly struck the solu-
tion. He remembered the $35,000
in bonds he had in a St. Louis bank.

It was agreed the bond-owner
would fly back to St. Louis and cash
the bonds and meet the farmer and
the other con man in Toronto.

Oh, they were so very kind to the
old gentleman! . . . even paid his

hotel bill.
The man St. Louis-bound left.
The farmer was put on the Van-

couver boat and they met in Van-
couver, his “‘friend’’ having made
the trip by air. The farmer was then
seen safely on the train Toronto-
bound, his acquaintance to make the
trip by air.

That was the last the farmer saw
of the swindling pair.

But the story does not end there.

The farmer told police that on
arrival in Toronto a telegram was
waiting for him from the man in
St. Louis. ;

It contained a message to the effect
that they would meet in the Ontario
city in a few days... . but there was
a later message from the same man
stating there had been a hitch in plans
and that he now could not cash his
bonds for 90 days.

The victim was advised to go back
to his farm and that he would be
contacted there.

Maybe it was a few days later, but
in any case it finally hit the farmer,
square in the stomach, that he had
been rooked of everything in the way
of cash he owned.

He managed to come back to Vic-
toria and tell his woeful tale to de-
tectives.

The farmer fully expected police
to reach out and pick up the culprits
in spite of the way he had worked
so neatly into their plans to enable
them to get thousands of miles from
the scene of the crime. He was ex-
pecting the almost impossible, but
hung around the police station for
several days before finally giving up
hope.

THE SHOULDER STRAP

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