The Secrets of Scotland Yard with your host and narrator Clive Broome.
In a moment, Superintendent X of Scotland Yard.
We like to see made in USA on things we buy.
It makes us think good thoughts like supporting American industry and keeping Americans on the job.
Well, you might be amazed at how often made in USA turns up all over the world.
In fact, last year alone, we exported more than 80 billion dollars worth of manufactured goods.
The US Department of Commerce and the Advertising Council point out that many of the companies manufacturing for export are small with fewer than 100 employees.
If you are now selling your products here in the US, chances are there is a market for them overseas too.
For information on selling abroad, call the International Trade Specialist at your local Department of Commerce field office.
Buy American is a good idea. Sell American is even better.
A public service of the station.
How do you do? Today in this series of programs, I want to tell you something about the fence.
To begin with, I'm not referring to your back garden, if you have a back garden, or in fact to any wooden structure.
As you know, in the language of the underworld, a fence is a receiver of stolen goods.
And while we're on the language of the underworld, it might be a good idea if we brush up our knowledge on this subject.
Let me give you a few illustrations.
Seen Charlie lately?
Nah, he's up for a stretch.
I thought he was only a carpet.
What does he record?
Like he did in a pontoon.
Quite simple really. Charlie, it appears, has been sentenced to 12 months imprisonment.
For a stretch in the underworld, it does not mean just a term of imprisonment, it means 12 months.
As for a carpet, that's just three months.
As for a pontoon...
Does that mean 21?
That's right, lady. Pontoon, 21 months. Simple, isn't it?
What do you think? Here's another example.
Watch out, Charlie, there's a busy...
What do you think I am? A dipper? Anyway, it isn't a flatty.
Nah, but it may be a narc.
I know what a narc is. It's an informant.
Try it again, lady.
But what's a dipper?
Well, if you were a brokeie, it'd be alright. It's a pickpocket, you see. He dips in just like that.
Hey, take your hand out of my pocket.
And what about a flatty?
He's a flatty.
You see, a detective.
And a busy?
The uniform branch.
I think it's fascinating.
Like Mrs. Beacon's recipe book, we should start the story by saying, first, find your fence.
If you think that the modern fence works from a kind of Fagin's den, you're very much mistaken.
The art of staying in the business of being a fence is to look as inoffensive as possible.
Oh, forgive the pun, I didn't mean it.
One of the most successful men in the business had three different homes.
And you could have gone through every one of them with a fine tooth comb,
and you wouldn't have found the slightest trace of the way in which he made his living.
Then where will we find the fence?
Come along with me. I've got a date.
It's in a London club. No, not one of those Soho joints.
A respectable luncheon club, just off Piccadilly Circus, it's true, but in a very good neighbourhood.
Most of the people who belong there are pretty prosperous.
And some of them are very well known.
They'd give them quite a surprise if they knew some of the business which is done in their club.
Well, here we are, just up these steps.
Give your name at the door, turn right, and we're in the bar.
Good evening, Mabel.
Evening, sir.
Hello, Mr. Williams.
Ah, good evening. What are you doing here tonight?
Small Scotch, miss.
Small Scotch!
Oh, just passing the time of day.
What are you doing here?
The same as you.
In a way, he's telling the truth.
Williams is a fence.
I'm telling it to you because Scotland Yard, Mary.
The trouble of proving it is a lot harder.
Mr. Williams can always be found at the club at four o'clock in the afternoon, no earlier, no later.
He meets a lot of people, talks to them, and then goes home.
Most of the people he meets are as innocent as you and I.
But once in a while, he'll meet a visitor from overseas, a Frenchman or a Dutchman.
You'll notice that when he talks to those people, Mr. Williams keeps well away from anybody else.
Well, why don't you pick him up? He's probably got the jewels on him.
Oh, no, miss. It's plain you don't know Mr. Williams.
You see, all that he uses the club for is to talk over his little deals.
I doubt if Mr. Williams has ever carried a bit of stolen property in his life.
If he has, the Yard never knew about it, or they'd certainly have been on to him.
The mugs who handle the property, they're another crowd altogether.
Perhaps this afternoon, Mr. Williams fixed a deal like this.
All right, then. It's a deal. You get the stuff tomorrow afternoon.
You'll be there at 2.30. Usual place, usual day. Have your men there. Don't forget. No mistakes.
And where is the usual place? I only wish I knew. I only wish the Yard knew.
Sometimes we have known, and when that does happen, Mr. Williams gets a shock.
For instance, once it was outside a suburban post office,
at an ordinary quiet street, a man standing by the post box,
a foreign-looking man in a blue shirt.
He's only been there two minutes, and he's got his eye on the clock.
He's already about to move off when a big car pulls up.
The foreign-looking man moves over to the car, gives the package to the man in the car who says,
All right, here you are.
He gives the foreign-looking bloke another packet.
The jewellery is in one, the banknotes in the other.
The deal is done.
Except on that occasion, the Yard had a little inside information.
You see, the man by the pillar box had a packet of banknotes, all right, but they were marked.
Why didn't you pick up the crooks in the car?
Oh, we could do that at any time. We were after Mr. Williams.
Did you get him? Not that time.
Why? What happened to the banknotes?
They turned up the following day as an anonymous contribution to the Policeman's Benevolent Fund.
You mean? Yes, a present from Mr. Williams.
He got away with it. Yes, but one day he won't.
We return with the secrets of Scotland Yard in just a moment with your host, Clive Brooke.
Let's not forget that there's still a serious shortage of energy in America.
As a public service, this station is presenting some winter tips for energy saving provided by the Aluminum Association.
First, increase your insulation, six inches thick for ceilings, three to four inches thick for walls.
Install triple-track combination aluminum storm windows if you don't already have them.
Seal off all cracks around windows and doors. Have your furnace checked.
Keep the damper in your fireplace closed when not in use.
Vacuum your radiators frequently. Dust and lint can waste precious heat.
Lower your thermostat during the day.
A drop of just five degrees can mean a saving of up to 15 percent on your fuel bill.
And at night, set the thermostat to 60 to 65 degrees for a comfortable and economical night's sleep.
Finally, a layer of aluminum foil between a radiator and a cold wall will reflect heat back into the room and help keep cold out.
That is the story of one fence, a successful one, but as you heard, only successful so far.
It's estimated that all the receivers of London handle between them stolen property worth more than half a million pounds every year.
Generally, it's disposed of by being broken from its settings, which are then melted down instantly and either reset or unset.
Disposed off to agents in various parts of the country as a first step towards getting it to the continent or to the United States.
So slick are these receivers and so smooth and well laid are their plans that jewelry stolen in London will be broken up,
on the other hand, hundreds of miles from London within 24 hours of the property having been stolen.
These receivers then are the people who really make crime pay, so far as the cash returns go, that is.
In other ways, there is a penalty they can never escape, the constant nagging fear
that one day the men of the yard will surely catch up with them, or some crook or other, more daring than his fellows,
will make no bones about launching a blackmail plot against them.
Another kind of receiver is the, well I almost said amateur, but that's not quite true.
At the bottom of the scale, a receiver can be just an innocent mug.
That's particularly true when goods are rationed or in short supply.
The mug is standing in the bar at his local public house when a stranger comes over to him.
Evening, mate. Good evening. Have you seen the evening paper? Yes, thank you.
I see there's going to be less whiskey than ever with all this export drive. Yes, it's hard to get.
Unless you know the ropes. I'm fed all right. You got any for Christmas?
Expect I'll manage to get half a bottle from the wine store? Half a bottle's not much good.
What, you need a case? I don't know why I could get a case.
Yes, well suppose you could make a profit on it. I mean, silly dear friends, they'd be grateful and you'd make money.
Oh, so if I had a case of whiskey? That's what I'm getting at. What do you mean?
Well, it's like this. A friend of mine, he's in the whiskey business, he can always let me have some,
but this year he's got to register me as an old sailor, and that means I've got to get rid of at least ten cases.
I've got to tell him on the phone tonight if it's okay.
I've fixed up to place the other nine cases and I've got this one case over.
You look a nice sort of chap in his thoughts, Tim.
Well, it depends on how much. Ah, now you're talking.
And he'll keep on talking all the way to the magistrate's court if he's unlucky.
Always beware of friendships that grow so quickly as that one,
and beware particularly of smart-looking gentlemen who offer you too good a bargain.
The odds are the goods are stolen, hot goods, and our friend the spiv wants to move them to other hands
as quickly as possible before he gets burned.
That's right. You have been warned.
Now let's go a little further up the scale and take a look at another variety of fence.
Some people are particularly susceptible to being used as a receiver, jewellers for instance.
Most jewellers are very honest in a very difficult business, but occasionally it's a different story, like this one.
There'd been a robbery at a big country house and a valuable quantity of jewellery had been taken.
The yard was called in, but after spending several days investigating every possible angle,
interrogating all the servants, the detectives were utterly without a clue on the suspect.
The job had all the marks of having been the work of an expert jewell thief
who'd managed to hide his tracks with unusual skill.
You know, there's something queer about this job. These marks on the windowsill for instance.
If it had been done from outside, then it was the work of an experienced thief.
And yet, if he was such an experienced thief, he would have been a little more skillful with his gemmy on the window.
What do you think?
I think this is an inside job.
We checked the staff over, every man and woman of them. Nobody has a criminal record or seems a type.
Unless of course there's somebody behind all this. I'll tell you what, we'll sit back and keep an eye on every person on the staff.
Sooner or later, one of them will make a slip. I'm afraid it's going to be a long job, but there's no help for it.
It was a long job. Until one day, a young underfootman in the household went out to London for his half day.
Purely as a routine, the yard had him followed. He did some ordinary shopping and then he went to a small jeweller's.
Innocent in itself, except for the fact that when he came out, he was counting some notes.
The little jeweller of course was a receiver who had thus adroitly planted the idea of a theft in the mind of the boy.
Now the idea was bearing fruit, fruit which the boy was bringing to him.
A particularly mean fellow was this receiver. He knew he had a young mug to deal with and might have been expected to take some advantage of the fact.
The advantage he did take was without precedent for sheer meanness, however.
Looking the jewellery over contemptuously, he handed the boy twelve pounds and told him he was lucky to get that.
The boy, pocketing the twelve pounds, had no reason to think otherwise and went off back to the country house,
perhaps marvelling a little nevertheless, at the cheap quality of his mistress's trinkets.
That might have been the end of the story if it hadn't been for Scotland Yard.
In a moment we'll continue with the secrets of Scotland Yard.
We Americans buy a lot of things that were made abroad, cars, cameras, television sets, maybe the radio you're listening to right now.
But the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Advertising Council point out that many things made here in America find customers overseas.
In fact, American companies exported eighty billion dollars worth of manufactured goods last year,
and many of the companies selling abroad are small, with fewer than a hundred employees, perhaps like your company.
The Department of Commerce says exporting is a lot easier than you think.
They have international trade specialists who'll help you.
Remember, if you're selling a product in the U.S., chances are you can sell it abroad.
Call your local Department of Commerce field office and turn these people into customers, a public service of the station.
Music
Following the information about the little jeweler, we kept an eye on the young underfootman at the house.
Sure enough, the following day he read in the paper a story of the jewelry he'd stolen was worth five thousand pounds.
Scotland Yard saw that that little item was well featured in the press.
Journalists like our friend Percy Hoskins will always give the yard a hand when they know it's going to help.
This figure really frightened the little footman. It made him pretty mad, too.
The following day he managed to get time off and went straight back to London to see his friend the jeweler.
Bell rings
What do you want?
Here, that twelve pounds you gave me yesterday.
What about it?
But the newspapers say they're worth five thousand.
Maybe they are, but not to you.
Well, in that case, I ought to have more than twelve pounds you gave me. How about it?
Not a penny more. You took what I offered and the deal's closed.
Well, sell them back to me for twelve pounds.
What do you take me for, a fool?
No, a crook.
You should talk.
Well, there you are, sir. I took the jewels. I admit it. Maybe I am a crook, but I'm not going to be swindled.
Are you prepared to make a statement to that effect?
Yes. That's just what we've been waiting for.
And, as so often happens, the meanness of the fence betrayed him.
So obsessed was he with the bargain he'd struck for twelve pounds that he kept the jewels in a drawer in his shop.
They were found there the following day by the men from Scotland Yard.
The dyed-in-the-wool crook will never let a receiver down, never give him away to the police.
It would not pay to do that, for the crook who squealed on a receiver would never find another market for his loot.
Similarly, receivers rarely let down the crooks with whom they do business,
although there have been occasions when a crook, guilty of a careless slip,
likely to have the effect of involving the fence in police inquiries, or perhaps rather more pressing in his demands for a bigger cut than the receiver is prepared to tolerate,
has been quietly made the subject of a roundabout tip-off to the yard to ensure that he is caught and put safely out of the way before he can do any harm.
So far, we've not covered the most important aspect of the business.
I appreciate to say that money is the root of all evil, but the longer you work in my job, the more you realize how true it is.
If every first offender knew the true finances of the business of being a crook, I don't think many of them would have started on the road to crime.
Hey, wait a minute. If being a crook is such a bad business, what do you make of this?
Look at this newspaper. Last year, London Thieves managed to get away with property valued at £4,360,000.
Of this, property worth only £770,000 was recovered. What happened to the rest if there's no money in being a crook?
But the catch is that the goods worth over £4 million probably were not sold for anything like that amount.
And as for the crook himself, what he got?
Was nobody's business.
Oh, I wouldn't say nobody. I'd say it was the fence's business.
I'd still like to know how much a successful crook can make.
Well, let's take an illustration. If you'd been walking down one of the main London Therafares about a year ago, you might have passed a jewellers' shop.
Oh, no! Stop! Stop! Stop!
Stop! Stop! Stop!
Right, smashing bread.
We've dealt with that kind of crime on this programme, but in this particular case, there was a difference.
A woman was involved, a man and a woman.
A woman drove the car, the man broke the window and pinched the jewellery.
Now they're making their getaway.
What have you got?
Look, what do you think of this?
Diamonds! That should be worth a fortune.
Here, watch out!
Good, you almost smashed us up there, Tom.
Oh, it was the sight of those sparklers.
Oh, for long now. Nobody following us. Where are we?
On Easy Street.
Easy Street, eh? I wonder.
Back at the jewellers that afternoon, the representative of the insurance company is getting the necessary particulars.
Here's the infantry, Mr. Parks. As you can see, the stolen necklace was valued at £2,000.
And that's the only article that is missing.
We've checked over very carefully, and that is all they managed to get away with.
You have, of course, the full description for the police.
Oh, yes. They already have that at Scotland Yard. Those crooks, they didn't do so badly, did they? £2,000 in two minutes.
Well, there is a difference between selling the goods and getting the price, you know.
You mean they won't get £2,000 for it?
I should be very much surprised if they did.
Oh, 15 quid! What do you think I am?
You're an optimist if you've expected more.
I tell you, a necklace like this is quite an antique.
Every pawn, every jeweler, every drivel, every discretion of it.
This will have to go overseas, and that costs money.
Ah, money.
It all depends how you look at it.
You aren't the only people in this business.
It seems the other people make the money.
I'll tell you what, I'll give you £100 cash for it.
At the best I can do, you better take easy strays, says you.
The DuPage community now has the duty to hear some of the concerts in its own backyard.
The College of DuPage has just formed the New Philharmonic Orchestra.
This orchestra is directed by Eric Bauer, who is held position as music director of orchestras in Lake Forest, Quincy and Peoria, Illinois, and the area of Launa, Pennsylvania.
The New Philharmonic brings a large variety and high quality of orchestral music into the DuPage community.
After their inaugural concert in November, New Philharmonic drew high praise from many members of the Full House audience, as did their internationally acclaimed pianist, Rob O'Rubble.
New Philharmonic's next concert is February 21st and features one of the top saxophone soloists, Frederick Henke.
Henke is the head of the wind and percussion department at Northwestern University.
The program includes competitions by Bear, Gnoe, Eric Larson and Beethoven and is free to the public.
Concert time is 8.15 and the performance will take place at the College of DuPage campus in Building M.
This is Sanford Marshall inviting you to return next week when we will again reveal the secrets of Scotland Yard.