In the silence before dawn on January 13, 1930, someone inside Washington’s Ashley Apartments heard a dumb waiter making strange noises.
A dumb waiter was a small service lift used to move food, laundry, and other items between the floors of a building. This particular lift had apparently found a new purpose. It was being used, police alleged, to carry stolen clothing from the ground floor to an apartment above.
Unfortunately for those operating it, the machinery squeaked.
A suspicious resident telephoned the police. Detectives D. B. Crooke and R. W. Hopkins of the Eighth Precinct arrived and reportedly found Charles Robert Bolton loading the dumb waiter with an assortment of men’s and women’s clothing. The garments were believed to have come from the nearby haberdashery operated by J. T. Klawans at 2002 18th Street.
Investigators found that the door of Klawans’s shop had been forced open. The damaged entrance, combined with the clothing traveling through the apartment building’s service shaft shortly after midnight, gave police reason to suspect that they had interrupted the distribution of the stolen merchandise.
Upstairs, officers found two more men and a woman. Robert Duffell identified himself as a fireman. David Russell said that he was a doctor and resident of the Ashley Apartments, while Alma Russell claimed to be his wife. All four were detained while police compared the recovered clothing with the shopkeeper’s list of missing goods.
Alleged Robbers Traced By Squeak of Dumb Waiter
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A dumb waiter that squeaked and made queer noises in the hush before dawn today caused the arrest of three men and a woman, who are held by police for investigation in connection with the robbery of the haberdashery of J.T. Klawans at 2002 18th Street.
Some person in the Ashley Apartment heard the dumb waiter and telephoned the police.
Detectives D.B. Crooke and R.W. Hopkins of the 8th Precinct responded and caught, they say, Charles Robert Bolton sending up on the dumb waiter to an apartment above a miscellaneous assortment of men’s and women’s clothes, alleged to have been stolen from the store operated by Klawans, shortly after midnight.
The mute testimony of a jimmied door in the Klawans establishment was said by police, together with the character of the goods sent up on the dumb waiter, to connect them with the robbery.
In the apartment above were found Robert Duffell, who gave his occupations as a fireman; David Russell, who said he is a doctor and lives in the Ashley apartment, and a woman, who gave her name as Alma Russell, and claimed to be the wife of the doctor.
All were taken to the 8th Precinct, from which the woman was subsequently sent to the House of Detention, while police checked up on a list of the goods said by Klawans to have been stolen from his shop.
Source: Evening Star. Washington, D.C. January 13, 1930.
