A suspicious noise alerted a householder to a potential break-in, but the burglar fled the scene, disturbing the neighbour’s ducks in the process. Like the sacred geese of Juno, it seems ducks make very good watchdogs.
“ATTEMPTED BURGLARY
AGILE NOCTURNAL INTRUDERS ESCAPE
Just before dawn on Wednesday morning an attempt was made to burglariously enter the house of Mr. H. A. Pearson, 24, St. Peter’s-Street. Mr. Pearson, who had been awakened some little time before by his young son, fancied he heard a peculiar noise downstairs, and, rising from his bed, distinctly heard what appeared to be a skeleton key being inserted in the door. He listened for several minutes, during which the noise continued intermittently, as though the would-be intruder was punctuating his attempts at forcing an entrance by looking along the street to ascertain that no-one was coming.
By this time the household was thoroughly aroused, and Mr. Pearson opened the bedroom window and called out. Owing to the verandah over the doorway, it was impossible to see who was tampering with the lock, but immediately there was a scuffling of feet and a man was heard to run along the pathway, dropping something which sounded like a small bag of tools. Nothing, however, was found, and it is thought the intruder had time to regain his property.
Mr. Pearson quickly slipped on a dressing-gown and ran downstairs, but the nocturnal visitor had disappeared.
A neighbour, who was awakened by the noise of the window opening, heard what appeared to be a man climbing the gates of Mrs. Starsmore’s yard, close by, and the theory that he hid there until the hue-and-cry subsided is borne out by the disturbance created by a number of ducks which are kept there. This quietened down, but about three-quarters of an hour later broke out again as though the depredator was surreptitiously making his escape.
A significant fact is that on Tuesday night Mr. Pearson had a large sum of money in the house, which he had received too late to be banked.”
The Stamford Mercury, 5th August, 1927.