Part 49

U.S. Agents were watching when Winnik and Mrs. Strokowski placed Mrs. Meppen aboard a train enroute to New York--and two agents were on the train when it pulled from the station. At Rouses Point, on the Canadian border, Mrs. Meppen was taken from the train and searched--but the search revealed nothing.

That night Mrs. Meppen obtained a room at the Holland Hotel. The following morning when she came from her room she saw several Customs agents lounging in the lobby. They, too, were waiting for the next train to New York--no longer interested in Mrs. Meppen because the previous day’s search had been futile.

But Mrs. Meppen was frightened. She hurried to the public toilet near her room....

A few minutes after Mrs. Meppen boarded the train for New York the manager of the Holland Hotel called in a plumber to unstop a toilet in the ladies’ room. He found in the trap a rubber-covered packet stuffed with diamonds. Three days later the same toilet became stopped again. Again the plumber found a package of diamonds blocking the drain, a coincidence so unusual that the plumber became a local celebrity.

The hotel manager turned the diamonds over to Customs agents, and Mrs. Meppen was soon taken into custody for questioning. She confessed her role in the abortive smuggling effort, and a few days later Winnik was arrested as he was trying to board a plane for Amsterdam. He broke down and confessed, too.

Mrs. Meppen pleaded guilty and as a cooperative witness against Winnik was placed on probation for five years. Winnik was sent to prison for two years. Marion and Janka Strokowski were indicted, but since both were outside the jurisdiction of the United States courts, the indictments were dismissed.

The diamonds which Mrs. Meppen tried to flush down the toilet were worth $121,000.

A FOOL’S DREAM

From long experience U.S. Customs agents and inspectors know the methods of professional smugglers. But the non-professional smuggler is a problem, too. One of the more bizarre cases of jewelry smuggling in Customs history, involving the fabulous crown jewels of Hesse, was engineered by non-professionals. They were two lovers and their accomplice, who looked at the sparkling gems and were overwhelmed by avarice.

This plot began to unfold one cold November day in 1945 in the gray old Kronberg Castle at Wiesbaden, Germany, near Frankfurt. The castle was the home of Prince Wolfgang and the Countess Margarethe of Hesse, a daughter of Emperor Frederic of Germany and granddaughter of Queen Victoria of Britain. Now it was requisitioned as a recreation and rest center for the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces.

The hostess in this royal setting was trim, attractive WAC Captain Kathleen Nash of Hudson, Wisconsin, a divorcee who told friends that she had gone into the WACs to “get away from it all.”

One evening there was a knock at Captain Nash’s door and Mess Sgt. Roy Carlton stepped into her room, his eyes wide with excitement.

“Captain,” the sergeant said, “there’s something I think you ought to know about. You know the old German janitor? Well, he told me a few minutes ago that when the war began, the old lady of the castle came to his house late one night and told him to come with her and to tell no one where he had gone. She took him into the basement of the castle, that little room that is used for coal storage, and told him to dig a hole in the floor. He broke through the concrete and dug a big hole in the floor and then she sent him away. But when he came back to the room several days later he found the hole had been covered with new concrete. He figures that something was buried there by the old lady.”

Captain Nash told the sergeant to bring the janitor and they would go to the basement room and investigate. They made their way down the winding stairs into the subterranean rooms of the castle to the coal room. The old janitor pointed out the spot where he had dug the hole. Captain Nash ordered him to dig into the floor and see if anything had been hidden there.

The German broke the concrete with a sledge and then began digging. He uncovered a wooden box. The box was lifted out of the hole and when the top was ripped off they saw a lead box inside. The lead box contained several packages, carefully wrapped in heavy paper, weighing about 10 pounds each.

“You had better take them to my quarters,” Captain Nash told the sergeant.

When Captain Nash opened the packages in the privacy of her quarters her eyes must have glittered with excitement. She was gazing on one of the fabulous treasures of Europe--jewelry worth at least $1,500,000, if in fact a money value could be placed on the historic items at all.

Part of the jewelry belonged to the House of the Kurfursts and to the Kurhessen Foundation. Most of it belonged to the Countess Margarethe and to Prince Wolfgang. Some of it was the personal property of Princess Christoph and Prince Richard of Hesse. The owners, who lived in less pretentious quarters at this time, rarely visited the old castle, and none was aware that the treasure had been discovered.

Captain Nash was enchanted. She took from the boxes diadems and necklaces of diamonds, pearls and amethysts; rings of diamonds and other precious stones; a diamond-studded onyx badge, made in the eighteenth century: the badge of the Order of the Garter, which had been presented by King George II to his son-in-law; necklaces of gold and platinum; bracelets of diamonds and emeralds and pearls and topaz; buckles studded with diamonds; large and small brooches studded with diamonds and other stones; pendants with large and small diamonds; earrings made of diamonds and emeralds and pearls; tiaras delicately fashioned of gold and studded with diamonds and other gems; a large necklace of gray pearls and diamonds; an English decoration of the Victoria and Albert Order, including a cameo with portrait of Queen Victoria and her Prince Consort, surrounded by small diamonds; diamond stick pins; diamond earrings; diamond-studded watches; diamond studded cases; and golden chains studded with large stones.

This, then, was the treasure which the girl from Wisconsin picked up, piece by piece. At some period as she looked at the glittering jewels, the idea was born that she would not give them up.

One of the most frequent visitors to Kronberg Castle was slender, handsome Air Force Colonel Jack Durant, who was Kathleen Nash’s boy friend and constant companion. Colonel Durant had been an attorney in the U.S. government’s Interior Department before he went into the Air Force at the outbreak of the war. He was attached to the Adjutant General’s office and therefore was not unaware of the rules governing the conduct of the armed forces.

Captain Nash invited Colonel Durant and her friend, Major David Watson, to her quarters. She showed them the treasure which had been dug from the coal room in the basement of the castle. And then it was they began to talk of stealing the Hesse jewels.

These three sat behind the closed and locked door of Captain Nash’s quarters and pried the jewels from their settings. They decided it would be much easier to smuggle the loose jewels into the United States rather than leave them in their settings.

Why they thought they could escape undetected with one of the great treasures of Europe remains a mystery. It was a monstrous game of “losers weepers, finders keepers.” In their greed they began to look upon the Hesse jewels as legitimate loot. Because they were on the winning team in the war, they reasoned they were entitled to share in the spoils. If their share happened to be a fortune in gems, then that was merely their good luck.

Colonel Durant casually made inquiries among his fellow officers about the customs procedures in the United States and whether or not the inspectors of military personnel were very thorough in going through luggage.

One officer who had returned from a recent trip home said, “There’s no sweat. The inspectors clear you as fast as they can. They didn’t even look into my baggage. I guess they figure a guy who has been fighting a war should not be delayed in getting home.”

Durant persuaded a former secretary to carry home for him several pieces of the jewelry. She innocently believed they were nothing more valuable than costume jewelry which he had picked up in Europe.

Captain Nash turned over her share of the loot to Major Watson, who packed it in an ordinary wooden box and then mailed it to her in care of her sister, Mrs. Eileen Lonergan, in Hudson, Wisconsin. The box arrived in New York along with several thousands of other shipments from Europe. A Customs examiner accepted the statement on the box that it contained only personal belongings and nothing of dutiable value. And so the box went on its way to the house in Wisconsin.