CRIME: Sleuth to Sleuth

• Share

New York County's sleuthing young District Attorney Thomas Edmund Dewey last week acted on a tip from no less a master of sleuthing than Author E. (for Edward) Phillips Oppenheim. Sunning his shrewd old head in Monte Carlo, Author Oppenheim had dispatched a cable to District Attorney Dewey. Result was the apprehension of a gentleman who in life is as suave and distinguished as any of Oppenheim's international intriguers.

Among Manhattan literary agents, who get authors into print for 10% of the proceeds, the choice of Mr. Oppenheim, Hugh Walpole and the estates of John Galsworthy and Joseph Conrad is a 47-year-old British Army officer named Eric Pinker. Son of London's famed James

Brand Pinker, who helped Conrad, Arnold Bennett and D. H. Lawrence cut their publishing teeth, Eric Pinker took over his family's lucrative U. S. business in 1930. Since then he and his partner-wife, Actress Adrienne Morrison (mother of Cinemactresses Constance and Joan Bennett), have captivated many a literary tea. Shocking it was, therefore, when angry old Author Oppenheim accused Eric Pinker of withholding $21,000 owed him for U. S. publication of his works.

Arrested on suspicion of grand larceny, Eric Pinker appeared in a police lineup, jaunty in sack suit and bowler, to plead not guilty, to be confronted by "indications" that Romancer Oppenheim was not his only dissatisfied client. Finding that he had a good British passport in his pocket, a magistrate sent Mr. Pinker, handcuffed to a Negro prisoner, to be held in the Tombs without bail for trial. When a grand jury handed up an indictment and Mr. Dewey's office revealed that a series of complaints had swelled Agent Tinker's alleged pilferings to $100,000, other agents wondered whether their profession was to have a Whitney Case.