Mysterious Montague (Concl.)

About ten years ago the city of Syracuse, N. Y. became highly conscious of a lively young man named La Verne Moore. Son of a churchgoing steel mill worker named Matthew Moore, whose other offspring were two beautiful daughters and a son who lived up to his name of Harold, La Verne was nicknamed "Bull" because of his phenomenal physique, his excellence at games, his unruly disposition.

For strength, Bull Moore was marvelous. He could fight three men at a time, toss a waiter across the bar of a lunch counter, lift the front wheels of an automobile with one hand. With a slight edge on his appetite, he would break a dozen eggs into his mother's frying pan and eat them in six mouthfuls.

At games, there was no one like Bull Moore. He was the best pool player in town. He could throw a baseball so fast it became invisible. He pitched for the St. Patrick's Church team and went south for a tryout with the Boston Braves. A big-time football coach saw him and sent him to preparatory school. Golf was Bull Moore's forte. His brother Harold, a church organist, was also a golf professional and had taught Bull the game. Bull would drive a ball out of sight and make any kind of trick shot with any kind of club. His short game was eccentric but he was plenty good enough to earn a living as a professional.

It was in his attitude toward earning a living that Bull Moore particularly charmed the streetcorner, poolroom and blind-tiger high-school set of Syracuse in the Prohibition era. Work did not appeal to him. Just where this adventurous buck got his money was something of a mystery but his pockets always seemed to be well lined.

Among the exemplary things about Bull Moore was his response to drink and women. Bull was a man's man. Doubtless, he could have held more liquor without showing it than anyone else in town, but no one ever saw him drunk. He could have made a conquest of almost any girl he wanted but his dealings with the other sex were notable for old-fashioned chivalry. Bull would not even let his friends boast about their conquests in his presence.

If Bull Moore was above any kind of mix-up that concerned a girl, his dare-deviltry sometimes brought him to the edge of other kinds of trouble. In 1927, a grocer accused of selling liquor complained that a young bully posing as a policeman had walked in and taken $50, promising to have the accusation quashed. Bull Moore was tried for this offense. He got a six-month sentence which the judge suspended.

On the night of Aug. 5, 1930, one Kin Hanna, owner of an inn near Jay, N. Y. had a painful experience. He and his father-in-law Matt Cobb were beaten, gagged and bound by four men who then took $750 from the till and made their getaway.

In the getaway, the robbers ran their cars off the road and one hit a culvert.

The cars were going fast. One of the gang, John Sherry, was killed. Two of the others, Roger Norton and William Carleton, were caught and jailed. The fourth man disappeared. Soon after the robbery Bull Moore ceased to be seen in upper New York State and the police began to look for him. . . .

About three years ago, Hollywood, always on the lookout for new and interesting personalities, began to take note of one who called himself John Montague. Handsome, debonair and genial, Montague would have been a welcome addition to Hollywood for his social talents alone. He had other ones as well. He was so modest that, in a community where a private telephone number is considered the ultimate in self-effacement, he not only demurely refused to reveal the source of his apparently lavish income but firmly refused to have his picture taken, politely smashing the cameras of photographers who tried it. Where chivalry is rare, he made no secret of his feeling that men should not swear when ladies were present. For strength, John Montague was marvelous. When a friend had a blowout, he held the rear end of the car up while he changed the tire. John Montague could drink whiskey by the quart but no one ever saw him drunk. Finally, he was a prodigious golfer.

By the time Montague had been around Hollywood for a year or two, he was sharing a house with fat Comedian Oliver Hardy whom he could lift with one hand. He golfed with celebrities like Bing Crosby, and joined the Lakeside Club where the rumor was that he amused the members one day by standing husky Cinemactor George Bancroft on his head in his locker and closing the door. Through his social success, John Montague retained his peculiar shyness. Whence he came or where he got his money, he told no one. His friends were either too afraid or polite to ask. There were rumors that Montague had gold mines in Arizona. This was merely because he often disappeared into the desert for months at a time. It was said he had a connection with a company that made super-chargers. This was because he drove two Lincolns and a geared- up Ford. Unconcerned with antecedents, Hollywood asked no questions. Montague played golf. . . .

Surest way to attract attention anywhere is to appear to shun it. In Hollywood, where attention is the population's bread & butter, this technique is doubly infallible. And what Montague did on golf courses would have brought him notoriety anywhere whether he shunned it or not.

First public notice of Montague's golf was written two years ago by famed Sportswriter Grantland Rice. Sportswriter Rice heard that Montague had, 1) played Crosby using a baseball bat, a rake and a shovel and beaten him, 2) broken the course record at Palm Springs four days in a row, with a 61 the last day, 3) picked a bird off a telegraph wire with a golf ball at 170 yards, 4) been called by onetime U. S. Amateur Champion George Von Elm, who had played with him daily for a month, the "greatest golfer in the world." Sportswriter Rice played several games with John Montague. In his Sportlight, Grantland Rice substantiated Golfer Von Elm's opinion.

Sportswriter Rice's column established a golfer who was not only conceivably the best in the world but also so shy he refused to play in tournaments or have his picture taken as a public figure. John Montague promptly became major news. Last September, Westbrook Pegler devoted a column to him. Last January, when a freelance photographer finally got two snapshots of Montague, TIME published them with an account of his progress (TIME, Jan. 25).

By this spring John Montague, according to Joe Williams of the New York World-Telegram, was the most discussed golfer in the U. S. Reams had been written about him in newspapers and magazines. A rumor that he would play in the British Open made headlines in London. One of the latest Montague stories was that a match was being arranged between him and Socialite Thomas Suffern Tailer Jr. at Meadow Brook Club on Long Island for $10,000 a side. Last week locker rooms were full of gossip about this match that would finally reveal the truth about John Montague. . . .

The truth about John Montague came out last week but not on a golf course. It came out in Los Angeles County Jail where he was taken after being arrested because his fingerprints matched those of La Verne ("Bull") Moore.

Story of the search for La Verne Moore and the arrest of John Montague was as simple as the fugitive's career had been fantastic. Last month, one of the innumerable accounts of the famed Montague v. Crosby golf match finally caught the eye of someone who knew La Verne Moore and was interested in finding him. This was Police Inspector John Cosart of Troop D, Oneida, N. Y., who clipped the article, sent it to Inspector Joseph Lynch at Malone, N. Y. who sent Moore's fingerprints to Los Angeles.

Story of Montague's arrest contrasted sharply with reports of all his previous Hollywood activities. Shy no longer, he last week posed for photographers as often as they wanted, even let them photograph his hands to show how he held a golf club in his celebrated fingers. Asked how he had succeeded in Hollywood he answered: "I let the other guy's girl alone." Still amiable, he discussed the holdup: "I got into a jam when I was a wild young kid. . . . I'm glad it's over. I had intended going East and clearing this thing up anyway."

Only mysteries that remained about John Montague last week were where his money came from and what would happen to him next. Montague last week refused to clear up the first. Answer to the second will depend on whether or not he avoids being extradited to New York. Day after his arrest last week, Montague was out on $10,000 bail, with Cinemactors Hardy, Crosby and Guy Kibbee named as references on his bond. His attorney, Jerry Giesler, asked Governor Frank F. Merriam for a hearing which was scheduled for July 26.

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