Caller Puts Him on Rocky Road

--Nathan Peabody was forewarned. The supervisor of Bob’s Famous Ice Cream received a call from a man identifying himself as a police officer and warning that the police had received a tip that his store in Bethesda, Md., was going to be robbed later that night. He cautioned Peabody not to be a hero and just give the robber the money. Police would arrest the suspect, a man wanted in a string of robberies, just outside the store. Sure enough, at 10:25 p.m., a man with a scruffy beard entered, brandishing a knife and demanding money. Peabody confidently offered the cash and watched the suspect flee. Then Peabody waited for police . . . and waited . . . and waited. “We’d just been had,” Peabody said. “I wasn’t scared, I was just mad I’d been fooled.” Montgomery County police spokesman Sgt. Harry Green said he’d never heard of such a con game. “This is something new to me,” he said. “This is definitely a new twist. I just hope nobody picks up on it. It just shows you never know who you’re talking to on the phone.”

--Britain’s Prince Andrew, second son of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, will marry Sarah Ferguson on July 23, Buckingham Palace announced. The wedding will take place in Westminster Abbey. Prince Andrew, who is fourth in line of succession to the throne, and his fiancee, both 26, announced their engagement last Wednesday. The best man was not immediately named. Traditionally, the Archbishop of Canterbury conducts royal weddings, but that also remained to be confirmed. Meanwhile, the souvenir industry already is churning out pottery mugs and other Andrew and Sarah commemoratives and the British Tourist Authority is delighted at the prospect of a summer royal wedding. “This is super news for us,” a spokesman said.

--Publisher Malcolm Forbes has acquired his 12th gold-and-jewel-encrusted Faberge Easter egg in time to put it on public display for Easter, it was announced in New York. Acquisition of the Rosebud Egg, presented by Czar Nicholas II to his wife, Czarina Alexandra, on Easter, 1895, fulfilled Forbes’ prediction when he purchased his 11th Faberge egg last June for $1.9 million at Sotheby’s auction gallery. The 11th egg put Forbes ahead of the Soviet government, which has 10 eggs in the Kremlin collection. When asked then if his Easter egg hunt was over, Forbes replied: “Eggs usually come by the dozen.” Forbes wouldn’t disclose how much the latest egg, the Rosebud, cost. It was acquired from an unknown private collector. Forbes would say only that the $1.9-million record price he paid last June for the so-called Cuckoo Egg “remains unbroken.”